|
|
Post by piglet on May 10, 2024 9:43:32 GMT
Was a german philosopher long gone, what drew me to him was a true story about him. When i was young i was always looking to expand my understanding of owt, and bought a book of his in Heffers in Birmigham City centre in my early 20s.
Could i get my head around it?, some yes, mostly no, dont try, it will be beyond you. Probably.
The story goes that he was walking in a small german town when a wagon pulled by a horse came into view, it was the late 1800s, it was heavily laden and the elderly horse could not get it up a hill. The driver savagely whipped it. Nietszche stood there, and openly wept.
Society, german society thought he was mentall ill and put him into a mental hospital. Lucky it wasnt me, id have takeen the whip and whipped the driver. Prison for me. Anyway, among his writing, he stated thus, that society focussing solely on the poor is completely wrong, this was before communism.
That society should instead be picking out the doers and creators and investing in them. It is of course the description of Labour, socialism and the Tories. Im having a joke now, the Tories have no truck with creativity, business, progress etc, but are now Labour mk 2.
To invest in progress of all sorts, sounds like common sense, that a vibrant sector for creativity, well funded, would do away with socialism, that those that cannot look after themselves are looked after, but it is not no 1 priority.
Money would fall like confetti from the trees, society would not be handicapped by endless stories of hardship, cant get meds, will society wipe my ass please.
Well funded research would result in proper electric cars, solve the climate crisis, cure cancer, feed everyone, everywhere.
Etc.
|
|
|
|
Post by Baron von Lotsov on May 10, 2024 11:02:41 GMT
Which book did you read?
The only one I've read is Thus Spake Zarathustra.
Yes I get your point. Nietzsche was a big inspiration for the Nazis who were at the time the party who wanted to clear up all the crime and destitution on the streets of Germany and get people back to work. They wanted to persuade them to strive for a better future by showing a positive attitude towards their situation rather than getting involved with begging, prostitution and all manner of dark activities. For example the Nazis were well into teaching the kids sport to build up their stamina and toughen them up a bit. Ironically such a move to strengthen the German nation was not appreciated by the Yanks and the Brits who had already given them a good kicking, and just as they were trying to pick themselves up off the floor, they decided they would give them an even bigger kicking and kill them entirely. Now the victors in this war are suffering the very same trouble that the Germans had post WW1.
|
|
|
|
Post by seniorcitizen007 on May 10, 2024 17:37:50 GMT
My wife studied philosophy at university. Her main interest was Nietsche. After leaving with a degree she found she couldn't cope with the real world. It didn't help that she was bipolar ... with a "manic" phase that regularly took trips over and beyond the "Mountains of madness".
|
|
|
|
Post by Baron von Lotsov on May 10, 2024 18:04:27 GMT
My wife studied philosophy at university. Her main interest was Nietsche. After leaving with a degree she found she couldn't cope with the real world. It didn't help that she was bipolar ... with a "manic" phase that regularly took trips over and beyond the "Mountains of madness". There was a totally weird physics experiment that showed something so counter-intuitive, where the law of cause and effect can and does work in reverse, and not only that, but the cause and effect can be both ways around at the same time as a kind of quantum supposition of the two states. In the macro world that would be like she goes mad and that causes her to have previously studied philosophy! Anyway, we learnt that little gem about our universe in 2017. It goes to show philosophy was always going to be a waste of time. |
|
|
|
Post by piglet on May 11, 2024 9:55:58 GMT
Or paradox and counter paradox. Anyway i had two paperbacks, im sure one was as above, i read one, then gave up on the second half way through. What i remember was that it was written in language that used a lot of words to describe something mundane, and purposely or not, was obscure, but i stuck with it. And was rewarded, i remember being amazed at an observation, and was seriously impressed, can i remember what it was?, no, it was 40 years ago.
Nietszche needs to be put into context, if my memory serves, he had a mental illness, which could be taken with a pinch of salt, im sure their definition of illness, as above, suited society as much as anything. He was also a drug addict, which is bound to affect his mind.
Some of the stuff he wrote could be described as psychotic, or not, its your choice, that believers in god, the power of the mind, including myself, could be described as such, but without at least addressing such thinking, insight and progress cannot be made.
