Will the fashion for Stoicism ever end? I've read Marcus Aurelius and Seneca's letters and found them of little interest (not that this impacts on the matter). Given what you said, can an ordinary plonker be a Stoic, or is that just a middle-class lifestyle fantasy? — Tom Storm

:up: I admit I came at this thread with a misconception. However, after reading some definitions, and some of the posts of those who either pretend to stoicism, or who have redefined it, I'm pretty much "meh" about it. I see great opportunity for a fallacy of gravitas to find a home in it.

think your belief is limiting your ability to understand the change in organizational power that comes with adopting the German model of bureaucracy and the education that goes with it. — Athena

My belief is not limiting my ability to understand your continued reference to the German model of bureaucracy. Did you know that this is like the fifth time you've brought this model up? And did you notice that not one single time did I disagree with your historical lessons regarding this model? You know why I have not disagreed? Because, assuming you are correct:

1. At no time in history did people, the family, or the community sit down and say "Hey, let's impose upon ourselves the German model of bureaucracy. You know, just for fun! Because, what the hell; we'd like to be oppressed by our own government."
2. At no time in history did the people's government sit down and say "Hey, let's impose the German model of bureaucracy on the people. You know, just because we're sadistic and we want a more efficient way to screw with our people."

Your belief that big government is the problem is limiting your ability to understand how and why the change in organizational power came about in the first place, and how it is maintained.

Follow the money.

Who pays for the campaigns of the politicians? Who pays for the lobbyists who wine and dine those politicians? Who can afford to do that? Do you think they spend countless billions of dollars buying politicians, drafting self-serving legislation and regulations, supporting bureaucratic red tape to strangle would-be up-and-coming competition, and otherwise molding their subsidiary (government) because it doesn't work? Because they just like throwing money around for nothing? Who said money = speech? Speech is free. What money = is being heard. The Plutocracy is speaking and the government is listening.

So you see, I can stipulate to all your alleged evils of big government and all your stuff about 1958 and Germans and Prussians and Ike, and whatever. It doesn't matter. It's not the fault of big government. It's the fault of those who own and operate big government. And guess what? That is not the people, the family, or the community. The fault lies squarely at the feet of those who stand between the people and their operation and control of big government.

Tocqueville foresaw a change, away from family order to bureaucratic order. Do you have any thoughts on what makes the two possible forms of social organization different? — Athena

See above.

That defines the enemy we fought against. Then we turned around and adopted this enemy's bureaucratic organization and later the enemy's education for technology for industrial and military purpose. — Athena

No, we didn't fight against an enemy and then turn around and adopt the enemy's org. The enemy never lost because we had our eye on the wrong enemy. And the enemy likes it that way.

People who blame big government are a Plutocrat's wet dream. They love it when they aren't under the spotlight.

This sounds very esoteric and it is: but IF (just as a thought experiment) logic is actually evil are some truths not understandable to us because they need to be protected from us? — FalseIdentity

That is possible. But it's also possible that, as they say in Maine when asked for directions: "You can't get there from here." I think that it all becomes clear when we die. But for now, we are, relatively, deaf, dumb and blind.

:up:

Alas, we are not. — Michael Zwingli

Sad, but true. The only slight glimmer is youth (and maybe women). I like the 2015 movie Tomorrowland" with George Clooney. Short of something like that, we're screwed. The Earth, however, will carry on with a "Meh."

I didn't watch the video. Maybe later.

So my first complaint is that logic pretends to be something that it is not (a universal key to truth - this it is clearly not). — FalseIdentity

I don't know if logic pretends to that, but either way, it clearly is not the universal key to truth. Logic is based upon a gentlemen's agreement regarding it's three fundamental principles. But if you don't agree with any one of those premises, then logic remains the tool for those who do agree.

Are there any thought shools that attack logic? — FalseIdentity

I don't know about schools, but I have attacked it. I merely use one of the principles of logical argument, placing the burden of proof upon logic to prove it's principles. In other words, I refuse to accept it's premises, as it advises that I should do. It's only response, to date, has been "But I (logic) can't prove a negative" (which means logic is based upon something that can't be proven) or "It's self-evident" (which means logic can't see what it can't see, even if others can. Besides, where is a non-anecdotal lesser proof?).

Did you say I do not understand how government works? — Athena

Read what I said again: "can and should."

If you keep blaming big government instead of those who use it as their personal tool, then you clearly don't know how it can or should work. Did they teach you about how money buys government? Or did they just teach you that we live in a democracy/republic/federal system and all the good little citizens are in charge and actually slitting their own throats with their own government for some silly reason?

