Leaning

Penguin Classics Tao Te Ching

XIII 13

Favor and disgrace are things that startle;

High rank is, like one's body, a source of great

trouble.

What is meant by saying that favor and disgrace are

things that startle? Favor when it is bestowed on a subject

serves to startle as much as when it is withdrawn. This is

What is meant by saying that favor and disgrace are things

that startle. What is meant by saying that high rank is, like

one's body, a source of great trouble? The reason I have

great trouble is that I have a body. When I no longer have

a body, what trouble have I?

Hence he who values his body more than domination over

the empire can be entrusted with the empire. He who

loves his body more than domination over the empire can be

given the custody of the empire.

. . .

I understand that what one doesn't have, one can't fear to lose.

Opposite of better to have loved and lost, than never loved at all.

Of course some people are better off giving up certain circumstances, if those circumstances cause them anxiety.

Though a person could also just grow stronger 'by those circumstances.

I suppose that having a focus on honor as defined by others, can make one beholden to others in a sense.

Your self identity depending on 'other people's values, ideas, words.

Or have one's perception or values twisted by others or a pursuit of honor.

One might 'lose honor if one acquires it.

But again, I don't think that is 'wrong by itself. Just 'can be wrong.

Humans are social animals, highly effected and valuing peer pressure.

We 'rely on other humans to a large degree, to check our own mental state, sense of delusion.

Why 'shouldn't honor be something sought or given?

Ideally it rewards the worthy and shines a light on them for other people to emulate their actions.

Honor is generally seen as having behaved worthily,

What's 'wrong with enjoying the acclaim of others?

That we might 'lose their acclaim?

I think life is gain and loss,

There is much nice to acquire in it, even if it may or must be lost someday.

It's nice while one has it, nice to look back on, or forward to.

A reason to move.

I still am a materialist, and think I 'am but this body.

I see a number of translation differences online about the empire/world and the body.

Heh,

It's been interesting to see behind a Moderation curtain,

But I've not been a very active Moderator.

I've wondered that myself recently,

I do think this website could advertise more effectively, but I'm a lazy person.

Unless I got paid money in some way for bringing people in, I'd rather be a hedonist.

I do wonder if the internet is changing,

Reddit recently has been trying to require me to make an account just to browse it.

But I'm bad at research,

Some say that most people have moved onto their phones, as opposed to computers.

Some say people have drifted to other sites, such as Discord.

Some say bots have driven people from many places.

I feel I was most interested in debating in my early 20s.

I was unsure about many subjects.

Still am, but less so.

Right now I want to play video games, walk, laze about, work on video game or book idea, listen to music, watch YouTube.

Debates, voting on debates, take a lot of my attention, so I 'haven't so much lately. Maybe later.

I've considered doing commentary on the Tao Te Ching, or the Prince, or 'some book.

But it's generally already been done, and better than I likely would.

I missed my chance 20 or so years ago when I was a teenager, but I didn't have internet then.

And arguably I 'could succeed in ? now.

But past and missed opportunities you know?

The 'right moves are visible in hindsight.

. . I suppose for every person that was willing to say I brought them to the site,

'And only if each of those people made 20 quality debates,

It'd be fair to pay me. But could still be expensive,

And one wonders how much each person is 'worth.

Perhaps people of different quality worth different amounts.

Penguin Classics Tao Te Ching

Chapter 19

Exterminate the sage, discard the wise,

And the people will benefit a hundredfold;

Exterminate benevolence, discard rectitude,

And the people will again be filial;

Exterminate ingenuity, discard profit,

And there will be no more thieves and bandits.

These three, being false adornments, are not enough

And the people must have something to which they can

attach themselves:

Exhibit the unadorned and embrace the uncarved block.

Have little thought of self and as few desires a

possible.

Holiness,

'Can be bad I suppose, when it is more about letter of the law or appearances perhaps,

There is a koan I remember, about two monks who come across a woman needing help to cross a river.

The first monk says they are forbidden from touching women,

The second monk carries her across the river.

Later as the two monks are walking along the road, the first monk complains about the second monk carrying the woman across the river.

The second monk says "“Brother, I set her down on the other side of the river, why are you still carrying her?”"

Cleverness,

People 'can overcomplicate situations I suppose. For example being ingenious in avoiding work. Yet they expend more effort in avoiding work and are not the better for it.

Rules,

Abandoning them can be useful, in achieving what matters more to a person.

Berean Standard Bible

And He asked them, “Which of you whose son or ox falls into a pit on the Sabbath day will not immediately pull him out?”

Plots, Schemes, Profit,

I think people 'do emulate and follow what they see in others, especially often they follow higher ranked members of society. Leaders, politicians.

If the top behaves badly, value wealth more than heart, scheme and plot, so will the people, perhaps.

I like to win my debates,

But I think I lose more than I tie.

I like to debate because sometimes I want to understand something, and debating people is a useful method to accomplish such.

We have ideal selves, concepts, mappings, blueprints, memories, dreams.

Regardless of what we 'are, we do not always accept such as our true selves.

The Mind is a Plaything of the Body,

Mind 'is Body, some say.

