Wodanaz

🇱🇰 Vitalist. Destiny's Servant. Animist.

[Wodanaz @VWodanaz]

You cannot act on the world without it eventually acting on you. A public face, a business, a foundation of any kind, a political network—all of these mean people, interests, and points of vulnerability. Any lever you use on the world necessarily reaches back into you. You can obviously forgo all of these, just have your house and some money in the bank, or live nomadically, with no interests at all. Become, as Pavel Durov called himself, 'a citizen of wherever is good'. This is ultimately just reducing yourself and your reach to something so small as to never be harmed, curling into a little ball, eventually a speck of dust in the wind. Of course, Durov wasn't insignificant; he acted on the world and had a small, perfect team for it, and so the world acted on him. I don't say this to encourage you to remain small and insignificant, but rather to warn you that neither money, nor anonymity, nor constant movement will protect you if you decide that your life was meant to play a part in the world's turning. Instead, consider the reverse: grow large, accumulate many levers, become such a part of the world around you that to attempt to move you is to attempt to move the earth itself. Whatever your interests are, act upon them with all you are and the greatest vigor with every tool available; you will still lose eventually, maybe you'll be lucky enough to die before then, but until then,

what could you get done?

[Marc Andreessen 🇺🇸 @pmarca]

"Fuck You Money" is mainly a myth. First, if you're in business, you pick up more responsibilities along with more money, you're responsible for more people, your actions have more consequences for others. Second, political power >> financial power every day of the week.

[Carlos That Notices Things @QuetzalPhoenix]

The richest guy on Earth SHOULD be the guy making cutting edge cars and rockets instead of dudes who sell purses and perfumes or dudes who run investment firms or dudes who made Facebook.

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Yes

[Καλός @realKalos]

"The only reason you're against having an MMA octagon in your front yard where you'd have to fight the whole world 24/7 regardless of weight class is because you're an insecure pussy."

[Paul Graham @paulg]

So much of the badness in the world is caused by misgovernment that I sometimes think the most effective form of philanthropy would simply be to donate to political campaigns.

[Καλός @realKalos]

What? Achilles laments that he is dead and not alive. He wishes he could return to life for just one day to punish those who abuse his father. Right after that, Odysseus tells him about his son and how heroic he was, which makes Achilles feel triumphant. You're completely wrong.

[Ancient History Hub @AncientHistorry]

Everyone's fighting about Achilles again.

Whatever side you're on, most of the takes are flattening him into a meme. Let me remind you who he actually was.

Achilles was raised by Chiron, the wisest of the centaurs, who taught him medicine, music, and philosophy alongside war. He could heal wounds and play the lyre. He was never just a killer.

His mother, the sea goddess Thetis, knew the prophecy. He could live a long, peaceful life at home in obscurity, or die young at Troy and be remembered forever.

He chose Troy. Knowing.

When his best friend Patroclus was killed wearing his armor, Achilles' grief broke him. He tore his face. He poured ashes on his head. He refused to eat. Homer gives him the most devastating mourning scene in Western literature, and then Thetis appears and confirms it: if you go back to kill Hector, you will die soon after.

He went back anyway.

But here's the scene people forget, the one classicists call the moral heart of the Iliad.

After killing Hector and dragging his body around the walls of Troy, Achilles is visited at midnight, alone in his tent, by Hector's elderly father, King Priam. Priam, the father of the man Achilles killed, kneels and kisses "the terrible, man-slaying hands that had killed so many of his sons."

And Achilles weeps. They weep together. He lifts the old king up, feeds him, gives him a bed for the night, and returns Hector's body for burial with full honors. He even pauses the war so the Trojans can mourn.

That's how the Iliad ends. Not a duel. Not a sack. An act of mercy between two grieving men.

This is why, six centuries later, Alexander the Great sailed to Troy, anointed himself with oil, ran a footrace around Achilles' tomb, and slept every night with a dagger and a copy of the Iliad under his pillow.

This is why the Greek word for hero, hērōs, was practically synonymous with his name.

He chose to die for his friend. He wept with his enemy's father. He's been a hero for 2,700 years for a reason.

[Francis Gaultier @FrancisGaultier]

'I am in the Louvre once more. The sun of Austerlitz has not set. It still shines here - in my heart; and he, the sun of glory, nor ever shall, to me. I am as when my life began. The rainbow is in the sky again. I see the skirts of the departed years.'

[George Ferman @Helios_Movement]

He was anointed a university professor before 24, wrote his entire graduation thesis at 19 in Latin and Greek, fought in wars etc etc

You are an overweight professor.

[Rob Henderson @robkhenderson]

Age gap critics say, "He's old enough to be her father." But they're not genetically related. Interestingly, you never see people say "ew this couple is 2 years apart, he could be her brother." One possibility for this is that age gap critics believe sibling incest isn't as disgusting as parent-child incest. Or, more likely, because people feel no urge to invoke the incest disgust response as a strategy to stigmatize relationships with small age gaps.

[Curtis Yarvin @curtis_yarvin]

As an American I just want to point out that this is a legitimate and well-known policy strategy which is part of any political-science or IR curriculum, and which Trump did not invent although he is certainly a master of. Educate yourself, friend

[Clint Warren-Davey @Clint_Davey1]

Yes indeed. Robin Hood is not really a lefty-type rebel.

He's a royalist, and loyal to the true king.

[Wodanaz @VWodanaz]

@GregBronaghan @curtis_yarvin It's the aesthetic, both matter. The hero must be handsome and his quest must be noble, it's a narrative that people care about. The story.

[Curtis Yarvin @curtis_yarvin]

Yes. It’s a boondoggle and not even Elon branded.

Elon is more interesting than his rockets, cars, etc. No one cares about Artemis II or BYD. They care that, in this world where nothing ever happens, there’s a great man out there who someday might do something that matters

[Wodanaz @VWodanaz]

@2and20YT @yesnookayfine @SydSteyerhart So many great things are built with the effort of generations, what's even the point of making wealth if it can't be given to the kids? Like throwing it into the ether.

[Wodanaz @VWodanaz]

@2and20YT @yesnookayfine @SydSteyerhart You start from somewhere, you finish somewhere, isn't it better for your kids to start from where you left off? Rather than going back to the starting line. So that your grandkids may start from where your kids leave off.

[Wodanaz @VWodanaz]

@2and20YT @SydSteyerhart You give your best, whatever that is

[Wodanaz @VWodanaz]

@2and20YT @SydSteyerhart Your first responsibility is to your kids, the world is after.

[Smirkley @Smirkley]

The inequality causes crime narrative is activist science. 43 studies. 1,341 estimates. Half the data never published.

Corrected effect: near zero.

Inequality doesn’t drive crime.

[Big Serge ☦️🇺🇸🇷🇺 @witte_sergei]

Remember that if Julius Caesar had not been betrayed and murdered in a most vile manner on this day 2070 years ago, he would have conquered Parthia and resolved both the Persian and Judaean problems for all time. We live with the consequences of the Senate’s great sin.

[Wodanaz @VWodanaz]

@housecorrino2 @div_thought @business Checkout Israel. Even removing the orthodox.