It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.

Karl Marx (Marx Selected Works, Vol. I, p. 269.)

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Cake day: February 5th, 2022

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  • I’ve read Aeschylus, some Plato, not that much. But I’d say it depends on what you want to learn from that. If you ask me, I’d be interested in the Greeks by how were they later interpreted by authors like Kant, Spinoza, Hegel, etc. So I’d say go for Hesiod, Homer, since both of them provide the background for all the Greeks after them and then go for the Milesians, and the other presocratics (which includes Heraclitus) and then Plato and so on. I wouldnt bother with the Romans but maybe thats just ignorance from my part. I dont know if my naswer was good enough but let me know, i am currently to start to read some other greek text so maybe we could help each other!






  • “Once you’ve been to Cambodia, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands. You will never again be able to open a newspaper and read about that treacherous, prevaricating,murderous scumbag sitting down for a nice chat with Charlie Rose or attending some black-tie affair for a new glossy magazine without choking. Witness what Henry did in Cambodia—the fruits of his genius for statesmanship—and you will never understand why he’s not sitting in the dock at The Hague next to Milošević. While Henry continues to nibble nori rolls and remaki  at A-list parties, Cambodia, the neutral nation he secretly and illegally bombed, invaded, undermined, and then threw to the dogs, is still trying to raise itself up on its one remaining leg.”










  • If Russia is seeing any kind of impact, it is a positive one. Their arms industry has strengthen, the West’s sanctions have forced their national bourgeoisie to impose policies that strengthen its economy and also it has isolated the West and increased inflation in Western countries. Prolonging the war is what’s better for Russia, they can play the long game, whereas the West can’t because they cannot produce weapons, ammunition, and so on because they would run dry.


  • Russia is weaking and depleting the West’ “arsenal of democracy” without even having to fight against the West and risk a nuclear holocaust. The West cannot even replenish this military output because of their own neoliberal austerity measures and will not be able to do so in the foreseable future because they lack the industrial base, moreover this causes government spending to be allocated into the arms industry rather than other sector where the working class could benefit from (healthcare, education, etc) which just creates a bigger burden for the people, causes less spending, more inflation and more austerity measures. This is Russia’s best move, intentional or not, simply by Russia’s population, a war of attrtttion with a much smaller country in its neighbourings will always be the best Russian tactic, and I doubt this was carried put without at least the go ahead of China.


  • The only surviving texts by Heraclitus are called “Fragments” which are surviving pieces of supposedly the only written book by him. All of these were scattered from others sources such as citations and paraphrasing of his text. For II and III Kahn refers to fragments 2 and 3 of his ordering of the fragments (there is a debate about the ordering except for I where there are 2 other sources of his time that declare that fragment as the beginning of Heraclitus’ book).

    They appear in the screenshot, but I will paste them as text below:

    II (D. 34) Not comprehending, they hear like the deaf. The saying bears witness to them: absent while present.

    III (D. 2) Although the account (logos) is shared, most men live as though their thinking (phronesis) were a private possession.

    The D. # refers to the Diels-Kranz numbering, which is what’s been used as the default before and even after Kahn’s. If you have any doubt about the meaning let me know, but I’d argue reading Heraclitus is really good for understanding dialectics and his philosophy still holds true in some way until today.