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And by a prudent flight and cunning save A life which valour could not, from the grave. A better buckler I can soon regain, But who can get another life again? Archilochus

Tuesday, June 24, 2025

Nassim Taleb - Philosophical Hercules

Francisco de Zurbarán, "Antaeus fighting Heracles" (1634)

from Wikipedia:
In Greek sources, he was the son of Poseidon and Gaia, who lived in the interior desert of Libya. His wife was the goddess Tinge, for whom it was claimed that the city of Tangier in Morocco was named (though it could be the other way around), and he had a daughter named Alceis or Barce. Another daughter, Iphinoe, consorted with Heracles.

Antaeus would challenge all passers-by to wrestling matches and remained invincible as long as he remained in contact with his mother, the earth. As Greek wrestling, like its modern equivalent, typically attempted to force opponents to the ground, he always won, killing his opponents. He built a temple to his father using their skulls. Antaeus fought Heracles as he was on his way to the Garden of Hesperides as his 11th Labour. Heracles realized that he could not beat Antaeus by throwing or pinning him. Instead, he held him aloft and then crushed him to death in a bear hug.

54 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, is it place and time for me to try my herculian fit too? ;-)
Or, back to our tiers.
You surely remember? Tier 2 -- where we have galactic GPS and sawing seeds all overinterstellar space.
And tier 1 -- from which that second naturally grow... Solar system GPS and mass-trqnsport system across it.
While tier 3 (WAT,you thought that it stops on 2) -- looks much more tedious, inter-galactic qnd into the Void.
Seems li e not meeting any rejections, yes?

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

How about Tier 0... finish colonizing the moon. ;)

Musk's absence to go DoGE has set lunar colonization back at least a decade. Starship is a key component.

Anonymous said...

But.
There is a bit of problem. On that tier 1 -- to launch into space each new gimmick just to try if it works -- just TOO expensive. Isn't it?

But, no prob. We have here on Earth environment that is much too similar to space. While more accessible too -- Ocean.

To launch Oceanic GPS. And try all kinds of systems to collect and build things from local resources. And. We'd surely need that resources to increaseour space launch and space exploration capabilities too.

Anonymous said...

Sorry.

As I thought.

I was not explicit enough. With it https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Then-a-Miracle-Occurs-Copyrighted-artwork-by-Sydney-Harris-Inc-All-materials-used-with_fig2_302632920

Tier 0 -- it's Ocean

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

... the lunar elevator from an orbiting transfer station (with promise of eliminating a transfer station in current plans).

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

It would have direct re-application... dealing with pressures (like 900 psi and 1,000 deg F on Venus)... but pressures also usually mean "more weight".

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Tier 0.5? The simplest extra-terrestrial case.

Anonymous said...

Yes. But it needs techs we still not developed...

Anonymous said...

Yep.

That's Old School approach -- based on hard science -- taking into account physical conditions of environment (only?).

While modern tech teach that artifical environment created by techs itself... are much more tedious to tacle with.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

So have you built any Tier 0 environmental simulations? You should go work for a submarine or submersible naval architectural firm and "appropriate" one.

Anonymous said...

Ehm? What for?

They do not have any viable experise. Do their subs able to seek for foods? ;-p

Anonymous said...

Soft bodies -- do not have problems with pressure. ;-)

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

For the digital simulation environment. And i pit the soft body that rises too fast (nitrogen narcosis and "the bends")

I wonder if the pressure contributed to "1st life" in the assembly chain. Or a combo of heat & pressure like super-saturated steam (water boils at 950 deg F at 900 psi).

Anonymous said...

Yap. Things that need to be explored. Experimented with. ;-)

Anonymous said...

And... launch design testing and evaluation cycle. AKA Evolution 2.0

Because, with our current knowledge we just dunno -- what combinations of materials and forms would work. And how.

Means. There *NEED* to be tons of testing. Trials and errors. Automated ones.
To collect data of working designs.

Anonymous said...

It maybe look simple. And unimportant.

But is very tedious task -- because needs knowledge... for at least awareness of many-many different spheres and techs.

And ordinary material sciencies. And computer technologies. And... psychology. As it need to be an organisation, a n action team, a community of people, working on that project

And that last -- most tedious of all, it seems.
As we rarely do such projects. Last one known was Manhattan project IMHO.

