“If you go back 400 years ago,” he adds, “it never would've occurred to anybody to be introspective.” From that sentence alone, I know I need not take any other claim he makes seriously, because of the staggering ignorance he's already revealed.
If you go back 400 years, you arrive at ... Hamlet.
Good point, but Hamlet is probably not the best advertisement for introspection. To be introspective is fine, but to be disciplined with your introspection is a tough task.
John Bunyan then. An itinerant seller of pots and pans. Not afraid to go to prison for thinking and not put off it when out again. They were hard men and women in those days.
If people think, they start to question. Our billionaire technocrats demand that we all kowtow without question to their nightmare vision for our future as hackable animals. Count me out. But examining one's being does not stop with the conscious mind/rational thought, or mental body. Feelings and beliefs also should be examined and that is about the emotional body (subconscious mind) and spiritual body (unconscious mind). Anyone game? I've been exploring those parts of my being for decades now and the results have been miraculous.
To your point, I don't think these billionaire technocrats aren't really abandoning introspection, instead they are trying to convince the peasants to do so and selling the anti-introspection snake oil as the path to wellness and success. They've turned so much to garbage, I suppose the Enshittification of Self is the next logical step.
*Edit* I changed "are" to "aren't" in "these billionaire technocrats *AREN'T* really abandoning", which was my original intent.
An even better teacher for you is you. Exploring your emotional and spiritual bodies can and will teach you about yourself, your being, and your relationship to and connection with All That Is.
There is also the sensory-motor body which underpins all the rest. Directing attention to proprioception also yields consistent positive results even some that could be considered miraculous. If you're interested see Somatics: Reawakening the Mind's Control of Movement, Flexibility and Health. Interestingly enough the author Thomas Hanna first had a career as a philosopher who created the PhD program at the Univ of Florida who was led to his naming of the modern field of somatics and his development of somatic education through a philosophical consideration of human freedom. the book mentioned above is the more practically useful but for the more philosophically minded Bodies in Revolt: A Primer in Somatic Culture in which he identified the development of the field of somatics.
It's not about accruing power,its the opposite. It's about divesting yourself of everything fake that has been inculcated and indoctrinated into us from infancy. I'm fortunate in that my parents were counter cultural and poured scorn on our whole culture back in the 1960s but the media of that day,unified unlike today had great subtle power at sneaking bad ideas into our brains under our conscious guard.
When your goals in life are whittled down to amassing the most money and power, and when you believe as many of the tech bro VCs do, that all you do is for the benefit of mankind, and that the rest of mankind is just too stupid or too introspective to realize this truth, indeed of what use is introspection? It might just cause you to rethink or cast doubt on your assumptions. What good would that be to you? For the rest of us ordinary folks, it is among the sources of a human life worth living.
I doubt that, regardless of anything that they may say, the tech bros honestly think that they are accumulating money and power for the benefit of anyone other than themselves.
A friend had a retort to the unexamined life that says the unlived life is not worth examining. A biography of Kant might be illuminating in that regard. There are two extremes in philosophy which come from West vs East. Western religion is full of theology but does have esoteric versions. Apophatic and ineffable framings are the norm in Asian philosophy-religions. Poetry and music often evoke the ineffable nature of Art. It is often pointed out that Earth has Art in its Heart. Asking questions, especially about motives and purpose, are the best forms of philosophy. Both Nietzsche and William James pointed out that a person’s character influence philosophical framing. The techbros are psychopathic monsters who have no shame whatsoever in their advocacy of pure evil. Basically, they are saying, don’t ask questions, just bend the knee and submit. My answer to them is to please go fuck themselves. Rosie Palm and her five sisters are well known acquaintances for them,
Thank you for posting this. A fascinating take that my fear never allowed me to consider. I think we need to be more rational than emotional about our brave new world because it’s here whether we like it or not.
I've been reading your stuff for a while Ted and often nod along, but this article really hits the nail on the head. This is the biggest and most important battle of our era. The broligarchy and their authoritarian political bedfellows are waging a war on consciousness. The arts and humanities are the sword and shield. Keep fighting the good fight.
The problem is that he cites Socrates and if you understand Socrates, he would be in opposition to the view that "arts and humanities" are the "sword and shield." The article does not work due to this mismatch. And yet, the majority of people who read it, just don't get that, primarily because they don't understand Socrates.
Socrates had a complicated relationship with the arts, especially poets and singers, in Plato’s account—although at the end of his life he embraced music. But it’s unwarranted and self-contradictory to claim he opposed humanities. Philosophy itself—and Socratic philosophy in particular—are part of the humanities. You can’t place him outside it or make him its adversary.
