Prince Alexander Borisovich Kurakin

Bronze Age Psychiatrist, sharpening his knives in the tents of the Philistines

[Dvorstone @dvorstone]

Most people complaining about the casting in Nolan’s Odyssey don’t fully understand what they’re objecting to because it's deeper than they realize: As such, I'll explain.

The unease they feel runs deeper than superficial complaints about “realism” or skin tone. What they can't articulate is their objection to universalizing the particular; an error characteristic of philosophical liberalism.

The Odyssey is not a universal story. It is not a detachable “hero’s journey” that can be stripped of its cultural origins and modernized for contemporary audiences. Its power lies in its particularity. The audience must do the work of closing the gap; the text does not come to us.

The values that animate it, xenia (reciprocal guest-friendship), oikos (the household and its obligations), mētis (cunning intelligence), kleos (glory), and timē (honor), are not interchangeable with modern liberal abstractions. They are embedded in a specific ancient Greek moral and social world. They are not timeless “human themes” floating free of context.

This is why the Odyssey functions today primarily as an educational text rather than popular entertainment, as it once did. It belonged to the moral universe of ancient Greece. It does not belong to ours. Its value lies precisely in its alienness: it forces us to encounter a distinct way of thinking about justice, loyalty, hospitality, and human excellence.

When critics complain that an adaptation “isn’t realistic,” they are grasping for the most accessible language to express a deeper discomfort. What actually bothers them is the erosion of cultural fidelity; the required deracination for modern audiences stripping it of its required context, which in turn strips it of all of the value that it contains. A universal Odyssey has no value.

In attempting to globalize the Odyssey, they erase what remains of an already dead culture; killing even its ghost. Ancient Greece is gone, yet we have preserved its artifacts and stories not because they resemble us, but because they are different. The point of engaging with them is to contend with what is foreign, not to replace it with comforting modernity.

Ancient Greece is remarkable, horrifying, marvelous, repulsive, and admirable all at once. It is not a culture we would want to inhabit, but it is one from which we still benefit by struggling to understand it on its own terms. Turning it into a generic vehicle for contemporary sensibilities performs a kind of reverse alchemy: it transforms something rare and demanding into something familiar and undemanding, thus making gold into lead.

[Prince Alexander Borisovich Kurakin @HJahnsun]

@realKIRAC I would normally find it hard to jerk off to ‘suspension of belief,’ but KIRAC makes it possible

[Velina Tchakarova @vtchakarova]

Brutal. Just brutal.

[Nature Unedited @NatureUnedited]

A photographer was stunned after zooming in 100x on a leopard and realizing the leopard had already been watching him

[Tooth Chipper @Tooth_Chipper]

You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like.

[Karl Matt Button │ Apex Fitness Adv. @KarlApexFit]

Back squats and deadlifts build the best physiques in your 20s.

They also build the worst MRIs in your 50s.

If you're 40+, you need exercises you can progress for the next 20 years — not ones that catch up with you in 5.

Here are the 10 best. One per muscle group:

= Thread =

[Beaver 🦁 @beaverd]

Bryan,

The immune system is not faulty in Autoimmune diseases, its functioning properly. The immune system is detecting and correctly identifying cells that have become electrically different and metabolically dysfunctional from the rest of the body.

The standard cell has:
-A cellular membrane voltage of ~70mV
-Displays correct surface markers (like MHC class 1) that show which proteins it is making
-Responds to growth control signals from other cells
-Emits and absorbs biophotons in phase with surrounding tissue.

A dysfunctional cell:
-different membrane voltage
-Viral proteins displayed on the markers, or MHC-I is downregulated
-ignores growth control
-biophoton pattern disrupted
-Metabolic profile has shifted. This would be Warburg in cancer cells and an altered metabolism in infected cells.

T-cells are really tough because they are the slow, specific and learned response. Very persistent.
Specifically for Autoimmune gastritis and its cousin Crohn's disease, this would be sustained loss of mitochondrial performance in the gut wall, the immune response is a symptom. The enterocyte is the most vulnerable because it has the quickest life of any human cell, there is little headroom for error.

The reason your stomach is eating itself @bryan_johnson is because your cellular metabolism is basically destroyed.

You need sunlight and RAW animal fat from COWS that are GRASS FED. Animal fat is the only thing that can actually heal your gut. Cellular membrane lipid composition determines membrane impedance and therefore cellular performance. Your gut NEEDS replacement lipids, there is no other source.

cooked fat is better than nothing but much more difficult to digest. RAW UNPASTEURIZED dairy such as yogurt, kefir and heavy cream will also aid in restoring cellular metabolism.

You'll think I'm crazy but in a few years after you've tried everything, you'll see the light.

[Path To Manliness @PathToManliness]

No disrespect to the bald eagle but the peregrine falcon really embodies America

This organic missile looks like a laser guided munition delivering democracy so fast you never even see it coming

[Paul Heron @Paul_Heron_]

We habitually say The Great War was the beginning of the end, but in a way that remains mysterious, far from fully understood, it was also the beginning of a beginning. As JB touches on here.

[Prince Alexander Borisovich Kurakin @HJahnsun]

@vividvoid As an immigrant from Eastern Europe I have always been amused by the fear and awe that Anglos have of their fathers. As if they were some being of mystical power. Not even a trace of the profound disappointment in the fallen European father.

[Prince Alexander Borisovich Kurakin @HJahnsun]

@DrGipps Yes, the two concepts are not quite the same, but mostly because they have different theoretical derivations. But the phenomena they refer to are largely the same.

[Prince Alexander Borisovich Kurakin @HJahnsun]

@DrGipps Why would anyone engage in black and white thinking other than defensively? How could distortions be conscious? How can representations of self and objects avoid having some component of thinking?

[Fck Around N Find Out @FAFO_TV]

Who let the architect cook? 💀

[Prince Alexander Borisovich Kurakin @HJahnsun]

@blightstonegame Will this game ever be updated, or is it canceled?

[Harry Mack @harrymack]

Started Rapping Then Tracy Morgan Pulled Up

[skeletonheads @skeletonheads]

Hiring this guy to play this riff as they lower my casket into the ground

[Prince Alexander Borisovich Kurakin @HJahnsun]

@RadioGenoa Ok, but she is dressed like a whore, is she not?

[Prince Alexander Borisovich Kurakin @HJahnsun]

@escapefrommelos It’s the female equivalent of the male autogynephile

[Prince Alexander Borisovich Kurakin @HJahnsun]

@GrandBastion @jasonwblakely Yes

[Prince Alexander Borisovich Kurakin @HJahnsun]

@miltonappl3 Are you guys talking about the D H Lawrence interpretation of the symbolism that someone posted about recently?