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 from fear Part I
What makes the tyrant an object of fear?—His guards, someone says, and their swords, and the chamberlain, and those who exclude persons who would enter.—Why, then, is it that, if you bring a child into the presence of the tyrant while he is with his guards, the child is not afraid? Is it because the child does not really feel the presence of the guards? If, then, a man really feels their presence, and that they have swords, but has come for that very purpose, for the reason that he wishes to die because of some misfortune, and he seeks to do so easily at the hand of another, he does not fear the guards, does he?—No, for what makes them terrible is just what he wants.—If, then, a man who has set his will neither upon dying nor upon living at any cost, but only as it is given him to live, comes into the presence of the tyrant, what is there to prevent such a man from coming into his presence without fear?—Nothing.
When I am fearful of people with power, then I give them power over me. As long as I keep in mind what is in my control, then I have nothing to fear. This is easier said then done, but is a goal to aspire to.
5—If, then, a man feel also about his property just as this other person feels about his body, and so about his children, and his wife, and if, in brief, he be in such a frame of mind, due to some madness or despair, that he cares not one whit about having, or not having, these things; but, as children playing with potsherds strive with one another about the game, but take no thought about the potsherds themselves, so this man also has reckoned the material things of life as nothing, but is glad to play with them and handle them—what kind of tyrant, or guards, or swords in the hands of guards can any more inspire fear in the breast of such a man?
Remembering that what I have does not truly belong to me and can be taken by fate, which is fickle, regardless of what I do or want to happen, helps to solidify a lack of fear for losing things. If I jealously guard everything I own, I will live in constant stress and fear. Those feelings would be self induced. None of this would help me to keep things and certainly would be fighting against my peace of mind.
Therefore, if madness can produce this attitude of mind toward the things which have just been mentioned, and also habit, as with the Galileans,[1] cannot reason and demonstration teach a man that God has made all things in the universe, and the whole universe itself, to be free from hindrance, and to contain its end in itself, and the parts of it to serve the needs of the whole? Now all other animals have been excluded from the capacity to understand the governance of God, but the rational animal, man, possesses faculties that enable him to consider all these things, both that he is a part of them, and what kind of part of them he is, and that it is well for the parts to yield to the whole. And furthermore, being by nature noble, and high-minded, and free, the rational animal, man, sees that he has some of the things which are about him free from hindrance and under his control, but that others are subject to hindrance and under the control of others. Free from hindrance are those things which lie in the sphere of the moral purpose, and subject to hindrance are those which lie outside the sphere of the moral purpose. And so, if he regards his own good and advantage as residing in these things alone, in those, namely, which are free from hindrance and under his control, he will be free, serene, happy, unharmed, high-minded, reverent, giving thanks for all things to God, under no circumstances finding fault with anything that has happened, nor blaming anything;
Living as a man that understands what I control and do not is preferable to living as an animal who is worried about everything internal and external.I still fail at this and get upset when things don’t go the way I was hoping they would. As always, I am a work in progress, but I have made a lot of gains on my self control.
10if, however, he regards his good and advantage as residing in externals and things outside the sphere of his moral purpose, he must needs be hindered and restrained, be a slave to those who have control over these things which he has admired and fears; he must needs be irreverent, forasmuch as he thinks that God is injuring him, and be unfair, always trying to secure for himself more than his share, and must needs be of an abject and mean spirit.
Getting angry when I have things break doles not help me fix them, nor does it prevent them from breaking. I got a little frustrated last week when my truck decided to stop letting me change gears. I thought it either needed the transmission rebuilt or a new clutch. Either of these would cost over a thousand dollars, not to mention the time and effort to remove and replace everything. I was only mildly upset and got over it pretty quickly. Years ago, I would have been mad at the world for a few days and let the truck sit awhile. I did some research and decided to try changing the shift tower and luckily that fixed it. Getting mad would not have changed anything except to ruin a few days for me.
All arrangments are temporary.
If you can look at the big picture you will see that you are only temporary and there really isn’t much difference between 50 and 500 years.
When I am fearful of people with power, then I give them power over me.
When it’s the state that has the power, however….
One ought definitely to aspire to the sort of childlike obliviousness to danger exemplified by the blessed martyr Renee of Minneapolis.
After learning about the various shootings in the area, I was tempted to come up with a great pun about it. But my attempts were only ever Pretti Good.
As was discussed in the morning thread, there’s a distinct lack of protest songs in the current generation. Maybe we should ask Brown Floyd to write one.
Screaming incoherent abuse is their substitute for protest songs, rhythm, rhyme, and musical notes being so racist as they were all invented and/or used/imposed by patriarchal white males..
The best protest song ever was written by National Lampoon. And you can’t get it on YouTube.
