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.
That we ought not to yearn for the things which are not under our control Part VIII
Was that what you went abroad for? Was it for this that you sought to meet someone—that he might do you good? Good indeed! That you might analyse syllogisms more readily, or run down hypothetical arguments? It was for this reason, was it, you left brother, country, friends, and those of your own household—so as to return with this kind of learning? And so you did not go abroad to acquire constancy of character, or peace of mind; not to become secure yourself and thenceforward blame and find fault with no man; not to make it impossible for another to do you wrong, and so maintain without hindrance your relations in society?
It is good to learn things, but learning the wrong things and presenting them as correct does not help anyone. The presenter has fooled himself and is using his self delusion to fool others. It seems easy to conflate “educated” with “learned”. I have studied more on my own than one of our co-workers that is going for her master. Talking with her about things, I am always amazed at her surface level understanding of things. Maybe because we weren’t talking about her actual degree subject she didn’t get too into it, but it was a subject she claimed to have studied. My theory is that because she was learning enough to pass a test and I was learning because I really wanted to understand that I absorbed more information.
80A fine exchange of goods this which you have achieved, syllogisms, and arguments with equivocal and hypothetical premisses! Yes, and if you see fit, seat yourself in the marketplace, and hang out a sign, as the drug-peddlers do. Ought you not rather to deny that you know even all you have learned, so as not to bring your philosophical precepts into ill repute as being useless?
Sounds like a politician, full of useless but pretty bumper sticker slogans. It is better to be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. I consider myself to be well read, especially compared to most people I know, but I don’t go around quoting obscure things I know to impress others. The same goes with Stoicism. When I am asked for advice, what I say generally aligns with Stoicism, but I don’t quote Marcus Aurelius or Epictetus to them.
What harm has philosophy done you? How has Chrysippus wronged you that you should prove by your own conduct his labors to be useless? Were not the ills at home enough for you, all that you had to cause you grief and sorrow, even if you had not gone abroad, but did you add yet others in addition to them? And if you get other intimates and friends again, you will have more reasons for lamentation, yes, and if you get attached to another land. Why, then, live? Is it to involve yourself in one grief after another that makes you miserable? And then, I ask you, do you call this natural affection? Natural affection forsooth, man! If it is good, it is the source of no evil; if it is evil, I have nothing to do with it. I am born for the things that are good and belong to me, not for things evil.
Some people, like the one Epictetus is talking to here, seem to live to be miserable. There have been things in my life that have made me unhappy, but I never chose to wallow in my own misery. After a couple days I would get bored if I did try it. I am going back to Mom’s house this week and it will be the one year anniversary of her death. I don’t know if anything is planned, but we will probably end up drinking beer and telling stories about her, some funny, some sad, and that will help us all to remember her without losing ourselves in the sorrow.
I will be driving up to Pennsylvania on Friday and unfortunately the No Good White Trash Ho needs new shocks. Because of this, we will be driving the wife’s “new” 2011 Toyota Camry. So far the car has been fine, I put new struts and spark plugs on it, then got new tires all the way around. I did find a mouse condo in the cabin air filter. The engine air filter had a good sized hole chewed through it. I haven’t found any wire damage and all systems work as designed.I figure that is a consequence of it being 14 years old with 89,000 miles, it had to have been sitting for long stretches.
Hurry up and wait.
I really needn’t say more, as that phrase covers all of my complaints about work not classified under ‘politics’ or ‘paycheck’.
No, I can’t control when other people get their work done, or get back to me, especially those in other teams/agenices/outside the state. I can only modulate how often I remind them, and whether or not I should escalate it.
I hate feeling useless, which is what happens when it comes time to wait. I start sifting through my bin of “what could get dones” for anything to fill the time, and start to worry I don’t have enough for my staff to do. Then the hurry up times come back around again…
*inhale*
*exhale*
Calm…
It seems easy to conflate “educated” with “learned”.
Indeed, as we see with the runaway credentialism of the idiot elites who presume they are qualified to run everything without question.
“how dare you question the experts!”
An expert would welcome the questions, evaluate them, either provide a valid answer or admit to not having one and re-evaluate their initial position.
We do not have experts.
Exactly, we have credentialed fools masquerading as experts.