He certainly pushed the edges, which is good, maybe someone could translate his work, like latin into english, so much can be lost in what i think is deliberate obscure,flowery writing, that sublety, nuance can be communicated in plain language.
|
|
|
|
Post by piglet on May 11, 2024 9:57:03 GMT
Im sorry to hear that senior, what became of her?
|
|
|
|
Post by Baron von Lotsov on May 11, 2024 10:33:30 GMT
Or paradox and counter paradox. Anyway i had two paperbacks, im sure one was as above, i read one, then gave up on the second half way through. What i remember was that it was written in language that used a lot of words to describe something mundane, and purposely or not, was obscure, but i stuck with it. And was rewarded, i remember being amazed at an observation, and was seriously impressed, can i remember what it was?, no, it was 40 years ago. Nietszche needs to be put into context, if my memory serves, he had a mental illness, which could be taken with a pinch of salt, im sure their definition of illness, as above, suited society as much as anything. He was also a drug addict, which is bound to affect his mind. Some of the stuff he wrote could be described as psychotic, or not, its your choice, that believers in god, the power of the mind, including myself, could be described as such, but without at least addressing such thinking, insight and progress cannot be made. He certainly pushed the edges, which is good, maybe someone could translate his work, like latin into english, so much can be lost in what i think is deliberate obscure,flowery writing, that sublety, nuance can be communicated in plain language. Some trendy "left-wing" kind of studenty thing was once advertised on a poster where there was a talk on Nietzsche. The poster read 'Nietzsche: "God is dead"' and underneath a Christian had scribbled 'God: "Nietzsche is dead"'.
Anyhow aside from things like that I found his arguments very persuasive and try as I might I could not find any reason to think he was a bad man as is often portrayed re Nazi link. He was a professor of philology and so was highly educated. His language was beautiful. He was also very well acquainted with the classics. I recall the introduction to the book said something along the lines he was an adherent to ancient Greek school of Apollo. I was not quite with it regarding what that meant, but anyhow he was a well read classicist. The book was a novel about someone who tries to rise up and become the Übermensch, which was a noble thing in his mind. You could argue it was the way god designed us to be. We are a competitive species and his view was competition breeds excellence.
|
|
|
|
Post by piglet on May 12, 2024 8:16:04 GMT
You are right, he was not a bad man, indeed his link to the nazis came post his existence, and by the link tarnished him, wrongly so. Unless you are stark raving mad, it makes sense to advance society with available monies, rather tan pitch it into a bottomless black hole, that needs ever more and more.
The paradox of socialism is that the more you take away responsibility from people for their own welfare, the more dependent they become, needing more and more care.
And the bleeding heart do gooders provide it, causing more harm. Like today, that the country has never had so many people, yet few work, and those that do are useless. We import people while we pay the rest to put their feet up. How mad is that.
The criminality is that the government is paying people through benefits to vote for them. Its all going to end in tears.
I dont know how practical government sponsored research is, it will become as stale and poxy as any nationalised industry like the NHS and railways. Nietzches mind set is good though, he judges through the lense of himself, that all are like him, ive only recently ditched that, and any movement towards research will succeed.
Which it wont. Judging the boundaries of welfare would be good, that the ill and incapacitated get what they need, the rest, unless you are a moronic jerk, should go on progress of all sorts. Leaving progress to business is obviously flawed, they will only produce if it makes money, like pharma.
Then drip feed it making fortunes. Nietzche is a good egg, but saying those things will produce anti bodies, no pun intended, indeed, progress of any sort on this planet is a miracle, that even if someone produced a pill that cured cancer in an hour, someone would try and ban it, or if carbon levels could become healthy again, there would be demonstrations.
This is the problem of democracy, that even the lunatic gets a say, and be acted on.
Look at Labour.