R.J., I bet you’re talking about a number from the musical “Lemmings” parodying Joan Baez. Apparently the song was listed on the cast album as “Pull the Tregroes [something or other.]”
Yes. I am. It was so perfect, to this day it distills the screwy racist BS of leftists down to the best refrain ever.
Found the lyrics, can’t believe YouTube wouldn’t have a copy.
https://genius.com/National-lampoon-pull-the-tregros-annotated
Apparently YouTube does have a copy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMidiYGT8ho&list=RDgMidiYGT8ho&start_radio=1
Tom Lehrer wrote the ultimate protest song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yygMhtNQJ9M
Excellent. Saving that link for future posts.
As was discussed in the morning thread, there’s a distinct lack of protest songs in the current generation.
What would they have to protest about? Do-nothing government?
You don’t need a weatherman to know this generation blows.
“But I know I’ve said the same about them all”
The old joke:
Why is so windy in Fargo/Moorhead?
Because Minnesoda sucks and NoDak blows.
You mean the giant industrial hurricane machines I visited when I was in Fargo don’t have anything to do with it?
UCS:
Those weren’t hurricane machines that you saw.
Uffda. Can’t seem to post correctly today.
Oh, that’s right.
They were windmills.
Minor course correction
Ford (NYSE: F) recently wrote off $19.5 billion due to the collapse of its EV business. GM (NYSE: GM) wrote off $6 billion because of the failure of its EV efforts, just after a $1.7 billion write-off for the same reason.
The largest write-off in the history of car companies to date was GM’s $20.8 billion write-off in 1992. This was due to a charge for retiree benefits.
Global car company Stellantis (NYSE: STLA) recently surpassed all of these with a write-off of $26 billion due to the collapse of its EV efforts. “The charges announced today largely reflect the cost of over-estimating the pace of the energy transition that distanced us from many car buyers’ real-world needs, means and desires,” Stellantis CEO Antonio Filosa said
By one estimate, U.S. and European automakers have incurred $118 billion in EV-related charges. It is unimaginably huge. The combined market capitalization of Ford and GM is $131 billion. Stellantis said it would not exit the EV market entirely, but its retreat shows it will back off almost completely.
The egghead consensus about electric cars was wrong? You have been travelling full tilt in the wrong direction chasing half baked government regulations?
*staggers toward fainting couch*
They all thought the subsidies would increase as the regulations on ICE cars would tighten.
Maybe the next President will bail them out.
Heh. I imagine the ICE cars are all ICE, driving ICE on ice to put folks on ice. There’s more to this, but I’m on this ice as it is. Put some oysters on me, I’m done.
“The egghead consensus about electric cars was wrong?”
No, the eggheads are right, it was the people who let them down.
*Obama nods sagely*
The eggheads all live in dense urban areas (with decently warm weather). Electric cars work great for them. Short distance driving, no towing, no cold weather to reduce battery efficiency.
How were they supposed to know that lots of the jackpine savages need vehicles that run when it is super cold and also need to be able to have a range of 100’s of miles? Towing? Who needs that. You just keep your boat in a slip on Martha’s Vineyard so you don’t have to tow it.
Good ideas. People like good ideas. If you have one people will recognize it and flock to it. They will even spend their own money on it.
Bad ideas. If you want people to adopt bad ideas you have to bribe them, scare them or coerce them. These are known as subsidies or regulations.
EV’s are the worst idea since the square wheel and part of the largest scam in history known as AGW.
EVs, in and of themselves, are actually a good idea. But they are only for niche market, sold to people with disposable income and the additional resources needed to support them (primarily a dedicated area to park/charge them and another vehicle to support driving that falls out of the use envelope). Pretty much what Musk built.
The stoopid revolves around believing that these limitations could be regulated away, and that everyone would happily sign up, en-mass, to be pissed on and enjoy the rain.
Given that such large numbers believe in magic (socialism’s bottomless well of prosperity) I cant think of a reason they would don’t apply that reasoning to physics as well.
You are correct, EV’s are definitely for a niche market. I have no problem with people buying one with their own money. They were not pitched as such. The whole thing was about the subsidies….i.e. a scam to bilk taxpayers. It is such a bad idea that even with the bribes people in general dont want them.
Suthen:
Don’t you remember the massive subsidies that were required to mainstream gas powered automobiles? The billions that Woodrow Wilson gave to Rockefeller to build out a national network of gas stations was second only to the subsidies that he gave to Ford for each Model T that was sold.
If Wilson hadn’t done that, the electric cars being sold back then would surely have triumphed over those gas powered cars.
Looking back at the failure of major car companies as they entered the EV market, it is easy to say they were wrong. What is staggering was that they were wrong together.