. . . But we have selves we struggle to retain, attain, return 'to.

We become new people, yet our old selves often stick around, are remembered and ingrained in our instincts, reactions, are the mold that pressed us. And still 'are us.

My answer is the same as in,

https://www.debatecraft.com/forum/c/culture/posts/ws/pick-any-color-at-random

Loyalty.

The original.

Continuity,

And as SatanLucy says, space occupied.

"Don't put it in your pocket, Don't put it in your pocket. It's your lucky quarter... Anywhere not in your pocket. Where it'll get mixed in with the others and become just a coin. Which it is."

-Anton Chigurh

I think linate's fairly right.

People often make new goals in life.

Often the journey, the effort, is the thing.

Or it's just fun to accomplish many different and new goals in life.

Some goals can be repeated.

Exist in order to repeatedly get what one wants.

The goal of having enough savings to have a house, not have to work, and eat good food.

Goal anew each day is eat good food.

I'm glad I Waybacked a bunch of my stuff, but I still need to save it to word documents or something.

Heh, Egocentric.

A Nazi tattoo is a bit of a red flag for some people I suppose,

But eh, glancing at it online, eh, a skull and crossbones, not everyone would recognize it as a Nazi symbol, they'd just think cool a skull and crossbones.

Can't say I know anything about the guy's history or positions.

@SergeantLynch

You could try debates I suppose.

They force a person to engage with a topic of your choice.

I've mostly been playing WoW and AOE2 lately,

And just watching YouTube, I occasionally think about talking more, but I don't have anything to say right now.

I suppose I could start posting YouTube videos of me talking about games I've played lately, or books I've read.

But it's easier to not do that.

@SatanLucy

And looks like DART's down again.

Thinking about aquatic civilizations, metal armor would probably be difficult. . . Hm, suppose you put bubbles in the metal?

Or on the armor.

The Drone Wars, sounds a cool name for a series of wars.

Thinking on that young man who got killed when he tried to contact a primitive island tribe.

What he 'ought to have done was create some type of armor and brought along a human repellent and a weapon.

Even Hitler and Mother Teresa were persons like many others.

Different in some ways, but all humans have 'some similarities, human aspects, must eat, drink, and sleep.

Have good and bad qualities, capability of being loved by others.

You're a person like many others,

Theoretically I don't see why someone couldn't love you.

You're person like many others,

I think there's 'always 'some fine qualities in people, some strengths.

You're a person like many others,

Many people like other humans, like to connect, look for and remark on fine qualities in others.

I wonder how it might effect a person, to live in the third person view.

Wear a VR headset I mean, while around oneself there is always a camera at a bit of a distance.

Maybe we could bring back dueling by tying it to money.

Two boxes, each participent places all of their money in their box,

Each participant wears a vest that sends a signal to the box to burn the money if the vest is hit by a paintball.

My Dad really hated being a teacher, course he always let his paperwork pile up, so part of it was his own fault I think.

Course there was a lot else he disliked.

Lot of the Principles and some other higher ups I think, probably disliked some parents, some kids, some other teachers.

He seemed to like being a prison guard more, and it paid more.

Personally I think he should have just stuck to being a teacher, but on another hand, I don't know much of the stresses of being a teacher.

A friend of mine also hated being a teacher, but I'm sure there's some people out there who love it.

. . . .

Are you married?

If so then that can be a big consideration, married people often being a single person together, wanting to be part of big decisions in life.

How secure is the job being a teacher?

How secure might the new job be?

How much do you hate being a teacher?

I expect most people hate most jobs in life, but one is better off choosing a job one hates less I suppose.

. . . .

"how do you know you are moving in the right direction?"

-TheAnalyticalAdvocate

Well,

If the path looks sustainable, then one is probably going in the right direction.

Just make model of far future,

If one is not working at all, probably not the right direction.

If one really hates their job, maybe not the right direction, though I suspect many people hate their jobs, and even a number of other jobs they might have.

If one can barely afford anything now or in the expected future, probably not the right direction.

Depends though,

Budgeting exists, pay raises over time exist.

Course with pay raises, one has to be sure of keeping their current job.

Or in gaining enough experience or promotions to get a higher paying job next time if let go.

I didn't vote for Trump or Biden,

But I really didn't like some of Bidens policies on guns.

I suppose there's a degree of tribalism,

But what does tribalism stand for? Policies and Values I'd say.

Lot of Trump voters were backlashing hard against lot of what they see as Left Wokeness I'd say.

Though it's questionable 'how 'much Left politicians support Woke Leftness, 'any support of the Left to Trump voters, seems the wrong direction.

Presidents do a lot, nominate Supreme Court people for instance.

Lot of people not president themself are better able to push agendas based on Republican or Democrat being in office.

It's not 'just the President one votes for, but the ability for one's side to effect 'various changes.

Even if one dislikes an individual president, their presence is allowing many more of one's party to enact various policies.

I assume.

Just saw the movie Companion (2025)

I've heard that some philosopher, might have been Confucius, disliked the use of burial figures.