Anonymous said...

With similar traits -- many-many people working around same big task...

ambiguous, and fuzzy, and uncertain of results.

Anonymous said...

As I... would really like it to be project to reach the stars.

But I am cynical realist and understand that most surely it could start as Mass Destruction Weapon ONLY endeavour. (((((

That's why I hesitate... while it not that bad to be von Braun... it not that interesting to be... that other guy. From movie.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

I think Stanley Kubrick convinced everyone to move in the other direction. Into "Inner Space" (psychology).

I saw 2001 in Venezuela in the 60's. It left an impression

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

So start in Tier 0. Manganese nodules... ;)

Anonymous said...

Not living close to ocean/sea. Even big enough puddle.(((

Anonymous said...

Nothing new here.

Progress -- never was idea of mainstream.

Yawn.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

How are you going to launch Tier 0 if you're afraid of water?

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

If they're going to bear the expense, they'll need to be sold on the idea.

Anonymous said...

Because. "Those who knew better", you know whom I talking, isn't it?
See progress as antithetic to their grip on power.
And... rightfully.

And I. Lived in Soviet Union. In it prime... and dusk.

Why do you think there was NO Internet in USSR?

Anonymous said...

Why afraid?

Just distantiated from significant amount of it.

Heh.

It asks for response to your missives -- you ignoring very significant power of our realm -- Nothingness.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

...because there weren't enough KGB to monitor and eavesdrop on all the comms. Now we've got NSA AI to do it. @@

We've become what you once were. Only now we have the Tech to really monitor (Acxiom) and squeeze the economy (technofeudalism/ Bezos/ Amazon)

Anonymous said...

BS.

Circumstances is very different.

Anonymous said...

Just explore opensource, openhardware and other such communities.

Such... was impossible in USSR.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Government is all about "control". If you had the means to monitor it, why wouldn't the USSR release it?

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

The communists were experts at entryism. USAID... is the same thing.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

'Soft' power.

Anonymous said...

Yeah. Your total non-understanding of it.

USSR was country of workers and peasants. And that workers was not european jentry, but that same peasants, with peasants morale. "Everything that not explicitly allowed, must be prohibited".
That is the corner stone of any village culture.

In opposite to "not meddl into neighbour dweller things" of a city inhabitant.

Anonymous said...

To maintain good feelings, Eumolpus tells the story of a widow of Ephesus. At first she planned to starve herself to death in her husband's tomb, but she was seduced by a soldier guarding crucified corpses, and when one of these was stolen she offered the corpse of her husband as a replacement (110–112).

Gives another perspective to "rised from thumb Xst"

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

No lessons from Project CyberSyn?

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

You're right, i don't understand it.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Is this what you mean?

Freud's horde brothers.

Anonymous said...

So much for your multitemporal and multicultural... yawn.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

The Rape of the Sabine Women?

Ophelia vs. Hamlet responses? (and Ophelia drowns self like in the Shakespeare version)

Anonymous said...

Yawn.

BS.

Darwin. Sexual selection. Females DEFINE what "being male" should mean.

But. Not vice versa. As being female based on producing progeny.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

...given all the genders, they sound pretty confused. Sounds like they're shopping for something better out of FOMO.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

I try, but not always successfully.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

Boredom. Yeah, I just can't bring myself to turning off the internet.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

The ennui!

Anonymous said...

Yep. That's tough. Especially without guiding principle to follow.

Yawn.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

...but I do have one. "Fail. Fail again. Fail better." - Samuel Beckett

Anonymous said...

The road to wisdom? Well, it's plain
And simple to express:
Err
and err
and err again,
but less
and less
and less.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

:)

Anonymous said...

Yep.

Less and less, it's not about you. I know.

Anonymous said...

Life... will do it for you. Sooner or later.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

...and miles to go before I sleep.

Anonymous said...

There was sober voices that time too.

https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/grew-on-the-requirements-of-american-policy-toward-japan/

But.Drunken and indulgent in self-delusions... lead to disaster of Pearl Harbor.

I profess that today it will be the same.

Yawn.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

The American people depend upon strong leaders, something that has been lacking sine the late '80s... until now.

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

In his first term, Trump was powerless against the bureaucracy. That is no longer the case.