You keep raising 1958, the German model, bureaucracy, etc., as if government is this thinking individual evil person who pulled all that out of thin air as a way to better manage the serfs. I keep telling you to quit doing what the Plutocracy has trained you to do: blame big government, so you don't focus on what they are up to. It's like taking a gun and throwing it in jail while letting the shooter walk. It's like the shooter saying "Don't blame me, blame the gun!" And then you are like "Well, let's render the gun inoperable and all will be fine." It makes no sense.

Thanks for the education on Alexis, et al. I digested all that forty years ago. I'm looking at what is happening in the U.S. today. It's the same thing that has been happening for over a hundred years. It is not what you find in Poly Sci text books on forms of "government."

I don't have any good answers for this, but it seems like a bit of a problem. — Michael Zwingli

Agreed. I've long been an advocate of drastic population reduction (for environmental reasons). But I would not want to return to disparate groups of people scattered around the world in isolation. We'd just start the same roll all over again if that happened. We need to progress, forward, and grow smarter and wiser, not bigger. I don't see that happening but if we were all we crack ourselves up to be, then we could figure it out.

:smile:

There are a couple of things at play here. We can start with sheer population growth. To have a larger population without a larger government would be an interesting trick that I would like to see performed on some other group that wanted it. We can observe and see how that works out for them. But human nature has me not wanting to participate in the experiment.

Another concern is the same issue that I see with Athena: A continued focus on government itself, while giving a pass to the actors who have purchased the government; and who have it do it's bidding, run interference for them, and keep the population off balance so they can continue their idea of what constitutes "government". Some times that includes tossing a bone or some bread and circuses, but the the real goal is to walk that tight rope between keeping the cow alive and producing, right at the margin of bovine health. This results in virtually all of the problems you mention in the back-and-forth of government getting torn between caring for the cow and keeping the farmer from killing it. Meanwhile, the farmer just wants to make sure the cow doesn't kill him.

To the extent the U.S. government has always been a good faith actor, it is due to the few remaining glimmers of democracy that twinkle under the ever-growing cover of Plutocratic darkness. That darkness does not want community any more than a conservative wants their child to return from college with enlightenment. Produce, consume, shut up. Community is getting together to rail against government. That is the kind of community the Plutocrats support.

[Side bar: Did Venezuela fail because democratic socialism is inherently flawed? Or did it fail because external bad actors were ostracizing it on the outside and fucking with it on the inside? (Agent provocateurs, CIA BS, etc.) I think the latter. And those same tactics are used here at home.]

As far is privacy is concerned, I like to draw on an old health care example: I absolutely supported the confidentiality of me and my family's personal medical information . . . when I thought the health insurance industry was going to use it against me or mine. But once pre-existing conditions were met, caps were removed, and conditions covered, I supported the widespread dissemination of my private medical information to every freaking nurse and doctor on the planet. I'm always surprised out how there is no centralized data base somewhere that a doctor in Timbukto could pull up and consult if I get hauled in for treatment. I'm always surprised that I have to remember what happened to me 30 years ago, or what my ancestors experienced in the way of cancer or whatever.

My point here is, the only people who give a shit about your personal information are those who can or would use it against you. That is only government when government is controlled by money and not people. We, as individuals, just aren't that important for government to spy upon us unless government is controlled by bad actors. That is an absence of community right there. Community helps people. And community also recognizes the desire of someone to be left alone if they want. But being left alone might entail a limitation on access to community resources. Don't want to pay taxes? Fine, but stay off the roads the community built, etc.

I have a friend who works for FINCEN. They track every transaction of $10k. This is designed to track money laundering, drug and human trafficking, etc. In other words, it is designed to neuter cartel activity. Cartels are the other side of the Plutocratic coin: both leave the other alone to their shenanigans (caveat below) while maintaining government to do their dirty work and serve as a punching bag or foil. Both will cause government to fail in this or that provision of services, then provide that service and endear themselves to the "community". Anyway, I digress. What I'm getting at is, I don't know why the IRS is planning to snoop on yet even smaller transactions, but it will only be for nefarious reasons if government itself is working for Plutocrats or cartels. When the tug of war gets too close to the margins, then the Plutocracy will use government to pursue the the cartels. But those cartels are just wannabe Plutocrats so they have their own struggles.

The point being, if people want small government they should work toward a small population. If they want responsive government, they need to wrest control back to themselves.

