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.
Against the Contentious and Brutal Part II
10For when, or from what teacher, did he learn that man is a tame animal,[4] that he manifests mutual affection, that injustice in itself is a great injury to the unjust man?[5] If, therefore, he has never learned this, or become persuaded of this, why shall he not follow what appears to him to be his advantage? “My neighbour has thrown stones.” You have not made a mistake, have you? “No, but my crockery is broken.” Are you a piece of crockery, then? No, but you are moral purpose. What, then, has been given you with which to meet this attack? If you seek to act like a wolf, you can bite back and throw more stones than your neighbor did; but if you seek to act like a man, examine your store, see what faculties you brought with you into the world. You brought no faculty of brutality, did you? No faculty of bearing grudges, did you? When, then, is a horse miserable? When he is deprived of his natural faculties. Not when he can’t sing “cuckoo!” but when he can’t run. And a dog? Is it when he can’t fly? No, but when he can’t keep the scent. Does it not follow, then, that on the same principles a man is wretched, not when he is unable to choke lions,[6] or throw his arms about statues[7] (for no man has brought with him from nature into this world faculties for this), but when he has lost his kindness, and his faithfulness?
It is easy to hold grudges over things that aren’t that important. Being angry at someone for a perceived slight does not affect the person I am angry with, but it affects my serenity and can even affect how I treat people that I am not angry at. I had to remember this the other day as I was driving. I came to the end of the express lane and had to move over a lane. As I started to move over, suddenly the car directly behind me passed me and I almost ran into him. Then I had to jam on the brakes so I wouldn’t hit the concrete wall. I was going almost 80mph at the time, so it was more than a little dangerous. Then we got to the base gate side by side. I wanted to roll down the window and yell at him, but I knew this wouldn’t accomplish anything except get me more upset. I calmed myself down, but I did notice that when I glanced sideways, he was looking steadily away from me. I just reminded myself that this is why I hate people and instead to be grateful nothing actually happened.
15This is the kind of person for whom “men should come together and mourn, because of all the evils into which he has come”; not, by Zeus, “the one who is born,” or “the one who has died,”[8] but the man whose misfortune it has been while he still lives to lose what is his own; not his patrimony, his paltry farm, and paltry dwelling, and his tavern, and his poor slaves (for none of these things is a man’s own possession, but they all belong to others, are subservient and subject, given by their masters[9] now to one person and now to another);
Nothing I do not directly control is really owned by me. This is a sad truth, but my house that I love so much and brings my wife and I joy can be taken from me at any time through a variety of factors that I do not control. I can do my best to mitigate this happening, but since I don’t control it, thee is always that possibility, however slight.
but the qualities which make him a human being, the imprints which he brought with him in his mind, such as we look for also upon coins, and, if we find them, we accept the coins, but if we do not find them, we throw the coins away. “Whose imprint does this sestertius bear? Trajan’s? Give it to me. Nero’s? Throw it out, it will not pass, it is rotten.”[10] So also in the moral life. What imprint do his judgements bear? “He is gentle, generous, patient, affectionate.” Give him to me, I accept him, I make this man a citizen, I accept him as a neighbour and a fellow-voyager. Only see that he does not have the imprint of Nero. Is he choleric, furious, querulous? “If he feels like it, he punches the heads of the people he meets.”[11] Why, then, did you call him a human being? For surely everything is not judged by its outward appearance only, is it? Why, if that is so, you will have to call the lump of beeswax an apple.[12] 20No, it must have the smell of an apple and the taste of an apple; its external outline is not enough. Therefore, neither are the nose and the eyes sufficient to prove that one is a human being, but you must see whether one has the judgements that belong to a human being. Here is a man who does not listen to reason, he does not understand when he is confuted; he is an ass. Here is one whose sense of self-respect has grown numb; he is useless, a sheep, anything but a human being. Here is a man who is looking for someone whom he can kick or bite when he meets him; so that he is not even a sheep or an ass, but some wild beast.
Unfortunately not every person is actually a human being. It is not always readily apparent in large ways either. I try not to deal with people I can not trust. It doesn’t have to be anything directed at me, but if I discern you are dishonest towards other people then I know that you could very easily be dishonest towards me. That is one reason I have a small circle of friends.
It’s been a good week, my wife came home Monday, but her plane got delayed so she landed at 1:45. By the time we got home and settled it was around 3:30. Tuesday going to work sucked. Now my wife is dealing with the time change. Every evening at around 8, she shuts down. Tonight, she told me “I am going to stay up until 10 tonight”, but at 8:15, she was sleeping on the couch. I laughed and she woke up and went to bed. Probably by next week, she’ll be back on schedule.
Why, if that is so, you will have to call the lump of beeswax an apple.[12] 20No, it must have the smell of an apple and the taste of an apple; its external outline is not enough.
