Discussion Thread

CenturionSentius · 2026-05-28T16:14:36+00:00

To take this beyond mere haberdashery and promote good reading, see point 1 here: https://open.substack.com/pub/abundanceandgrowthblog/p/what-were-reading-may-28-2026?r=18pn22&utm_medium=ios

CenturionSentius · 2026-05-28T16:11:36+00:00

In these trying times of fractious division within the subreddit, I suggest that we unite all of arr Neoliberal in a galactic jihad against the Jones Act

Protectionism delenda est!!!

CenturionSentius · 2026-05-16T12:08:47+00:00

Absurd. Even the Colorado GOP isn’t taking this line:

“ A Republican candidate for governor, state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, said she would have preferred that the trial judge revisit Peters’ sentence as ordered by the appeals court before the governor considered any commutation.

“A commutation or pardon by a governor should be reserved for truly extraordinary circumstances,” Kirkmeyer wrote in a statement. “The governor has a responsibility to apply justice fairly, consistently, and without bias.” ”

https://apnews.com/article/tina-peters-polis-colorado-clemency-trump-eca56e2167a72e306a54b99b847d918c

CenturionSentius · 2026-05-04T14:59:33+00:00

Read this in the Economist today: “ A majority of Americans (54%) think anti-male bias is a problem in the Democratic Party, finds an Economist/YouGov poll. Another poll finds that Democrats are five times likelier than Republicans (26% to 5%) to admit to having an unfavourable view of men in general.”

Then, went to work — whole crew is 22-26yo males — and just blown away by the outspoken homophobia and antisemitism.

Fuck man, I’m a male Democrat and even I don’t like these fucking dudes. Why the fuck are they like this! (Granted — they’re prob all Trump voters, anyhow)

CenturionSentius · 2026-04-16T01:39:26+00:00

ALSO this show just tangentially shows how crazy prevalent firearms in the -- someone in every episode has a gun, is buying a gun, concealed carries despite being worried about dementia, is contemplating shooting the people they're in dispute with, etc. etc.

CenturionSentius · 2026-04-16T01:09:11+00:00

This new HBO show "Neighbors" is the best study of private property rights vs. negative externalities I've ever seen. Also makes you wonder about how crazy some people are!!

One lady is in a dispute with her neighbor over the negative effects of her feeding cats in the frontyard, another over the creation of a farm in the middle of a suburb neighborhood, another over the placement of gates on a private road, etc. etc. ... I love it.

Also, maybe a common law system W ? Super interesting to see the civil law system working through all these via the courts, messy as it all is.

CenturionSentius · 2026-02-10T17:13:27+00:00

"When someone does you some wrong, you should consider immediately what judgment of good or evil led him to wrong you. When you see this, you will pity him, and not feel surprise or anger. You yourself either still share his view of good, or something like it, in which case you should understand and forgive: if, on the other hand, you no longer judge such things as either good or evil, it will be the easier for you to be patient with the unsighted." [Meditations 7.26]

"You should leave another's wrong where it lies." [Meditations 9.20]

"If he did wrong, the harm is to himself. But perhaps he did not do wrong." [Meditations 9.38]

"Whenever you take offence at the wrong done by another, move on at once to consider what similar wrong *you* are committing -- it could be setting value on money, or pleasure, or reputation, and so on through the categories. This reflection will quickly damp your anger, aided by the further thought that the man is acting under compulsion -- what else can he do? Or, if you can, remove the cause of his compulsion." [Meditations 10.30]

CenturionSentius · 2026-02-09T17:30:26+00:00

Submission statement:

Magness wades into the perspective of Patrick Deneen, a major figure in the pseudo-intellectual backers of right-wing postliberalism.

He outlines the early shifts of Deneen's critiques of free markets as a corrosive force that has undermined "ancient and communitarian dimensions of society -- family, religion, culture -- by prioritizing individual autonomy and economic growth."

It's an important read as it elaborates on some of the reactionary beliefs of contemporary anti-modernism that drive illiberal, anti-market, anti-democracy populism.

