Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Benjamin Franklin’s alter egos gave him the most freedom

smithsonianmag.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 89 posts

Re: Benjamin Franklin’s alter egos gave him the most freedom

#51

Post by some_random »

xyzelement wrote: post #42
beloch wrote: post #10

An interesting new biography on Benjamin Franklin just came out: "He Did Not Conquer: Benjamin Franklin’s Failure to Annex Canada" by Madelaine Drohan[1]. There is no shortage of American biographies of Franklin that sometimes border on hagiography. This one, which is well-timed thanks to current events, is from a Canadian historian and perspective. Drohan makes the case that this perspective has been lacking until n…

// Yet, Canada remains independent The first step towards Canada being recognizable as its own country happened in 1867 nearly a century after Franklin's death.

Even today, every member of the Canadian military swears fealty to the King of England.

Re: Benjamin Franklin’s alter egos gave him the most freedom

#52

Post by kodoman »

alt227 wrote: post #47
kodoman wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the UK are bill of rights from 1689 has a clause called free speech in it. When you actually look at it's free speech... for parliament and parliamentarians from the king, Citizens get no such right. We have a clause that is the right to bear arms, when you look at it predicated on being the a protestant and parliament allowing you. No one actually reads these things or the history surrounding it here because wh…

Not being rude just trying to understand, but when you say 'are' do you mean 'our'?

Yes I also don't like the language of my country, 'are' sounds like 'our' so I mix them up, I apologize, at least you know I am not an LLM!

Re: Benjamin Franklin’s alter egos gave him the most freedom

#53

Post by kodoman »

krapp wrote: post #36
smolder wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that Thiels ideas are on weak foundations. The idea of "the antichrist" is especially silly when you go back to historical sources. Scholars have said it's not a person, but a category. "The antichrist" is just people against Christ. At some point it got misinterpreted into some kind of reverse-Jesus.

>At some point it got misinterpreted into some kind of reverse-Jesus. That's from the Book of Revelations, which is probably talking about Nero Caesar anyway.

One possibility that does accord very well with the events, but no fixed interpretation and no church dogma on positions of antichrist(s), man of sin, whore of Babylon.

One should read the Apocalypse of John/revelation and be amazed by the imagery and strangeness that is conjured up, as well as it's highly vengeful nature. Another great way to read it is with a word in mind hupopodion/ὑποπόδιον, and to think of this as god putting the world under his feed and conquering the world and look at it's accordance in Hebrews.

Re: Benjamin Franklin’s alter egos gave him the most freedom

#54

Post by huijzer »

smolder wrote: post #34
kodoman wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like everything I have seen of Thiel is not as well thought out as people claim, I feel he came to lots of his positions from a sort of contrarian attitude and simply the limited things he has been exposed to (that of course is true of everyone but to me it seems striking how little the things actually fit together are are sort of all just mushed together), Take for example The Straussian Moment, though quotes…

I agree that Thiels ideas are on weak foundations. The idea of "the antichrist" is especially silly when you go back to historical sources. Scholars have said it's not a person, but a category. "The antichrist" is just people against Christ. At some point it got misinterpreted into some kind of reverse-Jesus.

Talking about historical sources, this verse from the King James Version from 1611 agrees with you.

1 John 2:18, “Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.”

The antichrist is often correctly or incorrectly made synonymous with the son of perdition, 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4,

“ Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.”

Re: Benjamin Franklin’s alter egos gave him the most freedom

#55

Post by TitaRusell »

some_random wrote: post #51
xyzelement wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

// Yet, Canada remains independent The first step towards Canada being recognizable as its own country happened in 1867 nearly a century after Franklin's death.

Even today, every member of the Canadian military swears fealty to the King of England.

Mexico is an independent country because the US elite belatedly realised that adding millions of brown citizens would be a bad idea. Canada is an independent country because it had the British empire backing them.

