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

Leviathan (1651)

gutenberg.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 63 posts

Re: Leviathan (1651)

#41

Post by cess11 »

hunterpayne wrote: post #26
cess11 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One might consider it the magnum opus of Thomas Hobbes, a pioneering political thinker who had a massive influence on both conservatism and liberalism. For conservatives his arguments on human nature that conclude that we are inherently brutish and violent and cannot be allowed to rule ourselves are very attractive. He proposed an early social contract theory as a solution, which liberalists have found very attractiv…

"For conservatives his arguments on human nature that conclude that we are inherently brutish and violent and cannot be allowed to rule ourselves are very attractive." I really hope you are European. What you said is true of (most) European Conservatives. If you are an American, that is the most incorrect thing I have read all week. American Conservatives are the exact opposite of what you describe. The core of the A…

Sure, the US is weird as it is a one-party state that constitutionally and supposedly is fundamentally liberalist, which has the effect that the only viable collective politics becomes fascist or fascism adjacent. Hence the insistence on historical revisionism, genocidal military campaigns and slavery-like institutions.

To the extent US politics is libertarian it is also very selectively so, it does not extend to all people and discards individualism as a universal ethos, either explicitly or by blaming its victims.

Re: Leviathan (1651)

#42

Post by rdtsc »

roenxi wrote: post #16
urikaduri wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While Hobbes is dark, he is giving an interesting explanation of how political power actually work, so that even when people are not nice, they can act in a civilized way.I only read a small parts of it and some summaries, from what I understand the crux of the argument doesn't necesserily force democracy or autocracy(although he seem skeptical of democracy) rather it explains the concept of sovereignity, even in a d…

Niceness is the wrong lens to use for acting in a civilised way. Game theory generally recommends cooperation; in practical real-world situations most of the games we play are ones where the best situation comes from negotiation. The issue is more the truly enormous number of actors who either have remarkably short short time preferences, an unreasonable tolerance for risk or who are just unpredictable. That is one o…

> An easy example is that the scariest people to run in to in a dark ally are the drugged up types; because the problem is they don't have the ability to make decisions while considering the pros- and cons- over a couple of months and their normal behaviour isn't predictive of what they are about to do.

One can argue they can’t help it. But another strategy is to mimic that to gain an upper hand. Let’s imagine someone doesn’t want folks going down their street, they could pretend to act randomly and crazy. Even seasoned barbarians would stay away from that alley, not to even mention dentists ;-)

Re: Leviathan (1651)

#43

Post by a3w »

"In the Talmud, Rav Yehuda says that there are twelve hours in a day. God spends three of them studying Torah, three judging the world, three answering prayers, and three playing with Leviathan."

Chapter 5: Never Seek To Tell Thy Love, unsongbook.com

Seems to be important, that creature.

Re: Leviathan (1651)

#44

Post by cess11 »

neomantra wrote: post #24
cess11 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One might consider it the magnum opus of Thomas Hobbes, a pioneering political thinker who had a massive influence on both conservatism and liberalism. For conservatives his arguments on human nature that conclude that we are inherently brutish and violent and cannot be allowed to rule ourselves are very attractive. He proposed an early social contract theory as a solution, which liberalists have found very attractiv…

Watching that again reminds me that this guy is so poorly educated and not learned. Sure he was an engineering student at UIUC and wrote a neato browser, but wow he does not know history or philosophy well. But he does the grifter trick of making coy observations like that 1920s bs. And he had so much time and wealth to improve those insights! Or, he knows but this narrative makes him feel better about his behavior.

I'm not so sure he is grifting, do you have any clips where he slips and shows himself to be knowledgeable of his society and its history?

I have a similar view of Musk, Thiel and Karp, and some others I can't be bothered to remind myself of. Perhaps the Mandelsons belong to this crowd, but I suspect the Kochs have a bit more of an intellectual slant.

It's known to take a lot of discipline to keep your mind sharp and study when your power grows and other people make your life convenient and shielded from the misery of the masses. Marcus Aurelius makes this a core issue of his Meditations, the strife needed to make true and confident measurements of oneself and not get lost in superstition. Perhaps it is an impossible ideal but the ambition is at least interesting, in contrast to whatever Andreessen and his ilk are doing to themselves.

