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@greatuserhandle.bsky.social
Victrix causa deis placuit sed Victa Catoni.
instantwisdom.substack.com
instantwisdom.substack.com
"If lawfulness is the essence of non-tyrannical government and lameness is the essence of tyranny, then terror is the essence of totalitarian domination." #Arendt
February 13, 2026 at 12:50 PM
"If lawfulness is the essence of non-tyrannical government and lameness is the essence of tyranny, then terror is the essence of totalitarian domination." #Arendt
"The first essential step on the road to total domination is to kill the juridical person in man. This was done, on the one hand, by putting certain categories of people outside the protection of the law" #Arendt
February 12, 2026 at 1:12 PM
"The first essential step on the road to total domination is to kill the juridical person in man. This was done, on the one hand, by putting certain categories of people outside the protection of the law" #Arendt
"The reason why the totalitarian regimes can get so far towards realizing a fictitious, topsy-turvy world is that the outside nontotalitarian world ... indulges also in wishful thinking and shirks reality in the face of real insanity" #Arendt
February 11, 2026 at 3:49 PM
"The reason why the totalitarian regimes can get so far towards realizing a fictitious, topsy-turvy world is that the outside nontotalitarian world ... indulges also in wishful thinking and shirks reality in the face of real insanity" #Arendt
"In totalitarian countries all places of detention ruled by the police are made to be veritable holes of oblivion into which people stumble by accident and without leaving behind them such ordinary traces of former existence as a body and a grave." #Arendt
February 11, 2026 at 3:17 PM
"In totalitarian countries all places of detention ruled by the police are made to be veritable holes of oblivion into which people stumble by accident and without leaving behind them such ordinary traces of former existence as a body and a grave." #Arendt
I'd like to think having a quantitative social science background instills integrity, but I don't have sufficient evidence to establish a causal relation.
I believe the numbers until Numbers Fuckstein tells journos via signal that the numbers are being fucked with. The numbers nerds have an internal constitution I know would be set off on a hair trigger.
February 11, 2026 at 2:05 PM
I'd like to think having a quantitative social science background instills integrity, but I don't have sufficient evidence to establish a causal relation.
I've lived so long I can't remember why I started.
February 1, 2026 at 4:01 PM
I've lived so long I can't remember why I started.
"Judge Temple retired toward his dwelling with that kind of feeling that many a man has experienced before him, who discovers, after the excitement of the moment has passed, that he has purchased pleasure at the price of misery to others." #Cooper
January 31, 2026 at 2:51 AM
"Judge Temple retired toward his dwelling with that kind of feeling that many a man has experienced before him, who discovers, after the excitement of the moment has passed, that he has purchased pleasure at the price of misery to others." #Cooper
Honestly this is just more snow than I needed
January 27, 2026 at 4:05 PM
Honestly this is just more snow than I needed
"My friends, I have wasted a day. Come to think of it, I've wasted almost every day. Oh well."
January 26, 2026 at 4:41 PM
"My friends, I have wasted a day. Come to think of it, I've wasted almost every day. Oh well."
"For legends attract the very best in our times, just as ideologies attract the average, and the whispered tales of gruesome secret powers behind the scenes attract the very worst." #Arendt
January 22, 2026 at 10:21 PM
"For legends attract the very best in our times, just as ideologies attract the average, and the whispered tales of gruesome secret powers behind the scenes attract the very worst." #Arendt
"[Historians] failed... to notice high society's constantly growing admiration for the underworld... its continuous step-by-step retreat on all questions of morality, and its growing taste for the anarchical cynicism" #Arendy
January 19, 2026 at 8:08 PM
"[Historians] failed... to notice high society's constantly growing admiration for the underworld... its continuous step-by-step retreat on all questions of morality, and its growing taste for the anarchical cynicism" #Arendy
"violence administered for power's (and not law's) sake turns into a destructive principle that will not stop until there is nothing left to violate" #Arendt
January 18, 2026 at 4:01 PM
"violence administered for power's (and not law's) sake turns into a destructive principle that will not stop until there is nothing left to violate" #Arendt
I'm proud to announce I've won the nobel prize for honesty
January 16, 2026 at 4:34 PM
I'm proud to announce I've won the nobel prize for honesty
"Human wickedness, if accepted by society, is changed from an act of will into an inherent, psychological quality which man cannot choose or reject but which is imposed upon him from without, and which rules him as compulsively as the drug rules the addict" #Arendt
January 15, 2026 at 2:53 AM
"Human wickedness, if accepted by society, is changed from an act of will into an inherent, psychological quality which man cannot choose or reject but which is imposed upon him from without, and which rules him as compulsively as the drug rules the addict" #Arendt
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New York City turned OUT.