I might agree with James Riley about the importance of community within a tribalistic or small communistic context, but within the context of "the state", the word "community" loses all of it's meaning, since the state makes all of the claims upon the individual that the community once did. This claiming obscures the fact that there is no true community within the context of the state. In the end, all who buy into the state's remonstration about "community" are left as no more than isolated individuals dependent upon and utilizing the state's willingness to mediate all traditional community functions in the creation of a type of "community by proxy", which leaves the state as the intermediary and arbiter of all function. — Michael Zwingli

That makes a lot of sense. I just think it's never been tried here, and where it has been tried (almost every first world ally we have) it beats the hell out of what we have now. The "state" will indeed make demands on the citizens, but the citizen will be making demands too. In fact, citizens are now making demands but they are drowned out by counter-democratic marginalizing and division techniques of the Plutocracy and their foreign allies like Russia.

But here's the upshot, for me anyway: After what we just went through, and what I perceive to be as the accelerating vortex, I'm willing to throw what is left to lose on the table with a roll of the dice. I know I'm not the one to suffer the most if it fails, but who dares wins. Go Bernie! Go AOC! What we usher in could be better than what our allies have.

YMMV.

:100:

Now that is ignorance of a different kind.
Bye. — Amity

Almost as ignorant as this:

Answers to be in essay form. Minimum word count = 200. — Amity

Prego.

Adios, MFr.

Maybe if such people would've survived they may have changed what they thought. Probably not. — Manuel

The real tell is when it's not them, but someone they love dearly. And even worse, when they counseled their loved one to eschew medical help. How do they go around in denial after that? I'm not a shrink so I guess it's out of my wheelhouse to understand such insanity.

But I challenge myself against myself already, and have been for years and years. You see, I'm not just an autodidact, but I also solidify those new memories by writing about them in multiple types of different ways. — Lindsay

:strong: :fire: :cheer: I'm wanting to be better at that. I want to try the parable, the story. Sometimes those are more persuasive, and work like a seed. That different angle might also help me refine my own thinking on an issue.

This is why people who do change their minds later on in life, come about it, frequently, after some kind of traumatic experience. — Manuel

:100: :up: But there are always those who refuse to change their minds. I hear there are folks who, before dying of Covid, insist that Covid is not real. Stupid doctors; they must be part of the big conspiracy.

Yeah, and Liz Cheney ought to run for POTUS. Not to drive a wedge and sink the party, but to offer real Republicans an avenue to redeem themselves and return to the United States. I disagree with her on most all things, but she's more conservative than Trump, more Republican than Trump, more honest than Trump, more honorable than Trump, has bigger balls than Trump, has more integrity than Trump, has more dignity than Trump and she's not as big an asshole as Trump.

Never mind. Fuck Republicans. She should run to drive a wedge and sink the party.

So, from a position of ignorance ? — Amity

Misconception does not equal ignorance.

And no interest ? — Amity

I had an interest, but not enough to pursue it once I cleared up my misconception.

That's fine too. — Amity

Thanks!

Honestly, I think most people prefer NOT TO BE challenged. — Lindsay

I think a lot of it has to do with how the challenge is presented, and who presents it. I like the way Socrates challenged people with questions. I also think he was, on the whole, polite. But when I think of how many so-called "journalists" ask their "gotcha" questions, I can see why that asshole Trump got some traction. Sometimes it takes an asshole to realign an asshole. Hopefully, after the dust up, we can return to civilized discourse based upon sincere intellectual curiosity.

An asshole will often claim to be an asshole to see how the person they are dealing with will respond under pressure. It's the old "How are you going to deal with world leader despots and tough characters if you can't handle questions from little old me?" But that's BS. World leader despots and tough characters still understand diplomacy and don't act like petulant, obstinate little bitches. Besides, it's disingenuous to feign a question.

Anyway, I'm waxing on too much. You get the gist. If a challenger is in sincere search of understanding, he/she can spend a little time figuring out the best way to elicit and honest, well-though-out response. But their presentation can say more about their preference not to be challenged than the preferences of those they challenge. Look not only at the subject of the interrogatory, but also at the interrogator.

Good for you. — Amity

Thanks!

Why not ? They got a living to make. — Amity

I was operating under a misconception about what stoicism was/is.

But the word "magic" triggered "snake oil", and snake oil triggered "selling. — Caldwell

:ok: I guess the context from my other posts was missing.

I don't believe those explanations and think things are more complex than those simple beliefs of evil powers. — Athena

To each his own. Nothing is more simple or lacking in complexity than pointing a finger at "big government" with no understanding of how governments can and should work. How the Plutocracy prevents that understanding is anything but simple, and they even have people thinking big government is evil. But yeah, you can keep following their lead if you want.

