Random Thoughts: 8/5/2021

2 days in a row? Damn, I’ve really got my life figured out. No more questions about the future, no more worries, no more trying to decide between a career in Male Modeling or High Finance. I’ve mastered this “blogging” thing.

All of that was a joke obviously but sometimes I start these “Random thoughts” things and instead of trying to think up something interesting to start typing about I just remind myself that my strategy is to just type about literally anything. I think I once started one, probably unpublished from a long time ago, and just started describing the things I saw in the room; table, lamp, toaster oven, a lack of parents. That last part was also a joke. Call backs are good things.

I’ve been addicted to playing Spider Solitaire recently and I have mixed feeling about it. First off, I don’t play no baby version with only one suit and the computer making sure each deal is actually possible. Nah bro, I’m an adult. I play with two suits and random deals. Due to the fact that I don’t have any reference points I don’t know if my 30% completion percentage, out of 333 total games, is impressive or not. I think it is but how could I know. Ok, I just opened the app to check my statistics and apparently there is a 4 suit version of spider solitaire and I’m screwed man.

My Grandpa played alot of Spider Solitaire but I never payed any attention, not that I regret that or anything; it’s just solitaire. I wonder how much of an old man game it is. To be completely honest with you there are alot of aspects of my personality that seem like an old codger type. I get very angry when technology malfunctions around me and I also have no idea how to fix any of it. I am pretty skilled at using Google so that definitely helps me fix some of the more easy stuff.

How else am I old? I’m cheap as hell. I don’t know. My 30th birthday is coming up and while you don’t have to remind me that 30 is not very old it is still kinda weird turning 30. I think keeping track of your age might be one of those things that doesn’t really matter at all. I mean, it doesn’t really hurt anything unless we’re gonna get real deep into a sociological impact of the normalization of numerical designations but after yesterday I feel like writing about something a little lighter than religions, Thesues, and killer toasters.

Anyway, my Spider Solitaire addiction hasn’t hurt me too much I think. It’s entirely possible that it’s actually helping me in some unseen way, like making my brain better at problem solving or something but that kind of immaterial benefit is always hard to judge. That’s probably why our society puts no credence in that kind of skill/strength. I mean how do you quantify wisdom in a way that satisfies people into thinking it’s of value over things like money? Didn’t I say I wanted to avoid sociology?

My 30’s are gonna be great I think. Obviously, I can’t see the future so I’m just guessing. Plus, I’m 30 years old with no job, no money, no girlfriend, very little ambition (or maybe I should say ‘very focused ambition’), no house, basically not much at all. Maybe that’s the way it should be. Maybe starting with nothing of “value”, expect for my own damn self, is a good thing? Nah, I mean, the only reason having lots of possessions is a bad thing is if you’re particularly attached to those things. I’m pretty good at not getting attached to things, sometimes maybe too good, so I think I’d be mostly immune to the trapping of material possessions. I wouldn’t let them limit my choices or options.

But, on the other hand, it may be exactly because I have nothing, that I’ve built up such an immunity to that particular poison, materialism I mean. It’s a powerful poison but I doubt that’s something Blog readers need to be told that much. Maybe I’m making some broad assumptions about Blog readers and maybe there are some completely capitalistic, materialistic, nihilist blog readers out there. I doubt they’d read my blog at all so I guess I don’t have to worry about offending them. Even if they might read my blog what’s the chances that any of my 5 “followers” fall into their group?

Whatever. I wonder how long these posts need to be for me to feel like I’ve written a full length post? I mean, I would let myself end it after one paragraph if that’s something I felt like doing but I definitely think there’s some length that I could use as a landmark, though not one I place any importance on reaching, just one I can use to locate myself.

Mountains are badass. I mean, the Sun is obviously the best landmark there is but it is hurt by it’s pervasiveness. People always take things they’re used to having for granted and forget how amazing it is, like smoke detectors, but I’m pretty good at not letting that effect my judgment. No matter how good I really am at that though, it is a thing I have to deal with and the Sun is pretty much the most “always there” thing in the world. Don’t give me some nonsense about night time either, ‘”Oh but the sun is really only something you have half the time cause night time.” Shut up with that bro. Night is the absence of the sun. That means that night time is still dictated by the sun.

That reminds me of a quote I really like. It’s not on my list of great quotes because it’s more a lesson but maybe it should be. Anyway, there was a character in a TV show who was going to college and he asked his friend for advice. He was conflicted on whether or not to wear his Highschool Letterman Jacket. You know what, instead of describing it to you I’m gonna figure out how to post the clip right here on this blog. I know I’ve done this before but it was a while back. Let’s see…

Wow, that was easy. Took me like 5 seconds.

Anyway, I’ve always liked that little conversation. I’m not sure how much that relates to the phenomenon of Night and Day but whatever.

I’m think I’m done now.

Random Thoughts: 8/4/21

After writing this I feel the need to make a warning paragraph here. This post is of the type I used to write and is closer to stream of consciousness. I’ve made no effort to make any point or any sense. I’m only writing this warning because I have like 5 “followers” on this blog now, whatever “follower” means, and this isn’t much like my recent stuff. I’m gonna be doing more of these though.

How long has it been since I did one of these? When I first got this blog I would do a “Random Thoughts” post almost everyday. I mean, yeah, that only lasted for a few weeks or something but it was still alot different than what I do here now. Part of me wants to go back to just doing these “Random Thoughts” type posts more often but I think I could just do both. Actually, now that I think about it, I’ll just keep doing whatever I want to do with it.

So what am I gonna write about today? What am I thinking about? To be clear, I’m asking myself that question right now, not you, any possible reader.

This year has been kinda crazy for me. The key part of that sentence is “for me”. At the end of 2019 I was adamant that the 2020’s would be an incredible decade. What does incredible mean? I’m not 100% sure but it doesn’t mean the “happiest” or the “easiest”. I’m trying to figure out how to define “incredible” in a specific way that let’s me stand by the original prediction. Obviously, 2020 was not a “Happy” year and 2021 hasn’t been all that much better but “Happy” and “Good” are not the same thing.

Ok, I gotta cool it with the quotation marks. Honestly, my entire approach to punctuation is currently in a state of flux. Like I said in my post about nightmares my life has had a constant struggle, among other struggles, to reconcile what other people say and do with what makes sense to me. I keep finding that things I felt alot of apathy toward in my youth were things I simply didn’t see the importance of.

Wow. As I look at that last sentence I’m thinking, “Fucking duh.” Like, obviously apathy is just another way to suggest a lack of importance being placed on a thing. It’s crazy how often you realize something and then marvel at how you never realized that super obvious thing before. Is that made worse by bias? I mean, does the fact that I’m now cognizant of whatever that connection is actually trick me into thinking I should always have been cognizant? Does the word “Cognizant” have a Z in it? That seems wrong.

Anyway, English classes in grade school always tried to teach me how and when to use punctuation; where to use commas, what to capitalize, what a semi-colon meant. Even in college when I wrote a short story for a writing class I had points taken off my grade because I used commas in some wrong spots. What the heck is that!? My new policy, which I’ve realized has always been my policy, if unconsciously, is to not give a hoot when I use punctuation. A comma, to me, indicates a small pause in my speech patterns. It’s just a little separation, a change in enunciation to signal to the listener that these words I’m using now are separate in some small way from the previous words.

