(no subject)

What's the probability that a black person and a Republican agree on Trump's honesty?

TIL: the Orpheus solution

Their song was not all in one strain; but they varied their measures according to the nature of the listener, and took each captive with those which best suited him. So destructive the plague was, that the islands of the Sirens were seen afar off white with the bones of unburied carcasses. For this evil two different remedies were found; one by Ulysses, the other by Orpheus. Ulysses caused the ears of his crew to be stopped with wax; and himself (wishing to make trial of the thing without incurring the danger) to be bound to the mast; at the same time forbidding any one at his peril to loose him even at his own request. Orpheus, not caring to be bound, raised his voice on high, and singing to his lyre the praises of the Gods, drowned the voices of the Sirens, and so passed clear of all danger.
...

But that circumstance of the bones being seen from a distance like white cliffs, has a finer point: implying that the examples of other men’s calamities, however clear and conspicuous, have little effect in deterring men from the corruptions of pleasure.

--- Francis Bacon. Of the Wisdom of the Ancients.

https://www.bartleby.com/82/31.html

I didn't know about the Orpheus solution, but I'd argue it was a survival technique, rather than a true solution to the problem because, unlike Odysseus, he didn't get to enjoy the songs. The whole episode would probably make a curious Kan extension case.

(no subject)

Из опросов видно, что большинство американцев не хотят выбирать между лживым хуйлом и социалистом, но именно такой неизбежный выбор нам предстоит с совершенно предопределенным исходом: победа лживого хуйла. В принципе, можно было бы уже сейчас спокойно разойтись по домам, но так не получится. Страна обязана пройти через месяцы позорного валяния в моральной грязи, чтобы ни у самих американцев, ни у остального мира не осталось ни унции сомнений, что собой представляет современная Америка.

Древние греки сказали бы, что это судьба.

Invention of punishment

Nietzsche brainstorming exercise:

At any rate, so as to give some idea of the uncertain, supplementary, and accidental nature of the meaning of punishment and of the manner in which one identical procedure can be employed and adapted for the most diametrically opposed objects, I will at this point give a scheme that has suggested itself to me, a scheme itself based on comparatively small and accidental material.
—Punishment, as rendering the criminal harmless and incapable of further injury.
—Punishment, as compensation for the injury sustained by the injured party, in any form whatsoever (including the form of sentimental compensation).
—Punishment, as an isolation of that which disturbs the equilibrium, so as to prevent the further spreading of the disturbance.
—Punishment as a means of inspiring fear of those who determine and execute the punishment.
—Punishment as a kind of compensation for advantages which the wrong-doer has up to that time enjoyed (for example, when he is utilised as a slave in the mines).
—Punishment, as the elimination of an element of decay (sometimes of a whole branch, as according to the Chinese laws, consequently as a means to the purification[Pg 95] of the race, or the preservation of a social type).
—-Punishment as a festival, as the violent oppression and humiliation of an enemy that has at last been subdued.
—Punishment as a mnemonic, whether for him who suffers the punishment—the so-called "correction," or for the witnesses of its administration.
---Punishment, as the payment of a fee stipulated for by the power which protects the evil-doer from the excesses of revenge.
—Punishment, as a compromise with the natural phenomenon of revenge, in so far as revenge is still maintained and claimed as a privilege by the stronger races.
—Punishment as a declaration and measure of war against an enemy of peace, of law, of order, of authority, who is fought by society with the weapons which war provides, as a spirit dangerous to the community, as a breaker of the contract on which the community is based, as a rebel, a traitor, and a breaker of the peace.

14.

This list is certainly not complete; it is obvious that punishment is overloaded with utilities of all kinds.

--- F. Nietzsche, Geneaology of Morals.

f: T × X -> Y