How to Think Like a Roman Emperor
If you have anger issues, this one is a great tool (h/t mindyourbusiness)
This week’s book:
Discourses and Selected Writings
Disclaimer: I’m not your Supervisor. These are my opinions after reading through these books a few times.
Epictetus was born a slave around 50 ad. His owner was Epaphroditus, a rich freedman who was once a slave of Nero. Though he was a slave Epictetus was sent to study philosophy under Musonius Rufus.
Epictetus was lame and there are some stories it was caused by his master and others that it was caused by disease.
He was a freedman when all philosophers were banished from Rome in 89 by the Emperor Domitian. He then started his school in Greece, and had many students. He did not leave any writings from his lessons, but one of his students, Flavius Arrian, took notes and wrote the Discourses.
Epictetus did not marry, had no children, and lived to be around 80-85. In retirement, he adopted a child that would have been abandoned and raised him with a woman.
He died sometime around AD 135.
He is my favorite Stoic teacher. I love his bare bones and very straight forward approach.
Following is a paragraph-by-paragraph discussion of one of his lessons. Epictetus’s text appears in bold, my replies are in normal text.
To those who read and discuss for the purpose of display Part I
Tell yourself, first of all, what kind of man you want to be; and then go ahead with what you are doing. For in practically every other pursuit we see this done. The athletes first decide what kind of athletes they want to be, and then they act accordingly. If a man wants to be a distance-runner, he adopts a suitable diet, walking, rubbing, and exercise; if he wants to be a sprinter, all these details are different; if he wants to contend in the pentathlon, they are still more different. You will find the same thing in the arts. If you want to be a carpenter, you will have such and such exercises; if a blacksmith, such and such other. For in everything that we do, if we do not refer it to some standard, we shall be acting at random; but if we refer it to the wrong standard, we shall make an utter failure. Furthermore, there are two standards to go by, the one general, the other individual. First of all, I must act as a man. What is included in this? Not to act as a sheep, gently but without fixed purpose; nor destructively, like a wild beast.
If I claim to want to be a good husband, then acting like one is a good way to practice the role. If I go out drinking and chasing women while I say I am trying to learn, then I have no chance for success. The same applies with physical exercise. When I was working out before my ankle failed me, my goal was to increase my endurance and strength. To do this I ran and did a combination of body weight and dumbbell lifts. If my goal was to run a marathon, I would have had a completely different regimen. With mental training, I am striving to be more in control of my reactions. The best way I have found for this is Stoicism.As I work towards this goal, if I let myself fly off the handle using the excuse that I am still learning, it would make it more difficult to make real progress.
5The individual standard applies to each man’s occupation and moral purpose. The citharoede is to act as a citharoede,[1] the carpenter as a carpenter, the philosopher as a philosopher, the rhetor as a rhetor. When, therefore, you say, “Come and listen to me as I read you a lecture,” see to it first that you are not acting without fixed purpose. And then, if you find that you are using a standard of judgement, see if it is the right one. Do you wish to do good or to be praised? you ask. Immediately you get the answer, “What do I care for praise from the mob?” And that is an excellent answer. Neither does the musician, in so far as he is a musician, nor the geometrician. Do you wish to do good, then? To what end? men reply. Tell us, also, that we too may run to your lecture-room. Now can anybody do good to others unless he has received good himself? No more than the non-carpenter can help others in carpentry, or the non-cobbler in cobbling.
There are many things I am good at, but if I fake expertise to “help” someone, it is inevitable that I would do more harm then good. I have helped people with carpentry and auto mechanic issues quite successfully, but am unable to help with automotive electrical issues beyond a parts cannon. The same goes for Stoic advice. I have enough life experience and basic understanding of Stoicism that I am comfortable giving advice based on it. I would not do any good trying to help someone that finds it impossible to calm their minds and compartmentalize their thoughts. For those people, no amount of “Stop it!” would help.