When listening to people talk they sometimes will start a new sentence or a new thought and I’ll not notice. So, my brain will be trying to attach these new words to whatever the old phrase was about and while normally my brain realizes its mistake quickly it is still an imperfection. I’m a big fan of imperfections in general so don’t think I need everything to be “perfect”. All’s I’m saying is that this particular issue is very easily solved. All you need do is add a change to provide a signal. You can use a change to anything; to tempo, tone, pitch, timbre, fortissimo, etc. Yeah, I know fortissimo doesn’t fit there but I thought it was funny. I’m not gonna explain why so just ignore it.

Point is, I might be a Modernist. Of course, the Modernist side of me that wants freedom from the oppression of any sociological, or even grammatical expectations, is recalcitrant to attach a defining title like “Modernist” to myself. God, that’s so Modernist of me. To be honest I only have a very vague understanding of what “Modernist” even means so don’t hold me to that. Philosophical schools like “Modernism” that appear, to my very poor knowledge, to be all about separation from the established order, of what to use and where to use it, for a more prominent focus on the free use of all options, somehow do end up falling into the classification of a “school”. I mean, as soon as you put this title on it, give it leaders like Eliot and Pound to study, and attach a system of rules around what it means, aren’t you kind of making sure that you aren’t actually in the same group as them? They count themselves as outside of groups. If you put them in a group, for whatever reason, you do so against their intentions.

It’s a currently big cultural issue in my thoughts. Religious figures make the best examples of what I’m talking about. Of course, the mere mention of any religious term, let alone a Key Name, often turns people’s brain from one base-line setting to another, less open minded setting. It’s like, in a regular, undefined and open conversation your brain is in a certain type of state. In this state you aren’t using any concrete self imposed limitations of connotation. The metaphor I see in my mind is of one of those little kids toys that you can look through and it has all these different color lenses that you can flip down. You can look through the toy with no lenses down and see things normally, then you would flip down blue, and a blue piece of plastic would come down and give everything you see a blue hue. You then flip down yellow and everything turns green and your little kid brain is like, “Woah! What just happened?”

Anyway, that toy, and it’s effect, are what I’m reminded of when I think of the way people sometimes react to hearing a religious term. I know that the connections between those two things may be hard to see but it works in my head so whatever. The point I’m trying to make is that alot of people have these kinds of “trigger” topics, and whenever their brain senses one of these topics being approached it unconsciously and reflexively throws down a corresponding lens over their mind and the entire conversation that follows is now defined by this false hue that their brain is seeing things in.

I still feel like I’m not being 100% clear so I’ll give an example. That’s all the work I’m willing to do on this; I gotta get back to whatever the hell I was talking about before. Imagine you have a friend who’s parents were murdered by a toaster oven. Yeah, I bet you were expecting more clarity from me but nah bro. Anyway, this friend obviously has a very complex and negative relationship with the idea of toaster ovens; he attends group meeting with other people biggoted against toaster ovens and everything. Now, you are having a conversation with him about a date you went on. Your friend isn’t thinking about toaster ovens and, at the moment, his eyesight is clear: there are no lenses for you to have to work around.

You tell him that you took your date to the county fair. You talk about going on the Ferris wheel and being in that little room together way up there. You talk about playing those little games at the booths to try to win a prize. After many failed attempts you had to sheepishly give up; you didn’t manage to win any prizes for your girl. You friend calls you a sucker for trying to win those obviously rigged games. You laugh and start to talk about the food booths. Your friend reminisces about the last time he had funnel cake. You tell him about how amazing the Teriyaki Chicken Pineapple Boats were (or any of the other inane foods that could only be considered ethical to create at a fair) and how you wanted to try and make your own at home. You were nervous since the recipe seems complicated but your Girlfriend’s toaster oven worked better than you could have hoped and your Hot Pineapple Boat piece of nonsense food turned out pretty good.

Obviously, things change for your friend. He’s used to this type of thing so it’s not a big deal but he now has a red lens in front of his eyes. You aren’t thinking about the ethics of toaster ovens but, as you give praise to your Girlfriend’s oven because it heats things up like it’s supposed to, you and your friend are operating with very different mentalities. Yours is relatively clear, only tinted lightly with shades of hunger and nostalgia, but your friend’s is straight-up-red and while the conversation might go on as it normally would the separation of the two people is clearly a potential source of miscommunication. Now whenever your friend hears about Teriyaki Chicken Pineapple Boats the image he sees in his head will be a little more red than everyone else’s .

What the fuck am I talking about? Uh… let me scroll up real quick. Ah yes, religion. Wait, no, that’s not right. I was gonna use religion as an example to explain the harmful effects of time on “schools of thought”. Actually, I was trying to explain why having to follow a set of rules thought of as “Modernism” to be a “modernist” is funny to me because it seems antithetical.

I’m just gonna pretend I never got sidetracked.

Every big idea Humanity has tried to spread has suffered by the passage of time, from the “sources” of the ideas into the future. New communication inventions like grammar, tools of thought, sets of rules, ethics, ideologies, philosophies, and everything else immaterial, but important, passes from one generation to the next like an unimaginable game of telephone. Simple passage through only 10 children, sitting right next to each other, can turn any phrase into something unrecognizable. Religions and “schools of thought” sail for millennia as the Ship of Theseus through the impossibly turbulent waters of human thought and come out on the other side always more complicated, more restrictive, and more nonsensical.

To heck with your idea of a what a comma should do. I’m just gonna take the Ship we have now and ignore the idea that Theseus ever existed. It’s a boat. That’s the only thing it ever has been. It actually didn’t change at all. It sails from one place to another. I’ll use it how I want.

The Imaginary Planets of 4 Year Olds

In case I haven’t said it on this blog before, I used to be a Preschool Teacher. In my 5 years there I typically avoided coming up with lesson plans or coming up with projects. Allow me to brag here. This is one project I did lead.

The kids would draw a picture of a planet, they could make the planet look however they wanted. They had total freedom to do what they wanted with it. When they were done I called them over one at a time for them to describe their planet to me and give it a name. Again, they had total freedom to say whatever they wanted. I mean, I seem to remember one or two might have said they didn’t care to describe their planet at all so I guess they didn’t have total freedom.

I brought my computer to class that day, which you might be able to tell because some of them mention computers, so that I could note down everything they said and exactly how they said it. I didn’t want to just get the gist of what they imagined and then rewrite it myself. So, these descriptions they told me are direct quotes. A few descriptions have small footnotes by me and these are marked with an asterisk. The footnotes were included in the final products that were posted up on the walls outside class and later sent home.

Annie
Planet Mr. Josh
“Uh… Mr. Josh and me live in it. The planet has a head and it’s always so cold and it always has signs and it has glasses and there is a tv on the glasses and it has a nose and it has a shark and it has a jacket. And my family lives there. Um… we play Mr. Josh is an alien and Mrs. Cindy is an alien and everybody’s an alien and there are people-aliens and there’s so much computers nobody can write and it has a table on its head and it has…”

*She went on for a while, giggling and just saying “and it has this and it has that and it…”

Morgan
Planet peanut
“Its named that since my other name is peanut. People eat pancakes. people eat peanuts in their pancakes and stuff and all of their food they have peanuts in the food. Animals only eat peanuts I guess. All the houses are made out of peanuts. We throw peanut balls and play peanut ball games. A whole lot of people live there and my peanut family lives there.”

