Karl

No such quotes ? I quoted Epictetus in regard to 'none of us control the roles to which we are 'assigned' and showed that this is divine determinism. That you have to make the best of whatever God 'assigns' you and not struggle against it. How you go about ingesting that bit of pithy substance is up to you. I would suggest that it tells you that you have no free will and any attempt to try and shrug off 'the assignment' is the cause of suffering, so, better to be apathetic and simply accept the role with good grace and get through life without trying to change anything. I thought that was clear enough from that one paragraph ? I don't say not to read it, only to read all books with discrimination.

I kind of think that about the people supporting it.

Clear enough for me. However, I must return to my previous argument that the Government in 1976 used Royal prerogative to get through the European act with total contempt for law, or parliamentary process. All referendums are instruments of tyranny and shouldn't be considered statutory instruments. The problem here is that the law has been invoked on this occasion, but used in advisedly in 1976 and on treaties after that. The fault has been compounded by the buffoon Cameron who had no truck with proper procedure and offered a referendum that he thought would be easily won by the remainers. So, now we are left with the beginnings of a constitutional crisis-the fuckwits. However, if parliament and judges viewed this in the same light as the previous undisclosures, then it would accept the will of the majority as sovereign. It's a pretty pickle and if the will of the people is sidelined I can tell you that it would have been far better to have accepted those results. It will release a wave of anger that will not easily be quelled. The only way to do this now is to call an election under the precise terms of exit from the EU which is not to accept the judgement or control of the ECJ over British law. This is where the previous agreements were smuggled in by subterfuge.

Interpretation is the key Jeff. I'm used to these arguments and therefore the premises being communicated. If you believe that it means 'never give up and accept reality' then fine, but then what is meant by 'reality' to a stoic. It's the same with 'reason' it doesn't always mean what you think it does, so it must be viewed in context. 'Although we can't control the roles to which we are assigned' is about determination and God assigning us roles to which we must respond dutifully. In other words we make a virtue of virtue, not for gain, but because it is demanded of us by God. Stoics curl themselves up into there own spirits shunning the world by accepting everything that happens as Gods will. However, you take from it whatever bits you find inspirational, but be aware that stoicism is a philosophy, it isn't a buffet in which you can choose the things you like, it's an integrated philosophy which means accepting certain tenets without fully understanding what they mean can give a bad case of mental indigestion when trying to integrate them.

The perfect stoic is immunised against all circumstances and situations. Indeed this is how we use the word stoicism today. Essentially everything is determined in Gods grand plan, so, to rebel against it is to rebel against God. To the stoic, losing an arm, losing your son or gaining a million pounds is all the same. It is virtue for the sake of virtue. It means that one goes with whatever happens, completely unconcerned and accepting. This is perfect apathy to all situations equally.

What is apparent and what is true are very different. Try cutting off your head or getting stabbed in the heart and see if it affects you ? If you want it to mean that we all have to get on with living, then this isn't something we need a book to tell us really is it ? If you want it to mean that we can evade the consequences of losing our faculties then that is fine, until the universe intrudes on our little apathetic soiree. We can evade thinking about our altered circumstances, but we can't evade the consequences of that evasion. It all depends what you want to take from it. I've read several pieces by Epictetus and I have a broad understanding of his stoic view point. If it's to become a kind of impervious robot unconcerned about ones circumstances and situations then it's going to be trouble.

That's apathy. In other words accepting what is without complaint. The story goes that Epictetus had a master who twisted his leg to the point of fracture, at which point he told his master if he twisted harder that the bone would break. Eventually the bone did snap and Epictetus re-affirmed his contention essentially saying 'I told you so'. Will, therefore is not will as such, but really duty based on determinism-what happens was meant to happen. Allahs will. As we are all part of God anyway according to the stoics we should not fight the flow.

I will happily argue that stoic philosophy is horribly flawed, it's saving grace being that it did have a hand in the beginnings of the protection of natural rights. If you agree with stoicism, then really the natural progression is modern religions as they embody pretty much all of stoicism with an addition of free will instead of stoic determinism. The stoics preach apathy pasted into a flowery essence of drops of God.

