I think it's fair to have principles and still have an interesting an active life. The best example of this would have to be, well, Ben Franklin.

I find the list hilarious, because Ben Franklin was a notorious player, and his time in France (as American ambassador) was legendary - if documented today, it would make the Wolf of Wallstreet jealous. In modern parlance, ‘coke and hookers’ galore.

He also, by all accounts, was instrumental in getting France to support the US war of independence, without which the war would likely have gone an entirely different way.

Not to say he treated anyone badly - by all accounts, all participants enjoyed themselves immensely.

But don’t take these pronouncements as documentations of fact, but rather playing to an audience. He was also one of the major publishers and propagandists in early America, and his audience was profoundly conservative (often in the puritan sense), rural, and poor. It’s how he made one of his first fortunes [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poor_Richard%27s_Almanack].

He probably did follow some of them, when it suited him, but clearly was never hesitant to let them get in the way of a good time either. Taking it too literally is like taking one of those popular business books too literally.

Can you link the source for these claims?

Considering he didn’t have any embassy bureaucracy beyond a few staff helping him, and that any reply from washington would be many weeks away… it seems extremely unlikely he would have had much free time at all in Paris.

which part? your timelines seem pretty off if you think ‘weeks’ was a remotely possible timeline at the time either.

There was no electronic communication of any sort (electricity was barely understood at the time), and best case transit time was around 6 weeks each way, often 8-12 if possible at all. It was also highly seasonal, and still very dangerous.

So the absolute fastest turn around time was 12 weeks/3 months, and more realistically 4-6 months. With some decent odds that one of the legs of the trip might sink, losing all hands.

It’s why a literal founding father (and one of the most influential ones) was the ambassador. No one else could be trusted.

[https://www.history.com/articles/benjamin-franklin-france]

Are you confused about what “many weeks” means? it means >>few weeks

How does that work out 6 months in on your ‘many weeks’ work estimate?

Huh? Do you not believe 20 to 30 weeks is >>few weeks?

I have never seen (or used) ‘few’ in the description of something when there was 20 of something.

Technically, a year could also count if you said >> few seconds, but no one will take you seriously if you do either.

You seem very confused… “many weeks” was the exact quote. “few” was only brought up after the bizarre reply as part of the explanation in “>>few weeks”.

And yes “many weeks” easily covers the range of 20 to 30 weeks.

Nope. Just pointing out it’s the wrong scale, and providing context of the right scale. Which is months. Many months.

This doesn’t even make sense. Why don’t you accept it is often used?

You can search older HN comments and see hundreds upon hundreds of instances of “many weeks” and so on…

Fair critique, we should never lose the spirit of play, but Franklin’s guidance seems very much in line with a quote from Gustave Flaubert I often see echoed:

> Be steady and well-ordered in your life so that you can be fierce and original in your work

while I like redhatting as much as anyone the interesting wrinkle to this criticism of franklin in particular is that this is much more like the way he actually lived than the principles he listed were. in fact, I dare say the only thing he missed on this list was making up for the non-existent sobriety of his youth.

Today I learned about the red hat society, thank you

The poem:

https://www.poetry.com/poem/141551/warning

(When I am an old woman, I will annotate other people's comments, With inapposite quibbling or info they already know ...)

I was teaching my dog to bark less, and I worried a bit that it might make him sit silently when I actually want him to bark, like if a stranger was coming through the window.

After a ton of training I realized he will never stop barking, he can realize that what he is doing is not right, but the urge to bark at every noise he hears will always be something we have to work on. We will never get it "right".

I think Ben Franklins strict rules are the same way. Obviously you can't run your entire life with military discipline, but you have to set the ideal fairly high because you are going to fall short over and over.

That's the problem with set rules.

Overly productive and active people create rules to better focus their productivity and tame their impulses.

Someone unambitious and lazy would see more benefit from a single rule that says go do something, literally anything!

my dogs, when I have them, dont bark, but have exceptional freedom and are expected to act with discretion, I talk to my animals a lot, and watch them closely, responding to there needs and comunications......a big dogs warning "CHUFF" says everything needed....."big dog here....please observe formalitys, aproach calmly, say hi, be pleaant and confident, and all will be fine", with the understanding that I can order a stand down, for non dog people who are of no threat. dogs, and animals, offer a real ,genuine , opinion on many aspects of life, a check.......,can I walk away from that expectant look...sometimes it's , ha! nice try you manipulative fucker, and other times it's hang it all, your right, lets do the thing, now..... the leson bieng, to be aware of everything, and one of those things is that try as you might, there are loose ends, which will unpredictably re prioritise everything, and the final proof of living well, is having the capacity to re prioritise, and then go on from there and a child, or a dog, or a horse, will call your bluff

Genuine question: if you could tell Ben Franklin this, would you? I'm not even disagreeing with you, nor do I think there is a correct answer, but your answer and the reasoning behind it would genuinely interest me.

Sure I would. The conversation would go about as well as it would with any moral realist who believes he has identified the set of virtues or deontic norms which obligation would have us adhere to. I do not know if Mr. Franklin was a "serious man" as de Beauvoir described it, but these are certainly the same kinds of self-flagellatory ethics you would expect a serious man to have.

My interactions with such people usually reflect a piteous tone, as if it were a tremendous shame that I had not stopped for a second to think of the gravity of the situation. That is a necessary frame for them to hold given the preconditions which led to them becoming a serious man.

Some are about breaking out of self-imposed constraints and some are just dickish: don't come into my garden and pick my flowers, thank you very much.