Harris
Planet X-treme
“Maybe I want a wolf on top of it and the wolf is goin’ to be maybe Harris. Another wolf is named sun and I live there. Me and the wolves walk around the planet and look at stuff like sun, animals, zebras and just that. That’s it.”

Margaret
Planet Allison, thats my moms name
“Hmmm… a flowers everyday, they grow. I live there. My best friend too and my other friend and you (Mr. Josh) live there cause you’re my best friend. Mr. Joshy you’re there and Mrs. Cindy is there and there’s like a bunch of people who live there. An ice cream shop is there next to my house. It has free ice cream. A popsicle shop too. And my neighbor is gonna be you and my other best friend and we have a treasure chest in my house that I keep in my room and… and a popcorn shop. You have crystaly rocks in your house and I’m done now.”

Sebastian
Pluto, actually Earth
*He points to places on the planet.

“I live there like right here and that’s earth. Well this will be the zebras cause the zebras are kind of white and that will be the ocean and this is the ocean and there’s kind of a little purple right there. I think that will be dirt. Oh, that will be dirt too and that red thing could be lava so that one and that one right there. My brother is Alex and my other brother is a little baby and his name is Zachary and he lives in Texas and my cousin lives in… I don’t know. He has a sister.”

Luke
Planet Texas
“I live there. I live there live and that’s a good part. It’s the best planet. There are lions, zebras, bears, and cheetahs. The meat eaters fight. My family lives there and there are no aliens. There’s nothing else I want to tell you about it.”

Juliana
Mr. Josh Planet
*At first Juliana names it Saturn but Annie comes up and tells her that she named her planet “Mr. Josh” so Juliana changes it to Mr. Josh planet. 

“There are aliens there. I live there. Annie, Harper, and Mr. Josh and Harper lives there again and Annie lives there again and then a zero lives there again. There’s lambs there and that’s the only animal. We play in the backyard. It’s a pretty planet and it’s beautiful and that’s all. And there’s another Annie and another Mr. Josh and a Harper and another Harper and another Mr. Josh and another Annie and another glasses and another lights and another table and another…”

*This lasted a while and there were alot of Harpers and Annies

Selah
Planet Franken-eye
“It called that because it has a eye. In the eye is uh… is smushy. The planets pretty and there’s an animal there and it’s… the animal is uh… is rabbit robot and um… there’s a zero in the rabbit eye and there’s a pocket in the rabbit’s head. that’s it. Nobody else lives there. Its an “ickin spickin” robot. That means it’s pretty but it still lives on the planet by itself.”

Oliver
Planet Harris
“The Planet Harris has Oliver and Harris, Hamilton, and Annie. They live in the thing we do. Well we do fun is that we play Ninjago tickets. Wait think Boris lives on it too. Boris lives there too. And there’s cows, horses, and we live in a house and then and um… my… who’s my Mom and Dad are scissors. My Mom and Dad are scissors because my Mimi is paper. It has a toilet on the planet. That’s it.”

Boris
Sonic the Planet
“Sonic lives there with other friends with people and i live there and some bad guys always live here and that way they attack sonic and his friends and sonic always wins and sometimes sonic finds all the gems and he turns gold and that means he’s more powerful. And then there was someone destroying Christmas. It was the Grinch he was attacking and he stole all the presents ad destroying them and then sonic wins again. And then another bud guy showed up and then it was Dr. Robotnik and he had the robots and monsters and they…”

*Many stories about sonic beating bad guys followed. Sonic and friends fought many enemies including a bucket monster, aliens from space that made everything turn super weird, and monster robots with things on their feet. Finally at the end Sonic made new friends.

Brayden
Earth
“Its a different earth than our earth. There’s grass there. There’s a zoo that has like um a zebra one and um… some giraffes and normal animals and some ant eaters. That’s where i go for fun. I live there with some um… people are there, my family, Sebastian, Mrs. Cindy, Boris, and that’s all the people.”

Harper
Twilight sparkles crystal flower jewel
“Harper, me and my friend Harper. And my mom lives there dad lives there. Brother lives there. Both of my dogs live there Layla, Bexley. And my friends. We go to the zoo with normal animals and houses dinosaurs. Girl dinosaurs only. And cats and dogs they live there and they’re friends and their families are there. There are rabbits, queens and princesses, kings, princes, unicorns and horses. And there’s a learning station how to ride unicorns and horses. There’s cookies that are alive and jelly beans that are alive cause it’s gonna be Candyland. It’s gonna be Candyland twilight sparkle with suckers, lollipops, ice cream that’s alive and we don’t eat them we just make friends with them. The dogs and cats can talk. All the animals can talk. Walruses, zebras, yaks, turtle, horse, giraffe. It pretty with flowers.”

Jack
Coostar
“Um.. there’s sonic there. There’s a aliens there and there’s Mario and Batman and there’s lego guys. They have tackle cause one of them… the zombies are mean. It’s a happy planet. There’s a house on the planet and there’s fishies and there’s a computer on the planet and there’s cars and hair on the planet. I live on the planet with my family and there’s beds and lovies and there’s 10,000 dogs. There’s 10,000 rocks and 10,000 cars and there’s 1 body guy and 1 talking sun and there’s hats and books. I read the books and video games and numbers and heads and healthy food and candy, candy, candy and healthy food. There’s 10 seconds and everybody in the world lives there and there’s lego and there’s legoland.”

Gavin
Earth
“It’s our earth. Animals live there. Not alien animals but normal animals. There’s turtles, pies, zebras, snakes, Everybody lives there. We play video games.”

Hamilton
Milky Way
“So there was a little little Mr. Josh and then Hamilton came up and said there’s a flower and then the flower talked and then it said, “shoo” and then the planet come and splashed over the whole city and then Mr. Josh came back and say hello. That’s all.”

Riggs
Planet yawn
“I think it’s just an empty planet. There’s nothing there I think.”

Book Club: Somnium

How much of a “book” is this? The “Book Club” title seems to be getting vague. Isaac Asimov and Carl Sagan both have referred to Somnium as one of the earliest works of science fiction and I guess it just depends on your definition of “Science Fiction”. However, saying that Somnium is not so much a book is not to say that it’s uninteresting. This post is very weird but so is the book. I’m kind of combining a plot summary with a commentary on its purpose and reflection on what it says about the mind of its author.

I guess the true purpose of this post is that I can use it as an excuse to get a post out since I’m trying to write more. I mean, I read an entire book. It would be a shame to not get a blog post out of it. Yes, the “book” is only 71 pages long but shut up. I read a whole book and I deserve cheap content even if it is confusing.

Ok, I need to give some context now about Somnium because most people probably don’t know anything about the book. Somnium was written by a man who’s name might be familiar to you, Johannes Kepler. Kepler is one of those old timey space watching types like Galileo and Newton. While he might be slightly less famous than them he’s similar to them in contributions to science. That distinction alone makes anything he wrote worth reading. However, I, like most people, am not cool enough to read scientific papers from the early 1600’s about the laws of planetary motions in my free time. But, if that’s true what’s different about Somnium and why did I read it?

I’m kind of on a weird kick of reading books that don’t fit into any genre. The Mint, by T.E. Lawrence is one of those types. So, when I hear of a “book” by Kepler that Asimov and Sagan call the first piece of Science fiction my attention is grabbed. Additionally, when I hear that Somnium was used as evidence when Kepler’s mother was put on trial for witchcraft, what else am I gonna be but intrigued. I mean, you’re probably a little intrigued right now so the next question is obviously, what is Somnium.

