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Comment by nickthemagicman | Hacker News Reader

I believe thats a ridiculous philosophy that denies the suffering of billions of people all over the world.

And even worse encourages them to be satisfied and tolerant of their repression and not take action.

Why vote? Why criticise? Why try to fight injustice?

This is what Tyrants want people to believe.

I think negative feelings exist for a reason whether its internal or external reasons and the only healthy way to handle them is not to try to change them into some positive force, but bear it until you can change it.

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The parent's comment is actually incorrect: what he described is not Stoicism. Stoicism is the philosophy whereby you accept things that are outside your control and view them with indifference.

In contrast, the examples you gave are situations in which the person does have some manner of control, no matter how small. Even those oppressed by tyrants can rise up and overthrow them.

Could you give an example of something that is completely outside control, that we need to just accept?

Death.

There are ongoing efforts to defeat death.

Postpone, it will never be defeated on the scale of the universe.

Have hope! Given enough time, perhaps we can figure out how to hop on over to the next one.

This idea moves it to the metaphysical territory where axioms about the nature of existence will collide. But in case yours are right, I doubt that going to such extent to evade death can keep anyone in peace with life.

Agreed. (Or should I say, I'll think about it?)

It's interesting that ivm's repoiste wasn't even hard.

But also completely outside your control is the wrong bar. You should triage and fix the things that are most fixable. And even then, there is no point wallowing in angst when fate stymies your efforts.

I agree with you. But since enraged_camel said

> In contrast, the examples you gave are situations in which the person does have some manner of control, no matter how small.

I thought it could be interesting to ask for clarification of what needs to be accepted according to that guideline.

The weather.

We can control the weather with cloud seeding.

Ancient greek stoicists didn't retreat from social duties. The core virtues of stoicism are the opposite of what you wrote.

They would take part on actions against injustices. But they would try to be guided by reason rather than emotions.

I dont see how anything I said disagrees with stoicism?

My beef is with the pop philosophy idea of 'your happiness is your choice'.

Apologies. I thought you took the previous comment as a definition for what is stoicism.

I think the stoic would say that other people's suffering, or in just political systems, or whatever other bad event that happens doesn't affect their own happiness. That doesn't mean you shouldn't try to do better, or to help. They're separate problems.

I can give to charity, and be happy with my own life at the same time, even knowing that others are suffering.

Unfortunately, you're misunderstanding stoicism. It's a very different way of looking at life, that can take a very long time to grasp.

You should read up on Cato the younger, who for generations was held up by stoics as an example of a very virtuous person, and his fight against Caesar and tyranny.

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