Do you wish, then, to know whether you have received any good? Produce your judgements, philosopher. What does desire promise? Not to fail in getting. What does aversion? Not to fall into what we are avoiding. 10Well, do we fulfil their promise? Tell me the truth; but if you lie, I will say to you: “The other day, when your audience gathered rather coolly, and did not shout applause, you walked out of the hall in low spirits. And again the other day, when you were received with applause, you walked around and asked everybody, ‘What did you think of me?’ ‘It was marvelous, sir, I swear by my life.’ ‘How did I render that particular passage?’ ‘Which one?’ ‘Where I drew a picture of Pan and the Nymphs?’ ‘It was superb.'” And after all this you tell me that you follow nature in desire and aversion? Go to; try to get somebody else to believe you! Didn’t you, just the other day, praise So-and-so contrary to your honest opinion? And didn’t you flatter So-and-so, the senator? Did you want your children to be like that?—Far from it!—Why then did you praise him and palaver over him?—He is a gifted young man and fond of listening to discourses.—How do you know that?—He is an admirer of mine.—There you gave your proof!
Worrying more about other people’s opinions than whether I am correct in what I say will lead to a lack of self respect and a loss of the respect of anyone that values truth. I learned this in when I was about 13 and was trying too hard to make friends. As I matured, I learned to be true to myself and not be as worried about having friends.
This is an excellent selection, Ron. Lots to think about, especially between the two women I have been married to, and the differences in time between them.
Luckily I only have one of those and we seem to have grown up together.
Thanks Ron,
Other than the government/politicians I try to avoid getting upset. Realizing that family members have their own lifestyles and personalities I don’t get bothered by their shortcomings.
Some were very quick with their “Thank You” after Christmas but some failed to acknowledge the gift at all. An email Thank You costs nothing, takes very little time. I don’t even know if a couple got their gift(s), I’ll wait ’til the check clears.
That’s confirmation, for sure.
When I was younger, it was easy to be too busy to let people know how much you appreciate them.
It’s sadly a generational thing. My father-in-law when he passed this March, left 25 grand for each of his nephews (none of my wife’s aunts and uncles had girls) and not one of them called to thank my mother-in-law for the gift. When my wife’s aunts and uncles heard about it, they called their kids and ripped them a new asshole. I don’t think they did this maliciously, but I think our generation do have a hard time to stop and be grateful for the gifts we receive.
I’m confused as to why the mother in law should be thanked for her dead husband’s estate payout. Unless the beneficiaries were informed that she helped make the decision rather than it being his initiative, how would anyone think it was coming from her?
She’s the one who took charge of the estate and the planning when he got dementia a couple of years ago and remembered him telling her once that he would like for his nephews to get something when his time comes to an end. I don’t think she wanted to be thanked per se, but appreciation to be expressed towards her husband by the nephews which honestly is a reasonable expectation.
Because the MIL was 1/2 owner in the marriage and her contributions to the savings, financially, emotionally, spiritually. Any gift from me is also a gift from my wife and vice versa.
+1 Fourscore
I don’t think I have ever actually watched this guy before, but he clickbaited me good yesterday.
Pushes all the right buttons. I was pissed off just watching him pull all the plastic trim off the liftgate. Wait a few more years, until those pieces are brittle as glass Christmas tree ornaments.
I’ve reached a point where more often than not I look at a clickbaity title and get angry at the attempt at manipulation and refuse to click out of principle. I have stopped following creators because they hadn’t given up on that approach.
I can only hope more people join me and refuse to take he bait.
I don’t click on clickbaity links because I find them personally offensive. I know that the writer isn’t targeting me personally but really, do you think I’m so friggin’ lame to *need* to know the lame lede you don’t mention?
I only do click-bait style Youtube thumbnails when the video is making fun of click-bait style Youtube videos.
Worthless clickbait is what you get when everything is monetized. Quality content? Fuck that. Gimme da moneez!
Mrs. Dean was treated to a rant yesterday about how monetizing football is ruining it. Transfer portal rendering college playoffs pointless? Gimme da moneez! College playoffs going on for a month? Gimme da moneez! Tearing up regional conferences and rivalries for TV contracts? Gimme da moneez! Extending the NFL season so games are increasingly worthless and players beat to a pulp? Gimme da moneez! Rule changes to favor the offense because casual fans like big plays? Gimme da moneez!
And as interest in a lower quality product declines, so will viewership and da moneez. Which will undoubtedly set off a downward spiral of further bastardization and loss of interest.
Rule changes to favor the offense because casual fans like big plays?
Apparently the Seahawks and Bears didn’t get that memo.