From what I can tell, Kepler was sleeping one day and had a dream about a boy who, through a meeting with a spirit, learns about the moon, the people living on it, and more specifically how the motions of the heavens look from the moon’s perspective. This dream was one of those types that you wake up from and you immediately want to write it down so that’s what Kepler does. According to wikipedia, Somnium was written for this purpose or for that purpose or whatever but after I read it I don’t really see any purpose other than to record his dream. I think the story itself supports my interpretation of Somnium as a direct retelling of a dream. It feels very much like a dream in the way it moves from one topic to the next, from one premise to the next.

Kepler, in his real life, was raised by his mother and studied under a man named Brahe, another famous space guy. In Somnium there is a boy who is raised by his slightly witch-like mother and ends up going to study, in a foreign land, under a man named Brahe. So far it seems like a normal dream; he’s the main character but the ways Kepler psychologically feels disconnected from the other students is more prominent. Then, as usually happens in dreams, things get weirder. Him and his mother move back to their homeland, a more isolated nation, and when they get there his mother tells him she can convene with spirits or deamons or something. She summons one and this spirit starts to tell Kepler about life on the moon.

Now, we know Kepler spends his life in study of the heavenly bodies in space and that he’s a huge nerd so instead of this next section of his dream being about the women of the moon or the music of the moon people the spirit spends pages and pages describing the cycles of the stars in the Moon’s sky. He describes the way eclipses would look from the moon’s perspective and how the Earth’s entirely locked position in the Moon’s sky would effect the ways calendars and years are defined on the moon. He even talks about how to motions of other planets would look from the moon’s perspective.

This is the stuff that I think wikipedia uses to make the argument that Somnium is a conscious attempt to reimagine the planetary motions from the the moon’s perspective in order to provide a new model to facilitate understanding. While Somnium does accomplish that goal I think it’s important to remember that Kepler’s brain is probably doing that kind of thing all the time. It only makes sense for one of Kepler’s dream to be about how the planetary motions look form the moon because he’s essentially doing that 24/7. His mind is trying to understand the planets from a level entirely independent of his Earthly perspective so why would his dreams be constrained to that Earthly perspective?

Anyway, what happens next? The spirit starts talking about actual life on the moon. He talks about how the physiology of the plants and animals are different from Earth’s directly due to the impact of the Moon’s different relationships to the sun and the Earth. This, to me, is the most interesting part of the dream since the geography and astronomy go over my head. He talks about the differences in living on the side of the moon facing the Earth vs the other side and also living on the sort of prime meridian of the moon that separates those two halves. Ah yes, this stuff I like. I enjoy exploring the way all things are connected and how a change of something over here radically effects every part of life.

But, as it always seems to be with dreams, Kepler wakes up right at the most interesting part. Maybe though, his most interesting part was already over. Somnium then ends with Kepler saying that this is when he woke up from his dream, in bed, in Frankfurt. Now, it probably seems obvious to you that Somnium is simply Kepler writing down a particularly interesting dream he had but somehow that’s not really what I thought it was going to be when I started reading it. Based on what I’d read about Somnium I was expecting an actual story with a beginning, middle, and end. Having been wrong about what the book was is not any actual bother to me. I enjoy the unexpected as much as the next guy, but is this Science Fiction and does it fit into the category of “Book”?

I just now looked up the definition of “Book” and it’s probably something I should have done right at the freaking start. Am I a moron? Yes. Is Somnium fully a book? Well it’s words printed on pages that are glued together so yeah, it’s a book. Now I want to write a blog post on why I associated the word “Book” with… I don’t know, “Novel” maybe. Focus Josh! We answered the question of how much of a book it is and the implications of that answer are for another time. Pretend I never asked if it’s a book. I’m better at questions that are hard to answer because my real skill is bullshitting my way through things.

Is Somnium science fiction? In my opinion… Wait. Let me look up the actual definition of science fiction. God Damnit, I’ve found a rabbit hole to fall down. Are dreams fiction or non-fiction?

What do I do now? I guess I’ll write a separate post on that question, cause I have alot of points to bring up. For now I’ll say that, in my current opinion, Somnium is not Science Fiction or even fiction.

You know what, after reading Somnium I was kind of disappointed because it didn’t really have any impact on me. I guess I ended up getting what I wanted out of Somnium after all. I wanted to be lead to new questions and ideas I hadn’t asked or heard before and in all my years I’ve never really considered the level of reality dreams, their experiences, and even the retelling of them, occupy.

Nightmares and Fears

So, I wanna do something I don’t normally do. For some reason today, don’t ask me what that reason is cause I don’t know, I wanna talk about dreams. Now, not only do I not normally talk about dreams, I actively avoid doing it. Hearing someone tell me about their dreams just… I don’t know, I just don’t like it. I could probably sit here and try to analyze my feelings, (“search your feelings Luke”) but nah. I wanna talk about nightmares and, sort of, wonder aloud at mine.

Nightmares as a concept are obviously incredibly undefined, nuanced, and specifically personal. However, when I think of nightmares that other people tell me about they always feel like they would fit into a horror film. There are lots of different types of horror films so I guess I’m failing to combat that undefined aspect. The point is that they just consistently have that feeling. Here’s an example, a nightmare I heard someone tell recently, “I had a dream where I was looking at my dog and she turned to the side and suddenly she was a like a half centipede half dog thing. She started scuttling up the walls and I just started screaming. I woke up all tense.”

I guess I didn’t do anywhere near a good job describing what I think of when I think “Nightmares.” Let me instead try to approach it from the other side. I don’t think I really have nightmares like that. You see, I’m never falling from a great height, being hunted, attacked, tortured, or humiliated. I’m never being made fun of by my peers or flubbing some presentation at work. I’m never having these moments where something great is happening and then suddenly the people I with turn into monsters. My loved ones don’t die in my dreams, they never even appear to be honest. All the things that normally happen in other people’s nightmares don’t happen in my dreams.

But, am I saying I don’t have nightmares at all? No, I think I might have them but let me describe them to you and I guess you’ll have to decide for yourself how nightmarish these dreams are. Before I do I want make clear that while I think these are my own versions of nightmares they could never be described as emotionally painful or anything. I have dreams like this maybe a couple times a year and they don’t bother me when I have them but these dreams are the closest I come to “nightmares”, in my opinion.

So, in these dreams I’m always in a public place but I’m never the focus of attention or anything like that. For example I might be walking around a college campus, a normal, everyday college campus with normal people walking around doing normal things. I’m simply walking from one class to another. Now the weird stuff comes in when I’m put in a situation that everyone else around me thinks is normal but gives me a problem. So, for example, I’ll be walking up some stairs and for some reason the ceiling of the stairwell starts to get really low, like, I have to take off my backpack to squeeze through the ample but confusing gap. The gap never snaps shut on me. I never get stuck. I just approach it, don’t understand it, and look around to see everyone else being slightly inconvenienced by my hesitation. Then I go through and I just try to finish my walk to class without worrying too much about that one thing that was obviously really weird to me but normal to everyone else.

