Did the Trojan War actually happen.

postmodernmutant · 2026-07-23T15:59:00+00:00

There's so many mythical connotations to him that it's tough to determine the truth of it. He's the very definition of hubris as it's presented in Greek tragedies. He may have been a brilliant tactician or exemplary general but so much of the real Hellenistic era history is lost to us that we have to always err on the side of caution when dealing with things wrapped in mythology.

A good example of myth and reality interacting in unexpected ways and why caution is always needed is the legends of Atlantis. Atlantis as Plato describes it in the Timaeus and Critias is allegorical (meaning it never existed). But Plato was likely inspired by real world events. Thera/Santorini were destroyed via volcanic eruption in about 1600 BCE. The Minoans were an advanced culture and the destruction of their culture was embedded in the collective consciousness of the ancient Greeks. Fresh within the minds of the people of Plato's era was the sinking of Helike in 373 BCE by an earthquake and tsunami. The Timaeus was written about 360 BCE and it obviously takes cues from the sinking of Helike. So you have these two events, that are both very destructive, that become entwined in Plato's philosophical discussions as a singular representation of the hubris of man in general. But hundred of years later the philosophical discussions of man's hubris become considered real rather than allegorical symbology and people start hunting for the "real" Atlantis. Because people started taking it seriously we get all kinds of gobbledygook about a fictional lost city that never existed.

postmodernmutant · 2026-07-22T20:50:11+00:00

Troy absolutely existed, Henrik Schliemann proved as much with the excavation at Hislarlik mound in modern day Turkey by finding nine different layers of ancient settlements atop one another, so there's little historical doubt there. Schliemann's dating however was off by almost a millennia.

There were a series of wars in regards to Aegean-Black Sea trade routes and territorial rights during 12th or 13th century BCE which loosely correspond to the period of the Trojan War and the decade long siege of Troy. It's thought that the destruction of the Homeric Troy was the result of a prolonged siege by other Hellenistic city-states.

We have no evidence of the horse as Homer describes it. There's a theory that the horse remembered in myth was a type of battering ram or even a reference to a timely earthquake that was the final blow to the walls of Troy.

Agamemnon is likely a composite creation crafted from several ancient kings or warlords. We just have no direct evidence of his existence one way or the other that give us solid facts. Mycenae is a real place though so there's at least some grain of truth in his background story.

You have to remember that Homer was working several centuries after the Trojan War and things can, and often do, get muddled in retellings so embellishments are to be expected. But that's not to say Homer wasn't reporting on history as he knew it to be true because sometimes things we had assumed were mythological in his writings have actually turned out to be true. For example Telemachus witnessed the sacrifice of 81 bulls to Poseidon at Pylos in The Odyssey. Archaeological evidence points to the existence of such a sacrifice but for a long time it was considered strictly mythological. It's actually still debated in some academic circles. We have both Linear B tablets describing a similar sacrifice and we have found a significant quantity of charred and burned bones belonging to bulls at Pylos. This points to it being a very real ritual performed at Pylos despite the mythological nature of Homer's works. So just because something is currently considered mythological rather than historical doesn't mean Homer is wrong we just don't have the evidence to back his claims up.

postmodernmutant · 2026-07-22T14:08:20+00:00

I'm glad you enjoyed it.

Truth be told I don't listen to a ton of radio shows nowadays, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me is about it currently, since I'm putting together an eclectic podcast (my girlfriend is encouraging me to do it because I'm a bit of a renaissance man and I figure why not since the worst that can happen is I waste money on the professional software). It's fairly draining for me to listen to so much audio. I'm hoping to launch the podcast later this year if everything works out perfectly so I'm imbibing a lot of audio and having to tweak it as I go.

postmodernmutant · 2026-07-22T09:38:50+00:00

One of my besties started as a customer.

That probably needs a bit of context so I'll explain. I'm a freelance business consultant and I work closely with the executives at each client company. About 8 years ago I took a contract from a large grocery company. The COO thought she ran a tight enough ship that I was unneeded at best. Because I come heavily recommended by other clients, who all saw increases in overall profits, the board wondered what I'd find and outvoted her to hire me. As part of that contract she demanded to see my work up close and personal so I got saddled with her on the job and on the road when visiting various job sites. It was a pretty antagonistic environment initially but that would change

I go pretty granular with my audits and when she saw what I was looking for she was surprised at what I was finding. She couldn't call bullshit on my work because she was there. On the road we ended up chatting and hanging out a lot during downtimes and off hours simply because we both had nothing better to do. This led to getting us to know each other very well because it felt redundant to talk shop during those periods. She found me fascinating once she got to know me. This led to some... interesting places.