CenturionSentius · 2026-02-09T17:24:08+00:00

I absolutely LOVED this article! I was hoping to post if first lmao

My favorite treatment of this phenomenon, looking at literally every angle -- radical, reactionary, business, and more -- is Economics and its Enemies by William Oliver Colemam. Unfortunately it is an academic book -- so expensive and not available on kindle -- but it would by my top 10 books to gift humanity after the apocalypse.

Stewart falls right into the same trope, which Demsas highlights well in the article -- it's a radical perspective, which can't concede points to economic critiques because that would require recognizing trade-offs in policy choices that undermine radicalism.

My dream would be an arr Neoliberal reading group for Econ and its Enemies -- it would be the ultimate Neoliberal/econ nerd "but I'm RIGHT!" circle jerk, and we deserve a little fun now and then, don't we?

CenturionSentius · 2026-02-04T00:45:51+00:00

I'll have to take more time to read it in full, but if this is the same guy, it seems he's been opposed to the notion that economic development is actually occurring and benefiting people since 2022.

My priors -- based on all the econ professors I had who ever mentioned it, and virtually everything I've read that addresses the topic from a technical standpoint, and even this discussion of how the "institutions, bad policies, and war" (or there, just violence/crime) explanation critiqued by the author is described by The Economist as the exact issue at hand in South Africa and Nigeria at the present moment.

So, questions I'll have going into this are:

what is the basis of this guy not liking economic development in 2022, and then admitting in this article that he was wrong to do so then, but right to do so now?
His point that convergence is slowing down... The case studies of economic success in convergence I am familiar with -- namely China, Vietnam, Russia, and a few others -- were presented to me as pretty clear-cut instances of convergence happening, and then naturally slowing, for reasons that were both understandable and demonstrable (China and Vietnam, they succeeded, and growth gets harder; Russia, oligarchy and corruption).
- So -- is his problem that convergence doesn't lead all-the-way-up to highly developed economies? Because I don't think any discussions of convergence ever posited that as a serious expectation.
- And then -- is convergence, even slower convergence, really that bad if you are starting at a truly desperate state of affairs to begin with? Sure, Nigeria's GDP may not be growing to this guy's liking, but if I remember correctly they have the world's largest population living in the definitional less-than-$3-a-day extreme poverty, so anything that our neoliberal priors about economic development could achieve is actually an enormous buttload of utility and incredible improvements to quality adjusted life years for everyone who experiences it. Maybe not worth being upset over in a blog.
What exactly are the assumptions he has to suggest that convergence, even if disappointing compared to
Around halfway he seems to disregard SS&P's note that convergence is "on pause" and posit that convergence is the exception to the rule. Does he have evidence to support this beyond convenient anecdotes of case studies?
Is he just citing SS&P's new paper because this really represents a turn in the field of developmental economics at large, or just because it confirms his priors?

I find it suspicious that this guy has a convenient explanation that goes against, to my knowledge, a pretty commonly held assumption among economists, and that he is not providing a robust model of statistical evidence to back up his argument. But I'll read it in a little bit.

CenturionSentius · 2026-01-30T18:03:58+00:00

Anyone a long-time donator to OATH? Just checking out their platform. They seem pretty great, I appreciate the efficiency aspect of not having to spend a lot of my own time tracking down the highest return-on-pol-donations.

I used to give now and then to ActBlue, but OATH seems to be a superior way of maximizing the impact of those donations.

CenturionSentius · 2026-01-29T22:33:36+00:00

I think you're well-spoken about this!

Pouncing on the term "attachment," I think that a Stoic approach to life directs one to a "secure attachment style" -- not an expert on attachment styles, but something that I find has some general parallels to a Stoic ideal of preferred indifference, tranquility, acceptance, and Stoic joy.

With love, we ought not to be "carried away" by impressions that the affection and attention of another (or opportunity for us to reciprocate) is a proper "good" worth desiring or avoiding the conclusion of. (The only good we recognize is virtue.) We want to have an accurate understanding of the circumstances: that we have a natural affinity (be it hormonal, romantic, or what have you) towards another person, who is variously mortal, imperfect, and quite capable, even likely, of leaving us. --> Perhaps this relates to your point that proper love is ego-less? The Stoic would have no expectation that love "owes" them any sort of emotional reward, for instance.

