Part I Part II Part III Part IV Part V Part VI Part VII Part VIII Part IX Part X Part XI Part XII Part XIII Part XIV Part XV
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 italicized in bold, my replies are in normal text.
Of Freedom Part XVI
170Study these things, these judgements, these arguments, look at these examples, if you wish to be free, if you desire the thing itself in proportion to its value. And what wonder is there if you buy something so great at the price of things so many and so great? For the sake of what is called freedom some men hang themselves, others leap over precipices, sometimes whole cities perish;
Freedom has different values to different people. I value it highly, but not high enough to not surrender some of my freedoms at my job. I work on a Navy base, so I cannot take my pistol to work with me. I get irritated when we have Active Shooter training and are told to resist with whatever weapons we have,but we are not allowed to actually have any weapon except my Buck knife.
for true freedom, which cannot be plotted against and is secure, will you not yield up to God, at His demand, what He has given? Will you not, as Plato[49] says, study not merely to die, but even to be tortured on the rack, and to go into exile, and to be severely flogged, and, in a word, to give up everything that is not your own? If not, you will be a slave among slaves; even if you are consul ten thousand times, even if you go up to the Palace—a slave none the less; and you will perceive that, as Cleanthes[50] used to say, “Possibly the philosophers say what is contrary to opinion, but assuredly not what is contrary to reason.”
I study so that I can handle life with equanimity, and hope that I am not tested in the extreme ways listed here. If the worst does happen, I think I am strong enough to a point, but I don’t know where that breaking point is. I like the quote, it reminds me that just because an opinion is popular doesn’t mean it is right.
For you will learn by experience that what they say is true, and that none of these things which are admired and sought after are of any good to those who attain them; while those who have not yet attained them get an impression that, if once these things come to them, they will be possessed of all things good, and then, when they do come, the burning heat is just as bad, there is the same tossing about on the sea, the same sense of surfeit, the same desire for what they do not have.
It is easy to look at others I perceive as better off than me and think, “It must be nice”. The truth is, I don’t know that it is nice. As the pastor at the only church I enjoyed going to once said, “We know without a doubt that beauty and money do not lead to pure happiness. If you doubt that, look at Hollywood, do those seem like happy people?” It is better to be happy with what I have. I make a conscious effort to remind myself of all of the blessings I have.
175For freedom is not acquired by satisfying yourself with what you desire, but by destroying your desire. And that you may learn the truth of all this, as you have toiled for those other things, so also transfer your toil to these; keep vigils for the sake of acquiring a judgement which will make you free, devote yourself to a philosopher instead of to a rich old man, be seen about his doors; it will be no disgrace to be so seen, you will not retire thence empty and without profit, if you approach him in the right fashion. Anyway, try it at least; there is no disgrace in making the attempt.
I continue to make the attempt to learn as much as I can from the ancient Stoics. Some of the present day ones are also worth learning from. Stoicism is very basic and simple, but that doesn’t mean it is easy.
Finally finished this lesson, it was the longest one yet, but I think it is a very good guide to having the proper mindset about desires and not chaining myself to things that seem appealing from the outside, but are out of my control. There is no guarantee that getting everything I think I want will make me any happier that I am now.
Work has been busy, so I haven’t posted much, but my wife and I had a great time at Honey Harvest. Kinnath’s mead definitely lives up to the hype. It was great to meet everyone and my wife wants to go back next year, so Mike, Jimbo and CPRM did not scare her away. Fourscore and his family were great to talk to as well, and he continues to be an inspiration.
Stoicism is very basic and simple, but that doesn’t mean it is easy.
Yep. It’s easy to think “I handle things like a Stoic” when you’re sitting on the couch reading it – it’s a lot harder when things around you are going to shit. It takes actual “combat experience” to hone the Stoic mindset, but it’s well worth it. I’ve had adverse circumstances recently that, 10 years ago, probably would have had me getting in a hopeless and depressed mood and taking it out on people around me.
Now you take it out on Glibs.
I kid, I kid!
I keep working at it.
My wife even told MikeS how much I have improved.
MikeS is quite Stoic until you mention Geddy Lee’s singing for RUSH.
The best rock vocalist ever to live? What’s there to be stoic about?
Nobody said a word about Robert Plant.
“MikeS is quite Stoic until you mention Geddy Lee’s singing for RUSH.”
