How to Think Like a Roman Emperor
If you have anger issues, this one is a great tool (h/t mindyourbusiness.
Today’s lesson comes from: Musonious Rufus’s Lectures
We don”t know much about Rufus’s life, he was born between 20-30 AD. By the rein of Nero he was a leading Stoic teacher. He was banished twice under different Emperors. His most famous student was Epictetus and like him, Rufus did not write any of his own lessons. The lessons and fragments that remain were written by his students. We do not now when he died, but in 101 AD Pliny mentions him as deceased.
Disclaimer: I’m not your Supervisor. These are my opinions after reading through these books a few times.
That kings also should study philosophy.
1 When one of the kings from Syria once came to him (for at that time there were still kings in Syria, vassals of the Romans),[1] amongst many other things he had to say to the man were the following words in particular. Do not imagine, he said, that it is more appropriate for anyone to study philosophy than for you, nor for any other reason than because you are a king. For the first duty of a king is to be able to protect and benefit his people, and a protector and benefactor must know what is good for a man and what is bad, what is helpful and what harmful, what advantageous and what disadvantageous, inasmuch as it is plain that those who ally themselves with evil come to harm, while those who cleave to good enjoy protection, and those who are deemed worthy of help and advantage enjoy benefits, while those who involve themselves in things disadvantageous and harmful suffer punishment.
As an unimportant person, I wish the “important” people that rule our Government understood this. Instead we get evil disguised as caring and disdain for people that actually lift up others.
2 But to distinguish between good and bad, advantageous and disadvantageous, helpful and harmful is the part of none other than the philosopher, who constantly occupies himself with this very question, how not to be ignorant of any of these things, and has made it his art to understand what conduces to a man’s happiness or unhappiness. Therefore it appears that the king should study philosophy. 6Furthermore it is fitting for a king, or rather it is an absolute necessity for him, to arbitrate justice as between subjects so that no one may have more or less than his just deserts, but may receive honor or punishment as he deserves.
Marcus Aurelius, who was Emperor about 100 years after Rufus, understood this. His writings are full of reminders of what is important and telling himself how to be a good ruler and person.
3 But how would anyone who was not just ever be able to manage this? And how would anyone ever be just if he did not understand the nature of justice? Here again is a reason the king should study philosophy, for without such study it would not be plain that he knew justice and the just. For one cannot deny either that the one who has learned it will understand justice better than the one who has not learned it, or that all who have not studied philosophy are ignorant of its nature. The truth of this statement appears from the fact that men disagree and contend with one another about justice, some saying that it is here, others that it is there.
Studying something does not make one a master of the subject. Barack Obama studied the Constitution, but did not understand the underlying principle. Many people have studied things in order to find loopholes and ways to attack it. I think if a person studies Stoicism with an open mind and honest intentions, it can be beneficial, no matter their station in life.
4 Yet about things of which men have knowledge there is no difference of opinion, as for example about white and black, or hot and cold, or soft and hard, but all think the same about them and use the same words. In just the same way they would agree about justice if they knew what it was, but in their very lack of agreement they reveal their ignorance. Indeed I am inclined to think that you are not far from such ignorance yourself, and you ought therefore more than anyone else to concern yourself with this knowledge, the more disgraceful it is for a king than for a private citizen to be ignorant about justice.
So many people are ignorant about important concepts like justice. Unfortunately a lot of them are willfully so. Even so, it is possible to have honest disagreement about what constitutes justice in individual cases. The problems start when someone uses the phrase “social justice.” Once the underlying concept is changed then it becomes impossible to have honest disagreements.
I got to practice my Stoicism because the electric cooktop cracked while my wife was using it (scared the hell out of her). I had to take her to buy one and then install it. If she doesn’t find me handsome, at least she will find me handy. It wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be, although I did have to cut the hole slightly bigger to accommodate the new one.
Good Times
I’ll be on a ship all day Friday, o feel free to go off topic as soon as this drops. Although that applies to every week, I really don’t care.
It was good seeing all of the Honey Harvest folks. That is always a good time well spent with fellow miscreants.
Assuming you are MIA, but surprised you couldn’t just buy a new piece of glass. Although depending on age and how much you liked it I can see getting new one instead.
You assume much. In a third world democracy? Yeah, he’s got more records than the KGB.