We are condescended to by our inferiors.
One of the most shocking things I’ve learned about the so-called intellectuals is how uncurious they are about anything that goes against their orthodoxy. Anything that would at the very least open their eyes to an alternative view, they try to destroy.
As a libertarian in college, my views weren’t always welcomed but I had no problem listening to other’s point of views because it made me understand where they were coming from and it even made me at times rethink my views. I start from the premise that I don’t know everything and therefor it’s prudent for me to always be able to learn from different people and perspectives.
I just saw a friend’s social media post declaring that Trump’s decisions on funding higher ed mean the US will fall further behind the rest of the world in science.
Two points: (i) further behind implies we’re already behind even with all the funding and (ii) this person is an historian. Their abject lack of knowledge about the history of science is kind of embarrassing.
USA global rank for educational achievement before DOE: #1
USA global rank for educational achievement now: #24 or so
Causation =/= Correlation, but we do know that a big federal department with a massive budget didn’t help students. It definitely helped some other people.
Coreelation is not causation, but it’s clear that the department hasn’t been helping the education of students and so getting rid of it would make determining causation simpler.
“how dare you question the experts!”
It’s a. hobby of mine.
Black hole cosmology, also known as “Schwarzschild cosmology,” suggests that our observable universe might be the interior of a black hole itself within a larger parent universe.
….
This has another implication; each and every black hole in our universe could be the doorway to another “baby universe.” These universes would be unobservable to us because they are also behind an event horizon, a one-way light-trapping point of no return from which light cannot escape, meaning information can never travel from the interior of a black hole to an external observer.
https://www.space.com/space-exploration/james-webb-space-telescope/is-our-universe-trapped-inside-a-black-hole-this-james-webb-space-telescope-discovery-might-blow-your-mind
If someone could enter a black hole, I speculate he would find himself standing in a vast forest that is impossibly quiet, with a small pool beside each tree.
If someone could enter a black hole, I speculate he would find himself in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
With yellow walls and slightly moldy carpeting?
If someone could enter a black hole, I speculate he would find himself alone, riding in the green fields with the sun on his face.
Or Hell.
Was expecting this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFv9ZRAqG1s
CPRM Cosmology suggests black holes lead to the belly button giant sea otters. Just as much evidence backing my theory.
You otter tell the scientists about your theory.
Applying the paradigm of human logic and perception to such things is a foolish endeavor.
One most likely would not survive approaching anywhere near a black hole. The proper functions of human metabolism would cease before any event horizon and likely before gravity would tear the human body apart. To speculate on how the laws of physics function inside such a lopsided environment is futile.
As for the multiple universes thing….There is one universe and we are part of it. It is silly to draw lines around certain parts of existence and think of them as separate entities.
I can’t seem to get out of the hole I’m already in, that I dug myself.
step 1 – make observation that doesn’t have a ready explanation in current theories and/or wasn’t predicted.
step 2 – postulate fanciful tale, replete with buzz words (work in AI or quantum computing even if unrelated) and preferably completely unfalsifiable. Call it Science.
step 3 – submit to gullible press through complicit agency or university public outreach and sit for interview with said gullible press. Speak in abstractions and remember to use fancy buzzwords. Provide pretty pictures that may or may not have any real bearing on your fanciful tale and may or may not have anything to do with reality. They’re pretty though. If any uncomfortable questions about whether any of this is falsifiable and hence represents a truly scientific hypothesis, add more and fancier buzz words. In emergency, flash credentials. Make sure to emphasize that more research is needed.
step 4 – apply for promotion, raise, and more grants, citing need for more research.
step 5 – go to step 2 or step 1 if you’ve already milked this one for all you can.
*groan*
Ever notice in sci-fi movies the space ships ‘fly’ all the same side up and as if they are airplanes flying in earth’s atmosphere and gravity? Up and down to the spaceship is always the same up and down as the other ships around them and to the ‘stations’ or planets they are going to. It is as silly as the sounds those imaginary ships make flying through space, or the roaring shark in shark movies.
Now we have galaxies rotating clockwise….relative to what? Would observers in Australia and Canada agree on which direction they are located?