I’m reminded of “If you call a dog’s tail a leg, the dog doesn’t have five legs.”
Does the guy defining “legs” have a gun?
It’s been a good week, my wife came home Monday,
This is good news.
Jet lag from Japan to the east coast is the absolutely the worst.
It takes me three full days to reach like 80% back on time.
She says the time change is much worse coming home than going there.
Same for me.
I have the issue when I visit family in CA and AZ. I fall right in on their time, but am fucked up for 3 days when I get back. And that’s only 3 hours.
Same on west coast. Dead on arrival home.
I guess I’ve never enjoyed jet lag, I don’t have any difficulty after the day of flying. Just stay up later that day and maybe sleep a little longer the next morning.
I have a ‘jet lag’ now, when I sit down to watch the 5 PM news I seem to miss about 20 minutes of it. Doesn’t seem to matter or change anything.
I remain Stoic in San Francisco.
I recorded this, it’s animals doing an impression of the morning links:
https://www.glibertarians.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/IMG_3454.mov
I generally found travelling west to east (e.g., US to Europe) to be harder that east to west (Europe to US). Crossing the international dateline sort of screws that up. You fly west, but end up east of where you started.
More generally, leaving on a trip was usually harder than returning home from a trip. However, if you are on the road long enough (3ish weeks or more), it doesn’t matter. The trip home is just as bad as when you left.
The worst trip I ever did was Iowa to London, London to Paris, Paris to Guangzhou, Guangzhou to LA, and then LA to Iowa in 8 days. Flying east the whole way. There was never a “flying west” part of the trip to recover.
As my skepticism deepens, I become more convinced that taxonomy is a silly game.
Which isn’t to say a silly game can’t be fun.
Mounting a deer head for someone to hang on the wall can be pretty profitable around here.
Not just in biology either. Things like genres of literature, categories of games, and even attempts to place political ideas on a simple grid all end up producing at least as much confusion and error as clarity and information. Turns out the world is kind of complex.
/looks at the dozens of various sub-genres under rockabilly or punk
The desire to categorize is deeply rooted in managerial class psychology.
Why Did America Add an Extra Pin?
https://youtube.com/shorts/vy9yUyIjH2Y?si=yPrPqOKGIBgOGO1N
Fucking Puritans.
Because of the ducks.
“No longer” lol
https://x.com/LoganDobson/status/1998940340708061460
the trouble with making the case for a market economy is how deeply counterintuitive so much of it is
‘Value is the result of an agreement between buyer and seller,’ has always seemed highly intuitive to me…
I dunno- many think one way about how the market works but understand perfectly well how they personally would react to price changes (for example)
The removal of mass haggling and set prices has removed us from a basic economic understanding.
I have fought with many people many times over the years. Cost has nothing to do with price. Price is a function of supply and demand. It is true that if the price is lower than the cost, the product or service disappears. Plenty of businesses fail when the price of their products/services collapse.
#metoo
Trying to explain to “freedom loving gun nuts” that rising prices on AR-15’s is not price gouging because if nobody paid the price you think is ridiculous then the price would drop was an exercise in frustration.
I even tried asking if they were selling their truck and they thought it was worth $10,000, but 3 people offered $15,000 would they still sell it for 10.
That’s different somehow.
Look at any collectable – comic books, vintage toys, Beanie Babies, art, whatever. The “what it costs to make” argument can’t explain how those prices go up.
Price gouging is nothing more than special pleading from conservatives to implement price controls.
Yea it sucks that you can sell a bottle of water for $20 after a hurricane. But the law of supply and demand remains a reality even during emergencies. And the price controls just encourage the hoarding of more shit than people actually need or would get if prices were based on actual demand and then the obvious end result of shortages.
Brochettaward:
I see plenty of progressives and liberals complain about price gouging as well.
I remember Hillary bitching about oil companies’ “windfall profits” when the federal government was bringing in more per gallon than the oil companies were.
Yea but progs complain about having to pay for anything themselves. I’m just focusing on the people who claim to support free markets/capitalism, but…
I don’t recall a single Democrat decrying the “windfall profits” that vaccine makers got from the government forcing everyone to use their product.
I tried to explain to someone once that buyers set prices, not sellers.
Sellers offer a widget at a price. If the offer is in the right ballpark, then buyers line up and buy the widget. If the offer is way too low, buyers compete to get every copy of the widget they can and then resell at a higher price. If the offer is way too high, no one buys it. Eventually, it goes on sale and the offered prices drops to a realistic value and someone will buy it.
@kinnath: One example that kind of works is when someone says “OMG they are listing that widget for $1000 on eBay!” and I point out that just because it’s listed for that much doesn’t mean anyone is buying it.