It’s the attendees that make the HH a success. Good to see all the Glibs and the locals and no mud wrestling this year.
Wait, there was mud wrestling in past years?
I…ah…might pay money to see some honeys honey wrestle…
Best we can do is some fat old libertarians.
Rule 34 Bro.
Next year in Emily!
We all want to be in Emily.
No thanks, Emily is my niece.
Although that applies to every week, I really don’t care.
Yes you do
then install it. – i said this before but you dyi is stealing work from honest professionals who can install it for you
My friday evening cigar is good but not great. I blame you people
Patio is done, I shall go have a drink and smoke in a few hours. No more furniture assembly.
You need to be stoic about your vampireness that prevents you from hiking up mountains.
From Sloopy’s AP link:
This summer, the Education Department rescinded a regulation that allowed schools to gauge potential discrimination by comparing outcomes across races, such as the racial breakdown of students in advanced classes.
Allowed, as in required.
These are the times which try men’s stoicism.
Biden on practically Day One said the first duty of every government department and functionary was to root out “systemic racism”. I.e. practice racism. There was no “allow” about it.
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/cambridge-cancels-probe-into-jason-arday-hiring-will-instead-focus-on-university-support/
Of course…
This is why in Run Hide Fight: Infidels I was actively cheering on the terrorists.
#ows948 🔎 5/5 (00:41)
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
🔥 streak: 3
puzzlist.com/onewordsearch
And we have the first paradox of governance, wrapped up in a nice little bow…
I’m about to stoically open a can of whoop ass.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-allows-trump-administration-use-expanded-database-potent-rcna596611
Supreme Court allows Trump administration to use expanded database for potential voter purges
Critics have said the data could lead to U.S. citizens being kicked off the voter rolls, but the justices no
ted the law prohibits broad voter purges in the weeks leading up to an election.
You didn’t seize the opportunity to replace your cook top with gas?
Disappoint, I am.
Dive bar: The Plywood Palace
https://www.perfectduluthday.com/2026/09/15/selective-focus-moquah-bar/#more-3344380
And I thought The Huddle in north Lewiston was tiny and dive.
Holy crap. It got a roof, siding, paint, and a beer garden since I last went but. It’s presentable now. It was a dump. https://www.facebook.com/TheHuddleTavern/
Wow. That’s amazing. Shocking some nanny stater hasn’t had it shut down as a fire hazard.
It’s in an unincorporated area, right?
My first thought too Slum.
I ran across a 1%er/skinhead bar in TN running a backroad to Nashville once that looked a bit like that with a wall around it once and figured there the county wasent going to harass them for fear of being shot.
Shocking some nanny stater hasn’t had it shut down as a fire hazard.
Where are the code inspectors? That place would never pass an energy efficiency audit.
Who will need to be more stoic – the fans of ManCity with whatever trivial punishments are handed out, or the fans of the rest of the Premier League with the wristslap the team gets?
Pity party
GOP Rep. Thomas Massie (Ky.), who lost his primary to an opponent backed by President Trump, predicted a reckoning for the president and the GOP in the midterm elections.
“I think his comeuppance will happen on Election Day, and the day after I think there’s going to be a reckoning,” the Republican lawmaker said during an interview Thursday with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on “The Source.”
Massie, who was defeated in the GOP primary by Trump-backed challenger Ed Gallrein, has been an outspoken critic of the president and his administration’s policies.
Why isn’t he running as an independent to show Trump who the people really love?
Obviously, Massie wasn’t palling around with Khanna for no reason. Sorry I ever donated that the POS over the years.
Blecch. Really?
I didn’t find Ro Khanna’s name anywhere in that article. But at least we don’t do “TEAM!!!!” around here.
Gdragon gets it.
I know loss of loved ones can drastically change a person, but man…he is lashing out in some odd areas.
Massie’s prediction of election day comeuppance for Trump looks to be spot on.
Its hard to know why Repubs won’t turn out (which is really what midterms are about). Sure, the relentless propaganda about how terrible the economy is (spoiler: its actually doing OK) hurts.
The Iran adventure certainly isn’t helping. But I have to wonder if my disgust with the do-nothing, business-as-usual Repub Congress is just a “me” thing, or if maybe the reason the Congressional Repubs are going to get a beating is because they are useless.