For anyone interested, starts online tomorrow ! — Amity

I'll take my lead from Sa-go-ye-wat-ha for the time being.

On the off chance the Stoics are "selling" something, it's not magic they're selling, but how to deal with the practical concerns of daily life and the world. — Caldwell

I hope you didn't think I used the word "selling." As evidenced from my post, quite the opposite. I may have been wrong regarding their alleged concern with how to deal with the practical concerns of daily life (I though they were beyond that BS) but I certainly never considered a stoic as concerned with selling.

“Right to work” — AFL-CIO

I live in a RTW state. RTW for starvation wages so the tax payers pick up the tab with food stamps and the Plutocrats laugh all the way to where ever they feel like.

That was not within the power of a plutocracy. — Athena

Everything except time and nature is within the power of the Plutocracy. And they are fighting those, too.

I think that needs to be clarified by saying most educated men. — Athena

:up:

immaturity — I like sushi

On the other hand:

If it were not for government contracts there would not be so much wealth. This is one of the biggest problems with big government! There is virtually no control of the money. — Athena

There is no problem with big government. The problem is those who own and operate it. And that is not the people. That is the Plutocracy. And make no mistake about it: They control the money.

Corporate personhood should NOT exist legally because a corporation is not a person.

All human beings should have the right to unionize just as capitalists have a right to form corporations. — Athena

:100: :up:

P.S. People do have the right to unionize. Unfortunately, they don't have a right to prevent scabs or other efforts by the Plutocracy to increase the labor supply, thus reducing demand and value of labor. They just run over seas to the billions of people getting 30 cents an hour. The Plutocracy's rising tide lifts Chinese boats.

Joe doesn't grab 'em by the pussy. That's cool with evangelical Christians now. So is cheating, dishonor, lying, cowardice, and vanity. Oh, how times change. Wipe your ass with the bible and you're in like flint.

Maybe the Roman Catholic Church itself. Seems like they are the ones that have fallen, relatively.



I don't know either one of these guys, but I just listened to both and I can see a strong resemblance. But I've got a tin ear and don't know shit about music.

as arms buildup can happen without any actual conflicts. — ssu

You just followed the money. The MIC is all about $. That's why Joe Manchin will support a $7t bill for the MIC but not a $3.5t bill for the people.

Also, as to the media:

Mine is more noise-reduction than anything else. — Manuel

It's a noisy world and it's good to disconnect. For me, it's reconnecting with the non-human environment that brings the peace.

Off the top of my head, my speculation would be that not all these people were necessarily ignored or abused by family. Maybe a good deal of them, but not all. — Manuel

Part of the same media tilt that I critique is that these guys were the victims of bullying. In fact, I thought a lot of the nation wide anti-bullying campaign arose out of, and was designed to avoid these situations where guys went on killing sprees or, committed suicide. "See that kid eating alone at lunch? Go try to befriend him" (The unspoken part: "or he'll kill you or himself.") I think the guys at Columbine that started the whole thing claim to have been bullied. Anyway, I don't claim to be an expert. I'm just running with the MSM like I say should not be done. :grin:

If these fictions begin telling someone that life is totally meaningless ergo I have to kill people to prove the point, then it's a problem. — Manuel

Not that anyone on TPF is like that, but when I first arrived there were a lot of dark, hopeless views being expressed. They sounded more suicidal than homicidal, but who knows where the line is. It's also hard to tell what is a phase (gothing out in black, piercing, etc.) and what is some real serious mental issues. Either way, I know it cannot help to have a pack engaged in dog-pilling on these kids. I hate packs. Even if the loner is an asshole who deserves to be ostracized. I like people who befriend the lonely who don't want to be alone, as well as those who stand up to the pack when they see them bullying.

This quoted part though can be tricky. We also know of many "loners" (or whatever word we want to use) which end up shooting people at school. They'll do something perhaps analogous in other countries, less scale involved, but destructive acts nonetheless. So I wonder what word to use for these cases. — Manuel

Three things come to mind:
1. How many of those loners were victims of a pack that was not restrained by a real leader, or by a community that had been built or organized?
2. While it is entirely possible that there is a link between shooters and being loners, I wonder if that link is like the one between violent video games and violence. I'm not sure, but last I heard, that link was found to not be causal.
3. How many shooters were not loners? We can't call every criminal who acts alone a loner unless and until we find out if they had a social life outside the crime they happened to commit alone.

P.S. Regarding the last, I don't always trust the MSM's lead on these things. A "loner" sounds more like a news lead than a socially functional type. It fits a narrative.

