Naturally, the established powers and polite society didn't find this to their liking. We all know how his story ended.
> Naturally, the established powers and polite society didn't find this to their liking. We all know how his story ended.
Today we call this method of exposing contradictions in one's mindset the Socratic Method.
No. Socrates was executed because he was associated with the worst rulers that the city of Athens had ever known, all former students of his, who notably went on to kill thousands of Athenian citizens (not enemies, strangers, or slaves), following the defeat in the Peloponnesian War.
After the tyrants were killed and democracy was restored, general amnesty law was granted to anyone involved except the Thirty Tyrants themselves and their direct aides. However resentment, understandably, remained.
> There was a lot of bad blood between the people of Athens and Socrates’ followers. That wouldn’t have been enough by itself. But the murder of between 5% and 15% of the citizen population in 404 must have pushed things over the edge. Imagine if Osama bin Laden, Timothy McVeigh, and Saddam Hussein had all had the same person as their ethics teacher: would you be very surprised if that person got harsh treatment from a jury? And would you then call that person a martyr?
http://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2016/04/socrates-1-did-soc...
I guess there's some platonic happiness in thinking you have it all figured out.
error 404: population not found
> sentenced to death because he was deliberately annoying people
I see you're still certain of Socrates' motives.
When you claimed he was 'corrupting the minds of the youth' and 'denying the gods of the city' you were simply repeating the charges laid at any philosopher who threatens the powers that be.
If anyone asks too many uncomfortable but honest questions these days, in some societies you will still be met with death, though here we have a milder but still harsh punishment known as 'deplatforming'.
But more to the point, if you are so certain of what you know, you could explain it and wouldn't find questions 'annoying'. Frustration justifies the case, because it means you really do know nothing but simply aren't honest enough to admit it.
Though I do like your form of expressing your frustration about the trial and sentencing of Socrates at myself as though I were his prosecutor, I assure you that I'm an under-50 mortal not born of gods and not atanatos.
> you could explain it and wouldn't find questions 'annoying'.
It was a pretty big event so I know we all remember it as long as you follow current events, but it's easy to find articles mentioning it.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/cities-reverse-defunding-the-po...
https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2021/february/minneapolis-re...
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/portland-mayor-addit...
Cities defunded police departments, crime went up, some of those same cities then later re-funded those departments, and even increased budgets.
The crime statistics and city council laws passed support these claims, I have not found any claims disputing these facts.
Even the left most leaning sources agree with these claims.
The police budget for MPD in 2014 was $145.6M for 850 officers. In 2020, the year you suggest they were defunded, the budget was $181.9M for 770 officers—a 38% increase per officer from 2014 (28.7% after adjusting for inflation)[0]. In fact, that department is ending the current fiscal year $5M under budget[1], and the current mayor has proposed an additional 17% expenditure increase for 2022.[2]
The police in Minneapolis were never defunded. They have more money than ever. Efforts to introduce meaningful reforms (inaccurately called “defunding the police” by some) have also not been abandoned by the city council. We are currently voting on a charter amendment that would replace the Minneapolis Police Department with a new Department of Public Safety. The new department would still include police officers but would be coequal with all other departments in the city (it currently has a unique status where it is controlled exclusively by the mayor), and its focus would be on preventing crime instead of policing people.
On the other hand, other parts of the city budget are underwater due to hundreds of former officers quitting and claiming PTSD[3], and the officers who remain are engaged in an intentional work slowdown[4] while blaming others[5] for what is a largely self-inflicted wound.
What I think the other participant in this discussion was suggesting—and something that I would echo—is that your sources for news don’t seem to be giving you accurate information and you may want to reconsider using them as primary sources, at least on this topic.
[0] https://minneapolismn.opengov.com/transparency
[1] https://twitter.com/lisabendermpls/status/145018398771290931... (This is the Minneapolis city council president)
[2] https://lims.minneapolismn.gov/Download/FileV2/24988/2022-Bu...
[3] https://www.mprnews.org/story/2021/10/06/mpls-police-ptsd-cl...
[4] https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-poli...
[5] https://minnesotareformer.com/2021/10/20/mpd-cop-says-office...
February 2021, the Minneapolis city council voted to add $6.4 million to the police budget. [2]
[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/minneapolis-city-council-v...
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/10/us/minneapolis-police-fun...
[2] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/minneapolis-to-spend-2464-...
The budget for 2020 was never in question, the riots and defund police movement started in the summer of 2020.
City policies were being discussed late in the year, concerning the 2021 budget.
