Here we Go Again...

Does this Signal an End to the Need for the Jones Act?  

Or a New Beginning?

Gnothi Seauton: The Dangers of Not Knowing Yourself

Index

0:00 The Good Man Myth: Why we felt sorry for Walter 

0:52 The Most Important Question: When did he become this? 

1:44 The Last Excuse: Did he really do it for himself? 

2:52 The Invisibility Wound: The cancer was just a trigger 

3:37 Hubris, Hexis, Agnoia: The Ancient Greek Map of Walter White 

4:40 "I am the one who knocks": Pure Hubris explained 

5:15 Hexis: How character is carved by small choices 

6:47 Socrates’ Warning: No one is bad on purpose 

7:45 Essence vs. Mask: Why Heisenberg was an escape, not a truth 

9:03 Gurdjieff and the Mask that eats the Face 

10:12 A Personal Story: My rebellion in High School 

11:58 Why School produces workers, not human beings 

12:53 The System’s Grade: Defining your value through others 

14:44 The 4 Types of People Society creates 

16:15 The Invisible One & The "Good Cause" Danger 

18:40 Finding Harmony: How Music became my Philosophy 

20:30 Sleep is Slavery: The Depth of our Cultural Amnesia 

21:11 Eudaimonia: The energy of living your true nature 

23:13 Look Around You: Do you see Walter?

Notes:

Hubris:  To cross your own limit

Exis: Having become something You are what you gave become, the result of your choices_

Agnoia: Knowing who you are (inner point of reference)

Essence & Mask: What is carved deep/ what you are, and Persona, what you perform.  Personality eats up essence.  Essence is undeveloped.

She Didn't Know Herself. Was She a Mother, or a "Liberated Woman"?

I Can No Longer Comment using Blogger

Google finally deployed a back-end fix to resolve a widespread bug that was blocking the platform's commenting system. [1]

If you or your readers noticed comments getting stuck indefinitely on the "publishing..." status over the last 24 to 48 hours, you were caught in a verified, global platform glitch. [1, 2, 3]

What actually happened?

The "Publishing" Loop Bug: Starting around September 3–4, a massive influx of users reported that whenever they attempted to submit a comment on any Blogspot site, the form would get stuck on "publishing" and never actually post. [1]
The Chrome Disconnect: The issue was heavily tied to script execution errors on specific browsers (primarily Google Chrome). While alternative browsers like Microsoft Edge or Apple's Safari occasionally bypassed the bug, Chrome users were entirely locked out of interacting with comment sections. [1, 2]
The Behind-the-Scenes Fix: Because the problem was escalated directly to Google's engineering team by forum experts, a patch was pushed to their servers overnight. Once that patch fully propagated across Google's massive global network, the comment system "magically" went back to normal. [1, 2]

Should you do anything?

Since the fix was server-side, you don't need to change any settings on your dashboard. However, if you or any of your regular readers still experience a lag, doing a quick clear of your browser cache and cookies will force Chrome to load the newly patched version of the page. [1, 2, 3]

Are you missing any comments that were submitted while it was broken, or is your dashboard completely back to normal?

SUNY Stony Brook? What's with the Fields Medalists?

Truth or Equity?: What Value(s) Distinguish a Social System like Education from Law or Science?

...and what would happen if a Social Value like "wholeness" or "social consensus" replaced "truth"?  Wouldn't "normal science" always prevail over "extraordinary science"?

'Philosophy is the translation of Eros into Logos"

- Byung-Chul Han

 

"...and the desire and pursuit of the whole is called, "Love""

- Plato "Symposium" (Aristophanes' Speech)

 

The Life of Leisure

Roman Space Telescope Launch

NS Savannah: Technological White Elephant

The Current Enclosure of Collective Intelligence

On the Capitalist Commodification of Information

Catherine Liu: What went wrong with Liberalism?