🤬😡🤬😡
I get irritated when we have Active Shooter training and are told to resist with whatever weapons we have
Whoa. My company’s security training says not to resist. On the evaluation where they ask about resistance, I always get that question “wrong” by getting it right.
I had a great time at Honey Harvest.
Excellent.
“…not to resist.”
To what end? The shooter came there to fucking kill you. Exactly what do you have to lose by resisting?
Dont resist…shelter in place. Be a compliant, easy target.
What the fuck is wrong with these people? Stupid question, I know. Evil Sheldon summed them up nicely the other day: “They want their victims to be unarmed.”
The shooter came there to fucking kill you.
You think I don’t know that?
I get that not everybody is a battle-hardened warrior who can take on a violent attacker with a pocket knife, but “shelter in place” and “don’t resist” are two absolutely stupid pieces of advice.
We were talking to the girls about school shootings after some substitute teacher hit the “active shooter” button on the keyboard (this is a thing, apparently?) and sent kids panicking and causing some to injure themselves jumping out of windows, then hit the button AGAIN when she was showing the principal how the first mistake happened. We told them don’t EVER “shelter in place”; just run. Get out of the building and run away in any direction. Get out of there if you have to kick the principal in the nuts. We did of course emphasize how rare these events are.
The reason for ‘shelter in place’ is so that when the smoke clears, the managers and the cops can quickly and easily get a head count on the survivors.
I understand this reasoning, but it’s solving the little problems and ignoring the big ones.
If you want to survive a spree killing, getting away from the action as quickly as possible is the clear winning strategy.
Failing that, attack the shooter with anything you have – a gun works particularly well here, of course. Most spree shooters aren’t exactly CAG hitters – they tend to surrender or suicide any time they meet actual resistance.
Bunkering should be considered the last resort, and then only if you can bunker in a place that a motivated killer with a gun can’t breach. I don’t see many such places in schools.
I can see the personal advantage to getting away from the action, but I suspect the overall optimal strategy, both in terms of minimizing the number of dead in a particular shooting, and in reducing the number of shootings overall, is immediate all out attack on the shooter. Note, that I am not claiming I’ll have the guts to do this, especially if I am not armed. I hope I will, but I have not faced the situation.
Very much yes. For reducing the overall severity of the attack, shutting down the shooter as quickly as possible is the best move.
Running is the best move when it comes to your own personal survival.
I wonder if rushing the shooter is actually the best way to reduce casualties. Stopping the attacker, obviously, but maybe depriving him/her/xem of targets reduces the total number shot? People’s accuracy goes to shit with distance and most school shooters aren’t great. Kyle Rittenhouse got his hits, but none of his targets was even 5 yards away.
Recently added to ‘potty-poster’ at work, describing the response to an ‘active shooter’.
“Fight back” is last. emphasized everywhere as last resort, don’t do this. The order is ‘shelter’, ‘run’, ‘fight’.
So in the fight back, I scratched out ‘throw whatever is available at shooter’ and added as the first bullet: “retrieve EDC handgun, evaluate background, aim for center mass, pull trigger until threat eliminated”.
I’ll be interested in seeing how long the defaced poster lasts before someone notices and takes it down…
People’s accuracy goes to shit with distance
It also goes to shit with fear. I don’t know whether the difficulty is higher as a hunter taking down fleeing non-threatening targets or when the tables are turned and you’re being attacked by closing targets. I’m not qualified to assess this, so maybe I should shut up, but I can see arguments each way.
Very much yes. For reducing the overall severity of the attack, shutting down the shooter as quickly as possible is the best move.
See, this absolute unit
Something to think about – Victor Gomez, who was shot to death by the attacker, was also a CCW holder and was carrying at the time of the attack. He never got his gun out of the holster.
Good skill is important. Good luck is critical.
As with all things, I’d ultimately rather be lucky than good.
(I’d like to be both, really)
When my company does those drills, I ignore them and think about what I would actually do. Generally getting to my car with my keys is step 1. From there I’ll have a gun and can either be heroic or leave in a hurry.
Really? The new mantra that I’ve seen for the past few years had been “Run, Hide, Fight.”
We haven’t had the training in a while, so maybe the next round will change. But I kinda doubt it.
The resisting is a last resort.
So, lie back and think of New Hampshire?
I live in NH but I’m not from NH.
I doubt anyone at the C-suite level at my company knows NH exists.