Another example might be that I have to use the restroom but the restroom is weird. There’s no blood flowing from the walls or serial killers anywhere. I don’t walk in and suddenly everyone else stares at me the whole time. It’s just that the bathroom is a little weird. Maybe the bathroom is really big with lots of stalls, or the little divider walls between urinals are in weird positions, or there’s some weird kind of fancy urinal I’ve never seen before and everyone else is using normally. I just kind of awkwardly try to suss my way through whatever quirky thing is going on, take care of my business and leave.

These are the closest things to nightmares I have. I mean, i think the meaning of them is pretty obvious. It’s a common experience for me to see the world around me in a way that everyone else doesn’t see. It’s also very common, and honestly troubling, for the thing alone notice to make next to no sense to me. There are many aspects of society and life that feel off putting and wrong to me that everyone else just seem completely accustomed to. These moments make me feel abnormal but they also give me a little bit of hopelessness or confusion because I feel like if I turned to the person next to me and said, “Hey, this stairwell is really weird right?” they would just look at me as if I was the only weird thing around.

So, there’s no real question about what these dreams mean or why I might have them. The question is, are these nightmares? I mean, no matter how weird the situation is nothing actually “bad” ever happens. Nobody dies, I don’t get yelled at, there’s a happy lack of centipede-dog hybrids scuttling on walls. Do these fit into the classification of nightmare? Or, maybe some other classification.

The theory I’m currently choosing is that the “bad” things happening in the dream are that I’m the only one that notices. I’m the kind of person that isn’t very scared of getting hit by a car, or sharks, or killer clowns or something like that. My fears in my life typically stem from what I fear for others and my biggest fear for others is that they’ve normalized in their lives something that, if looked at objectively, or even just anew, would be obvious as unhealthy or bad.

Maybe, what I’m most afraid of is that there are people who are so normalized to something obviously terrible or idiotic that if I was ever to turn to them and say, “Hey, why are you doing that? Why do you care about that? Why is no one doing something about this thing?” they would simply look back at me with a complete lack of understanding of what I was talking about. At best they would just walk on due to apathy. I mean at least if they’re apathetic it makes sense for them to just not look at what I see.

At worst they start to try to help me, as if I’m the one who needs to hear, “Why do you think this way?” I mean, that would mean they’re trying to do what makes sense, they’re trying to look at things objectively the way I think I am. Apathy towards the truth is easy to deal with and even easier to understand but full belief and rationalization of what’s false is only a half step away from conflict, especially in our day and age where being incorrect is seen as a weakness or a failure. That type of encounter takes some small amount of hope away from me as it reinforces the sheer scope of people’s distance from the truth.

Maybe the much more important possibility for why that conflict scares me is because it means that people being completely incorrect in their concept of the truth is just a normal thing and the more normal it is then the more possible it is for me to be one of those people. After all, I’m a human being just like everyone else and if I’m the only one seeing the world in a certain way then, from the all powerful Empirical Perspective, I’m the one that’s wrong. Now, I’m well aware that the empirical truth is significantly over praised in today’s world. I’m not as worried as I might make it sound that I’m the one that’s wrong but it still might be my biggest fear.

Or maybe the truth isn’t that it’s my biggest fear. Optimistically, there’s a chance it’s just my only fear.

The Values of Commercials

Everyone knows that commercials on TV are a bajillion dollar industry and, at the same time, the Anti-Commercial industry has been doing the lords work, and profitable work, to keep pace. What do I mean by “Anti-Commercial” industry? I guess the real start, as far as I can tell, of Anti-Commercial was TiVo. For the low, low price of simply waiting a little bit of time before watching your favorite show you could skip through the commercials. This war, one of millions of Industry Wars taking place constantly all around us, has grown and with it so to has grown its impact.

However, this article (is it pretentious for me to call my own blog post an article?) is not about the details of that war or about who’s side I’m on. The most common position to have on commercials is that, at any time that isn’t the Super Bowl, commercials range from mild inconvenience to cause of considerable frustration, according to each person’s preferences. Honestly, I don’t care much either way. I’ve got AdBlock on my web browser and I’m not ashamed of it but this article is about what exactly I’ve gained from commercials. First, let’s get the minor gains out of the way. These are real benefits to be sure but not close to The Big Two.

  • Commercials keep me up to date on how technology is advancing
  • They give me a general idea of the current fashion trends
  • They let me know exactly how outdated my phone is, the more the better
  • They introduce me to new and popular music quite often
  • They keep me up to date on movies coming out soon

The first of the large benefits isn’t to hard to understand. You see, commercials are specifically designed to be appealing to as many people as possible. That much is obvious to everyone; if you’re trying to sell as many units as possible try to be appealing to as many people as possible. This goal is why Disney movies feel more like big commercials than other movies do. They’re top priority is selling units, in this case tickets, and therefore anything in the movie that could possibly be unappealing to anyone, which is always alot of things, is removed. But, Disney movies alone are just one company selling one product. The beauty of regular commercials is that they come from a bajillion of companies selling a bajillion products.

The realization to make here is that because of this goal to appeal to the maximum combined with the shear multitude and variety of products that leave no part of society untargeted you end up with a shockingly educational result. If someone from the future wanted to study our society, it’s values, how those values change over time, and how those values are expressed, I would say that watching our commercials is a great way of doing so. Obviously, you’d have to be able to separate the intention of the commercial from the contextual value of its contents but if you can do that you can learn alot.

Let me give you an example. Let’s say there’s a commercial for a toy, or diapers, or a vacuum, or any commercial where there might be parents in the commercial. The commercial begins with a crying baby and while the mom is off screen everyone else in the family looks pissed at each other because they can’t focus on whatever they’re doing. The husband is trying to do taxes or something and the other kids are doing homework or playing but the baby is just won’t shut up. Then the mom appears on screen heroically and changes its diaper, the baby stops crying and everyone’s happy and the mom and dad warmly hug each other. Diaper brand’s name appears and it ends.

Ok, now, what do you think that family looks like? Well, they’re white, that’s for damn sure. They look upper middle class with a suburban house. They’re clearly husband and wife, and probably have another kid or two in the background. The interior of the house is just the right amount of nice looking. You want the kitchen to look the way all the suburban moms watching the commercial would realistically want their own kitchen to look if they redid it. The other kids are probably a cute little blonde 5 year old and a slightly older boy who looks like a child version of the red power ranger. The wife is attractive with a modest hair style, not too attractive as to be resented but attractive enough to be just a tiny bit envied. The husband is more typical looking for a suburban dad. Is there anything else? Oh they might have a dog, probably a Labrador. We’ve all seen commercials that are basically exactly like this.

Now, let’s describe a diaper commercial for 2021 and see if maybe the differences could reflect the change in society, or at least what massive corporations think about how society has changed. We open on a dad who is already changing his kid’s diaper, he’s making some slightly comical faces to show that he’s focused and that he’s tackling this intimidating task with pride. The baby girl is so impressed that it just lies there and adorably watches daddy get the job done. Dad finishes with a proud look on his face, picks up his happy baby, as he holds her and smiles his spouse walks in from work and is happy to see that dad has everything under control. The brand name appears as they kiss and smile and it ends.

Now, what does this family look like? Well, they’re probably African-American, that’s for sure. It looks like they’re living in a relatively nice city apartment, probably painted walls rather than trendy exposed brick. The dad is “manly” looking in that he works out and looks mature. Probably not any other kids in the background. The spouse who comes home is definitely coming home from work and could be a man or woman. If it’s a man he’s probably not African-American himself. If it’s a woman she’s definitely African-American and she’s wearing obvious business attire that is also smartly fashionable. Is that it? No pets, no other kids, the commercial started mid diaper change… I guess that’s it.