Do galaxies rotate on a fixed plane not relative to their center or are they flipping and spinning through space relative to the other galaxies near them? How about relative to the line of their trajectory?
Our notions of up, down and center are based on our experience here on earth. Evolution programmed our thinking here so we cannot think of these things differently.
The only reason we experience ‘mind blown’ moments is because we are mostly unaware that our system of logic is imperfect. It should be no surprise to now and then see something that doesnt fit.
*This is what makes people using ‘feels’ as a litmus test for truth so godawful. Even our coldest, most disciplined and rigid logic fails us more and more the further we move away from our immediate experience. Feelings? They aren’t worth anything at all.
“Remember, the enemies gate is down.”
Why are DB44 cables so expensive? I get that there are 44 copper lines in there, but still, $60-$90 for 3ft? There’s not that much copper in there.
You need to buy the gold plated Monster Cable.
I’ve been mentally drafting a design for the final form of my z80, and one of the potential delivered cards is an IDE storage adapter. (It can also be used as a floppy controller) There’s no room for such a drive in the case (especially if it’s a floppy drive) so I’ve been thinking about ways to neatly build an external drive enclosure.
I may just discard the idea and not acquire that piece, but the final decision is well off into the future.
DB50 cables are so much cheaper that I could probably just switch my mental design to that and use the additional six wires for custom signalling to make use of both options and hardware control via transcievers which data connection goes over the cable. (I have a tube of 20 transceivers just sitting around, I’d need 12 of them (six on either end), but it’s stock in hand).
What harm has philosophy done you?
Aside from justifying every crime and atrocity imagineable?
And justified every act noble and true.
This has another implication; each and every black hole in our universe could be the doorway to another “baby universe.”
[insert Animal House dope smoking scene]
Are we the mommy or daddy universe?
Here we go with the anthropomorphism again.
I put new struts and spark plugs on it
I hope you changed all fluids, too.
New blinker fluid is key to success.
Speaking of black holes:
“These tariffs are strong, very strong, frankly, maybe the strongest ever,” said Trump to reporters. “There is no number higher than double infinity. But then I added a ‘plus one’ to make it even higher, which no one has ever done. This will inflict more pain and suffering on Canada than ever before, which they totally deserve, for taking advantage of our big, beautiful country.”
https://babylonbee.com/news/checkmate-trump-hits-canada-with-tariff-of-double-infinity-plus-one
I really should send the Bee some money. The articles in the side bar are gold.
“Ireland Capsizes After Arrival Of Rosie O’Donnell”
“Track & Field Runner Accidentally Trips, Punches, Attacks Rival With A Sword “
Remember science journalisming is just as terrible as every other form.
The journalismist has a story they want to write, and they will find a source that says what they want them to say, after an appropriate amount of editing.
Also, research scientist have… reasons… to give answers that match their theories and research.
USA global rank for educational achievement before DOE: #1
USA global rank for educational achievement now: #24 or so
A long time ago, my parents were going through some old papers, and they found what I believe was the graduation requirements for their high school in an Ohio farm town probably smaller than 1500 people. I think their senior class (1950 or so) was about 14 people.
I suspect half of the college seniors in America today would struggle to graduate from that high school.
Which always brings to mind Bastiat:
“Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.”
My Mom went to school in Mississippi during the 60’s and in some respects, she received a better education than I did despite the local school board and town being ran by staunch segregationists. From what she told me; the expectations were much higher and also the quality of teachers was much higher. It took a lot of time and effort to be a teacher for black students back then, so they took their jobs seriously and expected the kids to do well.
Black people were doing better on almost every metric pre- Affirmative Action. Certainly in economic fields.
I should rephrase that. On a better trajectory, not an absolute level.
Pre AA or Pre- Great Society?
It is hard to say who the evilest president is but some names to jump to my mind faster than others, LBJ being one of them.
The girlfriend and I went to schools that were very close to each other, I was going to a college prep private high school, she was in the public system. The difference in our education was shocking. Things like writing a paper based off an outline was something that she had never done before college.
Having written for websites that have people who attended SLACs and Ivy’s, some of those folks don’t know the outline process either.
I went to a public HS, but in a college town, so expectations for students were pretty high.
