Lydian Stone: I knew Pinker was a fraud before HE himself knew he was a fraud, before his Epstein advocacy, before his pro-genocide activities, before all...
For Aristotle, the banausos is not just physically deformed by his profession, but politically and ethically stunted: specialization makes him less a complete man than a TOOL of his occupation.
Politics, book VII:
"And any occupation, art, or science, which makes the body or soul or mind of the freeman less fit for the practice or exercise of virtue, is vulgar; wherefore we call those arts vulgar which tend to DEFORM the body, and likewise all paid employments, for they absorb and degrade the mind."
Guelta d’Archei is one of the most impressive and photogenic places in the Sahara — a permanent oasis in the middle of the world’s most arid desert. Located in the Ennedi Massif, northeastern Chad, Central Africa, it is a deep canyon where groundwater constantly emerges, creating a lush oasis surrounded by extreme rocky desert.
Access is extremely remote, it requires several days of 4x4 travel from Faya-Largeau or N’Djamena. There are no paved roads or tourist infrastructure.
It is home to one of the last significant populations of desert crocodiles, a subspecies perfectly adapted to the Sahara. It is estimated that fewer than 100 individuals remain in the entire Ennedi Massif.
The area is also inhabited by camels, gazelles, desert foxes, and numerous bird species. On the walls of nearby canyons, there are important prehistoric rock paintings dating back 5,000 to 8,000 years, depicting elephants, giraffes, cattle, and hunting scenes — clear evidence that the Sahara was once much wetter.