Re:Modern life is lonely – We all need someone to help
by positr0n on Tuesday December 19, 2017 @09:11AM
(#15960282)
Off topic, but this stack exchange post convinced me that the Roman's didn't have the metallurgical skills to truly enter the age of steam[0]. They didn't have the ability to mine enough iron nor the ability to cast (and definitely not mill) it precisely enough for proper steam engine parts.
Re:Modern life is lonely – We all need someone to help
by wklauss on Wednesday December 20, 2017 @05:48AM
(#15968566)
> Yes, but the Stoics weren't "primitive" really
They weren't that many either. Most of their greek / roman peers were still in the dark about common ailments and diseases, and resorted to all kinds of superstitions to treat them and fight them.
What I'm getting at is that this view of the primitive man as a stoic figure in tune with nature is severely distorted by our current worldview and knowledge. There was nothing "stoic" about the majority of them lived their lives.
More broadly, I'm trying to make the point that Kaczynski was a nutcase with a severe misconception of the human condition.
Yes, but the Stoics weren't "primitive" really. I may be getting the timeline mixed up slightly but they were part of a civilisation that invented steam engines but never bothered to develop them because they had slavery to provide manual labour! They are far closer to us than they were to cavemen in every meaningful way.
Update: Epictetus died in 135 AD. Vitruvius died in 15 AD and was writing about steam engines... So the Stoics were a century into what could have been the Age of Steam, which would be 1870 in our timeline!