The Ivys are not about education, per se. They are about networking, the right kinds of people meeting and getting to know the right kind of people.
We have many shining examples in our political class of the gems that system produces.
My Mom went to school in Mississippi during the 60’s and in some respects, she received a better education than I did despite the local school board and town being ran by staunch segregationists.
Back before schools were explicitly run for the benefit of the teachers and staff at the expense of students.
Most kids wanted to learn back then, and their parents demanded it. Now, all the fancy equipment and top teachers means shit if the kids’ culture says book learning is for suckers.
Speaking of evil presidents I think Woodrow Wilson as the #1 is difficult to argue against.
Splitters!
House Democrats are furious at their fellow Democrats in the Senate for supporting a Republican spending bill, saying Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and other aisle-hopping senators are set to empower President Trump to gut the government at the expense of their own constituents.
“There is a deep sense of outrage and betrayal,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said. “And this is not just about progressive Democrats, This is across the board — the entire party.”
——-
“I cannot underscore enough how incorrect that is,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
“It’s an awful decision,” Rep. Joseph Morelle (D-N.Y.) echoed. “People are angry. We were almost to a person in unison [on the House vote]. … And a significant percentage of their caucus is voting to allow the Republicans to do whatever they want to do.”
All or nothing.
“No! Stop fighting! Oh no, stop, this is horrible!”
::munches popcorn::
Naught but destruction and grief
In other words, all the progress made in rebuilding American industry, creating jobs and lowering energy bills is on the chopping block.
Recent YouGov polling confirms what should be obvious: Investing in clean energy is overwhelmingly popular. In fact, 61 percent of voters want to keep the investments driving America’s growing clean energy sector, while only 18 percent support repealing them.
Yet despite broad bipartisan support, Johnson is charging ahead with this reckless crusade, ignoring warnings from within his own party, dismissing the will of constituents and gambling with the economic future of American communities. And the fallout would land hardest in House Republicans’ own communities, where nearly 80 percent of federal clean energy investments are fueling a manufacturing boom. These are investments like a solar module manufacturing plant in rural Georgia, a car manufacturer in Virginia, and a geothermal heating program in Idaho.
The Republican tax agenda is clear: derail a thriving clean energy economy, put thousands of jobs at risk, and drive up costs for families, all to pad the profits of fossil fuel CEOs and other billionaires.
Biden’s green agenda was an unalloyed good, but those reckless fools will destroy it for their own amusement and gain.
If they were that popular and that worth while, you’d think the states, counties, or cities would make these investments themselves.
It would t need tax dollars at all if it were important and thriving.
Blah blah blah. Keep yakking until your jaw falls off. The scam has run its course.
What? An activist said it was thriving.
If it were thriving it wouldn’t need government “investment.”
From morning linx about idiots being arrested at Trump Plaza….
1. Good luck with that. Universities are adamantly against free speech.
2. Get. The. Fuck. Out.
I guess the left loves free speech now, after the last decade of vehemently banning speech everywhere they possibly could.
They have always been that way. They demand the right to speech and you can shut the fuck up. It is the hallmark of the winning side of an argument…not letting the other side offer their side of things.
The Ivys are not about education, per se. They are about networking, the right kinds of people meeting and getting to know the right kind of people.
They are there to teach the things the right sort of people should know and promote the beliefs the right sort of people should believe.
I firmly believe there is still a lot of good in universities.
I see it like how King Theoden was covered in the fog spell of Wormtongue in LoTR. Once the horrible incentives are removed, they can get back to the business of educating and researching. There’s much to be done, but I suspect losing lots of money will be a good start. And we mustn’t forget that there’s a generation of kids who grew up through the woke era, and did not like what they saw. If they can resist it through elementary and middle school when they’re most impressionable, they will resist it through college. They’re already hardened.
I guess the left loves free speech now, after the last decade of vehemently banning speech everywhere they possibly could.
Like the woman from the brewery story yesterday: if you don’t kowtow to our version of inclusivity we’ll run your ass out of town.
A good rule of thumb these days is if you want to know what the left is actively doing, look at what they’re accusing the right of wanting to do.
Again, they have always been like that. The Maoists, Stalinists, Marxists and their ilk have been giving explicit instructions on that for at least 200 years.