These are the few posts which had in my opinion some value in my old website.

Quotes, Tue, 15 Dec 2015 06:58:52 +0000

...thyncke themselves to have somuch understanding, and their Country to yealde somuch sweetenes, fruitfullness and such monuments of arts and fabricks, as they seldome or never travaile into forayne Kingdomes, but driven by some necessity ether to followe the warrs or to traffique abroade: this opinion that Italy doth afforde what can be seene or knowne in the world, makes them only have homebred wisdome and the prowde conceete of their owne witts...

From "Before the Industrial Revolution" by Carlo M. Cipolla, Sat, 18 Jun 2016 22:54:44 +0000

During the seventeenth century the English came to a full realization of their power. And in vigor lies the seed of aggression. The English brought forward their theory of  Mare Clausum in opposition to the Dutch theory of Mare Liberum. A Swedish diplomat who attempted to mediate between the two nations wrote form London to Queen Christine of Sweden in June 1653 that the English were "intolerably arrogant and it may be that God will punish them for their pride." But God was busy with other things.

Ethics and philosophy in the West, Fri, 29 Sep 2017 09:13:49 +0000

I recently read the famed book History of Western Philosophy by B. Russell.
From the XVII century on the world has changed its mindset and prepared to the wealth we enjoy right now, at least in a growing part of the world.
Then many, especially in England, recognized the enormous value the empirical evidence can contribute to understand the world and improve our lives.
The people representing such positions wrote in a terse way. I can read Hobbes' Leviathan, after centuries, and still understand what he writes; as you are likely to read, English is not my mother tongue.
I challenge you to do the same with even more contemporary continental philosophers, which often enjoy much praise for reasons that defy me.
I use to think that the "empirical" way of thinking often has as a side effect a "democratization" of a society. Every man can think soundly, or at least each of us should expect it be so, and every thought can be scrutinized without (or with) prejudices; we see men as their actions and their thoughts.
Ethics (=judging the degree of goodness/badness of something) is backed by proof, in a given (semi- or not at all) formal system.
Something is bad if it can be shown to do harm to individual/society, in a given time frame.

We may say that ethics is a formal system: axioms, reasoning rules; plus a knowledge base, and a time frame in which it operates. The time frame could be of course part of both the formal system and the knowledge base, but since time is a concept so central in man's endeavors I think it can be considered separately.

Take homosexuality. More people are being open with it, so more people find it harder and harder to see some fault in somebody who is homosexual because of homosexuality, because it is hard to show that a CEO of a company or a garbage man do their job worse because they are homosexual, given the evidence they do it well; it is as well hard to show something analogous when they do it bad, since there are also non-homosexuals doing their job bad. There is possibly not even a correlation, and even if you would find it, that would not make the argument stronger.

• Philosophy seems to be concerned with man's well being, both in subjective (=uninformed prediction, hope) and objective (=informed prediction) ways.
• Continental philosophy is a literary/entertainment genre
• Where it interacts with how a state works, it is anyway inspired by empiricism (in the case of Europe, socialism -- which is not strictly empiricism but strongly influenced by it and Christian/stoic ethics -- which is in practice quite common in the western world)
• Man's woes come from the time frame I wrote about earlier. All human thinking is concerned with how to deal with uncertainty. Science is a tool for this, the most successful I would say, but not enough; the problem is that our wishes do not like to come to terms to predictions, certainties, and fallacies, even when they are "scientific"; especially the doubt that a "scientific" diagnosis might be wrong - and this can happen - unfolds a chain of painful doubts and uncertainties.
• Ethics is something that we hope to be objective, but eventually is mostly subjective.
  • Political differences between groups have to do with different ethics.
  • Disagreement between men has to do with differences in their ethics.
  • Since every man cannot experience everything, political propaganda/religion/science proposes ethics, as described above. A man can adopt such ethics to relieve him from or as a starting point for devising its own.
  • Some people are more resilient and cheerful, some drop into despair very easily; their personal ethics are different; they draw different conclusions about the future.
• It is, eventually, from uncertainty that conflict between human beings arise; uncertainty about the future (time frame), and about judgement (two ethical systems do not agree in their conclusions)
• We like ethics because they make man's behavior predictable. This is why society is concerned with it. Do not misunderstand me, I am not implying any "state conspiracy" here nor V for vendettas. Who would like to live in an unpredictable world?
• Talking about PC: I use the word 'men' because it is shorter than "human being" and "men and women" and "women", being already rather verbose by nature.

In what do individuals differ from each other?, Sat, 28 Oct 2017 17:12:46 +0000

Mankind's woes all come from unpredictability.
We learn to predict at the best.
Throughout their life Men might not have will, nor strength, to predict and be objective. This is indeed a difficult task; and often it might even not take you anywhere, because you are looking in the wrong direction; you are too stupid.
Then one can resort to believing; be it religion, be it the horoscope, be it your dead grandmother, be it your garden tree you hug daily.
It is, in the end, this that differentiates men: for how long, and under which pressure, will they give up or hold out their beliefs/wishes?
Nota bene: it is never known in advance whether it is the believer, or the skeptic, or both, who will survive in a determinate situation; otherwise we would all be either skeptics or believers.

Celebration of virtue, Fri, 29 Sep 2017 13:34:59 +0000

I think one of the worst mistake a modern society can make is to celebrate virtue.
I had this feeling since a pair of years ago, and realized that it is not just my discovery, but many other have seen this too.
By giving value to virtue, virtue becomes a counterfeit-able good.
The intended meaning of "virtue is its own reward" is that by being virtuous you should not expect any praise nor reward; but it is the fact of being virtuous you should be happy with.
But who isn't pleased by rewards? Since I am looking for a reward, I can choose being virtuous so I will get virtue's own reward (not even my own...) without much effort.
An example of counterfeited virtue is described here, described by N. N. Taleb. I got this pointer from my friend Luigi.
I also read that Bernard Mandeville said something related to what I am saying. I will probably have a look at what he wrote.

The value of art, Tue, 16 Jan 2018 17:24:45 +0000

Art^* has a great value because it allows one to see things differently from the circumstances where one is born.
I think that this is why traditional societies are often aggressive or derisive towards individuals that deviate from the norm, because it is an attack on the predictability of individuals.

^* and of course the media it is recorded on/with; be it paper, a wall and pigments or whatever else