It’s already blatantly obvious how different both commercials are and, at least in my opinion, how they represent broader changes in the values and ideologies of our society. To go over all of them would take too long; race, gender, sexuality, type of home, and gender roles are all different in obvious ways. Just as an example, in the 90’s commercial is not just that mom is the one that changes the diaper, but also that the rest of the family does nothing about the crying baby even though they’re all in the living room. They’re upset that mom isn’t doing what she’s supposed to. It’s mom’s job to make sure the family is comfortable. In the 2021 commercial it’s a man changing the diaper and, at least from our perspective, no hesitation about him doing it. The wife is apparently the bread winner and when she gets home from work she’s happy with her husband.

I think I’ve sufficiently shown how commercials can be educational on the topic of societal norms and ideals. I hear you ask the next question though. You ask, “Why exactly are commercials doing such a good job at this?” Well, that brings me to the main point in this article (again that feels lame). You see, these companies are all attempting the same thing. They are trying their darndest to emotionally manipulate you and this fact is the source of the greatest value commercials offer us.

If your capable, and willing, commercials can do a fantastic job of teaching you so much about emotional manipulation. Honestly, I feel like all the attention I paid to commercials growing up have actually provided substantial return on investment. I’m not gonna sit here and praise myself for being a savvy investor since my A.D.D. kinda forced me to pay attention but I’ve reaped the rewards all the same. I can’t imagine a better course on how to recognize, interpret, and subsequently resist the strategies institutions use to emotionally manipulate us than the television commercial. Let’s take the same two commercials we used to show social norm changes and see how they emotionally manipulate us. To be clear, I don’t think the 90’s commercial manipulates more and I’m not trying to make a statement about the ethics of these commercials. That’s a topic for another time.

First the 90’s commercial. The corporation is making a mistake here and limiting themselves with the idea that the only person worth advertising to is Mothers so there’s not much here in the way of manipulation of the father or anyone else. The first thing they show is something all mothers have experienced and that all mothers wish to not experience. They show an unhappy family and play one of the most emotionally impactful sounds in existence, a crying baby. Mom’s everywhere are already subconsciously looking for a solution. In walks the commercial mom and she’s everything your basic suburban mom wants to relate to; she’s attractive, taking action, solving this relatable problem, she’s even needed, albeit in kind of an unhealthy way. She picks up her crying baby and solves the problem as only a really good mother like this one can, by using this particular brand of diaper. With ease she does her job and now not only is the baby quiet but her kids are happier, better able to do homework, and her husband is suddenly affectionate and physical.

The 90’s commercial is saying, “You guys all have this problem! Well, look at this lady! Not only does she have the life you want, the kitchen you as a woman invariably want, but she’s also an expert at pleasing her family. Don’t you want to be her? Let’s see how the woman you could be does the job of being a mom. Oh my goodness, that was incredible! By using our product ALL of her problems have been solved, not just the baby! Don’t you want to be like this woman? Her kids are happy and well behaved. Her husband shows affection. She has no problems. Everyone loves her. If you use our product everyone will love you.” It’s not even hard to see the emotional manipulation and if you can see something you can understand it and to understand it is to have resistance to it.

What about the 2021 commercial? This commercial is saying something very different but still manipulative. It’s saying, “Hey fellas! Are you intimidated by, or bad at, the task of changing diapers? Are you tired looking incapable in front of your spouse? We believe in you! You see this big black guy who’s healthier than you, stronger than you, probably has a bigger penis than you and, because of all those things, is more manly than you are? He’s doing a great job! A real man who’s hot and cool doesn’t let something like changing a diaper defeat him! Hey ladies! Our diapers easy enough for even your husband to use. That’s right buy from us and your husband won’t be so lazy any more. More importantly than that though, we respect you and understand you. Even if you aren’t the one bringing home the bacon we know that mom’s are the real bread winners of any family. Not only is our product great, but we aren’t one of those faceless mega corporations that don’t care about you at all. We practically are you! We love you!”

Am I exaggerating these things? Personally, I really believe that I’m not but I also don’t take that much issue with it. Even if I am exaggerating my main point remains made. Commercials are a fantastic teaching tool in how to spot the ways corporations try to emotionally manipulate you and I’m thankful that I paid enough attention to them to learn something, to become immune to them, to realize what was going on and to use that information to improve my ability to spot, and resist all sources of emotional manipulation.

Does this mean I’m rooting for Commercials to win the war vs Anti-Commercial? No, but I think this is an interesting opportunity to show how even mundane and annoying things can be used as tools to learn from. As I apply this amount of examination to everything, not just commercials, I find that nothing is mundane or even truly annoying.

I’ll leave you with the worst commercial I’ve ever seen. This is the most disgustingly emotionally manipulative commercial I’m aware of. This commercial disgusts me.

Book Club: The Mint; 1:1-4

Last night I read 4 “chapters” of The Mint by T.E. Lawrence. I put chapters in quotes because those 4 sections amount to only about 8 total pages of reading. It’s obvious to me that this book is going to be fascinating both in subject and in diction. I honestly don’t know how well this book might translate into a one of my “Book Club” blog posts or even if trying to would lessen the experience of reading it. Content may be the product of the internet but if the most engaging way for me to read a book is to simply read it myself then I should obviously forgo the potential content of clickable blog posts in pursuit of that better experience. I don’t just say that because my blog posts get zero clicks anyway so I might as well look cool in a sort of, “Well, as long as I’m hooked I might as well volunteer” attitude. Basically what I’m trying to say is that I might not post this that I am currently typing out but I’ll instead just use this to write down anything I feel like and afterwards I’ll see how it looks and if I can make anything out of it.

Is there anything I want to say about the first 4 sections? First off, I gotta figure out a better way to refer to each section rather than switching awkwardly from “chapter” to “section”. So, the book itself is divided into “Parts” which are further divided into separately numbered and titled chapters. I guess I’ll format references this way, “Part: chapter number; and then possibly chapter title”. Don’t ask me why I’m using that punctuation because I don’t have a good answer and I don’t care. Is that how the they do bible versus? Like, 3:6?

Anyway, the three things that stood out in 1:1-4, were the writing itself, as in the word choice and sentence structures, the simply unique nature of the book’s existence as something that is unlike all others, and my own new experience of reading someone else’s diary.

When I say diary I don’t mean to imply that this book’s purpose was simply a diary. Clearly it’s more than that but I don’t read much non-fiction. I can’t remember ever reading an autobiographical work or even a regular non-fiction book. Have I ever even read a legit book on history? Basically it’s weird for me to know that the things being described in words actually happened and that the characters are real people that the author has zero control over. I mean, they’re obviously being represented by Lawrence so he does have some control but not in the way a Director has control over how a famous historical figure, such as Lawrence himself, is portrayed, the words he chooses and the overall personality of each character. It’s new for me to read dialogue without considering why the author is making each word choice for each character.

The second of the three “things” actually compounds on top of the newness of the third. This book is incredibly unusual. While T.E. Lawrence himself is obviously unusual the book itself is essentially impossible to categorize or equate with. Maybe I could best show this with a list, a list of aspects of rarity.