The Cultural Valuation & De-Valuation of Pride: History's Constantly Changing Identity Technology

Index to Video above

00:00 The Paradox of Modern Pride 

01:14 Hyperiphania: The Greek Etymology of Pride 

03:19 Megalopsychia: Greatness of Soul 

05:30 Virtue as Self-Knowledge 

06:52 Historical Examples: Socrates' Integrity 

08:26 Historical Examples: Leonidas & Thermopylae 

09:42 Historical Examples: Hypatia of Alexandria 

12:56 The Reversal: When Pride Became a Sin 

14:56 Superbia: The Root of All Evil 

16:56 The Shift from Growth to Limitation 

17:50 A Linguistic Revolution 

19:59 Aristotle vs. Christian Fathers 

21:07 Typhon: The Ego vs. Divine Logos 

23:25 Kenosis & Catharsis: Emptying the Soul 

26:36 The Fragmentation of Reality 

28:50 Plato's Warning: Science without Virtue 

30:43 - Nietzsche’s Re-evaluation of Values 

32:04 Participation in the Divine 

33:51 Modernity: Pride as Identity & Labels 

37:01 The Mask vs. The Essence 

38:00 Know Thyself: What remains behind the mask? 

40:24 Rediscovering Greatness of Soul

Excerpt from the video above:

Chapter 2: Hyperiphania: The Greek Etymology of Pride

In Greek the word for pride is hyperephaneia. it comes from hyper how we say hyper meaning above or beyond something and pheno meaning to appear, to shine, to bring into view. And the verb pheno, is related to phaos, which means light. So at its deepest level the word does not simply describe a feeling or superiority, it describes someone who appears above someone who stands out... someone who becomes visible, radiant, prominent. To "appear" in this sense is not just to be seen, it is to shine, to manifest, "to emerge into the light". So in that sense pride originally carried the idea of elevation of distinction and of magnificence.

from Google AI:

In Greek mythology, Hybris is the goddess and personified spirit of extreme pride, arrogance, and insolence. [1, 2]

Who is Hybris?

Role: She is a minor spirit (daimon) who represents outrageous behavior, reckless pride, and violence.
Action: She encourages mortals to defy the natural laws and disrespect the gods.
Consequence: Her actions always lead to divine punishment (nemesis). [1, 2]

The Meaning of Hubris

Definition: The ancient Greeks used the word hubris to describe dangerous overconfidence.
The Flaw: It happens when a person believes they are equal to or better than the gods.
The Result: Mythological heroes and mortals who showed hubris nearly always faced a tragic downfall

Folding Time and Space...

Protego ergo Obligo!: Welcome to My Feudal Garden (Patriarchy)

 from Google AI:

The phrase "I protect you, therefore you obey me" (protego ergo obligo) is a famous concept in political philosophy from the German theorist Carl Schmitt. 

Carl Schmitt's Core Idea

• Protection and Obedience: Carl Schmitt argued that the foundational core of politics and the state rests on a simple exchange. A ruler or sovereign provides physical protection and security to the people. In return, the people owe the sovereign obedience. 
• The Political Bond: According to this view, the moment a state can no longer protect its citizens, its right to demand obedience collapses. Conversely, the moment citizens accept protection, they surrender a degree of autonomy and must comply with the governing authority.

To fully understand Carl Schmitt’s concept of protego ergo obligo (I protect, therefore I obey/bind), we have to look at his view of human nature, his critique of modern liberalism, and how this idea shapes the definition of political power.

Here is an elaboration of the mechanics, context, and implications of this philosophical stance.

1. The Foundation: The "Friend-Enemy" Distinction

Schmitt believed that every sphere of human activity is defined by a core distinction:

• Morality is about good vs. evil.
• Aesthetics is about beautiful vs. ugly.
• Politics, for Schmitt, is strictly about Friend vs. Enemy. He argued that humans are naturally dangerous and conflict-prone. Because human groups will always divide themselves into "us" (friends) and "them" (enemies who pose an existential threat), conflict is inevitable. Therefore, you cannot survive without a collective protector.

2. The Mechanics of the Exchange

The relationship between protection and obedience is not a polite agreement; it is a brutal, structural necessity of survival.

+-----------------------------------+

|             SOVEREIGN             |

+-----------------------------------+

                  |

        Provides Protection

                  v

+-----------------------------------+

|              CITIZEN              |

+-----------------------------------+

                  |

           Owes Obedience

                  v

+-----------------------------------+

|             SOVEREIGN             |

+-----------------------------------+

No Free Protection: You cannot enjoy the safety provided by a state, army, or ruler while claiming total individual freedom. If you accept the umbrella of security, you are legally and morally bound to obey the rules of the provider.

No Free Obedience: If a ruler demands taxes, laws, or loyalty but fails to protect you from an invading army or domestic chaos, the bond is broken. The citizens are naturally released from their obligation to obey and will seek a new protector.