Less resources means slower response times or no response at all.
That wasn't the premise though, the question was whether they defunded and then later refunded when crime was rising.
Above I showed GP that Minneapolis did in fact do this, as did many other cities.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9625629/REFUND-poli...
So they didn't actually do anything.
Some cities backpedalled on their promise to defund and added to the budget instead.
The existence of the latter scenario does not nullify the former.
[1] https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/managing-harmful-vaccin...
Merriam Webster has used that definition since they added the term to their dictionary in 2018: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/may/17/viral-imag...
Care to elaborate?
Just that it doesn't hurt points of view that are legitimate.
Illigitimate views and your feelings may still suffer from hearing the truth.
My point is that the facts don't care.
Therefore, completely true facts can make you believe a falsehood.
Therefore, the truth can harm a point of view that is legitimate.
It had more to do with revolutions in city just before, when two his students and friends worked with enemy to make dictatorship out of Athens. They killed and tortured quite a lot of people. Then it reversed. Now, he did not participated actively and citizens behavior during above was supposed to be forgiven anyway. It was miscarriage of justice.
But, these events in combination with what his ideas actually were were closer to why they wanted him killed then general "asked too many questions". As far as they were concerned, he was actually dangerous.
The yet other official reason was impiety, which despite sounding ridiculous to us, to them was important too.
Of course you do, you just wait until you have a more ethically "usable" argument than that, you build a solid case, then you have a mock trial and a fully expected conviction.
It was as true 2500 years ago as it is today.
So yeah, "different set of ethics or starting to distrust authority" but no necessary in a nice way.
The two are not mutually exclusive.
And I dunno, ask my wife.
“Nothing to excess”, and “Certainty brings insanity”.
i like the term abandonment these days, drop your assumptions, drop your habits and try to see things as they are
When trying to approach sacrosanct 'truths' from a clean slate, I've met torrents of emotional resistance. Yes, from others. But also inside myself. It is quite something.
I wish I could spend my days wandering the marketplaces asking sincere and pointed questions, but I have to get back to work.
Imitation, which is easiest.
Meditation, which is noblest.
Experience, which is bitterest.
Anytime I learn anything new, I imitate until I can’t anymore, then I meditate to understand why I think I can’t imitate anymore, then I experience my meditation, then I go back to mediating based on that experience.
Repeat until you can’t OODA loop effectively anymore.
What I take from the article is that saying stupid things is the best way to avoid doing stupid things.
However this only works when there is enough knowledge to know why the unimportant details won't matter.
The environment largely shapes people's behavior. Of course, we can argue that we should work towards changing the environment for the better, but practically, how much influence does a person (who is not in a position of authority) have? In the end, people simply take the easy way out, which is keep quiet and only speak when they're absolutely sure that whatever they're about to say/ask is fully accurate.
I certainly remember feeling that way when I was a junior engineer. It was kind of a shock to me when I realized how many others generally had the same questions I did.
Surprisingly much, for the kind of people who stay quiet. They underestimate their own potential impact.
I've never inferred stupidity or lack of intelligence with asking questions. The only thing I've inferred was lack of knowledge. And the best way to get knowledge is to ask. People who ask want to know. They want the information to get to correct.
People who don't ask questions eventually make assumptions that are wrong. Because they're so wrapped up in "looking smart" and they think being "smart" means having all the knowledge. They "want to be right" so they don't look information because looking would expose they don't already have it.
Smart people seek information so they can apply it. Genuinely intelligent people just have faster processors.
The causality also goes the other way. Very smart people see their limitations more clearly and so tend to be humbler about what they know.
They realize they can learn from others and so ask a lot of questions that others might feel foolish asking.
conversely, when interviewing or evaluating people, if i observe someone pretend s/he knows something, that's often a really bad sign…
My intuition has changed from this, I find it that most times, when someone shows genuine interest and asks honest, revealing questions about some new topic, they often excel at many other things (and will likely on the new topic as well).
I'm adapting this myself, being honest, asking honestly, and sometimes looking really stupid (because, in that context, I am!), and I appreciate greatly both the wealth of information that allows me to access, and that almost anybody worth their salt recognizes this trait as well.
Failing an interview due to looking stupid is probably a blessing in disguise, you don't want to be hired by people who can't see this, and you don't want to work next to people who's just pretending to understand, not learning because they can't afford to look stupid when they are (and thus stay stupid, and be much more inclined to try to pass blame to someone else, like you, who look stupid).