>>324981I am no scholar of greek but this puts me in mind of the following tidbit of Euclid that's stuck with me:
Δὸς αὐτῷ τρεῖς ὀβολούς, ἐπεὶ δεῖ αὐτὸν κερδαίνειν ἀπὸ τῶν μανθανομένων
which was translated to me as
"Give him three obols, since he must make a profit from us" that latter part however misconstructed being the striking part. Everything *must* generate a profit, it *must* contribute to the sum of human learning, because no other value is valid.
What I think the Greeks knew, and modern living is perhaps learning painfully once more, is the limits of rationality in the broad populace. Specifically in a context of abundance, where survival is taken as more of a given than a struggle (for the entrenched few), where every activity or decision has a reasonably stable outcome and basic rational behaviour when applied to it has a positive outcome… what then?
I work as an engineer, a good day or a good project for me raises the floor of labour required to make value in the modern world by some tiny degree such that 5-10 more people are no longer fit to contribute to it. Usually the staff i've been brought in to automate out of relevance. Perfectly rational course of action - where does *that* end?
The romantics and oligarchs of the post industrial revolution saw the rough outline of this reality and dove in to highly sentimental and flowery language as a badge of honour adding arbitrary complexity and unspoken expectations as almost a sport. Now I start to think it was actually the right thing to do - because I've read Kaczynski.
So consider; in a world with progressively more and more engineering and rational planning, where speciation is likely to be on the horizon based on wealth and luck, what's *left* for those below the standard of future true Aristocracy in the literal meaning but the fleeting joy and excitement of heroic poetry? Slavery in chains so light and gilded they know not the difference? Perfectly Rational Slavery of the mind if not the body? Azimov had a credible vision of this in the later Foundation books with Fallom and Solaria - an entire planet consisting of the estates of 100 or so biological individuals who detest being less than a thousand miles from each other.
Enshrining violence and valour in poetic form preserves it as something to be celebrated- becaus
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