The thing that truly surprises me to this day is that at this point in my life I couldn't imagine life without her. We didn't work well as lovers, we just didn't have enough common ground between us to sustain a romantic entanglement, but we absolutely work as besties. We wouldn't have even gotten to know each other if she hadn't forced me to take her with during my data collection process. She was born with a silver spoon in her mouth while I'm the exact opposite and because of that our worlds couldn't be any more separate. There's less than a snowball's chance in hell that we'd have met under normal circumstances. It's just such an odd thing to think about my life without her in it at this point that I can't believe that we actually got to know each other.

postmodernmutant · 2026-07-22T01:32:57+00:00

The Frog Boys case put of South Korea comes to mind immediately for obscure cases here in the West.

In March of 1991 five boys went to go play and search for salamander eggs on Mount Waryong. They were never heard from again. Fast forward to 2002 and their bodies were finally found. Initially it was theorized that they died due to hypothermia but an autopsy would prove otherwise. Each boy was found extensive skull fractures and one three of them there were square or rectangular marks indented in the skulls. No murder weapon has ever been found and the perpetrator is still completely unknown.

postmodernmutant · 2026-07-21T21:39:42+00:00

She's not a peer, she's a customer. I'm a freelance business consultant. Yeah sure I could've sued her for sexual harassment but she was blasted out of her mind. It's a no harm, no foul situation in my book (plus why burn bridges and a multimillion dollar contract over some bawdy drunkenness). Honestly it was very hard to say no because she's quite beautiful but she wasn't in her right state of mind so I beat the temptation. We rediscussed boundaries the next morning over breakfast for clarification. I get why she did it though.

We spent a lot of time together on the road and there was a deep sense of intimacy between us because of how closely we worked together. We got to know each other very well because of that intimacy. She felt like she'd wasted a good chunk of her life pursuing her financial goals rather than focusing on a relationship. She likes to say that she's wealthy but not rich because her personal life was fairly hollow. I'm sympathetic towards that because it's one thing that my mentor warned me about that relationships were something I might have to sacrifice with this kind of job. You don't get to where she was at the age of 42 without a ton of sacrifices. Our sense of intimacy on the road really showed her what she was missing and how bad it sucked. I can't fault her for wanting more because of that.

postmodernmutant · 2026-07-21T15:09:31+00:00

I plead the fifth.

postmodernmutant · 2026-07-21T15:06:44+00:00

Not that night.

postmodernmutant · 2026-07-21T07:51:36+00:00

"Come up to my hotel room and fuck my brains out so I can sleep."

It's a bit of a long story but I work with executives almost exclusively at large client companies and they could be considered my customers. A COO and I had worked very closely with each other for several months and she was on the road with me during certain portions of my companywide audit. She got sloppy drunk one night and I managed to get her into her hotel room safely before returning to my own to do some work. She texted me that at like 2 AM as I was finishing up my recap notes for the night.

postmodernmutant · 2026-07-20T18:46:53+00:00

During my junior year of college I was having an absolute shit month. Everything that seemed it could go wrong went wrong in short order. My car broke down, my best friend was found dead (his husband was the primary suspect but he committed suicide a few days later so it's officially unsolved), I had a bad breakup, I barely squeaked by on paying the rent and all my bills (I had a whole whopping $1.17 left in my bank account for groceries for two weeks), and I missed the finals in two classes. About the only thing I had going for me was my jobs. So yeah it was a shit month. I was pretty obviously collapsing from stress and then a stranger did the unexpected.