The "State of Exception": Schmitt famously wrote, "Sovereign is he who decides on the exception." This means the true ruler is the person or institution that determines when a crisis is severe enough that normal laws must be suspended to protect the group.

3. Schmitt’s Critique of Liberalism

Schmitt used this concept to attack mid-20th-century liberal democracies. He argued that liberalism tries to pretend politics can be neutralized through endless discussion, economics, and legal rules.

He believed liberalism fails because:

• It tries to hide the reality of the "enemy."
• It weakens the state's ability to protect its people by tying the sovereign's hands with bureaucracy.
• When a real crisis hits, a weak, talking-shop government will collapse because it cannot decisively enforce obedience to maintain order.

4. Comparison to Thomas Hobbes

Schmitt drew heavily from the 17th-century philosopher Thomas Hobbes (author of Leviathan).

Hobbes argued that without a powerful government, humans live in a "state of nature" where life is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

Both thinkers agree that people trade freedom for security.

However, while Hobbes viewed this as a rational contract to escape chaos, Schmitt viewed it as an ongoing, intense struggle for collective survival against external and internal enemies.

Jason Arday: Apostle for Normal Academia

Proof that Neoliberal Midwits Have Conquered Cambridge

Arday wasn't an exceptionally bad DEI Hire.  He represented the Norm for all Cambridge hires.

from Google AI:

In Jacques Lacan’s theory, the academic discourse—more precisely called the Discourse of the University—is a structural social link where formal knowledge (S₂) takes the position of absolute authority to classify, manage, and regulate society. 

Introduced in Seminar XVII: The Other Side of Psychoanalysis (1969–1970), Lacan's framework of the Four Discourses maps out how language structures human relationships, power, and desire. 

Key Features of the University Discourse

• The Agent (S₂ - Knowledge): Unlike the Master's discourse where a commanding order drives action, the University discourse puts accumulated knowledge, expertise, and data in charge. It acts as a neutral, bureaucratic machine that organizes everything. 
• The Other (a - The Object / Surplus Enjoyment): The knowledge is directed at the object-cause of desire (the remnant or excess), attempting to domesticate, measure, and absorb anything that resists standard categorization. 
• The Truth (S₁ - The Master Signifier): Hiding beneath the polite, objective pretense of science and academia is a raw, unexamined master command (S₁). The system only functions because a hidden power or political rule backs it up. 
• The Product (- S - The Divided Subject): The ultimate output of this massive categorizing machine is a standardized, split, or alienated human subject who feels reduced to a mere data point or object of study. 

Broader Meaning Beyond the Classroom

Lacan noted that this discourse is not restricted to literal universities or schools. For instance, he argued that state bureaucracies like the Soviet Union represented the pure reign of the university discourse because they tried to run society entirely through totalizing, expert-driven administrative knowledge. It describes any technocratic system that claims objective neutrality while masking its underlying exercise of power. 

The New Objectivity

 

Song in the Twilight (1931) is a prime example of New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit) and Magic Realism. While Franz Sedlacek

The Dome Paradox

from Google AI:

The dome paradox, or Norton's Dome, is a thought experiment created by philosopher John D. Norton in 2003. It claims that classical Newtonian mechanics is not always deterministic. A frictionless ball placed at the exact peak of a specially shaped dome can spontaneously start rolling down in any random direction without any external cause or trigger. [1, 2, 3]

To understand why this paradox generates debate, it helps to examine the core mechanics, the math behind it, and why physicists view it with skepticism. [1, 3]

The Setup and the Math

The Shape: The dome is mathematically engineered so that the distance the ball travels down from the top scales with the fourth power of time. [1]
The Equations: When you apply Newton's second law to this shape, the differential equation fails to satisfy the Lipschitz condition at the apex. [1]
The Result: The Lipschitz condition is what guarantees a single, unique solution in physics. Because it breaks down at the peak, the math permits two valid physical solutions: the ball stays at rest forever, or the ball starts moving at an arbitrary time T. [1, 2, 3]

Criticisms and Real-World Limitations

Unphysical Conditions: The thought experiment relies on impossible idealizations like zero friction, a point-mass ball, and an infinitely sharp mathematical apex. [1]
Causation Breakdown: Many physicists argue that the math is just generating an artifact because it ignores real-world continuity and causality. []
Spontaneous Motion: Critics note that introducing a sudden change in motion without a physical trigger violates intuitive cause-and-effect rules, even if the formula balances out on paper. [1]