I’ve reached a point where more often than not I look at a clickbaity title and get angry at the attempt at manipulation and refuse to click out of principle. I have stopped following creators because they hadn’t given up on that approach.
I can only hope more people join me and refuse to take he bait.
I’m right there with you, most of the time, but this one in particular triggered my preconceptions. There are several “creators” on the “Worthless bullshit artist- do not click” list.
Greetings from North Nowhere Vermont everyone and a belated Merry Christmas!
The last few days have been unusually cold with overnight lows in the minus single digits Fahrenheit[1] but now we’re forecast to have a nice thaw which sucks because I’m moving my office from a horribly cramped location to a lavishly huge location tomorrow which was previously forecast to be dry and is now forecast to have a chance of freezing rain. My soon-to-be ex-landlord has informed me that she’ll be inspecting my old space on the 31st and will deem anything left there to be her personal property. I’ve decided not to leave anything gross but it was a narrow decision.
My new office will allow me to unpack many boxes with unfinished projects. I may not finish them all but now I can write some articles comparable to UCS’s[2] adventures in soldering.
Footnotes:
[1] I find it unreasonably satisfying that I can spell” Fahrenheit” and not have the spelling corrector complain.
[2] UCS! I watched your Z-80 backplane video. In the late 70’s I built an IMSAI 8080 kit. Gloves and a fume extractor were not involved. That may explain a few things about me.
I’ve partially recorded the second video, but the holidays hit and delayed completion of the recording. It’s going to have even more editing time since I have to figure out how to show the schematic when the on-camera paper version provdes to be waaay too small to read.
A lot more computer logic in this one, and it’s just the clock circuit.
Do you still have the 8080?
Yes, but it’s been in my shed for 25 years and subject to annual freeze/thaw cycles. I suspect this chips are OK but the massive capacitors on the linear power supply board are shot.
Also in my shed is one of the original IBM PCs with a bad RAM chip. I bought a replacement set of RAM chips some time ago. They’ve been in a box labeled “RAM” for many years.
Caps and power supplies are easier to come by, since you need only meet the electrical spec. So, it probably would work if you recapped it.
These capacitors are huge. Maybe 3″ diameter and 6″ tall, it’s been awhile since I’ve seen them. Modern replacements are probably a fraction of the size. The whole board could be replaced with three tiny modern switching power supplies.
What does it run? 5 Volts? Or does it have more than one rail? 5, 12, and -5?
(I was about to say 3.3v, but given the time frame, I figured a negative rail would be more likely than a low-voltage one)
The S-100 bus was weird by modern standards in that the power supplies were raw with voltage regulators on each board. The bus voltages were about 8V to provide regulated 5V and about +/- 16V to provide regulated +/- 12V. Your video is an excellent demonstration of the 5V case. I don’t recall whether any chips needed 12V but old-fashioned RS-232 was common on those days which swung greater than +/- 9V.
A Merry Christmas to you too!
Best wishes on the move.
Gloves and a fume extractor were not involved.
Soldering with safety equipment? People do that?
Quoth Myself: “I am rather fond of my lungs”
I mean… wait… don’t tell me you didn’t watch the video ?
😢
Most of the smoke produced by soldering is from the rosin flux. A soldering iron melts lead-based solder but doesn’t get anywhere near lead’s vaporization temperature of 3180F. I maintain that I am completely unaffected by my teenage experiments in soldxyzzqatslseey….
Richard:
A hollow voice says fool.
I mean… wait… don’t tell me you didn’t watch the video ?
I actually haven’t.
When I soldered stuff, I didn’t use any safety equipment. I think I turned out OK.
I disliked how the fumes always went directly at my face. A regular fan probably would have met my needs, as the fume extractor is just a fan in a box with a crude filter on the side.
Also – “I actually haven’t.” 😭
After a brief perusal I notice that the article about “xyzzy” doesn’t mention a date until 1987. I think it was a computer nerd meme some time before that. I used it as a password before The Internet.
Dammit. I was going to prefix that with:
Nephilium:
Richard:
Colossal Caves (where it originated as a gaming in joke) was 1976.
I have been casting bullets *twitch blink* since my mid teenage years. Millions of them. I just used a fan for keeping the fumes at bay. I *cough gag* seem to be alright.
It was one of the secret words in Colossal Cave well before 87.. Shall we hunt the wumpus?