Be honest. Those guys are stupid, but they’re not that stupid. Without idiotic government “zero emission” coercion, they would not have gone so hard or so fast down that blind alley. They might have dabbled in niche products, but not wholesale conversion of their product lines.
I kind of can’t blame them. There was a major push for EV’s, and they could either go along, or not, and risk being wrong about where things would turn politically. The best approach was to do what Toyota and Honda (?) did and only go in part way. But that could have turned out to be a bad approach, too, depending on a few elections. In the US, when the new president rules by EO, things can flip in a heartbeat.
The lack of stability and predictability is definitely a problem. Let the Dems win the Presidency next time and they’ll be hammering through EOs and rulemaking on the issue so fast your head will spin.
Stinky,
Maybe the GOP majority that is currently in power right now, could pass some legislation to head off any future EO’s/rulemaking?
*snort*
I make myself laugh some times.
” What is staggering was that they were wrong together.”
Now see, I had to click the link to see who could write such a thing. Congratulations Mr. McIntyre. You are officially one of Dalrymple’s emasculated cowards.
A technocracy requires three things to function: A predictive model of society, an elite class trained to interpret that model, and an enforcement mechanism operating outside normal law. We have the second and third, they haven’t figured out yet that the first thing is impossible.
It certainly doesn’t keep them from trying, though. And causing untold amounts of destruction along the way.
I kind of can’t blame them.
The way the article is written it sounds as if the carmakers all suddenly “decided” to go all in on EV production of their own volition and on their own initiative instead of being railroaded by government AGW cultists.
Reddit is entertaining. Not the post, the comments.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Toyota/comments/1qxmm7l/congrats_on_the_new_ride/
+1 for the “Huge… tracts of land” gif
Fucking Tacoma owners…
Maybe the GOP majority that is currently in power right now, could pass some legislation to head off any future EO’s/rulemaking?
Maybe the carmakers will tell CARB to pound sand. Just as likely.
Wish they would. I’d like to see more carmakers start making vehicles like this
Cheap utilitarian trucks/cars.
Every time I think that Mpls AWFL’s can’t get any worse, they say “hold my yoga mat”.
I’m so happy I am retired and don’t have to worry about being in a work situation with people like this. If I had been the yoga worker, I would have started canceling memberships right there and then. Of course, my satisfaction would have been short-lived. By next week these harpies would have been complaining about living in a yoga desert and demanding the Feds give subsidies to make sure there were yoga studios in every neighborhood.
Which would inevitably lead to Somali run “Yoga Stetching Centers” to the tune of another $3B.
Protected by a shield of righteous invulnerability.
I see stories like this and wonder why a lot of men are choosing to stay unmarried. These gals all seem like a catch.
I’m reading stoic and had something to say, but as typing I’m casually watching Slap Shot in the background.. Know of, never watched. And it’s 2:30, and Paul Newman’s in bed with a chick and we get full tittays. And fuck and queer and all language is a-ok. This is like that one time I saw a legit tobacco commercial with smoking, cherries, everything. (Still haven’t seen that one again.) I strongly approve of this.
That girl went on about a violent encounter after her lesbionics with another chick. IFC, the channel. I suppose it *is* Friday, that matters later, methinks. Huh. Thought that was rather odd, queer, I’d normally say, but it wasn’t that. Will not change channel.
I love hockey, but was never overly impressed with that movie.
It does have its moments though.
I laughed my ass off when Paul Newman got the goalie of the other team (husband to the woman paul was in bed with) so mad he left the goal during the game.
You will never look at Ralphie’s mom the same way again.
You are looking at Ralphie’s Mom’s titties. Makes you want to play “hockey”, eh?
So…. the huge scandal of the day is that Trump posted a photo of 2 gorillas with the Obama’s heads pasted on.
I was challenged to explain why he would do such a thing, and I got nothing. I do not see the 4D chess angle to this one. I didnt dive any deeper than just saying “yeah, I got no idea on that one”.
Anyone have rational thoughts on this one?
Watch the whole video. Biden appears as a monkey eating a banana. Jeffries is a Lemur.
Is that in the part Trump posted? Or did he just clip the Obamas?
For those who are a bit younger, Howard Cosell was the biggest name in sports broadcasting. Probably the biggest name in all TV news/sports save Walter Cronkite. He was covering the Washington Redskins and said a player jumped around like a monkey and that was that. His career was essentially over. He didnt even mean it with any racial connotations.
That is how long this has been a “zero tolerance” 3rd rail. Any comparison of a black person to a monkey of any sort for any reason has been deemed racism Per Se ever since.
The video is a minute long. The Obamas are about five seconds of it. You also won’t find anything other than a screen shot of the Obamas in the news coverage.
“Look at that little monkey run!” His defense was that was also what he called his grand kids.