Republicans never seem to learn they can’t win the “everyone is hurting” game – they feed into that sob-story crap every time. Like Atlas Shurgged, it becomes a game of who has it the most wretched and Dems will carry that day.
General lack of math skills also doesn’t help – during Trump’s first term they convinced the masses that they didn’t receive a tax cut and the evidence was “lower” refunds!
Massie also criticized the president’s decision to host Chinese President Xi Jinping at the White House for a lavish state dinner Thursday evening, saying it sends a “mixed message.”
“He will invite a communist to the White House, but I can’t even go there for the Christmas party,” the Republican said. “His retribution tour on Republicans, I think, stands in stark contrast to the way he’s treating the communist leader of China and also the mayor of New York.
“But you know, that’s just who he is,” Massie added. “He’s not an ideologue. He doesn’t have a true north, or honestly any kind of beliefs.”
Chin up, little buddy. Be stoic.
While he has a point about Donald’s lack of principles, surely he knows how the game is played.
Next year, the V6 is being turned up to 563 hp (420 kW), while the electric motor will be turned down from 469 hp (350 kW) to 402 hp (300 kW), except in boost mode. But making the engine more powerful means making it thirstier. Unfortunately, asking teams to redesign their cars for next year to include larger fuel tanks would be prohibitively expensive for most under the current $215 million annual cost cap and would also make the cars even larger and heavier. So this week, the F1 Commission approved a plan to shorten races next year, from 190 miles (305 km) to 180 miles (290 km). In 2028, the power units will be rebalanced again to achieve a 60:40 split.
Or you could just kill the whole electric race car stupidity, but where is the social signaling in all that?
https://arstechnica.com/cars/2026/09/formula-1-looks-at-3-0-l-v8-turbos-and-smaller-hybrids-for-2030/
In Shapira’s telling, firearms training operates as a feedback loop. Fear brings people to the classroom, and the course gives them new reasons to be afraid.
A NYT article on an “ethnographic” exploration by an associate professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin (naturally) of Texas gun owners. Paywalled and I can’t access the usual archives at work.
42 Gun-Training Classes Later, He Understands Why We’re So Afraid
More than just instruction on how to use a weapon, the courses teach a way of life, the sociologist Harel Shapira argues in “Basic Pistol.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/25/books/basic-pistol-harel-shapira-gun-training.html
“As a lesbian, I just want to exercise my rights before somebody’s coming for them,” said Elizabeth Sabatier, the nanny, who had been considering buying a gun since Donald Trump’s first presidential run in 2016.
So close to getting it.
So after six years living under the Mad King’s repression, exactly how many rights have you lost, hon?
The OMB Nazi forced lesbian breeding camp is coming, it’s almost here, it’s surely going to happen.
In 1999, only about a quarter of American gun owners said self-defense was their primary reason for owning a firearm; hunting ranked first. Today, 72 percent cite self-defense, while hunters, he writes, are a “stark minority.”
Golly, what changed?
But making the engine more powerful means making it thirstier. Unfortunately, asking teams to redesign their cars for next year to include larger fuel tanks
Nonsense. Bring back pressurized refueling rigs. Liberty Media is all about the show.
How about ripping out all the weight of the battery pack and assorted electronics?
It is absolutely perfect weather for the evacuation drill we have scheduled in seven minutes.
“As a lesbian, I just want to exercise my rights before somebody’s coming for them,” said Elizabeth Sabatier, the nanny, who had been considering buying a gun since Donald Trump’s first presidential run in 2016.
The market will be flooded with guns nobody needs anymore after AOC is inaugurated.
Paradise on earth.
It is absolutely perfect weather for the evacuation drill we have scheduled in seven minutes.
Freezing rain?
I’m also not sure if sarcasm, but being safe, I presumed volcanic rain. Ya know, the fun kind.
Unironic in this case — upper 70s and sunny.
If it ain’t raining you aint training.
Gold-digging ‘mole people’ arrested for diving into manhole near NYC hotel
Two nitwit nightcrawlers — including a particularly portly “mole person” — were busted Thursday for diving into a Manhattan manhole in a subterranean quest for precious metals, police and law-enforcement sources said.