I also assembled a number of Z80 S-100 backplanes and cards in the early 80s. I’m sure that at least one of them is still in my mother’s attic. Also the Apple ][+ and ][e clone.
YOU ARE IN A MAZE OF TWISTY LITTLE PASSAGES, ALL ALIKE.
YOU ARE IN A MAZE OF TWISTY LITTLE PASSAGES, ALL ALIKE.
After I moved to New England, I started wondering if the Infocom guys, being MIT guys, used Cambridge city streets as the inspiration for the Maze in Zork.
And again the other day, when you were received with applause, you walked around and asked everybody, ‘What did you think of me?’ ‘It was marvelous, sir, I swear by my life.’ ‘How did I render that particular passage?’ ‘Which one?’ ‘Where I drew a picture of Pan and the Nymphs?’ ‘It was superb.’”
Groupies never change.
I looked up images of Pan and the Nymphs and apparently Pan likes chasing girls with no shirt on.
We dont make taboos for things that people never do.
Somewhere around here I have some Incan clay figures engaged in very explicit sex. Some of them have dogs and llamas in the mix.
I was stoic AF yesterday. Guy pulled out in front of me at an intersection, country road I’m doing 55-60. There was a bit of freezing rain going on, no way I was safely going to stop in time. Four choices:
A. T-Bone the guy.
B. Try to stop before I hit him, but spin out in the process.
C. Try to maneuver behind if, where I’d most likely go through a fence and into a pond.
D. Try to maneuver in front of him, risk getting T-Boned myself but perhaps avoid any collision.
In that split second I seem to have made the right choice, D. I cut in front onto the road to the right, avoided hitting him, managed to maneuver the car between the stop sign and the telephone poll, through a shallow ditch and onto a lawn.
Checked to make sure there was no damage to the car. Tried to ring the doorbell to explain what happened, but no one was home. My mom knows the people that own the house, so called her to send the message along. called work to explain I would be a few minutes late and continued my commute. I was about 5 minutes late.
That’s scary, my wife said when the lady pulled in front of her that it felt like it took forever to happen, yet there was no time to avoid it.
Didn’t damage your car in the ditch did you?
No visible damage, didn’t notice anything off driving to work and home again last night.
A: I am glad you avoided injury and automotive damage.
B: Good Call on not just ramming the guy. That would have been a negative outcome.
C: Did you find yourself being oddly calm in the moment? When I’ve found myself in similar situations, it’s as if something just switches off the emotions and chattering random thoughts in my brain and I become hyper focused on the immediate situation and motor control. It sounds to me like something similar went on, though I can’t be sure, not being you.
Yeah, like I said, I made all 4 assessments listed in a matter of seconds as I felt the car start to fishtail a bit upon the initial braking.
Re: being oddly calm. I’ve had that happen; few years back on I76 in northeast CO, road went from dry to ice without visible change almost immediately. I was doing about 60 and felt all four wheels start to slide. Instant calm and my brain reminds me: “don’t hit the brakes, don’t hit the brakes.” Eased off the gas, let the car slow, slide stopped, proceeded on at about 40. Whole thing probably lasted 3 seconds.
It’s a
ChristmasBoxing Day miracle! Glad you weren’t hurt, nor your car, I gather. I’m sure the driver who caused this near miss went right on his merry way. 😒Yup.
<===
That’s a close call.
No injuries?
I am trying to be stoic now while I roughly calculate the percentage of my life spent letting nagging dogs in and out of the house.
When doing so, remember to factor in all the good things those dogs brought into that life as well.
I feel no compassion for your self induced/produced problem.
Sometimes I call my two ” In-N-Out”.
My favorite is when the Husky comes in, the Aussie will look at me and lay down, both of us knowing she will want in in 2 minutes.
I feed the turkeys X2 a day and the deer once a day. I can’t complain because I did it to myself plus we get to see something alive and moving during the cold days of Ansel Adams photography.
Good thinking and a bit of luck, CPRM.
Apparently your car was OK and the other guy drove away, unaware of the almost tragedy
Derp fight over who is gonna be this administration’s Big Indian.
He isn’t wrong. Nor is she.
I think that article is a bit on the hyperbolic side.
“A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers”
Sounds like someone got shoved into his high-school locker a few times.