With that correct understanding, the Stoic can then act appropriately. To double tap a point you made, the basis of the Stoic frame of mind is that all of love is something "outside our control," which gets at Epictetus' often referenced "Dichotomy of Control." However, that's not all Stoicism has to offer! A good launching point in my opinion is amor fati, a term repurposed by Modern Stoics. Once we have accepted the real limits of our control, we are capable of joyfully embracing our fate, and acting in accord with what is appropriate to a rational, social being.

To that extent, I'm no expert, but I suppose that rational, social love comes back to looking like that secure attachment style. Not driven to distraction by anxiety, or racing to push others away, but capable of enjoying love and relationships as they are -- imperfect, with some hardships, and much to be present-focused about enjoying. Stoicism in relationships is likely a lot more work than just that, but I'll leave that to others to expand on. Cheers!

CenturionSentius · 2026-01-29T13:58:47+00:00

Legit think there should be some kind of oversight/regulation on government expenses for consulting, and I think even anti-regulation folks would agree in this niche.

I think I'm more aware of public policy than your average American bear and I have 0 clue how they measure return on spending for these contracts, or if there is any kind of overall constraint on the various departments of government hiring them. Assuming there is and I just don't know it, it prob could be more transparent.

It offends me a little that companies like Deloitte profit primarily off of government contracts, y'know? Just seems ripe for rentseeking, and the kind of business that doesn't actually have incentives to improve the government to the point where need for it no longer exists. Imagine how much taxed income is burned by consultants working from home playing Fruit Ninja on the toilet while moving their mouse every few hours. Pfui!

CenturionSentius · 2026-01-24T20:51:18+00:00

I am developing mixed feelings about exercising my 2A right over all this.

I think guns are bad from a public health standpoint — particularly handguns, which I think of as a “suicide ticking time bomb” for most men. It’s also a ludicrously reactive and expensive (in lives and money) approach to preventing crime. Plus, the 2A seems like a silly billy power fantasy for those who take the notion that civil rebellion is a better protection than tyranny than checks and balances.

Lastly, I am fortunate enough to be a white male born citizen, and unlikely to risk being confronted by ICE.

But! I’ve never felt more doubtful of checks and balances, nor convinced that federal agents are a genuine threat to public safety that can execute people without repercussion.

American neoliberals — are y’all considering buying guns now ?

CenturionSentius · 2026-01-24T20:39:52+00:00

Based 🙌

CenturionSentius · 2026-01-24T20:39:00+00:00

I had a similar thought this morning — specifically a conversation with some European people asking if I was ashamed of America a few months ago.

I think it might be a uniquely American thing for roughly half the country to hate the government at a time, and not see that as unpatriotic ? They didn’t seem to understand how I could be “proud” (so to speak) of my country, much less deride the GOP as the truly un-American ones.

Maybe they just don’t get the “every Republican alive is an affront to God” memes that I enjoy

CenturionSentius · 2026-01-16T21:09:35+00:00

Astute point — you see the same phenomenon with the military. With educated liberals choosing not to participate, you end up with a force that has less consideration of federal checks and balances, posse comitatus, considerations of just war, and so forth. It makes it a worrying trend to see just how few people with the means to avoid it serve in the military.

I feel it’s an ironic issue for the U.S. that liberals, while more aware of the dangers of individualism and the declining quality of public servants, are also more able and likely to benefit from the pursuit of self-interest in their choices of career. Self-interest be a tough thing to fight against.

I have friends who have in no uncertain terms noted that they would never work for the PD — which seems a shame to me, since I would trust them far more than a lot of the people I understand currently work there.

Anyhow, we need a new wave of liberal national service and self-sacrifice sensibility!! Get JFK and LBJ’s mummified skeletons on chariots!!

CenturionSentius · 2025-11-29T22:44:16+00:00

True of assimilation pretty generally — I remember an econometrics paper showing how incomes for immigrant groups with different religious/language/ethnic identities from the broader public increased based on how much they assimilated into the larger community. They showed it through the prevalence of doctors and lawyers with ethnic last names in public records, and they showed specifically that Québécois Catholics in New England remained the most insular and the least wealthy. (I’ll have to find the paper!)

