“Prefer knowledge to wealth, for the one is transitory, the other perpetual.”
― Socrates
― Socrates
“That night, in the dark, dressed to kill, I lost my life—and became twenty forever.”
― Pat Henshaw, The Vampire's Food Chain
― Pat Henshaw, The Vampire's Food Chain
Walt Whitman on Democracy and Optimism as a Mighty Form of Resistance::
“I can conceive of no better service… than boldly exposing the weakness, liabilities and infinite corruptions of democracy.”
“Progress is never permanent, will always be threatened, must be redoubled, restated and reimagined if it is to survive,” Zadie Smith wrote in her spectacular essay on optimism and despair. The illusion of permanent progress inflicts a particularly damning strain of despair as we witness the disillusioning undoing of triumphs of democracy and justice generations in the making — despair preventable only by taking a wider view of history in order to remember that democracy advances in fits and starts, in leaps and backward steps, but advances nonetheless, on timelines exceeding any individual lifetime. Amid our current atmosphere of presentism bias and extreme narrowing of perspective, it is not merely difficult but downright countercultural to resist the ahistorical panic by taking such a telescopic view — lucid optimism that may be our most unassailable form of resistance to the corruptions and malfunctions of democracy.
THIS ISN’T THE REGTECH I WAS PROMISED: Anti-smoking activists
*hate* vaping, despite the demonstrable reduction in harm thanks to the
technology (my wife gave up smoking cigarettes thanks to vaping). There
has been an aggressive astroturf campaign aimed at the FDA in favor of
anti-vaping regulations – and by astroturf I mean “submitting 255,000 fake comments from a single Internet bot.”
Michelle Minton has written a bunch on vaping and its role in harm reduction.
Michelle Minton has written a bunch on vaping and its role in harm reduction.
He was condemned to death for telling the ancient Greeks things they didn't want to hear, but his views on consumerism and trial by media are just as relevant today
Socrates – a man for our times | Books | The Guardian
Why Socrates is philosophy's biggest mystery | Big Think
Socrates - Greek Philosopher
Socrates | Biography, Philosophy, Beliefs, & Facts | Britannica.com
Socrates - Wikiquote
The Ethics Centre - Big Thinker - Socrates
Why Socrates is philosophy's biggest mystery | Big Think
Socrates - Greek Philosopher
Socrates - Wikiquote
Two thousand four hundred years ago, one man tried to discover the meaning of life. His search was so radical, charismatic and counterintuitive that he become famous throughout the Mediterranean. Men – particularly young men – flocked to hear him speak. Some were inspired to imitate his ascetic habits. They wore their hair long, their feet bare, their cloaks torn. He charmed a city; soldiers, prostitutes, merchants, aristocrats – all would come to listen. As Ciceroeloquently put it, "He brought philosophy down from the skies."
For close on half a century this man was allowed to philosophise unhindered on the streets of his hometown. But then things started to turn ugly. His glittering city-state suffered horribly in foreign and civil wars. The economy crashed; year in, year out, men came home dead; the population starved; the political landscape was turned upside down. And suddenly the philosopher's bright ideas, his eternal questions, his eccentric ways, started to jar. And so, on a spring morning in 399BC, the first democratic court in the story of mankind summoned the 70-year-old philosopher to the dock on two charges: disrespecting the city's traditional gods and corrupting the young. The accused was found guilty. His punishment: state-sponsored suicide, courtesy of a measure of hemlock poison in his prison cell.
The man was Socrates, the philosopher from ancient Athens and arguably the true father of western thought. Not bad, given his humble origins. The son of a stonemason, born around 469BC, Socrates was famously odd. In a city that made a cult of physical beauty (an exquisite face was thought to reveal an inner nobility of spirit) the philosopher was disturbingly ugly. Socrates had a pot-belly, a weird walk, swivelling eyes and hairy hands. As he grew up in a suburb of Athens, the city seethed with creativity – he witnessed the Greek miracle at first-hand. But when poverty-striken Socrates(he taught in the streets for free) strode through the city's central marketplace, he would harrumph provocatively, "How many things I don't need!"
Whereas all religion was public in Athens, Socrates seemed to enjoy a peculiar kind of private piety, relying on what he called his "daimonion", his "inner voice". This "demon" would come to him during strange episodes when the philosopher stood still, staring for hours. We think now he probably suffered from catalepsy, a nervous condition that causes muscular rigidity.
Putting aside his unshakable position in the global roll-call of civilisation's great and good, why should we care about this curious, clever, condemned Greek? Quite simply because Socrates's problems were our own. He lived in a city-state that was for the first time working out what role true democracy should play in human society. His hometown – successful, cash-rich – was in danger of being swamped by its own vigorous quest for beautiful objects, new experiences, foreign coins.
Fed-up John Lloyd speaks out against 'smears'
"Outgoing public service chief defends himself and his achievements in the job." (The Canberra Times)
NineFairfax deal end of an era for Australia’s media titans
"Two companies, with very different histories and cultures, will be forced to work together in the never-ending search for efficiencies and revenue." (The Conversation)
Fed-up John Lloyd speaks out against 'smears'
"Outgoing public service chief defends himself and his achievements in the job." (The Canberra Times)
NineFairfax deal end of an era for Australia’s media titans
"Two companies, with very different histories and cultures, will be forced to work together in the never-ending search for efficiencies and revenue." (The Conversation)
The philosopher also lived through (and fought in) debilitating wars, declared under the banner of demos-kratia – people power, democracy. ThePeloponnesian conflict of the fifth century against Sparta and her allies was criticised by many contemporaries as being "without just cause". Although some in the region willingly took up this new idea of democratic politics, others were forced by Athens to love it at the point of a sword. Socrates questioned such blind obedience to an ideology. "What is the point," he asked, "of walls and warships and glittering statues if the men who build them are not happy?" What is the reason for living life, other than to love it?
For Socrates, the pursuit of knowledge was as essential as the air we breathe. Rather than a brainiac grey-beard, we should think of him as his contemporaries knew him: a bustling, energetic, wine-swilling, man-loving, vigorous, pug-nosed, sword-bearing war-veteran: a citizen of the world, a man of the streets.
According to his biographers Plato and Xenophon, Socrates did not just search for the meaning of life, but the meaning of our own lives. He asked fundamental questions of human existence. What makes us happy? What makes us good? What is virtue? What is love? What is fear? How should we best live our lives? Socrates saw the problems of the modern world coming; and he would certainly have something to say about how we live today.
He was anxious about the emerging power of the written word over face-to-face contact. The Athenian agora was his teaching room. Here he would jump on unsuspecting passersby, as Xenophon records. "One day Socrates met a young man on the streets of Athens. 'Where can bread be found?' asked the philosopher. The young man responded politely. 'And where can wine be found?' asked Socrates. With the same pleasant manner, the young man told Socrates where to get wine. 'And where can the good and the noble be found?' then asked Socrates. The young man was puzzled and unable to answer. 'Follow me to the streets and learn,' said the philosopher."
The one move that made Fortnite creator a billionaire
Tim
Sweeney made Fortnite a phenomenon by doing something that sounds
crazy: He gave it away. That strategy has made him a billionaire. Tim
Sweeney ...
The Sydney Morning Herald
Bondi Icebergs chef rattles MasterChef final four as fans tell him to back off Sashi Cheliah
MASTERCHEF
fans were fuming after they saw Bondi Icebergs head chef rattle the
shows final four contestants, as the pressure got to them.
MasterChef viewers rip into guest chef Monty Koludrovic
MasterChef viewers have unleashed their fury at Bondi Icebergs head chef Monty Koludrovic for being 'too tough' on a contestant.