My point was simply that Socrates would not endorse the modern claim that the arts and humanities function as humanity’s ‘sword and shield.’ That’s a contemporary ideological framing, not a Socratic one.
I’m not interested in debating a position I didn’t assert, and I’m not going to continue a conversation based on a misinterpretation. I’ll leave it there.
Since you continued the exchange after I had already closed it, I want to clarify the pattern I’m responding to. Throughout this thread, you have consistently:
• reframed my statements into positions I did not take,
• responded to those reframed versions rather than to my actual words,
• implied a deficiency in my understanding rather than engaging with the substance of my point,
• and asserted the final interpretive authority in a way that functions as a conversational dominance move.
This pattern makes genuine dialogue impossible. I’m not interested in participating in a dynamic structured around misrepresentation and last‑word positioning, so I will not be continuing further.
I've always found Socrates really annoying and I bet I would have in the agora in old Athens but then as I'm a plain old woman buying carrots he wouldn't have bothered me with any annoying bloody stupid questions. He was speaking to the (good looking) young men who being too young for the political power and roles they would later have by virtue of their birth and family he wanted them to look at life more broadly,fair enough,but also potentially destablising. However when I read Platos account of the death of Socrates ( it has the ring of truth to me) then the reasons Socrates gave as to why he chose death rather than exile seemed so right and good,and sensible and rational,and compassionate that I liked him just a smidgen for that.
Honestly, Andreessen, Musk et al seem to be more like WWE performers whose sole goal is to generate "heat" from the colliseum crowd. If they think the news cycle of the minute is starting to pass them by they say something idiotic and transgressive to get people talking about them again. See "Trump, Donald" for more details.
I question if they are "real" rich people. Only they, especially Musk seem so like cartoon characters of rich people - it is like they are vaudeville or even burlesque artists putting on a show for the ignorant crowd ie us! Real actual RICH PEOPLE don't act like that.
Spent four years working in tech and have never seen a more miserable, wealthy bunch in my entire life. Many of them have been living this way for years, I guess it just took them a while to consciously articulated. Not examining your life will do that, I guess.
On the other hand, there is such a thing as misdirected introspection, where you become neurotic and crippled by looking within yourself at the expense of examining the world. Narcissism is an excess of introspection and does no one any good.
I don't necessarily agree with him, but I believe this is what he was talking about, to be fair.
He said in the series of tweets "Introspection = neuroticism x narcissism x thumbsucking" and talked about Nietzsche's critique of Socrates (seemingly through Claude, not his own thoughts, I think), so I presume he was aware that Socrates had talked about this.
I presume it was triggered by people recently sharing studies of downsides of talk therapy, discussing whether we haven't been sufficiently critical of how we are using it in society.
I'm a bit worried Ted is falling into the trap of painting villains than trying to understand the other side.
Socrates wasn't put to death, he voluntarily drank the hemlock. There is little question that he could have escaped but he would have had to leave Athens.
I loved his reasons for accepting death. One of course Athens was the whole world,everything that mattered was in Athens. He didn't want to live in some nowhere place where nothing ever happened and there was no one to talk to. An ideal we all aspire to now! But even more honourable in my opinion,he didn't want to screw up his sons lives ( I didnt know he had sons) If he had chosen exile a permanent shadow of doubt and distrust would have been cast over THEIR lives and they would to all intents and purposes been excluded from public office,from chances to acrue wealth and status,from being involved in the political life of Athens.
“If you go back 400 years ago,” he adds, “it never would've occurred to anybody to be introspective.” From that sentence alone, I know I need not take any other claim he makes seriously, because of the staggering ignorance he's already revealed.
If you go back 400 years, you arrive at ... Hamlet.
Good point, but Hamlet is probably not the best advertisement for introspection. To be introspective is fine, but to be disciplined with your introspection is a tough task.
John Bunyan then. An itinerant seller of pots and pans. Not afraid to go to prison for thinking and not put off it when out again. They were hard men and women in those days.
True.
It truly is one of the most astounding announcements of abject ignorance that I have ever encountered.
Yes,that's my point too!
Thanks--from a retired Philosophy Prof. Teaching Socrates is the best intro to Philosophy.
Philosophers never retire!
True, but professors do. :-)
I’m 69, but still teaching philosophy full time. Grateful.
I retired at 70.
Where and what did you teach? My areas are philosophy of religion and ethics, mostly.
I taught at Virginia Tech for 40 years--Ancient Greek Philosophy, Intro, Ethics of AI, Metaphysics, Wittgenstein....
Ha!