Cops nabbed Kevin Rodriguez, 26, and Samuel Reveron, 25 – both Venezuelan citizens – near their Queens homes in connection to a surreal pre-dawn Wednesday sewer escapade just steps from the Loews Regency New York on the Upper East Side.
The strange shenanigans could end up shedding light on the motivations of mysterious “mole people” spotted popping out of sewers — as Reveron admitted to fishing for gold in the city’s steamy depths, prosecutors said.
“We go into the sewers to look for valuables that go into the sewer drains,” he allegedly told a police officer, according to prosecutors.
==
I’d like to write for the Post. It’s like they have a quota for fun per article. In other news, I’d think the denizens of NYC would kinda give a shit that there are legit sewer people living underneath them. But, NYC. Apparently, Ghostbusters: Lite is too tame. Well, the knob goes to 11.
https://nypost.com/2026/09/25/us-news/gold-digging-mole-people-busted-for-diving-into-manhole-near-nyc-hotel/
I remember when they were destroying street lights in order to get at copper wire.
🙄
They should add “there is no gold in the sewers” to those pamphlets that they hand out to our new friends at the border in addition to “don’t rape the natives”.
They are Foot Clan ninjas hunting turtles.
I thought everyone knew that.
C.H.U.D.s
Susan Collins does not impress me as being smart enough to run an effective corruption scheme, but what do I know?
There’s also that whole “institutional knowledge” thing.
Attn: Monocle people:
I just pushed 4.18.0 to dev:
– Removed Nitter rewriting (R.I.P.)
– if the windows is un-hidden (made active tab, browser un-minimized, etc.), it will poll for new comments right-away instead of just resuming the prior sleep cycle – should be more responsive.
I’ll test with some other browsers later – so far, so good in Helium (Chrome)
Moral turpitude clause?
The CEO of U.S.-based credit union Family First is no longer with the company, days after she posted an allegedly artificial intelligence-edited photo of her family with “Lake America” sweatshirts.
On Wednesday, a statement posted on the credit union’s website revealed that Jane Smith was no longer with Family First “effective immediately,” with Chief Operations Officer Jason Acosta serving as interim CEO. It was signed by Maurice Patterson, chairman of the Family First Credit Union board, and Acosta.
Family First did not state that if the reaction was the reason for Smith leaving, even though the credit union posted on Thursday that “we sincerely apologize for the concern, disappointment and pain this situation has caused our members and community.”
You wouldn’t want people to get some crazy idea bankers have a sense of humor.
A new Fall of Civilizations video just came out on YT…Reeeee!!!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wP14-UMT3dk&pp=0gcJCS8MAYcqIYzv
Never heard of Majapahit but will watch. Best historical documentaries I’ve seen anywhere.
Minor financial miscalculation
Tim Hynes, who is head of Global Credit Research at Debtwire, said Brightline’s current ridership of about 3.5 million people a year that generates about $240 million of revenue is less than half the number of riders and one-third of the revenue the railroad predicted in 2024. He said that’s why Brightline needed to rework its debt and obtain additional financing.
“The broader lesson is that intercity rail financed mainly with private high-yield debt is very hard to make work, so expect future projects to lean more on public money,” said Hynes, who also thinks investors will demand more conservative ridership forecasts.
We all know the answer can never be to stop building these money sink boondoggles.
Wouldn’t a dishonest forecast of future ridership in service of attaining loans be good old timey fraud? Then again, an honest accounting will result in none of this nonsense getting built, with private funds anyway.
“”The broader lesson is that intercity rail…. is very hard to make work,“
Rail in general.
All the Get on the TrAiNZ people were pushing that boondoggle as being amazing because “see even the private sector knows rail is the future.” I argued with these idiots years ago when I had social media knowing it was going to fail.
The economics of passenger rail simply don’t work. They are as steadfast as entropy.
The bankruptcy filing comes as Brightline West, a separate but related business entity, continues seeking funding to complete an equally ambitious plan to connect Southern California and Las Vegas with high-speed rail.
In Southern California, the line will begin at a new station in Rancho Cucamonga, where it will connect with existing Metrolink service in the Inland Empire and Los Angeles County.
Trains will reach speeds of up to 200 mph as they travel 218 miles between Southern California and the Las Vegas Strip, with stops in Hesperia and Victor Valley, according to Brightline.
Wheeeeeee!