I could not tell you who the prom queen (or king or that matter) at my high school was. I didn’t bother to attend as it wasn’t important.
I think that culture was even stronger back when we had an even more solid engineering lead over the rest of the world. It distracted the normies and the smooth brains so they didn’t try to climb into “high status” careers in tech and clog the pipe with mediocrity.
Obviously climate change is to blame.
Dont bother. I already bought the winning ticket this morning. Well, if you want to contribute to my retirement fund you could just send the money directly to me.
My mathematically sound algorithm is to buy a ticket when the odds of winning are greater than the proportion of the ticket price. PowerBall and MegaMillions tickets used to be $2, MegaMillions is changing that to $5 next year, and the odds of winning were about one in in three hundred million so if the jackpot is greater then $600M, discounting taxes, a $2 ticket is statistically worth $2 and very tiny fraction. Over the lifetime of the Universe my strategy is a sure winner!
Based on this scheme I buy maybe 10 tickets a year. The banter I have with the proprietor of the local convenience store alone is worth the expense.
I doubt I’ll play at $5 a ticket.
Sean:
Yep. $2 is getting rid of a few $1 bills in my wallet. $5 is a pound of good cheese on sale. I think MegaMillions is miscalculating their devotees.
The same people will play and buy the same number of tickets and cigarettes.
The rest of us will lose our money in the stock market.
At $5/ticket, I will buy 2/5 as many tickets. My budget for buying fantasies of wealth is measured in dollars, not tickets.
In October, Mega Millions said it hoped increased ticket revenue and less stratospheric odds would lead to more people winning, even as prizes grow extraordinarily high.
Games with massive payouts tend to be more popular despite the slimmer odds. Larger jackpots also attract more media attention, increase ticket sales and bring in new players, Cohen said.
Que?
Didnt we used to have a statistician around? I wonder what the growth rate is relative to the jackpot size.
Now that I think of it the psychology and survival benefit of gambling is something I know next to nothing about.
I would wager that these lottery companies have the best statisticians money can buy.
You would be right.
Watching ‘It’s a wonderful life’. I forgot about the strong commie overtones of the movie.
Haha, yes. I wrote about that once.
You should hunt down “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” instead by Rankin Bass. One of the few things TOS got right is that the above-mentioned film is the most libertarian Christmas special.
I can’t visualize Donna Reed as a commie.
Stewart was a solid R all of his life and a very staunch Goldwater supporter.
Huh. Just looked Reed up. The same description applies to her.
Never the less, the movie is commie claptrap.
I’ve never seen it.
My mathematically sound algorithm is to buy a ticket when the odds of winning are greater than the proportion of the ticket price.
Call me crazy, but “effectively zero” same as zero.
But the opportunity to say to my hard-working husband-wife convenience store operators[1], after buying a ticket with a jackpot of over $1B, “When I’m reclining on the beach of my own Caribbean Island being served margaritas by a bevy of bikini-clad babes, I”ll think of you.”
They’ve come to expect it. I can’t deny them the entertainment, but not at $5.
Footnotes:
[1] They’re multi-millionaires who have multiple rental properties and the village’s lucrative trash collection contract. They both still work the convenience store every day. Another joke they expect every year is, “Your boss makes you work Christmas? What an asshole.”
I seem to recall that the establishment selling the winning ticket gets a prize as well.
Of course, now there’s kiosks, and you can purchase lottery tickets using a credit card, or through an app on your phone.
There’s probably half an island in the Caribbean that’s very reasonably priced right now. Comes fully stocked with workers.
Lottery winnings: I have seen that turn to disaster so many times I cant count.
Solution: Dont give your friends or family money. If you want to share buy an index fund in their name so they collect dividends for the rest of their lives. “Dont ask for more money and dont tell me what you do with this. I am not giving you money, I am giving. you options. If you squander this more wont help you. ”
Never trade your family for money.
What kind of an asshole opens a P1 ticket the afternoon of December 27th, and when asked when the problem started says, “About two weeks back”.
Motherfucker, if it took you two weeks to open the ticket, it is not a P1.
It took two weeks for his supervisor to get on his ass about it?
Never the less, the movie is commie claptrap.
Actors are paid to read the lines. Take it up with the guy(s) who wrote the story. I have no idea who that was,
Nice to see you again, Richard!
For RC Dean: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-BYzaDwNoE