  • The author is a hugely famous war hero of WW1.
  • Those heroics were extremely different from typical war heroics.
  • The man himself was extremely unique. A quote on the cover is from Winston Churchill, “I deem him one of the greatest beings alive… we shall never see his like again.”
  • This war hero decided to re-enlist, twice, into the military under fake name with an idea to turn his experiences and journals into some sort of novel. That’s a premise I’ve never seen the like of even in fiction.
  • So far, it seems the experiences are not edited into some sort of narrative directed towards a goal but rather the intermittent journaling of whatever this unusual man felt was important to write down. That’s way I referred to it as a diary rather than a book because it’s more of a direct look into the soul of the man himself without the potentially opaque window of the novel.
  • The author died before being completely “finished” with the work and even before his death he wanted the book to not be released until 1950.

These two “things” compound because this isn’t the “Commentarii de Bello Gallico” or some other autobiographical or non-fiction work that is meant to describe events so that people know what happened or, maybe in Caesar’s case, what the author want’s us to think happened. The Mint is more of a mix between expose, poetry, self-exploration, journal, and uncertainty. Obviously, whatever kind of book it is, it is unusual to at least me.

The first of the three “things” that stand out is the writing itself. The way Lawrence writes is… well… I guess the word I would use is “free”. There seems to be no notion of adherence to any normal writing rulesets. This type of writing, regardless of my complete inability to define the ‘type’, is exactly the type that appeals to me. Really, I think “Free” might be the best word for it. Not free in the sense that it is without control but free in the sense that brilliant, extensive, and clear amount of control is all coming from the authors commitment to only his desire to express. Even a direct rebellion against the established rules of expression is still entirely slave to those rules. This type of writing feels free in that rebellion or adherence or conformity are hardly even considered.

I guess I wrote a whole blog post instead of just reading the freaking book.

The GOP Metagame of BS

I was originally gonna post this on facebook but when I post things that seem emotionally negative I stop getting consistent, predictable, or desirable responses.

Some people just don’t see the bullshit coming from the GoP.

  • Complaining that Biden isn’t bipartisan enough while publicly committing to a strategy of non-cooperation.
  • Praising themselves for loving Cops and then refusing to have a meeting with 1/6 survivor cops. Remember when they fought against providing 9/11 first responders with better medical care?
  • Claiming all lives are sacred but then supporting the death penalty and going on an execution spree right before Biden takes office.
  • Complaining about Corporations having too much power while giving corporations more power.
  • Whining about not having enough money to spend on things while lowering corporate tax rates to the lowest they’ve been since 1939.
  • Inventing “Trickle Down Economics”.
  • Blaming power outages in a state that they completely run on the Green New Deal proposed by democrats that hasn’t even been voted on yet let alone taken effect.
  • Whining about Cancel culture while inventing new things to over react about like lapel pins and coffee cups except when Trump does anything. They ignored Trump’s MANY unethical choices, quotes (“grab em by the pussy”), actions, existence, while they FREAK the F out about AOC parking illegally at a grocery store. They straight up canceled Liz Cheney because she said the Biden was elected president. They support the ultimate form of “Cancel Culture” in the death penalty.
  • The list goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and…

It’s like the GOP strategy to hide their complete lack of honor, consistency, humility, and empathy is to shove it so hard into everyone’s faces that they just get acclimated to it and forget it’s there. If anyone does bring it up just stick to the strategy.

They don’t even use the “both sides” bullshit anymore even though that was actually one of their most effective lines. The “Both Sides” thing used to be true in alot of ways and obviously any piece of propaganda will be more effective if it has some truth to it. The reason the GOP can’t use it anymore is because they’ve pushed themselves so far away from the other “side” that they aren’t even allowed to hint that they might be similar in any way. I mean, when you actively court, support, and nominate people who believe the other side is full of cannibal pedophile Satan worshippers you kind of can’t say “both sides” anymore.

God, I remember when McCain was running for president in 2008. That was back when the GOP still had some of its soul. While I wouldn’t have voted for McCain it was impossible for me to really deride the guy. Nut jobs in this town hall meeting where saying things like, “Obama is actually an Al-Qaeda spy working for Iran and we can never trust him!” and McCain stood there with the mic and said, “I’m sorry, but that’s not true. While I disagree with my opponent on a huge number of issues I do believe that he is a good man who cares about the country.”

When I saw that stuff I never would have thought that Cheney would be a disgraced name and that those nut jobs would be Senators. If things had gone they way I thought made sense I would probably still not be registered to vote.

The strategy of the GOP seems to be

  1. Start some wars to keep oil prices down and screw the economy up to make the rich richer.
  2. Blame anyone on the left for how bad everything is especially when one of them is president.
  3. Make it impossible for Dems to get anything done.
  4. Deride the Dems for taking longer than 5 minutes to fix the largest economy in human history while also trying to convince everyone that the government is supposed to go slow.
  5. Get power back.
  6. Repeat

I don’t really have some conclusion or grand purpose to this post. This post is simply my official statement into the void that I have eyes and that I use them.

Book Club: Plato’s Republic: Book 4: Part 1 of 2

At the end of Book 3 Socrates had just finished describing the overall, macro level, organizational systems of his Hypothetical “Perfect” City. The reason I’m preemptively separating this section into 2 parts is because I think Book 4 has alot to say. I think that’s fine since I basically broke down Book 3 into multiple parts as well since I felt like I needed to clarify and explain some things.

To recap, and probably over simplify, he has the citizenry separated into three groups; the Rulers, the Guardians, and the regular citizenry. The Rulers haven’t been discussed much but their essentially the “best” of men in that they are honest, wise, and care about the well being of the city over everything else. The Guardians seem to be a mix of the Military, Police, and generally people in charge of watching over and maintaining the health of society. I’m not sure if Socrates is including teachers into the Guardian group but he clearly places great importance on education. Lastly, the Citizenry are the only people allowed to hold private property at all and should be encouraged to pursuing a single craft that they are best suited to.

So, Book 4 begins with Adeimantus, the man Socrates is talking to, asking how these Guardians could possibly be happy in this city if they aren’t allowed to own anything at all, even the homes the sleep in. As a side note, I want to point out how smart this format for writing is. Instead of your typical philosophical text of just positing concepts for 1,000 pages Plato has given himself so many tools to work with. Multiple characters allow for Plato to let the conversation go the way he wants it but also have it feel organic. Plato wants to talk about how the Guardians can be happy since he thinks that the argument his society would use to poke a whole in the concept. To do this he just has Adeimantus bring it up. By having a character represent the society Plato is critiquing he can give that critique a voice to get behind while still having total control of both sides of the argument. On top of that, as Adeimantus is convinced of things it gives us, or at least me, more of a feeling of being convinced myself.

Anyway, the question is, how can the Guardians be happy without material gains. Socrates, as he often does, first reinforces Adeimantus’ argument to make himself seem more objective and honest before leading the argument towards his own counter point. Socrates quickly clarifies that if the Guardians, or any group at all, is unhappy then this city is clearly not a just city and is therefore a failure. With this statement he accomplishes three things.

First, he makes sure that the goal of the conversation is focused on finding “justice”. Second, he implants into Adeimantus’ head the idea that a the best way to find a flaw in this hypothetical is to find a place where justice is missing. This actually works to convince Adeimantus towards Socrates side of the argument since the original point Socrates was trying to argue against was the idea that Justice is not worth striving for. By setting up a lack of justice as the potential target for his debate opponent to attack he is subtly getting Adeimantus into the state of mind that Justice is the true sign of quality.