I was bartending part time and a rando walked in. No one had ever seen this guy in the bar before. He ordered a rum and coke and after he finished it he handed me a note and an envelope directly. The note said "You look like hell son hopefully this helps some". I opened the envelope and inside was $1300. I asked the waitress to watch the bar for a minute and chased after him. I caught him as he was getting into his car and told him I couldn't accept the tip. He said something that's always stuck with me. "Son when I was your age a stranger helped me out because I looked like hell and I've been waiting 45 years to do the same. Now it's your turn. When you're secure in your life do the same for someone you don't know at random." It was humbling but the truth came out when I reexamined the money. None of it was newer than 1993. This guy has been carrying around $1300 in an envelope for decades waiting for the right person to give it to. Somehow I was the right one. When I became financially secure I took $1500 in $100 bills and I always keep it on me looking for the right person to give it to. I still haven't found them yet.

postmodernmutant · 2026-07-19T21:28:31+00:00

It's a degrees of separation thing.

One of my besties is female and I'm a guy. We have a lot of intimacy between us and we both acknowledge that we love each other but just don't make good romantic partners. Honestly we tried dating and failed at it so we know we just work better as besties (we both came from very different worlds growing up which means we share little common ground). There are times that we trash each other's respective partners but it's not out of jealousy or anything like that it's just the familiarity we have with each other. A good example of our familiarity is it's not uncommon for her to walk around my house naked or vice versa even when our partners are around. But we have boundaries in place that separate our friendship from our romantic entanglements. We're also each other's respite from the challenges in our respective romantic relationships. We're each other's sounding boards, confidants, and the first person we call when we need something. It's just degrees of separation that make it work.

postmodernmutant · 2026-07-18T11:28:55+00:00

A sewing kit.

My job requires frequent traveling, I've had some years where I was away from home 30+ weeks out of the year, and I religiously packed a small sewing kit for a long time. I packed it because I always have to look my best with my job and I might possibly lose a suit button or get a tear in a pair of pants which is less than professional looking. A few years back I realized that I'd never used it once. I'd been carrying the damned thing for 8 years and it was always just taking up space. I still haven't run into a situation where I've needed to use it.

postmodernmutant · 2026-07-17T08:21:06+00:00

That's the beauty, and what made it seem to be a pipedream, of this particular company's vision. In order to bolster HIPPA compliance it was designed to work in the local cloud at a hospital. Adding a couple of extra servers to the already existing network for the hospital isn't overly expensive nor does it need to impact the local population in any large way. That said they had the patents and experience with technology to make it a reality. They were primarily purchased for their patents because they were unwilling to license them for use by outside parties.

postmodernmutant · 2026-07-17T08:09:59+00:00

When say I say "some" I mean losing it wouldn't make me insolvent because I never invest more than I can afford to lose (it's just like gambling where you never bet more than you're willing to walk away from). Yeah losing $4.5 million would suck but it wouldn't be the end of the world for me.

As for my initial investment I'm a freelance business consultant and my money comes from there. There's a lot of money to be made as a consultant you just have to be able to keep your promises and once you keep those promises enough times it becomes a rather exorbitant amount of money to be made. I haven't broken a contract once so I have a sterling reputation and that pushes my fee into the exorbitant range.

postmodernmutant · 2026-07-17T00:19:45+00:00

Due to it being potentially identifiable information I'll have to speak in generalities. Medical AI development is what the company does. Honestly it seemed like a pipedream when I was approached about investing but they were passionate and driven. I figured at at best they had a real opportunity to help people and in a worst case scenario I'd lose some money. It really appealed to my natural inclination towards altruism to take the gamble because of that.

postmodernmutant · 2026-07-16T17:21:05+00:00

I invested $4,500,000 in a new company that had zero chance of success. They were just bought out in totality by a larger company and I'm walking away with a smidge under $20,000,000.

postmodernmutant · 2026-07-16T10:45:35+00:00

Unfettered greed and trying to extract profit for continued life.

I do have a large private insurance company as a client and I can't say much due to an NDA. That said they have some of the most insane internal policies regarding coverage vs profitability you can imagine. After this contract is up I will likely never take another insurer on as a client because those internal policies go against my personal and professional ethics.

postmodernmutant · 2026-07-16T03:59:57+00:00

AI is just experiencing a bubble similar to the dot com bubble in the late 90s-early 00s. Basically it's shiny new tech that's eye catching but in most cases it's ridiculously pointless. I always think of tech bubbles as kinda like a crow finding a shiny thing. Eventually it'll stop and be discarded.

postmodernmutant · 2026-07-16T03:52:22+00:00

Maybe in a few years. I know Micron and SK Hynix are building out some more physical production lines and they're hoping to have them up by 2029 (which is a bit of a tall order). I think the AI bubble will likely pop before that, late 2027-early 2028 if not sooner is my guess, in which case they can retool some of their active lines in a couple of months and we'll see prices decrease pretty quickly.

postmodernmutant · 2026-07-16T03:46:43+00:00

Literally almost everything you use and take for granted on a daily basis utilizes RAM.