|
|
|
|
Post by Baron von Lotsov on May 12, 2024 17:47:59 GMT
You are right, he was not a bad man, indeed his link to the nazis came post his existence, and by the link tarnished him, wrongly so. Unless you are stark raving mad, it makes sense to advance society with available monies, rather tan pitch it into a bottomless black hole, that needs ever more and more. The paradox of socialism is that the more you take away responsibility from people for their own welfare, the more dependent they become, needing more and more care. And the bleeding heart do gooders provide it, causing more harm. Like today, that the country has never had so many people, yet few work, and those that do are useless. We import people while we pay the rest to put their feet up. How mad is that. The criminality is that the government is paying people through benefits to vote for them. Its all going to end in tears. I dont know how practical government sponsored research is, it will become as stale and poxy as any nationalised industry like the NHS and railways. Nietzches mind set is good though, he judges through the lense of himself, that all are like him, ive only recently ditched that, and any movement towards research will succeed. Which it wont. Judging the boundaries of welfare would be good, that the ill and incapacitated get what they need, the rest, unless you are a moronic jerk, should go on progress of all sorts. Leaving progress to business is obviously flawed, they will only produce if it makes money, like pharma. Then drip feed it making fortunes. Nietzche is a good egg, but saying those things will produce anti bodies, no pun intended, indeed, progress of any sort on this planet is a miracle, that even if someone produced a pill that cured cancer in an hour, someone would try and ban it, or if carbon levels could become healthy again, there would be demonstrations. This is the problem of democracy, that even the lunatic gets a say, and be acted on. Look at Labour. One golden rule I have worked by all my life is never work for an arsehole. If you do then you will just stack up problems for yourself. Another golden rule is make sure the work you do keeps you happy. If you are not enjoying the work and getting a buzz out of it then you are doing something wrong.
These days my research into the world of work is it is mainly arseholes. They do stupid stuff. However me thinks to myself, where an arsehole creates a waste, I can step in and exploit the waste. I suppose I'm really a big fan of the Edward de Bono school of thought. People tend to have a sort of herd-like way about them and if you are smart, in knowing the nature of the beast, you can do good predictions and so you can make or save money that way.
Just a little illustration of where this lateral thinking worked a dream, there was this guy on Youtube explaining how it is down at the Costa del Sol. All the council estate crew of the inner London places who had reached retirement or been made redundant wanted a bit of the dream life, where you could run your own business and live in the sun and be like on holiday for your entire retirement. This idea though became a little too popular, and you have to ask what kind of business did they think of, and then you have to ask what were their marketable skills, and the answer is of course cooking some kind of food. The market was such that every other business along the strip was offering British roasts. What imagination they do not have eh? So finally who was it that made all the money. The answer was the chap who reasoned that with all of this going on, these people will need all those electrical appliances. He was the only one who thought this far ahead and so the only supplier in the area. He cleaned up, the rest were working for a fraction of the min wage 7 days a week, upto 12 hours/day. This guy would close shop at 5pm.
|
|
|
|
Post by piglet on May 13, 2024 9:03:28 GMT
Thats amazing, i read the de bono lateral thinking thing in my twenties, and it worked. Like you, i tend to live in my head that in such a state i lose all contact with the outside world. Because i mull a lot, while im doing stuff, i lose keys, shopping, i even leave money in cash points because im somewhere else. The key thing is annoying, i never remember where i put them.
I left thirty quids worth of meat from a market on a train.
I often think that i should write down some of the stuff that goes through my head, id make a fortune. Are you like that.?
|
|
|
|
Post by Baron von Lotsov on May 17, 2024 1:34:12 GMT
Thats amazing, i read the de bono lateral thinking thing in my twenties, and it worked. Like you, i tend to live in my head that in such a state i lose all contact with the outside world. Because i mull a lot, while im doing stuff, i lose keys, shopping, i even leave money in cash points because im somewhere else. The key thing is annoying, i never remember where i put them. I left thirty quids worth of meat from a market on a train. I often think that i should write down some of the stuff that goes through my head, id make a fortune. Are you like that.? Yes I've done a few mad things because I've learnt how to totally focus on one problem for long periods, meaning you have to ignore all distractions.
There was a hilarious example of de Bono in operation between China and the US. Chinese understand de Bono because 20 years ago they incorporated it in the education. The problem was the US has banned any use of American intellectual property to be licenced by that dreaded Huawei firm. Prior to the restrictions they could licence US IP, but that comes under the export ban and the so-called entity list. So what Huawei did was fund public research. They would say to a group of talented US researchers, we want you to investigate this problem and this group would be one of those foundations that publishes the research for anyone to freely use. Because they were funding the group, they could specify exactly what research they wanted, but since it was published freely then Huawei simply made use of it. The research would not be any good to anyone else because it is extremely advanced, so by the time the others catch up Huawei will be doing the next thing. This is what I've been trying to point out for some while. It does not matter that someone copies your tech, because the real game is about having the latest thing and how fast you can run. Huawei are working on 6G now, where the US is still having trouble getting 5G to work properly. 6G research won't help them for a fair while and since it is already published it can not later be patented due to prior art.
|
|
|
|
Post by piglet on May 17, 2024 9:01:22 GMT
If i were 16 again research is something i could get into, it certainly opens doors of thinking, even into the fields of creativity, open ended indeed, there would be no limits, that you wont have anyone saying " you cant do that".