Firstly boom and bust are not the ways of capitalism, they are the ways of financialized centrally planned cronyism. Secondly, printing 20 Trillion dollars of debt and having a hegemonic dollar can create jobs, low interest rates and a goosed stock market. The problem is one of price distortion and mal-investment. In other words the creation of bubbles in kinds of production, business and jobs that wouldn't exist in a laissez faire capitalist market place. The Fed has monetised the debt, the result is the destruction of capital formation-the vital component of creative production-and substituted a debt that is now beyond any repayment. To understand this at the micro level you only need to look at the houses at the places where the new money is created. Take California and Washington DC and note that house prices have climbed many times above their original purchase level over the last few years in a stagnant economy. This is virtual wealth. Asset prices do not climb at such a rate in a weak economy, which tells any economist that it is a bubble. That same bubble is in the stock market and in the dollar itself. The dollar will need to devalue or it will implode, but to devalue requires price inflation and that will then require interest rate hikes to stop inflation getting out of hand and then the debt becomes impossible to pay with default being the only option. The FED is therefore stuck in an escalator of money printing until it accepts that it's run out of bullets. The tipping point comes when the markets lose faith in the Feds ability to continue monetising the debt, the FED cannot raise interest rates or the markets will crash, it cannot keep printing money or the dollar will crash. This is a no win game, believe it or not the USA is not experiencing a 'recovery' but actually a crack up boom - or an echo from several that went before but each getting progressively weaker. It's Russian roulette and each time the chamber comes up empty there is a sigh of relief and that has turned into a belief that all the chambers are empty, but eventually the day will come when the bullet is found. This current boom is the weakest ever, for the greatest amount of economic damage, it's hard to envisage that the FED will print it's way out of the next unwinding.

Ah the stoics.

Comey has given up and said no grounds for prosecution.

Hillary says the worst thing 'vote for me because I'm a woman' ! That's her entire claim to power and it undermines women far worse than a guy saying anything disparaging about women-particularly in view of his wife, daughters, sons, employment and promotion of women within his businesses.

The Clinton foundation. ;-) MAGA by removing the Clinton/Bush dynasty because until they are removed nothing can change and nothing will change. If you like things as they are then no need to vote for Trump. If you don't like things as they are and require an alternative Government solution then vote for Trump. If you have decided that new Government is just the old Government with a bit of a fluff up, then don't vote at all.

Thats pretty much how it went.

Israel not until later, but Jewish financiers much earlier. It's a project, the USA doesn't own the EU nor the countries in it. This is about seeking maximum global influence for the USA and hence domination. I didn't say it was a Zionist conspiracy, but it wasn't immune from Jewish influence and later Israeli influence. When you did your dissertation did you discover the changes in financial economic structure in each country ? It's the economics which are crucial to getting an understanding of the interplay. The old game of soaking up countries producing raw materials in exchange for goods and food was pretty much over by the First World War. Industrialisation had pretty much flourished everywhere. I would love to get into this with you, but it's more of a side interest for me and I don't have the accurate information at my fingertips as I do with philosophy and economics. It's fascinating though to see how these forces combine to create history though. Let's see if I'm right. That article 50 will be triggered, but that there are several forces pulling at the UK which will see us, more half out than half in and some reformation of the EU as it stands.

:-) None of that is correct. Its a nice story though, but totally wrong. Go back to the First World War and the relationship between the US, Britain, Germany, France, Russia and Japan. Several people here have touched on the Jewish lobby as if it were a homogenous mass of like minded tribesman, but that isn't true, it's as fractionalised as any other people. Go forward to the Second World War and the changing relationship between Britain and USA. Britain were not cheerleaders by any stretch of the imagination, we were as defeated as Germany and the rest of Europe. Russia brought down the Iron curtain and China was disappearing into obscurity. Britain had to pretend the 'special relationship' but the reality was that the USA demanded a Kings ransom from Britain and took it. We lost our empire almost overnight. Anyway, just to start you off: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/04/27/the-european-union-always-was-a-cia-project-as-brexiteers-discov/ If you are interested in this stuff-I delve in and out of it because I can't afford the time, but it's fascinating never the less-I can set you away on some books that have been hidden from view by those who don't want the truth revealed. I have the PDF of an unedited version of one of these books which will open your eyes like nothing else.

Always been a prog fan, though my music collection is pretty extensive running from Classical, country (not C and W), Sinatra, Jazz right through punk, hardcore and black/math metal. Yet always it's prog I end up listening to. I want to listen to more classical, but it seems unsuited to my brain even though I like it.