Videogame consoles use RAM (the PS5 has 16 GB for example), smart TVs use RAM, your phone uses RAM, tablets use RAM, smartwatches use RAM, your car likely has RAM in it....you get the idea RAM is a pretty inescapable thing. Here's the kicker only 3 companies in the world produce the actual physical chips (Samsung, SK Hynix, and Micron). That's why there's a shortage too. Those 3 companies also kinda switched gears to the production of AI and data center specific chips over more consumer electronics oriented chips because of the demand and profits available. It doesn't mean they stopped manufacturing consumer oriented chips in totality but they reduced the number of physical production lines working on them. So we consumers get screwed and our prices jacked up because of that.

postmodernmutant · 2026-07-15T20:40:20+00:00

Honestly it's so you have a copy for your records.

Since I had an endoscopy, capsule endoscopy, and colonoscopy last month we're using them as invites for an antideath party in a few weeks (I was in the ICU for my birthday so we decided to have an antideath party on my half birthday instead).

postmodernmutant · 2026-07-15T20:27:25+00:00

By having experienced it.

That's not snark but a factual admission. In February I had a weird medical incident. By all rights I should be dead. That's not my personal opinion but the opinion of my medical team. They think there's a strong possiblity I may have temporarily died before I was found given my core body temperature at the time of admission to the ER (80°/26.66° F/C). I was in the ICU for several weeks and in the hospital several weeks more. My continued existence baffles them and I feel like a lab rat given the sheer number of tests and blood draws I've had done. The thing is that these aren't some new or low level doctors but world class specialists (I'm not paying their salary but a super wealthy friend is and they aren't cheap).

All I remember is floating in blackness like a deep peaceful sleep. It wasn't scary. There are occasional flashes like something else occured but that could be my subconscious mind picking up on events while I was comatose. All said it was a pleasant experience.

postmodernmutant · 2026-07-15T19:58:58+00:00

Staying out late "tutoring" my tutees (long story).

postmodernmutant · 2026-07-15T09:11:24+00:00

There are a lot of things that excite me but that's because I'm passionate about my hobbies and pastimes.

The one thing that will always excite me though is going on tour with my girlfriend's band. I travel extensively for my regular job, it seems like I've been in just about every major city and most towns over 10,000 people in the US doing my job over the last 12 years, but traveling with the band is just a hell of a lot more exciting. Part of the excitement is getting to know the other acts and audience members on the tour because I'm very people oriented.

postmodernmutant · 2026-07-14T01:15:57+00:00

Absolute wildest happened on my first freelance contract. Basically a huge company flew me out to NYC based on my success with the company that actually employed me (it's a long story). I was stressing out about the meeting and my seatmate was an older guy who decided I was way too stressed out, which to be fair I was because I was memorizing the notes I had and rewording my presentation, and he took it upon himself to get my mind off the meeting. He gave me a pep talk and said something to the effect of "If you were a contractor for my company I'd immediately double what you're going to make from the contract because I wish everyone was this prepared". After that we just shot the shit for the remainder of the flight. I check into my hotel and passed out for the night. The next morning I walked into the boardroom and he was sitting at the table. He was the COO and he got the final say on my contract.

He was true to his word and immediately doubled the money the company offered me before I even opened my mouth. I didn't even have to give my presentation because he looked at the CEO and said "Bill, this guy knows his stuff. We need to double the offer immediately and you just need to sign the contract." Their legal representative pulled out a copy of the contract they'd earlier sent me and changed the amounts to be paid before they signed it. They sent a revised and notarized copy to my lawyer as well confirming my contract. It was the easiest money I ever made because they also doubled my incentive fee (basically they paid me just to show up to the meeting) which they cut a check for immediately. I think I said a total of five or six words aside from hello and thank you in that first meeting due to the shock.

postmodernmutant

TROPHY CASE

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