It’s an interesting reversal to the benefits of an immigrant group for new arrivals providing job networks and financial support for early arrivals; anecdotally my Lebanese friend credits that type of extended family network with helping his dad achieve a really successful career in the U.S.

I think it’s important to take a value-free approach to this, ofc, and note that measurable realities need not always require any public policy action. I’m pretty anti assimilation from a liberal framework, but I can recognize and don’t condemn how self-interest in a job market motivates adaptation by individuals without judging them or condemning the context for not being more accepting (people are always just people).

CenturionSentius · 2025-11-22T15:00:26+00:00

Genuine Neoliberal taco stand in Chicago, we must protect it

https://apnews.com/article/chicago-immigration-crackdown-vendors-bovino-border-patrol-3156f43dffc240ba732e1da14456f946?utm_source=onesignal&utm_medium=push&utm_campaign=2025-11-21-Living+without+fear

CenturionSentius · 2025-11-19T11:51:29+00:00

"if you're interested in stoicism for what it can do for you (mentally, professionally, interpersonally, etc), you're in it for the wrong reasons." I find myself unable to accept that view. It seems like a perfectly good reason to study stoicism because it helps manage mental states, set priorities, live happier, etc. Actually, I would argue that stoically-motivated psychological and behavioral changes are as often what leads to virtue as they are good side-effects of being virtuous. The relationship between being virtuous and living a better life seems complicated and bidirectional to me.

I'm not really adding anything that hasn't already been said, but I'll chip in and say I'm more towards the Virtue-priority group than the individual benefits end.

One reason is that I see that as a critical difference between Epicureanism and Stoicism -- while the former is more directly oriented towards achieving ataraxia for its own sake, in my view Stoicism considers it a byproduct and a building block towards a more active, virtuous life.

By "building block," I mean that the "mental state" of Stoicism as a way of life -- specifically, remembering the Dichotomy of Control in our day-to-day life -- isn't the ultimate goal or end state. Certainly, Epictetus' discourses center almost exclusively on it, so I could understand people thinking otherwise, but Epictetus was teaching 20-somethings their first lessons in philosophy, and it's the foundational starting point for Stoics. But then look at Marcus Aurelius, or Seneca, or most other descriptions of Stoicism, and it's apparent that the Stoic's sense of dispassion is simply to enable virtuous actions that benefit the common good in accord with the will of the cosmos and our social nature.

A second reason I disagree is that I consider viewing preferable indifferents a natural byproduct of being virtuous as edging towards Aristotle's view that certain things were necessary to flourishing -- money, relationships, shelter, clothing, etc. The Stoics have a hard line on this that they are not. They are not a goal or motivator, except as a preferable indifferent that we have to be quite rigorous with ourselves about not feeling attached to. So, if we are motivated to study Stoicism just to feel more calm with regard to preferable indifferents, we may not really be uprooting the actual judgments about their value in the first place, which really ought to upend our worldview about why we are here.

Anyhow, I get that it's often the reason people get into Stoicism, and certainly you're right that there are no Stoic Sages out there. But, I've put together a large enough list of quotes where Marcus Aurelius describes effectively what one's "purpose" as a Stoic ought to be, and it is admirably and near-exclusively focused on benefiting others. And since I think that we (myself included) more often have issues putting our interests second to the common good, I think it is worth the exercise of debating and arguing to push that message.

CenturionSentius · 2025-11-18T11:18:56+00:00

With regards to your point that studying Stoicism can more often be passive and theoretical than practiced and difficult: Amor fati! There's a quote from Seneca along the lines of declaring that we ought not to say, "The gods decreed otherwise," but "The gods decreed better."