I forget why, but for sake of idea, I'm going to assume it was a dislike of their use as portraying human sacrifice.

Burial figures/puppets instead of humans, (May not actually be what Confucius thought)

But if so, the reason for dislike I imagine, is it allows the possibility of return to old evil rituals, practices.

Similar reason some people dislike fictional evil, portrayals of evil, belief that thought 'can be crime in a sense.

And there is some truth in that, action is born of thought.

Do not covet your neighbors stuff, though such is just thought, it's often not healthy thought. Can lead to action or resentment and less cooperation in life.

Serial killers sometimes practice on animals before humans I have heard.

. . . Hm, but books and video games are arguably drastically different, and I have never heard of and connection between serial killers and books or video games.

. . . . . . AI, Chatbots, Androids. . . Purpose is often 'more realism, immersion.

"The trick is not minding that it hurts" is a famous philosophical quote from the 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia.

Of course one would not usually 'want to feel the pain of a candle, especially noncontextually.

Even the trick of putting out a candle still hurts, it is merely 'suffered for the gain of amusement in the ability to do so, or in others reactions.

. . . Running can hurt, but be a good sort of hurt, but this is because it is accompanied by happy chemicals, runners high, and accomplishment, and wind in hair.

A person I talked to once, took great offense at the description of their experience not being real. Understandable.

But one also arrives at pain by perspective. Fear of flying for instance, if one is more rational, focuses on the unlikeliness of crashing, pain is reduced.

Marcus Aurelius often talked of perspective reframing situations, that they did not so pain.

. . . But this determines whether pain arrives, not how the pain itself is received.

. . . Even after the pain arrives, reframing is often a removing of the pain's cause.

Purpose then, even when suffering a physical pain, a person can look for meaning, purpose. And by such thoughts, the pain is more endurable.

No intelligence though, that seems to me in a sense not being around 'for any pain.

Which of course justified to many people their experiments or abuse of animals, lesser intelligence thought to mean lesser feeling, brutes.

Even of other humans, such thinking used against.

Though it is no longer as common a perspective in modern world I think.

Glancing online, some people argue a difference between suffering and pain.

I wonder how many people in the world are Forum/Discord snails, never in the present, because they feel a need to read every previous post.

I have heard that Mencius disagreed with Xunzi as Rousseau disagreed with Hobbes.

Human nature being inherently good or evil I mean.

But AI are intentionally created agents, their Nature, factory set.

I would figure with AI, we now have opportunity to create agents of perfect morality.

Perfect in the sense that they adhere to the system they are set towards I mean.

Which 'could be evil or good morality,

But the point is they'd 'stick to it.

. . . Humans often have moral ideals, but often they don't pursue them. Other urges get in the way.

Conversations are a bit like fishing and crabpots.

Sometimes it's interesting to set a conversation lure out there, and wait throughout the day for any bites.

Sometimes it's interesting to set a conversation lure out there, then go to sleep, wake in the morning and see if anyone responded.

It would be nice if in Users comment history, one could see who the User @ towards.

Makes it easier to Control+F and look for interactions between people.

IF you can find them extraordinarily cheap, buy two copies I guess.

You do seem like you're intentionally antagonizing him.

Because of skin color can be indicative of where one is from, and humans often value racial loyalty.

Ego maybe, they are X color, so they value that like themselves,

Knowledge maybe, their family and immediate genetics are X color, loyalty to family,

There are many labels, but genetics is one, and it often expounds outward.

Self, family, tribe, humans, animals, insects, rocks.

Sickness response maybe, that which breaks a norm is medical danger,

Skin often changes color with various diseases, many of them spreadable.

Tribalism again, we are better able to read and understand the faces we grew up with.

Shape is not color exactly, but color influences view, and shape and color often go together.

. . .

I imagine before modern technology, skin color was much more useful.

Light skin better at getting what we need from the sun in cloudy climate,

Dark skin better at blocking harmful sun in sunny climate.

White skin better for hiding in the snow, though, I'm not sure that one ever applied to humans.

One see's many arctic animals with white fur, I do not recall any white skin animals in the arctic,

Well maybe some marine life, unsure.

. . .

Tribalism again,

Some parts of India practice skin whitening I have heard,

People value their culture, heritage, self, history, wrap it up in their ego.

Easy for skin whitening to be seen as rejection of self, of people.

Course, many people in America tan their skin,

Some in Japan gyaru look.

Horseman>Archer>Swordsman>Pikeman>Horseman

Rogue Idea,

Rogue 'Appears for 1 second every 10 seconds

Rogues do not all blink same time, this is to make an army of rogues harder.

Rogues are for scouting and destroying siege?

Rogue when not moving blinks 1 second every 30 seconds?

Attacking causes Rogue to fully appear? Can only blink after exiting combat 30 seconds later?

Hm, have units auto attack Rogue or use dogs to allow units to attack Rogues?

Eh, give AI bigger range of intentionally attack unit, with %2 attack when seeing rogue,

But continue to give units attack rogue automatically when too close. This will encourage picket lines of units.

Units will attack rogues even if player does not see the rogue?

Or does this force rogue into combat?