You can ask for whatever you want. It doesn’t mean anything until a buyer says OK.
Yep, Big Oil makes something like 0.17 (old figure, may better or worse now) for every dollar that the government makes (fees/taxes).
Welcome to the real estate market. Sometimes the seller’s price is such that no one wants it, at that price. Other times the seller’s price encourages a bidding war.
Auctions are fun, especially on consignment stuff. One man’s junk…
TOK:
The eternal debate about the “value” of collection. There’s hundreds of threads on Board Game Geek about how various games are overpriced, for sale, collectable, extremely valuable, etc.
Some of this is for games that have rules that are freely available, and can easily be played with proxy pieces (I mean, I’ve seen a pretty awesome Container setup that was entirely built out of Lego). I have a grand total of one game that I bought as speculation. It’s still NIB (New In Box).
@TOK: see, also, Gunbroker
It cuts both ways. Back when I was selling my art a little more, people would balk at spending $1k on an oil painting, but it took me so long to paint all the detail, in the end I was making less than $5 an hour.
My honey is priceless
Don’t tell that guy about auctions.
Auctions are truly the most honest and transparent method of setting price (and communicating value.)
Go easy on her. She has a PhD in sociology.
I’m contemplating writing an actual first comment on the site. Not a First, but one of those things that gets posted above where I First.
Spoiler alert – it may be about Nick Fuentes and focus on his debate with Piers Morgan.
It’s a special level of boomer retardation to lose the segment of the argument with him where you literally have clips of him saying he thinks Hitler is cool.
it may be about Nick Fuentes – gaaayyyy
There’s an aspect of Fuentes I haven’t commented on which I think also helps explain his rise in popularity and some of the takes I see on here about him.
There’s legitimately multiple personas, but also different time periods of his career. When they replay clips of him from his early days he is far less polished and sure of himself and how to say what it is he wants to say. It’s legit cringy to watch. It also helps that he updated his presentation with something that resembles a Youtube “studio” rather than a godawful green screen of a news room. Today he comes off as witty and even charismatic. Back then he seemed like a goofy kid saying off the wall shit just to get a rise out of people. He’s still intentionally provocative and could be fairly called an edgelord supreme, but he’s honed the entire message.
When I watch people play the gotcha game with him using his past statements, I also get the sense that they are things that Fuentes probably regrets saying to some extent. Not out of shame or any shit like that (he is a 4chan troll come to life or in the flesh, there’s no shame there), but because it’s become a cudgel his opponents use and limits his mainstream viability. He’s never going to appeal to large segments of the population let alone the majority of Piers Morgan’s boomerfied audience. He took thins too far too fast from the start and it will always haunt him.
Do it!
I’mma predict that this guy will be as long lasting and influential as that gay Greek guy and mixed race proud boy guy. And all the other internet famous deep thinkers like unpronouncable AI doomer and moldbug.
Moldbug is still fairly influential in the right-leaning blogosphere – although he mostly goes by his real name (Curtis Yarvin) now.
You can make that prediction, but if you haven’t actually heard him speak I would advise you give it a try.
He has a very loyal and dedicated following. We can debate how large it is all we want, but this version of Fuentes is rather polished and rather entertaining. I see staying power there short of him being proven to be a straight up grifter or homosexual.
I’ve seen plenty of auctions where the price paid had more to do with psychology than value.
Threading fail
Always a part of it.
Yes. I have seen people pay more for a beat-up and worn out piece of furniture at government auction that it would have cost them to get a new one.
“Oh shit, I kinda got sucked up in the competition”.
Side rant – I know the why, but why the fuck does every Hispanic pretend that they are related more to the Natives or that they are somehow native themselves as if many don’t carry a shit ton of European/colonizer DNA? I think many of them legitimately believe their own bullshit, but their origin stories aren’t that different from that of white European descended Americans. It’s just pure propaganda to justify illegal immigration and to play the victimhood card when it comes to geopolitics. Just because the Spanish fucked more natives than white Europeans seem to have doesn’t mean you aren’t still descended from colonizers yourself, asshole. You don’t get a pass.
“Who yore daddy was does not mean shit. The only thing that counts is what you do.”
-My Grandfather
In our culture we do not put the sins of the fathers on the sons. Nor the accomplishments
Do you know who I am?
Does anybody know Fourscore? He doesn’t seem to know who he is.
Wouldn’t it make sense that as long as fewer Euros migrated over than the native population that mestizos would be more native than Euro? To be otherwise you’d need the mestizos to be preferentially banging whiteys, which would de-mest them.
In unfortunate naming choices, the converted laptop that I watched my Bloodboren Pathogen training on today was made by “Boi Fun.” With a website “boifun.net.” Which I will not access from a work computer.
+1 boitoi
With a website “boifun.net.”
Sounds legit.