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.
Of Freedom Part II
15However, let us leave Caesar out of account, if you please, for the present, but answer me this: Were you never in love with anyone, a pretty girl, or pretty boy, a slave, a freedman?—What, then, has that to do with being either slave or free?—Were you never commanded by your sweetheart to do something you didn’t wish to do? Did you never cozen your pet slave? Did you never kiss his feet? Yet if someone should compel you to kiss the feet of Caesar, you would regard that as insolence and most extravagant tyranny. What else, then, is slavery? Did you never go out at night where you didn’t want to go? Did you never spend more than you wanted to spend? Did you never utter words with groaning and lamentation, endure to be reviled, to have the door shut in your face? Well, if you are ashamed to admit such things about yourself, observe what Thrasonides says and does, a man who had served on so many campaigns—perhaps more even than you have. First, he went out at night when Geta hasn’t the courage to go abroad, but, if the latter had been compelled by him to do so, he would have gone out crying aloud and bewailing his bitter slavery.
Not having a lot of dating experience, I don’t remember any girl making me do things I didn’t want to do that were wrong. I have been compelled to go out drinking when I didn’t want to when I was younger. It was quite easy to convince me. Women were never my weakness, but I did enjoy drinking with my buddies
20And then what does Thrasonides say? Says he,
A cheap little wench has made of me a perfect slave.
Of me, though never a one among all my foemen might.[2]
Sad wretch, to be the slave of a wench, and a cheap one at that! Why, then, do you call yourself free any longer? And why do you talk of your campaigns? Then he calls for a sword, and gets angry at the man who refuses out of good-will to give it to him, and sends presents to the girl who hates him, and begs, and weeps, and again, when he has had a little success, he is elated. And yet even then, so long as he had not learned to give up passionate desire or fear, could this man have been in possession of freedom?
I have known many people that were slaves to their baser nature. Some of them were good friends, but you could only trust them so far. If a person cannot (“Can’t or won’t?”) control themselves, how can they be counted on to make hard choices? I tried not o hang out with those types after work and was very selective on who I invited over for dinner or to watch football.
Consider now, in the case of the animals, how we employ the concept of freedom. 25Men shut up tame lions in a cage, and bring them up, and feed them, and some take them around with them. And yet who will call such a lion free? Is it not true that the more softly the lion lives the more slavishly he lives? And what lion, were he to get sense and reason, would care to be one of these lions? Why, yes, and the birds yonder, when they are caught and brought up in cages, what do they suffer in their efforts to escape? And some of them starve to death rather than endure such a life, while even such as live, barely do so, and suffer and pine away, and if ever they find any opening, make their escape. Such is their desire for physical freedom, and a life of independence and freedom from restraint. And what is wrong with you here in your cage? “What a question! My nature is to fly where I please, to live in the open air, to sing when I please. You rob me of all this, and then ask, ‘What is wrong with you?'”
Being dependent on an outside entity is a guarantee that you will lose freedom. I would like to be freer than I am, but becuse of my job, I have lost some of that. It is a decision I made willingly, but that doesn’t mean I am 100% happy with it. Sometimes the office ladies are spouting their usual ignorant talking points and I know if I rebut them, I would get ganged up on and it’s just not worth the trouble. All in all though, I live in a mostly free state where I open carry my 1911 or Baby Eagle everywhere I go that’s not a military base.
I am working on another ship this Friday, so I hope you all enjoy the weekend, we are having amazing weather here.
I am currently dealing with a test of my Stoicism. I will attempt AGAIN to fix the carburetor on my 1964 International Cub tractor. When I put it on after I rebuilt it the first time, gas started leaking from the air side and when I took it off, there was gas in the air intake hose. I remeasured the float and as far as I could tell it was in the right spot. I then tore it apart and put the original float back in and had the same result. I am going to take the float and needle valve out and put them back in, being very diligent about following the instructions. If it does the same thing, I will give up and take it to a small engine repair shop.
Very disappointing because I am really looking forward to cutting my grass with the old girl.
“And yet even then, so long as he had not learned to give up passionate desire or fear, could this man have been in possession of freedom?”
That’s something I’ve been told my whole life by my parents and something I try to instill into my daughters. We all have needs and wants but the if you allow your desires and emotions to dictate your actions, you’ve already lost. I think one of the best paths to success (which at times I’ve fallen short) is self-control and discipline.
I knew someone who was married to a great woman, and they had a kid together. Along with that he started a fairly profitable business, but his desire to bang everything and greed ultimately cost him everything all because he lacked the integrity and self-control and found it easier to cater to his basest desires.