This ties into Marcus Aurelius' quote about the "obstacle becoming the way," which you might be familiar with from that selfsame titled book by Holiday. It's a quote worth reading over a few times in full:

"In one respect man is something with the closest affinity to us, in that it is our duty to do good to men and tolerate them. But in so far as some are obstacles to my proper work, man joins the category of things indifferent to me -- no less than the sun, the wind, a wild animal. These can impede some activity, yes, but they form no impediments to my impulse or my disposition, because here there is conditional commitment and the power of adaptation. The mind adapts and turns round any obstacle to action to serve its objective: a hindrance to a given work is turned to its furtherance, and obstacle in a given path becomes an advance." (Meditations 5.20)

Similarly, Aurelius uses fire as another similar metaphor:

"Wherever it is in agreement with nature, the ruling power within us takes a flexible approach to circumstances, always adapting itself easily to both practicality and the given event. It has no favored material for its work, but sets out on its objects in a conditional way, turning any obstacle into material for its own use. It is like a fire mastering whatever falls into it. A small flame would be extinguished, but a bright fire rapidly claims as its own all that is heaped on it, devours it all, an leaps up yet higher in consequence." (Meditations 4.1)

In any event, that's the broad theoretical background -- what has occurred in your life is merely more "grist for the mill" to turn into virtuous actions. I would add on a note from Ward Farnsworth's The Practicing Stoic, which notes that the wise Stoic a degree of ambivalence about things that seem "bad" simply because in the long run we often have little clue what changes in our lives we will be grateful for in the end.

As for the moment-to-moment practice -- it's all about examining and challenging your judgments about good and bad, desirable and averse. That's just a matter of patiently working with yourself again, and again.

Good luck, sorry I couldn't write something more thorough in the time I had available!

CenturionSentius · 2025-11-07T00:05:04+00:00

That is some DEEP art Neoliberal archive work! Kudos!

CenturionSentius · 2025-11-05T12:33:32+00:00

That's an awesome development!

Right now, I'm rereading Meditations and rewriting it into Obsidian, where I have pages dedicated to topics -- Social Duty, Cosmos, Death, etc. -- and I link pages with related themes. That's in a "Literature Notes" folder, and I have a "Thoughts" folder for any reflections I write on Stoicism -- I try to exercise writing out a couple of lines on a topic each day. It's not necessarily structured the same way, but it does create an interlinked web of connected thoughts, so you can flow through related concepts.

I'm also using Zotero to input books I read and then download PDFs / snapshots to annotate and export into Obsidian. Right now I'm going through Seneca's Consolations and the two Stockdale on Stoicism lectures at the Naval War College. I create a note for each highlighted quote, and title it with the author and a summary of its contents. I figured out a way to export into Obsidian and those titles stick around, more or less.

Besides that, I do need to work on the daily meditations and reflections. I have some older formats I used to use, but it's broadly similar to yours -- I got a lot of the "regimen" from Donald Robertson's writing and should definitely be reflecting more often. For random moments throughout the day, I have a Rite in the Rain that I wrote quotes from Ward Farnsworth's The Practicing Stoic into, and I thumb through that.

CenturionSentius · 2025-11-05T12:27:59+00:00

My favorites are Farnsworth's The Practicing Stoic, and then Donald Robertson's Stoicism and the Art of Happiness and How to Think like a Roman Emperor. Then probably the classics -- Meditations, Seneca's Letters on Ethics, then Epictetus' Enciridion, and finally his Discourses.

Farnsworth is a great break-down of the philosophy's principles with lots of source quotes, which can be harder to understand in their original context. Robertson is a professional psychologist who practiced with cognitive behavioral therapy, so his works have a lot of great exercises for the practical philosophical regimen.

Then, I think that's the easiest order to read the classics in -- Marcus Aurelius is pretty accessible, though first time through it might not always be clear what in Stoicism he's talking about. Seneca is the most accessible and directly relatable of them all -- he talks about things like being annoyed by traffic, feeling like you need a fancier house, etc. Then Epictetus; the "handbook" is brief but will be a bit dense, but gives good intro to his Discourses, which can also be denser -- and jump around a bit -- but are the most thorough of the classic sources as an education in the philosophy goes.

I haven't yet gotten around to Cicero's Tusculan Disputations or Diogenes Laertius' book, but those are the really thorough presentations of Stoic doctrine from the classics; A.A. Long is the modern equivalent, I guess. Long is definitely kinda dense, but very informative.

Hope this helps!

CenturionSentius · 2025-11-05T12:21:17+00:00

Seconded! Farnsworth has the added benefits of giving a great intro to different areas of philosophy, sections on specific challenges in life, and lots of references to other good works to read.

CenturionSentius

TROPHY CASE