That's a simplification. The EU is an American/Israeli project, but that was before the Arab states, China and Russia changed so dramatically. It was once a large global chip which has been steadily losing influence and decaying. Funnily enough it has the hall marks of a state dependent poor person. It's leaders have become so blinded by the US super state that they no longer care too much to defend themselves. The result has been the rise of internal nationalism, particularly in response to the crazy leftist Zionist plans of Soros and the Democrats. It's hard to keep up with the sheer volume of influence and change that is affecting Europe from all sides, but we still are a major league industrial area with London as the banking centre. Europe and the USA are in a state of flux and Israel is in a state of turmoil as it begins to see an Eastern powerhouse rising up-although fragile, it's clearly beginning to coalesce whilst the USA loses significance. Europe cannot remain neutral. It is struggling to position itself in this new paradigm. The East has always been a sleeping giant blighted by bureacracy and latterly communism, but that is ending. Where does Britain sit ? It is seen by the US as a force of change in the EU. However, if you look at the EU it is going nowhere, it is spinning aimlessly and is useless as as US ally - Trump has made it clear what is expected, no more Soros (do yer hear, those Mexicans are getting a wall, the lefty liberal zionisist crap has caused a terrible softening of resolve); no more reliance on the US military as its time to pay our way and end the big welfare plans that have been such a huge part of the EU socialist policy. Britain is the catalyst for EU re-definition in the new age under management. At least this appears to be the thinking. Funnily enough Rome went through a short period of sustainable growth and re-emergence before it finally collapsed in the West. We won't be allowed to leave the EU, we are supposed to aim a gun to its head and tell it to change.

That hasn't received much coverage, nor has the FBI finding that Trump is nothing to do with Russia or Putin.

The other side of the Atlantic probably has a lot to do with wherever Brexit is headed. The EU was always an American/Israeli project. It's interesting that the US global security report 2016 never mentioned Britain, only the EU. That was of course before this current upset. We are seeing the start of a massive power shift of which Brexit is one corner.

Win what ? LOL Don't get distracted. Don't watch the cups. At first it wasn't clear, but now it's right in our faces. "Make America great again folks" "drain the swamp" Trump doesn't need to win and won't. The election is rigged anyway. The point isn't about the election but a movement. It's a soft coup. Out with the old and in with the new. I read about this several years ago but I couldn't quite grasp what the author of the piece was getting at. It said that the destruction of the middle classes would reach higher and higher until it threatened an underclass of wealthy elite and then the tide would turn. Whether Hillary sits there or Trump is now immaterial. It's a war going on inside the Government and it was won when Comey sent that letter. It essentially said "I'm sorry but I can't keep the wolves and however this turns out I did what I could, but I'm powerless to stop them". This was Comeys resignation/ application letter that told the Clinton and Trump gangs that he had done his job and would serve either side. It can't be allowed to go too far otherwise all the elites would be exposed as manipulators. Who knows where it would end because this is not only about the USA, but the whole world. A broken government of the most powerful nation on Earth would attract extremists and opportunists world wide. It's got to look like an organised sweep out, or the East and Middle East will intervene.

Incubus, Tool, Coheed and Cambria, Porcupine Tree, Opeth......:-)

That's not you 'going with the flow' is it ST ? ;-)

That's determinism ST. Go down that path at your peril. It means that there is no good/bad or right/wrong, there is no judgement neither in this world, of for the Neo-platonists-in the next. In fact God as an omniscient/omnipotent force/deity also treads this same ground but has attempted to hide the conclusion through some subtle twisting of logic-beginning with the twist of the first mover. The Muslims are heard saying - Gods will. If we have determinism then we have no control and therefore we can do whatever we like because we would have done it anyway. This is clearly incorrect-and believe me, I have argued exactly that point in an entire book by defending determinism, so I'm poacher turned game keeper. Determinism isn't true because you do have a mind and you can think and thinking IS an act of choice. Even to think that there is/is not determinism is an act of choice which throws determinism on the scrap heap. It is the fear of a lack of control, of hopelessness, that creates the need for determinism. It is the system that dictators and tyrants have engaged in for millennia. Tell people they have no choice then choose for them. Determinism is docility, it is to give up and accept whatever is coming at you be it bullets, starvation, slavery or a half eaten rat.'Go with the flow' is not a rational for survival, it will get you drowned.

I'm having to play guess the video at the moment. Unfortunately java script has become so greedy of my Apple CPU that I cannot leave it switched on.