We still haven’t figured out how to democratize democracy. We have an app for everything. Why can’t I tell my representatives what my opinions are on more nuanced issues? Why can’t I have an app that shows me how the city is spending money?

Most of political discourse is posturing by a political class. They should be teaching constituents about the pros and cons of an argument rather than spend money on showing the lack of virtue in each other. Who cares that the other guy is divorced. I need them to do their jobs.

Ah… i’m getting too old for this. I’m going back to my hobby. Making hand crafted guillotines.

Thank you.

Also for those listening in. Marcus Aurelius had a 20+ year education as a Stoic philosopher. A Hellenic school of philosophy that taught you how to think about your life and every day decisions. Its something that can still be understood today so you can reach your own conclusions in life rather than following Marcus’ even.

I realize now I wrote that comment as a response for someone else and accidentally posted it to you. There isn't a single thing you said I disagree with even though I started with "I think its more that..." which implies I took a different take than you. Not the case. My bad.

I agree with the premise and conclusion.

It already happened. Unconcious bias for facial recognition software to have a higher probability in recognizing white faces over black and brown and asian faces.

The error was in the sample data used to do machine learning.

No intentional evil was done. And the AI itself can’g be “blamed” for drawing conclusions based on what its taught. An AI can only ever conclude what it thinks is good. Just like in Arendt’s argument.

I think its more that the nazi’s thought they were the good guys, genuinely rather than people doing evil for the sake of evil.

The cognitive error Arendt based it on was Eichmann’s trial in Jeruzalem. Eichmann was responsible for the orchestration of the logistics of the holocaust.

Eichmann’s values were that efficiency is good. A good work ethic is good. That’s the way to move up in the world and provide for your family. That’s the way to fit in and become homogeneous with your community.

The cognitive dissonance of the evil his actions were causing was pushed down and abstracted away on paper and numbers and quotas.

Similarly, someone might say a drone pilot pressing a button on his joystick causing children to die in collateral damage isn’t “evil”. Well it is to some. Others are just trying to do a good job.

My examples are imperfect, but the premise of her argument is that nobody is capable of assenting to a judgement they think is evil. Everyone assents to doing “good” at some level.

Her paper was intentionally controversial and was not meant as an excuse for the holocaust.

The ancient Stoics agree with you, I think.

Stoics do have desires and aversions. Its just that they rationalize its healthier to try to divert them to things they can fully control.

Lets take a tennis match. What don’t you control? How good your opponent is, wether you’re on top of your game on the day of the match and wether you win.

Placing your desire in winning and your aversion in losing would not be ideal.

Instead you can try to be consciously intentional about placing your desire in putting in training a couple of times a week, eating healthy, and intentionally trying to play the best possible game ever.

“I lost and this is the worst thing ever” becomes “I lost but I’m proud of the effort I put in and losing to a better opponent is a reasonable way to lose”.

With deep I mostly meant there is a richness in material to the philosophy from the original ancients that has survived. And then a richness in material that has been written about it since. Including criticism.

> Metaphysical bullshit

Its a wild ride that part. Its also interesting to read how people try to reconcile that part as Christians, atheists, bhuddists and so on.

The creator of modern cognitive behavioural therapy, Aaron Temkin Beck, directly attributes the therapy to the Stoic disciplines of passion, action and assent. And CBT is objectively helping tens of thousands every day. CBT in essence proves that there are parts of Stoicism that hold true even if their metaphysical ideas didn’t stand the test of science.

> The stoics thought owning a cup was extravagant

Can you tell me more on how you’ve come to think that? I understood that sentiment to be the school of cynicism instead.

> pop philosophy

When a real crisis comes and all the one liners and motivational memes fall through the cracks, some people do make it down to the source material because they need more.

> pretend to be a stoic

Even in the ancient writings they acknowledge the “sage” as more of an untenable ideal rather than a real person. Socrates’ name comes up in that context of someone worth looking up to but even he was not a sage. When does a person become the label I wonder.

I think a lot of folks are more Epicurean in their philosophy of life without knowing it. The Stoics themselves borrowed a lot from what their rival school had to offer as well.

I am still in the phase myself on studying the differences between the two more thoroughly.

Seneca himself often quotes Epicurus positively. By way of example:

> “Quite possibly you’ll be demanding to know why I’m quoting so many fine sayings from Epicurus rather than ones belonging to our own school. But why should you think of them as belonging to Epicurus and not as common property?” - Seneca’s Letters

This is just a quote from Seneca but Stoicism is a deep personal virtue ethics on how to live a tranquil life with joy.

Its worth looking into. But its one of those things that requires study as well as practice.

This is impossible advice. Gratefulness is an emotion which is a judgement that follows from a thought. You can can’t control emotions otherwise you could just learn to “be happy”. Got cancer? Just be grateful. Its impossible.

The only way out of this is carefully examining our thoughts and our judgements because more often than not they are irrational to some degree.

Pretending tomorrow you will have what you need so just be grateful is as useful as hope. There’s a reason the ancient greeks described hope as a curse because they saw it caused inaction among people.

So i see the advice here as more of a shorthand: if you have impressions of a situation that lead to anger, anxiety, or fear; then examine them carefully. Perhaps your judgements don’t make sense.

Time to read some Epictetus. The ancient Stoics teach us that anger, anxiety or fear are always irrational and why.

Wow you can write a novel and i’d read it