If people think, they start to question. Our billionaire technocrats demand that we all kowtow without question to their nightmare vision for our future as hackable animals. Count me out. But examining one's being does not stop with the conscious mind/rational thought, or mental body. Feelings and beliefs also should be examined and that is about the emotional body (subconscious mind) and spiritual body (unconscious mind). Anyone game? I've been exploring those parts of my being for decades now and the results have been miraculous.
To your point, I don't think these billionaire technocrats aren't really abandoning introspection, instead they are trying to convince the peasants to do so and selling the anti-introspection snake oil as the path to wellness and success. They've turned so much to garbage, I suppose the Enshittification of Self is the next logical step.
*Edit* I changed "are" to "aren't" in "these billionaire technocrats *AREN'T* really abandoning", which was my original intent.
LOL!
Hackable animals. Good name for a band.
A bot band.
Absolutely. My best teachers these days are Jung, Blake, Peter Kingsley
An even better teacher for you is you. Exploring your emotional and spiritual bodies can and will teach you about yourself, your being, and your relationship to and connection with All That Is.
Oh yes....my centering prayer practice, journaling, dreams.....
There is also the sensory-motor body which underpins all the rest. Directing attention to proprioception also yields consistent positive results even some that could be considered miraculous. If you're interested see Somatics: Reawakening the Mind's Control of Movement, Flexibility and Health. Interestingly enough the author Thomas Hanna first had a career as a philosopher who created the PhD program at the Univ of Florida who was led to his naming of the modern field of somatics and his development of somatic education through a philosophical consideration of human freedom. the book mentioned above is the more practically useful but for the more philosophically minded Bodies in Revolt: A Primer in Somatic Culture in which he identified the development of the field of somatics.
Beyond 'productivity', there may be another reason these technocrats avoid introspection: they couldn't bear their guilt.
I won't go into Izzy Stone's takedown of Socrates, but I will say introspection is of little practical use in amassing power.
The sociopaths who rule over us are nothing if not eminently practical.
Izzy Stone on Socrates is a brilliant takedown!!
It's not about accruing power,its the opposite. It's about divesting yourself of everything fake that has been inculcated and indoctrinated into us from infancy. I'm fortunate in that my parents were counter cultural and poured scorn on our whole culture back in the 1960s but the media of that day,unified unlike today had great subtle power at sneaking bad ideas into our brains under our conscious guard.
When your goals in life are whittled down to amassing the most money and power, and when you believe as many of the tech bro VCs do, that all you do is for the benefit of mankind, and that the rest of mankind is just too stupid or too introspective to realize this truth, indeed of what use is introspection? It might just cause you to rethink or cast doubt on your assumptions. What good would that be to you? For the rest of us ordinary folks, it is among the sources of a human life worth living.
I doubt that, regardless of anything that they may say, the tech bros honestly think that they are accumulating money and power for the benefit of anyone other than themselves.
They all said Yes Please when taken to the mountain top and shown the world.
To paraphrase Chesterton: There is a thought that stops all thought and that is the only thought that should be stopped.
Contemplate the "thought terminating cliche".
A friend had a retort to the unexamined life that says the unlived life is not worth examining. A biography of Kant might be illuminating in that regard. There are two extremes in philosophy which come from West vs East. Western religion is full of theology but does have esoteric versions. Apophatic and ineffable framings are the norm in Asian philosophy-religions. Poetry and music often evoke the ineffable nature of Art. It is often pointed out that Earth has Art in its Heart. Asking questions, especially about motives and purpose, are the best forms of philosophy. Both Nietzsche and William James pointed out that a person’s character influence philosophical framing. The techbros are psychopathic monsters who have no shame whatsoever in their advocacy of pure evil. Basically, they are saying, don’t ask questions, just bend the knee and submit. My answer to them is to please go fuck themselves. Rosie Palm and her five sisters are well known acquaintances for them,
A more nuanced and less sarcastic view is from Alexander Beiner see
https://beiner.substack.com/p/artificial-oracles-the-ai-goddess-431?r=12mrw2&utm_medium=ios
Thank you for posting this. A fascinating take that my fear never allowed me to consider. I think we need to be more rational than emotional about our brave new world because it’s here whether we like it or not.
Goddamn! 🔥
I've been reading your stuff for a while Ted and often nod along, but this article really hits the nail on the head. This is the biggest and most important battle of our era. The broligarchy and their authoritarian political bedfellows are waging a war on consciousness. The arts and humanities are the sword and shield. Keep fighting the good fight.
The problem is that he cites Socrates and if you understand Socrates, he would be in opposition to the view that "arts and humanities" are the "sword and shield." The article does not work due to this mismatch. And yet, the majority of people who read it, just don't get that, primarily because they don't understand Socrates.