I was thinking this morning about my kids, and the contrast between the oldest and youngest. The oldest is struggling with life. She could use some therapy but is resisting. I think all of this is because she’s avoiding all the hard things in life. She’d rather sit on her phone and not do the things she needs to do, because she wants to take the easy and comfortable path. And hence her failure to thrive as an adult.
Meanwhile the youngest is in town this month, and already in a year I’ve seen her mature. She lives across the country, her husband is gone half the time, and she has to manage the bills, keep up the apartment, feed herself, attend school full time, and work part time. None of that is easy. But she’s gotten really disciplined. I don’t worry about her future.
I’m kind of like your oldest daughter, but life (and my wife) kicked me in the ass and forced me to change. I still struggle with it at times but now I know how to recognize the signs of me slipping back into old habits. And talking to a therapist helps too.
My wife heard something on a podcast once: “Choose your hard”. Regarding fitness, it’s hard to wake up early, hard to work out, hard to say no to junk food, hard to say no to too much alcohol. But likewise it’s hard to be overweight, hard to have health problems, hard to have aches and pains because you’re not taking care of yourself. So choose which “hard” you want.
I think this applies to all kinds of other things too.
TOK:
Have you ever read the Heinlein story about the laziest man he [Lazarus Long] knew? One of the points made was staying in shape was easier than moving an out of shape body around.
I have not. But I’m listening to my daughter grunt and groan with every movement, meanwhile half my body doesn’t really function and I’m still getting around fine.
TOK:
From Time Enough to Love, and there’s versions of it online under “The Tale of the Man Who Was Too Lazy to Fail”.
This is an interesting one, the point being, I think, that we get angry when someone imposes on our freedom, yet in more indirect ways we willingly give it up.
It’s no secret we’re having problems with our oldest, who is currently living with us. One issue is she has a serious phone addiction. Some days she’s staring at it for 10 or 12 hours. Once she complained that we were “trying to control” her. So I pointed out how willingly she lets her phone control her. It demands her attention all day, and she’s more than happy to obey it. If I demanded she pay attention and do what I told her for 10 hours a day, she’d have a big problem with that.
So I’m the furthest fucking thing from being religious, but there was a line in 2 Peter on this… ‘For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved.’
I’d like to thank everyone for being stoic waiting for this to post, since I messed up the scheduling at first. All delays on this going up were on me.
we are having amazing weather here.
Could you send some of that this way?
Rain today. Rain tomorrow. Maybe no rain Sunday. Maybe no rain Monday.
We had our three days of shitty weather ending yesterday. Looks like it came to you from here.
Not Adahn, from the dedthread, that weekend in July you mentioned? I might be away that weekend. So I doubt I’d be able to help out.
This Summer I’m not going to be around much.
No biggie, just putting out there the chance to get a hefty discount on SIG products and shoot a major match.
Lack of control = anger
Isn’t that the essence of Stoicism? To control what you can and the things you cannot control do not become a slave to your anger? This prevents many bad decisions. Or as I joke occasionally when I see someone get angry – “The best way to make a bad situation better is to add in a lot of emotion.”
I think that’s a good observation.
I try to remind myself sometimes: Have I ever worried enough that it fixed a problem? Have I ever gotten angry enough that it made something better?
“Or as I joke occasionally when I see someone get angry – “The best way to make a bad situation better is to add in a lot of emotion.”
That’s actually something that I need to start saying to myself when I feel a meltdown is coming.
I think anger and strong emotion can be redirected and can make some things better. Redirected doesn’t not mean kicking your dog after a bad day at work. Going to the gym, taking a walk, listening to some over the top angry music (and laughing and the ridiculousness of it ).
Redirecting strong emotion can help prevent you from just storing it up for future use like a asshole capacitor.
You people.
😛
Big Medicine is broken?
The surprise focus on physicians — softened in the report by calling them “well-intended” — comes after weeks of furious lobbying by the food, pharmaceutical and farming industries who feared being demonized by the review.
Instead, the report adopts an argument popularized by Kennedy and many of his colleagues in President Donald Trump’s health department during the Covid pandemic, that the medical profession is dominated by groupthink and has been swayed by corporate interests. Doctors fear speaking out against conventional guidance, the theory goes, for fear of being ostracized. That, the report says, has curtailed research into the causes of chronic disease.
“This report brings to the forefront a body of scientific research that has been largely ignored as we have been so busy as doctors in the modern health care system, billing and coding and seeing patients in short visits,” Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary told reporters in a call Thursday.
