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Stoicism gives you the mental ability to deal with evil, futility and failure, since it makes you believe you are a non-entity in an inflexible, vast and nasty

Stoicism gives you the mental ability to deal with evil, futility and failure, since it makes you believe you are a non-entity in an inflexible, vast and nasty social structure. It's a philosophy of inaction and accommodation to injustice and oppression. There is a reason it became popular for Roman soldiers under the Empire. Well, at least stoicism does not claim that you are changing the world for the better by creating all these data slurping algorithms. But I wish SV would embrace the Hellenistic philosophy of Cynicism instead.

tonyedgecombe 10y ago
Ha, SV is the last place I'd expect to find a cynic.
ceras 10y ago
> It's a philosophy of inaction and accommodation to injustice and oppression. This is not what I got out of reading Meditations by Marcus Aurelius and articles on Stoicism. In common English use, "stoic" sometimes implies what you said, but that's not the same as Stoicism-the-philosophy. "The Stoics held that virtue is the only real good and so is both necessary and, contrary to Aristotle, sufficient for happiness; it in no way depends on luck."[0] It's also true that Stoicism encourages acceptance of all outcomes, whatever they are, which people misconstrue to imply it's not worth doing your best. Here's a quote by Cicero on doing your best but not letting the outcome influence your emotions: "Take the case of one whose task it is to shoot a spear or arrow straight at some target. One’s ultimate aim is to do all in one’s power to shoot straight, and the same applies with our ultimate goal. In this kind of example, it is to shoot straight that one must do all one can; none the less, it is to do all one can to accomplish the task that is really the ultimate aim. It is just the same with what we call the supreme good in life. To actually hit the target is, as we say, to be selected but not sought." [0] http://www.iep.utm.edu/stoiceth/ http://www.iep.utm.edu/stoiceth/

tonyedgecombe 10y ago

Ha, SV is the last place I'd expect to find a cynic.

ceras 10y ago

> It's a philosophy of inaction and accommodation to injustice and oppression. This is not what I got out of reading Meditations by Marcus Aurelius and articles on Stoicism. In common English use, "stoic" sometimes implies what you said, but that's not the same as Stoicism-the-philosophy. "The Stoics held that virtue is the only real good and so is both necessary and, contrary to Aristotle, sufficient for happiness; it in no way depends on luck."[0] It's also true that Stoicism encourages acceptance of all outcomes, whatever they are, which people misconstrue to imply it's not worth doing your best. Here's a quote by Cicero on doing your best but not letting the outcome influence your emotions: "Take the case of one whose task it is to shoot a spear or arrow straight at some target. One’s ultimate aim is to do all in one’s power to shoot straight, and the same applies with our ultimate goal. In this kind of example, it is to shoot straight that one must do all one can; none the less, it is to do all one can to accomplish the task that is really the ultimate aim. It is just the same with what we call the supreme good in life. To actually hit the target is, as we say, to be selected but not sought." [0] http://www.iep.utm.edu/stoiceth/ http://www.iep.utm.edu/stoiceth/