Stats for nerds
0recommend
6mentions
6people
2017–2026years
100% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- C-c C-v existed well before 2022. Most of history until the Renaissances consisted of the bulk of scholars copying out of "the book" whatever the book happened to be (Euclid, The Bible, Aristotle’s Logica Vetus, Cicero's Orations and De Officiis, 四書五經, 史記, 文選)
The liberal concept that the everyman should have their own original thoughts that others should consider is a historically a very new concept. And we start getting things that look a lot like C-c C-v quickly after the Renaissance.
See humans have the tendency to romanticize the past, and if this is allowed to compound they elevate really quite dismal people to the realm of literal godhood in some cases. If you asked someone a thousand years ago what they though life was like thousands of years in the past and what it will be like thousands of years in the future most would have said the past was better in all regards including health, strength, morals even technology; while the future would be viewed as the continual circling of the drain. Put yourself in their shoes, you go look at a Roman Colosseum, you can't build that, nobody you know can build that. If you asked Vitruvius during the construction of the Aqueducts he would tell you that he's maintain the knowledge of his ancestors, whom could have build such structures if they needed them or had the manpower, and the technical problems are just a trifle. If you pushed him, he might invoke Providentia and that if the gods stopped blessing you we'd fall even faster.
This kind of discovered then lost fits better narrative within the human psyche better than the unintuative truth is a constructed social conversation, that can be semi-formal and rigorous (the scientific method) or lax (common sense) depending on the setting.
- Pear AI: according to NdBdM's original* scheme, Nang et al were foxes, who had schemed, yet could not defend themselves from the wolf (according to russians, wolves are the "paramedics of the forest", for despite not being doctors, they take care of the sick and elderly...). YC? I suppose they should, if it isn't already there, add some legalese to closing documents so founders bear full responsibility for bringing a clean venture to the table. (there could be a different split of responsibility, but since YC is running a retail operation I wouldn't expect one)
* Had Machiavelli, in writing (1532):
> You must know there are two ways of contesting, the one by the law, the other by force; the first method is proper to men, the second to beasts; but because the first is frequently not sufficient, it is necessary to have recourse to the second. Therefore it is necessary for a prince to understand how to avail himself of the beast and the man. This has been figuratively taught to princes by ancient writers, who describe how Achilles and many other princes of old were given to the Centaur Chiron to nurse, who brought them up in his discipline; which means solely that, as they had for a teacher one who was half beast and half man...
been referring to Cicero, De Officiis (44 BC)?
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%...
> ...there are two ways of settling a dispute: first, by discussion; second, by physical force; and since the former is characteristic of man, the latter of the brute, we must resort to force only in case we may not avail ourselves of discussion.
(I'm surprised I've not read this work until now. With a little skimming, it confirms my reverse-engineering of the cardinal virtues as arising as oppositions [albeit not strictly pairwise]:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%...
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%...
and has interesting things to say about Castalia:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%...
about immigration:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%...
Gemeinschaft vs Gesellschaft:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%...
and even Pareto Optimality:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%... )
EDIT: no, lifted, negated, and expanded to chapter length!
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%...
- I'd toss in St Augustine as well, at least Confessions. You can't properly understand western thought without understanding the catholic church, and you can't understand the church from the bible alone.
Maybe Cicero too, like De Officiis at least (although De Natura Deorum is a more enjoyable read imo). Cicero was a second rate philosopher and incredibly full of himself, but he was extremely influential for a very long time.
- There is a lengthy wikipedia page on "wage slavery", which has a long history, even if it is not part of the currently accepted definition of slavery. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_slavery
"Similarities between wage labour and slavery were noted as early as Cicero in Ancient Rome, such as in De Officiis."
If you need the wage from your labour to feed and house yourself, such that you are completely dependent on your employer, how is that functionally different to slavery?
Unpaid internships are increasingly considered immoral for reasons that you identify - many people literally cannot afford to take such an internship, so cannot gain this experience.
- "The principle with which we are now dealing is that one which is called Expediency. The usage of this word has been corrupted and perverted and has gradually come to the point where, separating moral rectitude from expediency, it is accepted that a thing may be morally right without being expedient, and expedient without being morally right. No more pernicious doctrine than this could be introduced into human life."
-M. Tullius Cicero. De Officiis. Book II.
- This year I've read:
Maxims - Epictetus
The road to serfdom - Friedrich Hayek
De officiis - Cicero
De divinatione - Cicero
Lives of eminent philosophers - Diogenes Laertius
Confessions - Al ghazali
Illiad - Homer
Odyssey - Homer
Influence - Robert Cialdini
Guns, Germs and steel - Jared Diamond
Poor Charlie's Almanack - Charlie Munger - 2nd reading
Andrew Carnegie's Biography - Joseph Frazier
Fooled by Randomness - Nassim Taleb - 2nd reading
Bed of Procrustes - Nassim Taleb
Never Split the Difference - Christopher Voss
The intelligent investor - Benjamin Graham
Autobiography - Benjamin Franklin
I always remember this quote:
"In my whole life, I have known no wise people who didn't read all the time -- none, zero." Charlie Munger
