u/miguel-elote

Einzelganger posted a video on Hojoki, a poem written by a Japanese hermit in 1212. The book is on my reading list. Has anyone here read it?

Based on the video, the work has a good overlap with Stoic ideas. The opening line will sound especially familiar to Stoic students:

>The flow of the river never ceases,
And the water never stays the same.
Bubbles float to the surface of pools,
Bursting, re-forming, never lingering.
They are like the people of this world and their dwellings.

Buddhist ideas have a lot of overlap with Stoic ideas, especially impermanence and attachment. Drastically oversimplified: Everything in the world is constantly changing, and a lot of suffering is caused by wanting it to stay the same. That's the theme of the first part of Hojoki.

The second theme is that we can get just as attached to (our vision of) simplicity as we do to anything else. After many setbacks both personal (overlooked for an important position) and public (a deadly earthquake), Chomei said fuck-it and built a tiny hut in the woods. He lived alone for years, growing his own food and making his own clothes. After many years, he found he was happier but not fully happy. He determined he'd become attached to his ascetism.

I haven't read the book yet and can't comment more on it. It sounds so similar to Epictetus that I had to ask here: Have any Stoic students read the book?

Doug Smith's personal take on Secular Buddhism.

I've been watching Doug's Dharma YouTube channel for a few months and really enjoy it. He hosts several courses on his website, Online Dharma Institute. Is there any criticism or errors of Doug Smith's viewpoint?

I am very impressed with the quality of his lectures, and I've agreed with almost everything he's presented. Ironically that triggered my suspicion. I'm wary of confirmation bias causing me to accept more of his ideas than I should.

I want to check in with more experienced secular Buddhists. Is Doug Smith a good resource? If he's made errors, can you point some of them out?

Attached are two prints of the same STL from the same printer. One is in Overture white PLA. The other is Polymaker white marble PLA.

Both have really noticeable layer lines, though the marble print is worse. Sometimes the layer lines aren't even consistent across the same layer. Notice the right side of the face has far more noticeable layer lines than the left.

These were sliced in Anycubic Slicer Next. Default values except changing the infill to 5% Gyroid. The marble print was set to 4 wall loops instead of 2. I'm using a rather new 0.4mm brass nozzle.

Should I look into a 0.2 nozzle? Switch to more expensive material? Just get a darker color to hide the lines? Any advice you can offer would be greatly appreciated.

I'm looking for films where a protagonist has a dialogue with a demon. It doesn't have to be horror. Examples are The Exorcist, where Father Karras has several meetings with Pazuzuz and especially The Exorcist III, which is mostly dialogues between a possessed man and a police detective.

I want to pimp my personal favorite, Lo, sometimes listed as Demon Lo. It's a no-budget horror movie that's more weird than scary. Demons take a woman to Hell, and her boyfriend summons a demon to bring her back. Don't watch the trailer on YouTube; it gives away important twists. The movie is a 70-minute dialogue between a terrified human in a protective circle and a vicious demon tempting him out of it.

Anyway, what 'battle of wits with dark forces' movies can you recommend?

When did a 20th century US president make a policy decision based on a personal grudge?

Our current president often makes policy decisions based on personal relationships. From vetoing a clean water package for a state whose governor insulted him, to moving forward with a troop withdrawal in a country whose chancellor publicly criticized US strategy. (Not violating rule 8. This paragraph provides the impetus for the question, not a debate over current events.)

Decision making based on personal feuds is unsettling, but not unprecedented. What are the best examples of 20th century presidents using their power of office to settle personal scores?

I'm not looking for cases where presidents took petty (in both sense of the word) actions toward personal rivals. "The president stopped inviting that senator to dinner" or "The president sent a White House page to meet the prime minister."

I mean cases where a president leveraged the US government to settle a dispute. Something like "The president vetoed a change in tax law because it would make their biggest rival rich" or "The president launched strikes on a country after the country's president called him a devil."

What were some failings of the Marquis De Lafayette?

History has very few pure heroes and pure villains. That's especially true for the American and French Revolutions. Washington, Jefferson, et al established a modern liberal democracy that's still emulated around the world, and they cemented a uniquely brutal system of slavery. Marat, Brissot and other French liberals ended absolute monarchy and replaced it with total chaos and decades of European wars.

The Marquis de Lafayette comes out of this with a clean reputation. By 21st century standards, only some of his viewpoints seem a little out of place. By 19th century standards, he was far ahead of his time and downright radical in his viewpoints.

Did he have any notable failures? Some specific questions:

On gender, he seems to be a product of his time. He respected female intellectuals, but he never thought that women could be leaders (or even vote for those leaders). In his personal life, 'one way monogamy' in which he had constant affairs while his wife stayed faithful, was his norm. Did Lafayette espouse any thoughts on gender that were ahead of his time?

On race, he was famously abolitionist. Did he also espouse equality between Europeans and Africans? There's a huge gap between "these people shouldn't be property" and "these people should live with us as equals." Most 19th century abolitionists never crossed that gap. Did Lafayette?

On politics, could he have held the center? He tried (and failed) to find a middle way between the absolute monarchy of Louis and the Reign of Terror. I don't think anyone could have prevented the swing to chaos, but did Lafayette make mistakes that made the chaos worse?