@handsoffnyc.bsky.social ✊❤️
@handsoffnyc.bsky.social ✊❤️
January 11, 2026 at 7:31 PM
New York City turned OUT.
@handsoffnyc.bsky.social ✊❤️
@handsoffnyc.bsky.social ✊❤️
"The same national misfortune happens when a King, worn out with age and infirmity, enters the last stage of human weakness. In both these cases the public becomes a prey to every miscreant, who can tamper successfully with the follies either of age or infancy." #Paine #CommonSensr
January 10, 2026 at 9:52 PM
"The same national misfortune happens when a King, worn out with age and infirmity, enters the last stage of human weakness. In both these cases the public becomes a prey to every miscreant, who can tamper successfully with the follies either of age or infancy." #Paine #CommonSensr
"the tyrant set upon [Aratus] on all hands, whilst the Argives, as if it had not been their liberty that was contended for, but some Nemean game going on for which it was their privilege to assign the prize, like fair and impartial judges, sat looking on in great quietness." #Plutarch
December 19, 2025 at 10:14 PM
"the tyrant set upon [Aratus] on all hands, whilst the Argives, as if it had not been their liberty that was contended for, but some Nemean game going on for which it was their privilege to assign the prize, like fair and impartial judges, sat looking on in great quietness." #Plutarch
"there are all those which only a bad character would choose, and which are implicitly opposed to men's wishes, e.g. that pleasure is the good, and that to do injustice is better than to suffer it. For people then hate him, supposing ... he really thinks them."
-Aristotle 'Topics'
-Aristotle 'Topics'
November 5, 2025 at 1:08 PM
"there are all those which only a bad character would choose, and which are implicitly opposed to men's wishes, e.g. that pleasure is the good, and that to do injustice is better than to suffer it. For people then hate him, supposing ... he really thinks them."
-Aristotle 'Topics'
-Aristotle 'Topics'
I am having the most wonderful midlife crisis
October 5, 2025 at 7:11 PM
I am having the most wonderful midlife crisis
While Leo Strauss is usually read as emphasizing esoteric interpretations, we should consider that he might have felt a need to hide his true intent.
October 5, 2025 at 12:48 AM
While Leo Strauss is usually read as emphasizing esoteric interpretations, we should consider that he might have felt a need to hide his true intent.
I'm worried about ingesting microplastics so I'm sticking to macro
September 12, 2025 at 8:09 PM
I'm worried about ingesting microplastics so I'm sticking to macro
[Cato the Elder] would also tell you, that he had rather be deprived of the reward for doing well, than not to suffer the punishment for doing ill; and that he could pardon all offenders but himself.
#Plutarch
#Plutarch
August 27, 2025 at 2:31 PM
[Cato the Elder] would also tell you, that he had rather be deprived of the reward for doing well, than not to suffer the punishment for doing ill; and that he could pardon all offenders but himself.
#Plutarch
#Plutarch
"an illiterate clownish fellow, giving Aristides his [ballot for ostracism]... begged him to write Aristides... "I am tired of hearing him everywhere called the Just." Aristides, hearing this, is said to have made no reply, but returned the sherd with his own name inscribed."
#Plutarch
#Plutarch
August 26, 2025 at 7:31 PM
"an illiterate clownish fellow, giving Aristides his [ballot for ostracism]... begged him to write Aristides... "I am tired of hearing him everywhere called the Just." Aristides, hearing this, is said to have made no reply, but returned the sherd with his own name inscribed."
#Plutarch
#Plutarch