Polybius and Lucian 

Well said Trevor.

He has a PhD, in case you didn’t know.

@@ok-kk3ic so? Some people here respect him because of his titles and following, some others due to their estimation of his intellect and purpose. Either way, if he was to be insulted by a greeting with the wrong societal label, then he is nothing more than a philosophical parrot.

Chill

Youre a legend

No one else has, you won’t either

Maybe it has multiple answers depending on the context and no universal answer. The character of the people, or perhaps their culture, might be a decisive variable. I imagine having an environment where there are sufficient hardships and potential rewards to motivate people and force them to gain experience and have life experience in practicality. Not so easy as to breed decadence, but not so difficult as to encourage cynicism and giving up. This leads me to wonder what the origin of the Roman embrace of practicality was. Back to the original question of the Goldilocks zone, I'm tempted to say that any form of government can work given a suitable context. It's consistent with Polybius saying a King is really good, temporarily. Or the views of the founders of the US Constitution, for example, who said it would not be useful for governing an immoral people. Also with Montesquieu's ideas - who I learned about from another great Sugrue lecture - that theorized the government form should vary drastically based on context like size and geography of a nation, and the related ideas predicted the US civil war due to its size and disparate components.

Note that's Lucan, not Lucian of Samosata who is discussed here.

Possibly. Tom Rollins, the Teaching Company founder, once said he should tape our banter backstage instead of the lectures. He said we should call it "Michael and Darren Unplugged".

That would be a brilliant topic to cover

Horace and Juvenal

@@dr.michaelsugrue it would probably help if I knew how to spell it haha

Why does everyone like Dr strangelove

Also I’ll take Epicureanism for $10!

To a very limited degree, yes, but this domain is in fact smaller than our hybris usually allows for. Most prognostications about the future are viewed by historians the way doctors view amateur brain surgery. Here is a discussion I might be able to predict, without being Nostradamus. Have you finished Du Bois? fast forward "Busy" doing what? fast forward So to get your Epicurean money's worth, you prioritize all of these playthings and distractions and amusements over getting an education? fast forward Regardless of your protestations you don't act like you think that an education is worth obtaining. fastforward Various ideologies or institutions or structures did not decide for you not to pursue knowledge, you did. fast forward Your future self and the people you love will be better off in proportion to what you know, as the Koran might add, "If you but knew it". fast forward It is always better to live and evaluate on the basis of what you know, choosing more rather than less ignorance means harmful decisions. fast forward You can help yourself, in fact only you can help you. Your mind is diffuse, a magnifying glass out of focus. Step up and organize your soul. fast forward There is no education without the solitude and focus and sacrifice required by any serious study of anything. Knowledge comes at a cost. fast forward As Marcus Aurelius shows, once your feelings are less disorganized, your new focus will be part of your self education. Watch "The Alpinist".

​@dr.michaelsugrue I have a yearning for digesting history, philosophy, and other knowledge. So I watch your lectures over and over because I know I miss something. But as you say, that's not an education, so would you suggest I continue to higher education? I had good grades in the humanities they always came naturally...I'm 21, working in a warehouse for the last 3 years. I managed to get into trading cryptocurrencies, and that will likely replace my job. Then, I may have the resources to study with financial certainty. Seems to me that a school environment allows you to interact with the material in a way you can't get anywhere else, including with likeminded people who otherwise would have never got together.

Current university life is deeply corrupt. Before studying books study yourself and the world. Since you have the money and the time, go to the Grand Canyon. I mean change your physical location and go there and look at it with your eyes. This will remind you of the scale of the universe and the deception of self importance.

Yes, when I figure out how, I will post a pic of Queenie, my faithful hound.

Then don’t watch

@@RobertCEakins Instead of Ephectic you should name yourself Pathetic, fits better.

@@kosimpson2010 In what way?

@@RobertCEakins In the way that when someone states that they love listening to this channel and tries to give some constructive criticism, in hopes of being able to listen to the Dr.'s wonderful,, incitefull stories, you just shit on their comment.

@@kosimpson2010 I felt the criticism was a little too terse to be constructive. And, being sympathetic to the Dr.'s situation, was thus compelled to repay the ingratitude with biting laconism.