I’ve told this before, but when I was working we had active shooter training. The security guys came around and gave the “run, hide, fight” spiel. I said I was on board, because that’s an ambush. They laughed (they were used to me by then), and we joked about how its supposed to be “run away”, not run to the sound of gunfire, hide, and jump his ass.
We also talked about improvised weapons. I had a big fire extinguisher right outside my office, which is a good one. I also pointed out that the paper cutter “blade” is easily removed, quite heavy, has a handy, err, handle, and would make a most excellent bludgeon.
The next time I saw the training, it had been changed to “run away, hide, fight”.
Obligatory.
It was good to see you at Honey Harvest.
You too, we had an outstanding weekend.
I am no longer stoic about the current work situation. If I didn’t have PTO already scheduled, I’d be seriously considering just walking away.
Remain Stoic, make a backup plan, then walk. I have been there many times in the past few years and will talk to you is you wish.
I second what RJ says.
I’ve been eyeing an exit for a while, the current company is… not good.
On the other hand, earlier this week I confirmed that a concept I had is not currently available on the market, has relatively low start up costs, and potential. I need to make up some test batches, check state laws, and depending on that, do a small scale pilot.
That’s been going on for awhile, got to be frustrating.
Are you going to the Browns in London?
No real progress made over the 4 DAYS of 12+ hour bridges. I’m not staying late today. I’m logging out at quitting time, and planning on comping as much time as possible next Tuesday.
Because, on Wednesday, the girlfriend and I fly over to London to catch the Browns game.
I took a day off, woke up at noon, and lost pretty much all the time I wanted to make use of.
I hate when that happens.
Well, you did make use of it sleeping. So there’s that.
But what does this have to do with the Constitution?
Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook urged the Supreme Court Thursday to reject President Trump’s effort to fire her, arguing it would harm central bank independence and disrupt financial markets.
“Granting the President’s request for immediate relief to alter the status quo would sound the death knell for the central-bank independence that has helped make the United States’ economy the strongest in the world,” Cook’s lawyers argued in a new filing.
——-
Earlier on Thursday, a list of former Fed chairs that included Ben Bernanke and Janet Yellen filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court advocating for Cook.
The former Fed chairs argued that “allowing the government to remove a member of the Board of Governors for the first time in the Nation’s history, while under the cloud of legal challenge, will erode public confidence in the Fed’s independence and threaten the long-term stability of our economy.”
Chaos will reign.
Am I hallucinating? Is it April Fools?
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3drmk95xlzo
Also, Tony Blair has aged even less will than Hillary.
I’m not sure what to make of that news.
They’re bound to get it right eventually I guess.
I smell a ton of money changing hands.
Does this possibly increase the chances of Tony Blair getting his head cut off with a chainsaw on Telegram?
Goddamn… if a video game ever needs a “ghouls take over corporations / politics” picture — they should license that one from the Beeb.
Even worse than we feared
Researchers have found that the carbon footprint of generative AI-based tools that can turn text prompts into images and videos is far worse than we previously thought.
As detailed in a new paper, researchers from the open-source AI platform Hugging Face found that the energy demands of text-to-video generators quadruple when the length of a generated video doubles — indicating that the power required for increasingly sophisticated generations doesn’t scale linearly.
——-
Experts are warning that we’re rolling out generative AI tools without a full grasp of their true environmental impacts.
Where are the AI fluffers to tell us how AI will provide the means to avert this catastrophe? Is it the greatest tool ever, or the means of our total destruction? I want answers.
Go nuclear, asswipes.
Meanwhile, tech giants are investing tens of billions of dollars in infrastructure buildouts, sometimes abandoning climate goals in the process. In its 2024 environmental impact report, Google admitted that it was woefully behind its ambitious plan to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2030, seeing a staggering 13 percent increase in carbon emissions year over year, in large part due to its embrace of generative AI.
That’s okay. We just need to ban all forms of energy consuming transport.
https://swedenherald.com/article/malmo-faces-dilemma-with-2000-untraceable-nutella-jars
That’s the most retarded thing I’ve read in awhile. Are we to believe Nutella is dealing in conflict hazelnuts now?
lmao
Another thing the CCP will dominate. They will source all Hazelnuts from the Congo with out regard to human suffering
We can not have a Nutella Gap, something must be done!!
The conflict is between the Filbert Fanatics and the Hazel Nuts
Lipidleggin’!
https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/1971629455857811742
Florida Glibs, take note.