I've seen the "pack mentality" in action. When I used that term, I thought I better go look it up. The definition I found off a quick search: "Pack mentality (also known as herd mentality, mob mentality, or gang mentality), unlike community-building, is defined by elements of hostility and fear: If you're within the pack, you better play by the rules or risk getting kicked out. If you're outside of the pack, you're the enemy and not to be trusted."

While that all may be true (no doubt it is), that is not what I was getting at when I use the term. I've seen the pack mentality and how it manifests in encouraging a group to engage in bad acts. I've seen men do in groups things they would never do alone, and they would never want their mother to know they had done. They do to women that which they would never permit to be done to their sisters or daughters.

It takes a man of real character and integrity to turn the momentum once it gets started. And it usually requires a man of substantial physical capabilities and fearlessness that are well known to the pack. Such men are rare. In fact, it is often the case where such a man (but lacking in the character and integrity), uses his prowess to lead the pack.

That is one reason I am, for all practical purposes, a loner. I don't have what it takes to turn the momentum and so I steer clear of the BS in the first place. But I know it is going on out there. And our sole line of defense is that rare man, law enforcement, or the military. God help us when a POS is in those institutions, and where the blue or green wall has them packing up against those they are charged with protecting; covering for each other.

We saw it on January 6th. That incident gave me a whole new appreciation for "community-building" and Obama's community organizing.

A prime example of the cowardice involved in the pack mentality are those who disparage the community organizer/builder. It's a bully thing. I'm afraid it is not uncommon. That is why leadership is so, so important. If you have a leader that plays into the pack mentality, you have an enemy of the people.

One of the few things on Earth that I am afraid of is the pack. When I see a loner, I don't see a serial killer or a whack job. I see someone minding their own business and someone who presents no threat to the security of a free state. It is people that present the threat.

Do you think 100 billion dollars in assets can be morally accumulated? I do not. — Bitter Crank

Neither do I. In America, we have this notion of "deserve" which is often tied to having worked hard, or worked smart, or having worked hard and smart. We also have a high tolerance for "luck", as in the lottery. But the lucky usually pay taxes. Those who work hard also pay taxes.

Those who work smart think it's smart to legally avoid taxes. Indeed, they shovel a percentage of their gains into lobbying for legislation which makes as much tax avoidance as possible legal. So, basically, we need to do two things: 1. Amend the laws and apply a progressive tax with deductions limited to proven investment into something that benefits everyone except for the would-be taxpayer; and 2. Enact claw-back provisions for anyone who would try to run or hide, especially when they see #1 pending. This would include civil, peaceful means, of course. Followed by draconian criminal pursuit. Followed lastly be Tier One Operators rolling these ex pat criminals up in the middle of the night and spiriting them off to black sites for "enhanced interrogation" regarding where they stashed our money.

It's good for people to understand civic responsibility.

Follow the money.

hereas with Republicans, it's just crazy bullshit -- you never see them proposing raising taxes or more regulations or anything like that. — Xtrix

Yeah, they don't have to pay for their spending. They run the deficit up, ruin America, turn it over to the Ds to clean up, rinse, repeat. D's are like the dutiful housewife. So what incentive do the Rs have to act responsibly? They go low and we tie our hands behind our backs.

Is it really going to take violence to get people to listen? — Xtrix

Works for them. Word on the street was indeed these men and women were receiving threats of physical violence against themselves or their families. And they don't run to John Law because the threat included a prohibition against that, too.

The left doesn't have it in them to do that. Besides, most of them forfeited their trump card that made any threat a substantial or credible one. They are left with sticking flowers in the muzzles of the right and praying.

I think the left does have a breaking point, but it will be too late. Hitler's victims had a breaking point, too. But they waited too long and got on the trains anyway. After all, no one could be *that* evil, could they? It's just puffing, right?

Do you mean Adams Smith's book The Wealth of Nation's? — Athena

Same guy. But he was not alone. Most men of the Enlightenment were headed down a liberal, if not radical road.

difference between socialism and capitalism — Athena

First, we, as a society, need to distinguish between true capitalism and the faux shit spouted by today's self-identified capitalists who are quick to socialize their costs, hide behind big government's skirts, and refuse to take personal responsibility for their own actions.

Once we understand that difference, then the only objection a socialist might have to capitalism is how the capitalist came into possession of "his" personal property in the first place.

I think we can assume he was not a liberal when it comes to property rights. — Athena

Private property rights is one of the primary liberal tenets. They were further caveated by Smith and other capitalists with the notion of "enlightened" self-interest. Don't milk your cow to death.