But doctors are beneficent godlike healers of mind and body.
“The report, released Thursday, calls out the American Medical Association, the country’s leading physicians’ group, by name for adopting a policy the report claims discourages providers from deviating from standard practices and scientists from studying adverse vaccine reactions.”
“This report brings to the forefront a body of scientific research that has been largely ignored as we have been so busy as doctors in the modern health care system, billing and coding and seeing patients in short visits,”
“The report calls out the AMA for adopting a policy calling for licensing boards to take disciplinary action against physicians who spread misinformation, an issue that became heated during the pandemic when some sought to punish doctors who prescribed off-label treatments like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine for Covid.”
Doesn’t really back up the headline. I think they’re right over the target, though. I have heard all these complaints, and it seems that between the AMA, feat of lawsuits, and the big health corporations that own most hospitals, doctors don’t have a whole lot of leeway when treating patients.
They dont. Also, the AMA has, like so many other institutions, been skin suited by fucking marxist shitbirds.
OMFG – just no.
Electric grills are a climate-friendly option to fossil fuel grills
I admit I use a natural gas grill which will already drive the purists nuts. But quite simply this thing can’t put out enough heat. I just jumped over to the manufacturer web site mentioned in the article.
It’s only 1,750 watts. So it runs on a 120V 20A outlet. This thing is basically useless especially in cooler weather.
Oh, naturally, TW the article is NPR.
What (Watt?) assholes. The cheapest, shittiest GE electric range at Home Depot is running 1200W – 3100W per element. A 1750W grill surface isn’t even a funny joke.
Maybe if grill area was the size of single hamburger patty?
Do one of you engineers here want to check my math?
My gas grill is 39,000 BTUs. The Google says the conversion factor for BTUs to Watts is divide by 3.41. That yields 11,437 watts so 6.5x the power.
I can tell you it takes about 1,020 BTU to make 1 lb of steam.
NPR should be defunded for this article alone.
They can go fuck themselves. They’ll have to shoot me before I give up my gas grill.
There’s nothing wrong with gas grills.
*insert Hank Hill gif*
Meh. If I’m grilling, I go charcoal. I’ve already got natural gas in the house if I don’t want to taste the heat.
Let me translate some watermelon speak….well, all watermelon speak actually :
“I fucking hate you. We are going to crush you, impoverish you, yoke you, suck all hope and joy from your life and then kill you.”
Does that help any?
Preach on Suthen.
There’s a lefty on my hockey team, and I can totally see him doing this.
I commented this on X somewhere: In college we learned that turning electricity to heat is the LEAST efficient use of it. In addition you’re using heat to make steam, turning a turbine, running it through a transmission system, and… turning it back to heat. Every one of those steps has losses.
But hey, who am I to question settled science.
I mentioned this once or twice and our own Yusef who was an HVAC guy at the time told us that a 12 gauge extension cord loses 3 volts over 100 feet. Now do 20+ miles from your local electric provider.
Hence the reason for the high voltages Suthen! I assume Yusef was talking at 120V.
“Look i’m saving the earf”!!!
I’m propane fan for grilling. I used charcoal extensively and like it, but for everyday use gas is the way to go. The smoker is charcoal and wood.
Here is the level of justification given by the dope in the article.
“but it’s just a pain to lug [tanks] around”
I can walk to 4 convenience stores near my house for tank exchanges. They last a very long time even with my 4 burner Weber.
Propane is PITA to get around here. A nearby Home Depot sells it, but it’s a 15 minute ordeal to exchange the tank and pay for it on a good day.
It’s the reason I paid a good chunk of cash to have a plumber run a natural gas line out to my driveway.
I am luckier than most of you in that I have an ample supply of OAK for free.
Propane can be inconvenient, but my wife’s cousin works at a steel finishing plant, and the propane vendor there fills our tanks for $6. You can’t beat that.
I use it for grilling, and I just replaced my propane smoker with another one just like it.
The minimum requirements are a 15A breaker and 15A GFCI outlet with no other appliances running on the same circuit.
It would seem they don’t de rate the thing. Appliances don’t have to do so, but it’s a bit risky…
Climate change is another reason Nghiem and Kachev switched. Before the grill, the couple replaced several fossil fuel items with electric ones — first their car, then lawn mower and trimmer, a water heater and last year the grill.
Switching from a fossil fuel-burning device to an electric one — called electrification — is a key climate solution, especially as they are powered by electricity generated from an increasingly cleaner grid that uses renewable energy instead of fossil fuels.