Re: Leviathan (1651)

#45

Post by [deleted] »

libraryofbabel wrote: post #3

As an ex historian I love how this famous 350yo work of political philosophy is just sitting at #7 on HN with absolutely no context on why it was submitted. The great debate of political philosophy coming out of the 17th century was between Hobbes (anarchy is horrible, humans aren’t nice to each other, best to give up your freedoms to a strong sovereign/state for protection) and Locke (liberty is best, people are rea…

[deleted]

Re: Leviathan (1651)

#46

Post by kruffalon »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #36
kruffalon wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such elegance, or snobbery or at least some kind of beauty... Using "&" literally in 2026 smells of wonder, well done, thanks! Do you do it sometimes in regular English words too or just in &c? Please give more examples (if you have any). This will be a great day, starting of like this: a written play with words; i like it!

I'm intrigued. Is there something wrong with "&" in 2026? Some kind of meta meaning?

Nothing wrong at all, quite the opposite.

I like it a lot, and it makes me happy to see someone using the ligature of "e t"[0] ("&") not only as "and" but also as it's original "et" in the abbreviation "etc".

To me it reads like someone playing with words in a fun way, which is not that common in my parts of the internet

I was trying to express appreciation.

---

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ligature_(writing)

Re: Leviathan (1651)

#47

Post by Loughla »

hunterpayne wrote: post #26
cess11 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One might consider it the magnum opus of Thomas Hobbes, a pioneering political thinker who had a massive influence on both conservatism and liberalism. For conservatives his arguments on human nature that conclude that we are inherently brutish and violent and cannot be allowed to rule ourselves are very attractive. He proposed an early social contract theory as a solution, which liberalists have found very attractiv…

"For conservatives his arguments on human nature that conclude that we are inherently brutish and violent and cannot be allowed to rule ourselves are very attractive." I really hope you are European. What you said is true of (most) European Conservatives. If you are an American, that is the most incorrect thing I have read all week. American Conservatives are the exact opposite of what you describe. The core of the A…

The American Right of the 80's through 00's maybe. But today's right wing seems more authoritarian than anything post-Trump. There's this weird sort of thirst for a strong-man government on the right that seems to run counter to the individual liberty arguments they tend to make. I don't get it and I wish it made sense.

Re: Leviathan (1651)

#48

Post by kruffalon »

nandomrumber wrote: post #29
kruffalon wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such elegance, or snobbery or at least some kind of beauty... Using "&" literally in 2026 smells of wonder, well done, thanks! Do you do it sometimes in regular English words too or just in &c? Please give more examples (if you have any). This will be a great day, starting of like this: a written play with words; i like it!

[flagged]

I'm confused.

Did you understand the comment you replied to as me being negative or did you reply to the wrong comment?

I'm well aware that I'm a cunt at times, but I'm having a hard time seeing that in this instance.

My intention was to be celebratory towards something I found truly elegant.

(Maybe it is common to use "&" to write "etc" or anywhere where you'd normally use "et" but afaik I have never seen it before.)

Re: Leviathan (1651)

#49

Post by [deleted] »

Loughla wrote: post #47
hunterpayne wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"For conservatives his arguments on human nature that conclude that we are inherently brutish and violent and cannot be allowed to rule ourselves are very attractive." I really hope you are European. What you said is true of (most) European Conservatives. If you are an American, that is the most incorrect thing I have read all week. American Conservatives are the exact opposite of what you describe. The core of the A…

The American Right of the 80's through 00's maybe. But today's right wing seems more authoritarian than anything post-Trump. There's this weird sort of thirst for a strong-man government on the right that seems to run counter to the individual liberty arguments they tend to make. I don't get it and I wish it made sense.

[deleted]

Re: Leviathan (1651)

#50

Post by jayemar »

hunterpayne wrote: post #26
cess11 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One might consider it the magnum opus of Thomas Hobbes, a pioneering political thinker who had a massive influence on both conservatism and liberalism. For conservatives his arguments on human nature that conclude that we are inherently brutish and violent and cannot be allowed to rule ourselves are very attractive. He proposed an early social contract theory as a solution, which liberalists have found very attractiv…

"For conservatives his arguments on human nature that conclude that we are inherently brutish and violent and cannot be allowed to rule ourselves are very attractive." I really hope you are European. What you said is true of (most) European Conservatives. If you are an American, that is the most incorrect thing I have read all week. American Conservatives are the exact opposite of what you describe. The core of the A…

You seem to be lumping conservatives and libertarians into the same group, but I think that's a mistake. I agree with your description as it pertains to libertarians, but conservatives tend to recognize as Christians who recognize certain deficiencies of humans and look to a higher power as a source of rule and law.
Post reply on HN