I'm in an area where Trump best Biden by about 30 points in 2020. Seeing way more Kamala signs than Trump ones. This is a sign of community health

Daily lessons in poverty:

1. Science can make a living; philosophy makes a life worth living.

2. Without philosophy, science is a ship lost at sea.

3. Science traps minds; philosophy sets them free.

4. Science is the servant; philosophy is the master.

(5. Science is gay.)

Gonna give that map a think

If there be not an excess of tyranny it is more expedient to tolerate the milder tyranny for a while than, by acting against the tyrant, to become involved in many perils more grievous than the tyranny itself. For it may happen that those who act against the tyrant are unable to prevail and the tyrant then will rage the more. But should one be able to prevail against the tyrant, from this fact itself very grave dissensions among the people frequently ensue: the multitude may be broken up into factions either during their revolt against the tyrant, or in process of the organization of the government, after the tyrant has been overthrown. Moreover, it sometimes happens that while the multitude is driving out the tyrant by the help of some man, the latter, having received the power, thereupon seizes the tyranny. Then, fearing to suffer from another what he did to his predecessor, he oppresses his subjects with an even more grievous slavery. This is wont to happen in tyranny, namely, that the second becomes more grievous than the one preceding, inasmuch as, without abandoning the previous oppressions, he himself thinks up fresh ones from the malice of his heart. Whence in Syracuse, at a time when everyone desired the death of Dionysius, a certain old woman kept constantly praying that he might be unharmed and that he might survive her. When the tyrant learned this he asked why she did it. Then she said: "When I was a girl we had a harsh tyrant and I wished for his death; when he was killed, there succeeded him one who was a little harsher. I was very eager to see the end of his dominion also, and we began to have a third ruler still more harsh—that was you. So if you should be taken away, a worse would succeed in your place."

-Aquinas, On Kingship - to the King of Cyprus

Hahahahahaha

https://www.timesofisrael.com/indigenous-leaders-rally-in-jerusalem-to-affirm-historical-jewish-ties-to-the-land/

Contemporary philosophical discourse includes theories whose support appears predicated on fundamental misunderstandings—or perhaps willful misinterpretations—of opposing positions. Hard incompatibilism argues against the possibility of free will through the following syllogism:

1. Free will is incompatible with determinism (because if your choices are determined, your will is not free)
2. Free will is incompatible with indeterminism (because indeterminism = randomness, which does not create free will)
3. Either determinism or indeterminism must be true
4. Therefore, free will is impossible

The first premise is relatively uncontroversial; indeed, compatibilists occupy the more contentious theoretical territory in denying it. However, the argument falters at premise 2, which rests upon an unwarranted conflation of indeterminism with mere randomness. This narrow interpretation of indeterminism then infects premise 3—what appears to be a straightforward logical disjunction becomes questionable when we realize that "indeterminism" is being used in an artificially constrained sense.

Libertarian metaphysicians generally advocate for something quite different: the existence of a non-material metaphysical entity capable of transcending conventional causation. This agent-causal view represents a form of indeterminism distinct from randomness, wherein rational agents can initiate new causal chains through reasoned choice. Thus, the hard incompatibilist position fails to engage with the substantive metaphysical claims of libertarian free will, instead attacking a reductive caricature of indeterministic causation.

Funny how socrates believed everyone is good deep inside

I don't think that's right. "The unexamined life is not worth living." Implies that people are not naturally good but only obtain goodness through cultivation and philosophy

I love philosophy.

From a metaphysics textbook:

Imagine, for instance, that a magician can cause the President’s death by casting a spell. If the magician casts the spell immediately before the bullet hits the President, and by doing this directly kills the President, the only cause of the President’s death is the spell, not the bullet (which arrives too late to kill the President). Nonetheless, that the bullet was already underway made it necessary that the President would die anyway. This seems to be a case of pre-emption not amenable to Lewis’s response strategy, since the causal chain from spell to death involves no further intermediate steps, and causal dependence does not hold with regard to the single step in the chain which led to the death (i.e. from the magician’s casting the spell to the President’s death).

Now that's what I call crust.

Guess what part of the country I'm in right now

The answer is Wisconsin

Today's lesson in poverty:

Whatever happens in today's race, you, the American rightoid, will lose. If you care about this election, you are probably tied to political fantasies that will never happen, and they are fantasies that will never happen because your people do not have and never will have power. You are but a lowly subject of the American Republic, and yet you are making demands as if your opinion is relevant, as if you are not a member of the lowest social caste in our system—someone of lower relevance and status than border hoppers and African imports according to those who actually get to decide these things—as if you were important, as if you matter, as if your opinions matter. The reality is that you are irrelevant, your opinions are irrelevant, and you have no say in political matters. They are not yours. Get your priorities in line and worry Instead about things that are actually in your control, things that actually belong to you. Putting so much attention and care into that which doesn't belong to you is like slapping yourself in the face, except instead of your face, you're damaging your innermost self, your fundamental nature, your very soul.

The first passage from Epictetus' Handbook comes to mind:

Some things in the world are up to us, while others are not. Up to us are our faculties of judgment, motivation, desire, and aversion—in short, everything that is our own doing. Not up to us are our body and property, our reputations, and our official positions—in short, everything that is not our own doing. Moreover, the things up to us are naturally free, unimpeded, and unconstrained, while the things not up to us are powerless, servile, impeded, and not our own. Keep this in mind then: if you think things naturally servile are free and that things not our own are ours, you will be frustrated, pained, and troubled, and you will find fault with God and with men. But if you think you own only what is yours, and that you do not own what is not yours, as you really don’t, no one will ever put pressure on you, no one will impede you, you will not reproach anyone, you will not blame anyone, you will not do a single thing reluctantly, no one will harm you, you will have no enemy, because nothing harmful will happen to you.

Keep in mind, then, that you have to be highly motivated if you want to achieve such great goals. You will have to forego some things completely, and postpone others for the present. But if you want both at the same time—the things that are really yours plus prominence and wealth in addition—you will probably not get even the latter because of wanting the former as well, and you certainly will not get the former, which are the only way to secure freedom and happiness.

Right now, then, make it your habit to tell every jarring thought or impression: “You are just an appearance and in no way the real thing.” Next, examine it and test it by these rules that you have. First and foremost: does it involve the things up to us, or the things not up to us? And if it involves one of the things not up to us, have the following response at hand: “Not my business.”

"But Mr. Poor, who do you want to win?" Epictetus answers for me once again:

Don’t ask for things to happen as you would like them to, but wish them to happen as they actually do, and you will be all right.

Whatever happens is what is meant to happen and is what is right; this is not my business. God is good, and goodness will triumph in the end. Goodnight.

"Are you going to vote?"
"No, I'm not gay."
"No, sir, I'm asking you if you're going to vote in the presidential election."
"I told you, I'm not gay."
"Don't you want your voice to be heard? Don't you want to have a say? If you don't vote, you have no right to complain."
"Listen, I understand that you're gay, and I'll even respect your lifestyle, but I'm straight and I'm going to ask you nicely to keep it to yourself."

What do you guys think about this message from Leather Apron Club?

Given the state of modern academic literature and the institutions that produce it, something being "peer reviewed" should, if anything, lead to you thinking that it is less likely to be true.

I'm poor pilled. Democracy is gay.