Socrates had a complicated relationship with the arts, especially poets and singers, in Plato’s account—although at the end of his life he embraced music. But it’s unwarranted and self-contradictory to claim he opposed humanities. Philosophy itself—and Socratic philosophy in particular—are part of the humanities. You can’t place him outside it or make him its adversary.
You’re responding to a position I didn’t take.
My point was simply that Socrates would not endorse the modern claim that the arts and humanities function as humanity’s ‘sword and shield.’ That’s a contemporary ideological framing, not a Socratic one.
I’m not interested in debating a position I didn’t assert, and I’m not going to continue a conversation based on a misinterpretation. I’ll leave it there.
I don’t think that word ‘humanities’ means what you think it means. But, yes, let’s drop this.
Since you continued the exchange after I had already closed it, I want to clarify the pattern I’m responding to. Throughout this thread, you have consistently:
• reframed my statements into positions I did not take,
• responded to those reframed versions rather than to my actual words,
• implied a deficiency in my understanding rather than engaging with the substance of my point,
• and asserted the final interpretive authority in a way that functions as a conversational dominance move.
This pattern makes genuine dialogue impossible. I’m not interested in participating in a dynamic structured around misrepresentation and last‑word positioning, so I will not be continuing further.
I've always found Socrates really annoying and I bet I would have in the agora in old Athens but then as I'm a plain old woman buying carrots he wouldn't have bothered me with any annoying bloody stupid questions. He was speaking to the (good looking) young men who being too young for the political power and roles they would later have by virtue of their birth and family he wanted them to look at life more broadly,fair enough,but also potentially destablising. However when I read Platos account of the death of Socrates ( it has the ring of truth to me) then the reasons Socrates gave as to why he chose death rather than exile seemed so right and good,and sensible and rational,and compassionate that I liked him just a smidgen for that.
i wonder if there is confusion between rumination and self examination.
Honestly, Andreessen, Musk et al seem to be more like WWE performers whose sole goal is to generate "heat" from the colliseum crowd. If they think the news cycle of the minute is starting to pass them by they say something idiotic and transgressive to get people talking about them again. See "Trump, Donald" for more details.
I question if they are "real" rich people. Only they, especially Musk seem so like cartoon characters of rich people - it is like they are vaudeville or even burlesque artists putting on a show for the ignorant crowd ie us! Real actual RICH PEOPLE don't act like that.
Such fools. Never read Freud or Jung either. Let's not forget the pre-Socratics. And all the mystics of every world religion.
Spent four years working in tech and have never seen a more miserable, wealthy bunch in my entire life. Many of them have been living this way for years, I guess it just took them a while to consciously articulated. Not examining your life will do that, I guess.
On the other hand, there is such a thing as misdirected introspection, where you become neurotic and crippled by looking within yourself at the expense of examining the world. Narcissism is an excess of introspection and does no one any good.
I don't necessarily agree with him, but I believe this is what he was talking about, to be fair.
He said in the series of tweets "Introspection = neuroticism x narcissism x thumbsucking" and talked about Nietzsche's critique of Socrates (seemingly through Claude, not his own thoughts, I think), so I presume he was aware that Socrates had talked about this.
I presume it was triggered by people recently sharing studies of downsides of talk therapy, discussing whether we haven't been sufficiently critical of how we are using it in society.
I'm a bit worried Ted is falling into the trap of painting villains than trying to understand the other side.
Learning about Socrates via Claude does not, I believe, increase a pundit's credibility
He has tweet threads mentioning Socrates, and linking to Plato etc from 2022 before ChatGPT existed.
Mentioning Socrates in a tweet does not make one a philosopher. I'm sorry, but these "credentials" you're citing fail to impress.
I agree he's not a credentialed philosopher.
Socrates wasn't put to death, he voluntarily drank the hemlock. There is little question that he could have escaped but he would have had to leave Athens.
It's important to remember that we are never given the whole picture, thus we should not jump to conclusions.
I loved his reasons for accepting death. One of course Athens was the whole world,everything that mattered was in Athens. He didn't want to live in some nowhere place where nothing ever happened and there was no one to talk to. An ideal we all aspire to now! But even more honourable in my opinion,he didn't want to screw up his sons lives ( I didnt know he had sons) If he had chosen exile a permanent shadow of doubt and distrust would have been cast over THEIR lives and they would to all intents and purposes been excluded from public office,from chances to acrue wealth and status,from being involved in the political life of Athens.
If everyone read 'The Apology' with the delight it deserves, I'm sure this would be a better world. Great thoughts Ted!