Lastly, Socrates is subtly criticizing any real city that ignores the happiness of any citizen or group of citizens. A city where any part is being exploited or ignored is an unjust city where the ruling class is failing. These are the kinds of criticisms that led the the real life ruling class to sentence Socrates to death.

Socrates argues that if you were to give a farmer or craftsman material wealth it would clearly lead to a drop in productivity and work quality from that farmer. It takes away incentive he might have to do work, especially quality work, and distracts him with other pursuits that are detrimental to his craft. Adeimantus agrees with that idea. Socrates then says that while having shoddy farmers is not that big a deal for the city having shoddy Guardians would be terrible and because of this the kind of material happiness Adeimantus describes is clearly not a healthy thing for anyone in the city. His exact quote is, “But surely you see that men who are not guardians of the laws and the city, but seem to be, utterly destroy an entire city.”

After discussing how wealth has a negative effect on people he makes the same claim about poverty. If a craftsmen is too poor to afford tools then not only will his work drop in quality but he will also make worse craftsmen of anyone he teaches. For these reasons one of the primary tasks of the Guardians will be to make sure that both wealth and poverty never exist in the city. Oddly, when Socrates is listing the negative effects of wealth and poverty, such as idleness and illiberality, he lists as both being sources of “innovation”. Innovation is the only product the two have in common and it feels unintuitive to list it as a negative. I get the feeling innovation will be discussed in more detail later.

Adeimantus’ next question is about how this City, which I will refer to from now on as The Republic, can possibly defend itself or win wars if it has no money. Socrates once again uses his ideas on the negative effects of money to counter Adeimantus’ criticism. Because wealth leads to complacency then the Guardians would be able to defeat a wealthy army twice its size. There would also be no incentive for a nation to declare war on The Republic . If wealth is universally frowned upon, then The Republic wouldn’t antagonize any neighbors and wouldn’t have enough wealth to be worth going to war with, especially since the Guardians would be so formidable in battle. In fact, The Republic would actually be flush with potential allies. Any ally would get the lion’s share of the loot while fighting alongside the Guardians who are the most powerful warriors.

Another reason The Republic needn’t worry about other cities is that other cities are not actually cities at all. This is an interesting point he makes. He basically claims that any real city is actually a multitude of much smaller cities that are regularly at war with each other. He says that two of these cities that exist, and are constantly at war, are the rich and the poor and even within those groups there are many cities fighting between each other. Socrates argues that The Republic, no matter how small it is, will always be the largest of all cities because no other city is actually a fully unified and therefore aren’t even cities at all.

I like this argument in particular. It eloquently states one of the major weaknesses of an unified city and points the blame mostly on the society’s obsession with wealth and power. A sociological emphasis on competition, or even just a lack of equality in the city, creates a system where the people compete for a goal, that goal being wealth and power, that in actuality is unhealthy for them in every way.

Socrates adds to the Guardian’s growing list of tasks by assigning them the duty of ensuring that the Republic never grows past a particular boundary. He defines that boundary as “Up to that point in its growth at which it’s willing to be one, let it grow, and not beyond.” If the Republic grows too large then it will start to divide itself into more, smaller cities and once that start’s than the Republic is basically already dead. Adeimantus then points out that the Guardians are being given quite alot of tasks. Socrates argues that all of these tasks that seem separate from each other are, in reality, easy to do as long as the Guardians keep vigilant guard of the truly “sufficient” task, which is education and rearing. Sufficient is a word Socrates seems to choose very carefully here. The actual quote is this, “if they guard the one great- or, rather than great, sufficient- thing.”

This is just one of many moments that very clearly show how important Socrates believes education is. He consistently makes it clear that all the good aspects of this Republic can only exist with quality education and rearing. If we could provide an entire population with a truly good, Capital-E, Education, in every aspect of life, in “gymnastics” and “music”, in ethics and intuition, then the people will know the obvious truths that so many people fail to see. Those truths being that kindness, compassion, respect, etc, or in other words, leading a life of “Justice” is the most rewarding choice. As Socrates puts it, “The regime, once well started, will roll on like a circle in its growth. For sound rearing and education, when they are preserved, produce good natures; and sound natures, in their turn receiving such an education, grow up still better than those before them.” Or, another quote just on the next page “The starting point of a man’s education sets the course of what follows.”

Socrates reinforces that belief in the next section when he talks about other matters of society. Socrates states that putting social norms into laws is the wrong, and counter-productive, choice. By laws of social norms I mean in the sense that certain types of behaviors, or styles or things like clothing, cloud be outlawed. Socrates claims that a good education leads to the people naturally finding what is good. Even rules in matters of business such as contracts, legal complaints, appointment of judges, assessment of taxes, or anything else like that, should not be put into law because if the people are raised to be truly just, in a society that puts no value on wealth, they will naturally find the correct courses themselves.

Now, obviously achieving that sort of universal quality Education isn’t something that’s really possible, in the opinion of most people, but I think Socrates understands that simply stating the power potential in education has value in itself. A discussion about the possibility of that type of education is for another time and its mentions in this work are, to me, more there to communicate education’s importance, influence, and value. Socrates isn’t actually making any attempts to clearly describe that perfect education. He doesn’t deign to have that knowledge. He just says things like, a fine a lawful beginning leads to more law-abiding adults, or that competition over money is for children be normalized to.

This post is already pretty long and is only covering half the Book so this’ll be the last section I go over. Do you remember in one of the previous books where Socrates made some less respectable claims about how people should respond to disease? He talked about someone suffering from a disease of the kind that if they wanted to fight it it would consume the rest of their lives while never actually improving their lives. He argued that instead of giving up your life to instead fight that disease you should try to live your true life as best you can while you can. This may sound odd but I think part of why this might make sense to Socrates is that he believes that people shouldn’t live their lives in fear of death.

Here in Book 4 Socrates brings up that same example to describe the type of people who rule societies in the real world who constantly try to find the perfect set of laws. Adeimantus says, “They’ll spend their entire lives continually setting down many such rules and correcting them, thinking they’ll get hold of what’s best.”

Socrates responds, “Such men will live like those who are sick but, due to licentiousness, aren’t willing to quit their worthless way of life. For all their treatment, they get nowhere, except, of course, to make their illnesses more complicated and bigger, always hoping that if someone would just recommend a drug, they will be- thanks to it- healthy. Isn’t it charming in them that they believe the greatest enemy of all is the man who tells the truth- namely, that until one gives up drinking, stuffing oneself, sex, and idleness, there will be no help for one in drugs, cutting, charms or pendants.”

To me, and this is just one interpretation, it feels like Socrates brought up that idea of the sick man earlier on with the same goal in mind that he had when he supported Adeimantus’ argument earlier on in the Book. The type of people who believe in Adeimantus’ darker idea of society and the type of people who should be respected will agree with Socrates statement and grasp on to that metaphor. Socrates then expertly uses that exact example they liked to then lead them to a state of mind to agree with a more radical claim that they might have more violently disagreed with.

Regardless of your opinion on Socrates’ philosophical ideas reading this book is still valuable in that it is absolutely expert use of rhetoric that we can learn from.