What did you want to do at 16, i wanted to be a journalist, wanting to change the world, confront badness, expose all. How peurile was that, i have no interest in that anymore, i accept the world for what it is, a s... hithole, there is no changing it, you would have to be a dufus to try, indeed its meant to be like this.
The journalist death count in gaza is huge, reason no 2, to be an investigative journalist in most countries is a death wish. I retain a love of writing though, which is probably another reason why. My guess is that you were an Elon Musk type at 16, fiddling with giszmos, car engines, etc.
|
|
|
|
Post by Baron von Lotsov on May 17, 2024 18:44:59 GMT
If i were 16 again research is something i could get into, it certainly opens doors of thinking, even into the fields of creativity, open ended indeed, there would be no limits, that you wont have anyone saying " you cant do that". What did you want to do at 16, i wanted to be a journalist, wanting to change the world, confront badness, expose all. How peurile was that, i have no interest in that anymore, i accept the world for what it is, a s... hithole, there is no changing it, you would have to be a dufus to try, indeed its meant to be like this. The journalist death count in gaza is huge, reason no 2, to be an investigative journalist in most countries is a death wish. I retain a love of writing though, which is probably another reason why. My guess is that you were an Elon Musk type at 16, fiddling with giszmos, car engines, etc. When I was 16 I wanted to be a designer of electronic equipment. I was already well educated in this at the time and could design my own gadgets, but I wanted to go to university and do it as I thought it saves getting a McJob for a while. It turned out the teachers though had stitched me up and put on my report to the application for a university course that I would fail every A level or get an E grade. Such fucking optimists they were. I had already got one A level by this time which was one I got my parents to pay for and sat it just because I figured it would be one for free. Maybe the teachers thought t was taking the piss to sit the A level without working hard for 2 years lol. Anyway, after that episode I got five straight rejections so I had to get on a course through clearing and by that time I thought I'd do physics because I reasoned anything interesting about electronics is really to do with physics. The trouble was all was not good. It was a good university to teach me physics but at the same time it was a socialist hotspot. Talking of the press, I opted for it thanks to a Sunday Times review of it. After that I knew what it felt like to be lied to by journalists. You were probably right to forgo it as a job. I was also well into pirate radio at the age of 16. I was a pirate myself. |
|
|
|
Post by piglet on May 18, 2024 10:00:23 GMT
The difference between you and me is that ive got my head in the clouds, my mother kept telling me that, your more practical. Interestingly i was a bicycle mechanic in a bike shop on kings parade in cambridge for about a year, i hated it. The bikes came in early, had to be out by 5, under pressure all the time, my record for fixing a puncture was just over a minute. Forgot to tighten the wheel nuts on one bike, oh dear, once.
Psychiatry gave me a chance to listen to that inner voice, an angel on my shoulder. What do you mean that you were a pirate?, were you a dj?
|
|
|
|
Post by Baron von Lotsov on May 18, 2024 21:30:45 GMT
The difference between you and me is that ive got my head in the clouds, my mother kept telling me that, your more practical. Interestingly i was a bicycle mechanic in a bike shop on kings parade in cambridge for about a year, i hated it. The bikes came in early, had to be out by 5, under pressure all the time, my record for fixing a puncture was just over a minute. Forgot to tighten the wheel nuts on one bike, oh dear, once. Psychiatry gave me a chance to listen to that inner voice, an angel on my shoulder. What do you mean that you were a pirate?, were you a dj? Yes I was a DJ for a bit, but also on the technical side. Running a pirate station was about the most fun you could have back in the late 70s. You had to do stuff like fix aerials up tall trees or on the roofs of tower blocks, or in our case we used this water tower. One time we arranged this warehouse gig in this old garage and broadcast it across London. We had about 1000 people turn up and about 30 coppers. I recall an old 19th century definition of what middle class means, which was one who lives by his wit. Being a pirate is just that. |
|