Re: Benjamin Franklin’s alter egos gave him the most freedom

#56

Post by huijzer »

delis-thumbs-7e wrote: post #19
huijzer wrote: post #11

What most biographies forget to mention is that Franklin was also member of the Hellfire club, which is described as [1], > Members would drink vast quantities of alcohol and gorge themselves on food. Drunkenness was a prerequisite of The Hellfire Club. They’d dabble in most of the seven deadly sins to be honest – with gluttony, greed and lust being regular activities. Add in a smattering of gambling, fornicating and…

Biographies forget to mention it since there’s no evidence of him belonging to any such club. Also those clubs reputation is probably highly exaggerated. Your main source is some London tourist guide -site, so doesn’t seem you did exactly stellar research here. If you are interested in rich elites of the time doing strange and sordid festivitoes, I recommend studying the life of Peter the Great of Russia, who really…

If you want to rebuke me, then come with arguments. Just questioning the source is no counter argument. “Bad” sources can provide accurate information and “good” sources can provide inaccurate information. We need to go beyond mere categorization by source and use logic instead (which computer scientists know) to find what is true and what is not.

Also that some other person was possibly wicked doesn’t counter my point either. Both can be wicked at the same time according to basic logic since the one doesn’t exclude the other.

Re: Benjamin Franklin’s alter egos gave him the most freedom

#57

Post by huijzer »

krapp wrote: post #36
smolder wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that Thiels ideas are on weak foundations. The idea of "the antichrist" is especially silly when you go back to historical sources. Scholars have said it's not a person, but a category. "The antichrist" is just people against Christ. At some point it got misinterpreted into some kind of reverse-Jesus.

>At some point it got misinterpreted into some kind of reverse-Jesus. That's from the Book of Revelations, which is probably talking about Nero Caesar anyway.

> That's from the Book of Revelations, which is probably talking about Nero Caesar anyway.

It’s “Book of Revelation”. Singular. Probably because it talks about Jesus being revealed to the whole world. He will be revealed once and for all, so singular.

Regarding Revelation being behind us. It will be as clear as thunder visible from the east to the west and many cities will be destroyed etc what didn’t happen yet I’m sure. Bible warned that people will try to convince us that it has passed already. Quoting KJV from 1611 because I like the used language and find it a clear text.

2 Thess 2, “That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;”

Re: Benjamin Franklin’s alter egos gave him the most freedom

#58

Post by alt227 »

kodoman wrote: post #52
alt227 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not being rude just trying to understand, but when you say 'are' do you mean 'our'?

Yes I also don't like the language of my country, 'are' sounds like 'our' so I mix them up, I apologize, at least you know I am not an LLM!

No need to apologize, just wanted to clarify for understanding :)

Re: Benjamin Franklin’s alter egos gave him the most freedom

#59

Post by embedding-shape »

Semaphor wrote: post #49
embedding-shape wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Could you give examples of the US adding backdoors and weakening end-to-end encryption? Do you really need examples of this? There are countless of them, some programs you cannot have missed are PRISM, STATEROOM and BULLRUN but there are more of them too.

I must say I find it interesting you say "cannot have missed" as I never heard of stateroom or bullrun before

I guess not everyone read through the Snowden "revelations" back in 2013: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowden_disclosures

> PRISM is a code name for a program under which the United States National Security Agency (NSA) collects internet communications from various U.S. internet companies - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM

> STATEROOM is the code name of a highly secretive signals intelligence collection program involving the interception of international radio, telecommunications and Internet traffic - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stateroom_(surveillance_progra...

> Bullrun (stylized BULLRUN) is a clandestine, highly classified program to crack encryption of online communications and data - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullrun_(decryption_program)

Re: Benjamin Franklin’s alter egos gave him the most freedom

#60

Post by kodoman »

huijzer wrote: post #57
krapp wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>At some point it got misinterpreted into some kind of reverse-Jesus. That's from the Book of Revelations, which is probably talking about Nero Caesar anyway.

> That's from the Book of Revelations, which is probably talking about Nero Caesar anyway. It’s “Book of Revelation”. Singular. Probably because it talks about Jesus being revealed to the whole world. He will be revealed once and for all, so singular. Regarding Revelation being behind us. It will be as clear as thunder visible from the east to the west and many cities will be destroyed etc what didn’t happen yet I’m…

I am someone who is unsure of per-millenial post-millennial debate and would roughly consider myself a recapitulationist of some kind. I do not think you can use it in that way to argue against post-millennial for one the post-millennial would simply say that Pual is writing to the Thessalonians is still in the pre-millennial phase.

I feel are theology is different but I do not see the passage you gave as a good counter to identification of with the 70 AD. One can also hold that 70 AD was part of part of revelation but it's still to be fulfilled and completed. 70 AD seems to be something christ does predict and in astonishing fashion and a deeply important apocalyptic event.

Post reply on HN