Not a cult.
Science!
What fucking morons. They switched their grill, car, lawnmower, trimmer and water heater are all still powered by fossil fuels. They just switched from efficient ones to wildly inefficient ones and are using vastly more fossil fuels.
Hey dumbass, go back and take a physics class only this time pay attention instead of daydreaming while eating your own boogers.
still powered by fossil fuels
Didn’t you read? electricity generated from an increasingly cleaner grid that uses renewable energy instead of fossil fuels..
NPR says so! Don’t go spreading mal-information you bigot!
But Suthen, virtue signaling is priceless.
1. My favorite example is the electric car chargers that have a diesel generator powering them.
2. I once asked a friend of mine, an industrial engineer who specializes in constructing ethanol plants, “Hey, why do include in all of your plants fuel oil tanks? Cant you just run the plant off of the ethanol you make?”
He doesnt think that is very funny as he has only heard it 100K X.
– which leads to some first class trolling…an electric generation plant that is powered by…electricity. Try asking a watermelon why we dont switch generators from coal/gas to electric.
“‘I find that electric grills are all about the seasoning, not the seasoning on the item you are grilling, but the seasoning on the grill itself,’ says Rich Landau, chef and co-owner of Vedge, a vegan restaurant in Philadelphia.”
An electric grill in a vegan restaurant. I can’t even.
Maybe if grill area was the size of single hamburger patty?
George Foreman did it.
Exactly.
That appliance is designed to work on a 15A circuit so 1,800W. However continuous use is 80% and while not technically required most appliances de-rate 20% so 1,440W on a much smaller grill service.
Foreman made…I forget how many squillion dollars off of marketing that thing. Good for him.
I was wandering around in a flea market not long ago and saw a cast iron grill for placing on an open fire or in a fireplace designed identical to his design. It was about 150 years old. I thought that was interesting.
Yeah, and where is he now?
If any scheduler dudes/dudettes be lurking about – I just submitted a short article. I alert you only because I consider it fodder for an ’emergency post’ to fill a hole; didn’t really see a way to specify that in the submission. So feel free to hold it until you need it! But a girl forced me to submit it now and I stoically complied.
I offer no promises nor guarantees, but I’ve passed the message along.
About to head out to sail a boat clockwise a 1/3 of the way around Oahu so we can turn around and race it around Oahu counterclockwise this weekend.
Silly yes, promising to be a nice day on the water double yes.
Enjoy! What size / type boat?
Hobie 35
Newsweek editors fucked up and let this get posted.
https://www.newsweek.com/globalize-intifada-evils-left-wing-political-violence-opinion-2076158
Look at it this way, the NYT employs former WSJ editorialist Bret “Israel is always right” Stephens as one of their editorialists.
They do try to cater to certain demographics of Team Blue that I don’t understand why they remain loyal.
How the hell did that get through? I am reminded of Thomas Sowell answering the question “What changed your mind about Marxism?” with “Facts.”
Maybe someone is waking up like the TV wife who stands stubbornly by her husband until the cops show her one little thing and she suddenly realizes “Oh my God, he really is a serial rapist and murderer!”
Hey dbleagle, wanna trade? I spent the morning assembling a very impressive collection of chiggers. I intend to add to it here in a little bit.
you’re using heat to make steam, turning a turbine, running it through a transmission system, and… turning it back to heat. Every one of those steps has losses.
You’re over thinking it. Electricity comes from those outlets in your wall.
Brooks, they are called ‘the holes’. Get your nomenclature right.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/harvard-sues-trump-administration-blocking-enrollment-foreign-students-2025-05-23/
Judge temporarily blocks Trump admin from revoking Harvard enrollment of foreign students
that didn’t take long
That’s one is reasonable to me. There is irreparable immediate harm and it applies just to Harvard.
You are so right. Good observation. Ok. All colleges/universities.
I just joked to dbleagle about getting chiggers this morning while machete’ing away some trash trees but it made me think of this: This has been the most perfect spring I can remember. Lots of sun and lots of rain. It is what most of you would consider mid-summer weather right now. It is hot and the sun pretty intense. Despite that I have only. seen 4 mosquitoes so far this year. The gnats and chiggers are awful but mosquitoes? Almost none. What is that all about? Usually this time of year they will eat you alive.
Chiggers are the grossest human-preying insect of them all.
I hate them with the heat of a thousand suns. I thought the worst I had ever seen were from a timber job I had on the Natchez trace but no….here on the Rigolette is worse.
At least it was filed in Boston…