in this great Peloponnesian War, all wars past, present, and future are to be found. And this passage, in which the Spartans ask the Athenians to settle the war and preserve Spartan dignity in its time of misfortune, takes us back to Solon's warning.
Indeed sensible men are prudent enough to treat their gains as precarious, just as they would also keep a clear head in adversity, and think that war, so far from staying within the limit to which a combatant may wish to confine it, will run the course that its chances prescribe; and thus, not being puffed up by confidence in military success, they are less likely to come to grief, and most ready to make peace, if they can, while their fortune lasts.
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War (Book 4.18.4)
We look around us, read the news, remember events of our childhood, or of a different age, and we see Solon and Croesus everywhere.
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that fact does not make moral reasoning impossible. It changes its character.
It means we should be cautious about moral frameworks that depend on precise enumeration of outcomes, and more respectful of constraints that have survived because they may protect society from certain failure modes.
if you don’t inherit friction from the world and are traveling through Extremistan, it may be wise to design your own friction: embrace the beauty of logistics, accept multiple stops along the way, say “no” when in doubt, study the classics.
leverage exists, but is always paired with constraints. Physical limits (think size or speed), cultural friction, or some other factor that prevents scaling out of control and keep the thing going (i.e., alive, not extinct, not permanently ruined)... but in our wonderful world of finance...
the asymmetry of ruin: scalability and lack of friction can turn ordinary mistakes into terminal events
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