Trump’s an asshole? But then you knew that.
He definitely has zero fucks in his bag.
Seems the most logical. It’s working its laser-pointer magic on the cats out there. ‘Everyone’s depicted as animals! We’re all primates! I’m the lion, King of the Jungle cuz I’m President!’
That’d be consistent, and it’s certainly working.
See also: Slow news day. *Checks AP* Yep.
The whole video is a Lion King parody. Several Dems appear as other animals, Trump is a lion. Kind of an own goal, not as terrible as it sounds, but this is Trump right?
My ongoing frustration with people, and particularly the press, is that nobody applies critical thinking or looks beyond the surface. Nobody asks the right questions.
Right now we have Epstein emails. Everyone is desperately looking for the names of recognizable partisans they can use to tar the other side, even if there is nothing to it. I have seen many stories that list horrible allegations from the emails, then list (famous Trump supporter) because he received an innocuous email.
This is silly, but it seems to be working, at least on the housewives.
But I keep seeing emails with possibly damning content with the sender or recipient redacted.
So Elon says “when is a good time to come for a party?” and his name stays on the email.
But somebody else sends an email to Epstein that says “pizza”…. and his name is redacted?
WTF??
Nobody asks the question: who redacted that name? Why? Who told them to?
These are the salient questions. Who cares about Pam Bondi. Let’s talk to the FBI and DOJ guys who gave been making these decisions.
I made basically the same argument after Trump got shot. The head of the secret service came out and said they didnt have anyone on that roof because it was too steep.
And the only follow-up was to demand her resignation.
Obviously she didnt know anything. Clearly someone told her that this was the reason.
But nobody even asked “who told you that?”
That was the person we needed to talk to.
We never did.
We never talked to the guy who decided to make the security zone into a big circle… but then exclude the one area with high ground, a building and a clean line of sight to the podium.
I am tired and frustrated with the level of idiocy. Even our senators and congressmen refuse to ask salient questions.
Who told Noem that Pretti was “brandishing a gun?” I know “journalists” immediately demand answers but usually the best thing for executives is to say “we are looking into what happened.”
I’ve been thinking about this too. All we need is for people to start applying these rules: 1) There are two sides to every story, and 2) The first report is almost always wrong. That shouldn’t be controversial. But social media has broken people’s brains, and most people are trained to think the opposite.
The whole Obama video..
Racist-in-Chief
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the clip before it was deleted, saying “please stop the fake outrage.”
Leavitt said it was from an “internet meme” that depicted Trump as king of the jungle while Democrats were shown as characters from The Lion King. Trump’s clip did not include any of the longer video Leavitt referred to, which also includes other Democrats, such as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, depicted as animals.
The racist trope depicting Black people as apes or animals has historically been used to dehumanize Black people and to justify slavery.
These people are more fun than a barrel of monkeys.
It’s worse if it’s real outrage.
Lol.
When you have nothing left, attack Trump:
https://holdtheline.org.uk/
We are all monkeys.
True. You cannot evolve out of a clade.
We are also fishes.
My stoic ratchet has clicked another interesting notch, awaiting orientation Monday for the gas gig at Meijer. I’m down for morning shift PT, and I’ll see how that discussion goes. Thought process: Get Sundays off to maintain some idea of sanity. Four morning shifts each week, leaving more time to try and find something long-term.
Shuffled to a new holding pattern, hopefully a skotch more amiable to finding my own digs. May hear from MN Munch in a bit about her journey through the same. Being busy is so much better for folk. Idleness, workship, etc.
^^ On that, the constant ‘protesting’ crowd and their inexhaustible list of ailments and complaints, all boils down to our time of Weak People raised during the biggest explosion of wealth in the history of our species.
Getting folk to feel ‘guilty’ about it all was a remarkable trick to pull, really was. They’re ashamed enough to use violence against others to get more of what they think is deserved by them and those poor children in Africa.
The NYT has zero self awareness.
On Wednesday, The Post announced plans to move on from that legacy as part of widespread cuts to the newsroom. The layoffs, affecting more than 300 of the roughly 800 journalists at the paper, are landing hard on the local news desk, where Mr. Weil has worked since 1965. He was among those laid off, one of the last ties to the paper’s Watergate era
He Was Laid Off at The Washington Post After Working There 60 Years
Martin Weil, one of hundreds being let go at The Post, has worked on local news there since 1965, witnessing the paper’s rise and now retrenchment.
Paywall – https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/05/business/media/washington-post-martin-weil-metro.html
60 fucking years? JFC, retire already.
Or engage him as a freelancer. If he’s connected and filing stories, pay him by the story.
But he’s unionized and under contract so that’s likely not possible if he doesn’t consent.
Maybe the Post’s pension plan is even worse than the one we give the orphans?