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Comment by natsup123490 | Hacker News Reader

Hard times and war change people. Many changes are negative: poorer, less secure, less trusting, more fearful, devastating losses.

But other changes are for the better. And you don't need war to make these changes. If you make them before hard times come, you'll be better prepared for them: becoming more stoic (less emotional, less offended at everything), becoming more serious, more resourceful, more self-reliant, lowering your expectations, being more humble, being more careful with your words and who you speak openly with, knowing your place instead of speaking for the whole of humanity, being better able to negotiate, being better able to compromise, being more tolerant of other opinions, appreciating the wisdom of our ancestors more, and focusing more on what really matters.

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All of the things you wrote as good things are (mostly) good things, glittering generalities that have no bearing on whether hard times are good or bad.

To connect the two, you'd have to complete the scurrilous reference made that we are currently in a time of "weak men". You may or may not be aware that the "Hard times..." meme is widely used among not just stoics, but also fascist groups to suggest that the current generation is soft and weak, and that only by adversity can men become strong again.

One can do almost everything good you listed, and indeed aspire to it, without becoming stoic and emotionless. To have feelings isn't weak.

I fear a people that make their life and policy decision based on Internet memes.

Being stoic doesn't mean you lack feelings.

Stoics in fact embraced emotions and feelings. It is a common misconception that Stoicism means to blunt your feelings. It’s a long explanation, but it basically encourages you to live in the moment and leave every day fulfilled.

I think you misunderstood what the commenter was trying to say. He didn't mention anything about becoming emotionless, but becoming less emotional. I think we can all agree that new first world generations are on the extreme side of the spectre of emotions and would benefit from leaning to the opposite side a bit.

> I think we can all agree that new first world generations are on the extreme side of the spectre of emotions and would benefit from leaning to the opposite side a bit.

"We all" find our opinions are unwelcome on the internet when we say things like that.

> that new first world generations

What do you mean by this?

The GP did point out that war was not needed to make the changes suggested, and they are good in times of peace and plenty as well. We understand that striving to be less offensive is good, but we hesitate to advocate that people become less easily offended because it can sound like we are blaming the victim. But it is good for everyone's emotional health to be able to be unaffected by the intentional or unintentional offenses of others. And the benefits of stoicism aren't about being emotionless, but not letting those emotions you let yourself be open to, be the guiding total of who you are. Anger and joy can be like other instinctual needs like defecation or hunger, just signals to cue your intelllect. Eastern traditions would say something like embracing the moment and how you feel, but not becoming attached to it or it's source.

I’ll be more blunt about it: cultivating emotionality is a disservice, especially to the most disadvantaged. Being offended doesn’t serve you at all; it’s a merely feeling that makes you easier to exploit.

What's the deal with using guilt by association as a way to disparage or dismiss ideas? Seeing that a lot lately.

Ironically it’s an outgrowth of the very weakness in mindset that GP is talking about.

That makes sense and would explain why it's become more common.

The "hard times create..." meme was originally shared by actual ethno-nationalists who have since been banned from most platforms.

I don't know if the person I replied to knows that - I think there are a lot of people who don't. It's worth pointing out though there's a disconnect from the first sentence to the second. Why is it that we have to have hard times for us to be better? Well, the argument from the meme - which many people take seriously even if you or I don't - is that recent times have been easy and this has created weak (and other pejoratively described) men.

No, it was originally shared with us by Greek philosophers, over 2 millennia ago.

> To have feelings isn't weak.

I compare it to kids having allergic reactions. If you grow up in a sterile environment your immune system reacts to minor environmental irritants. And that is maladaptive.

My parents were in their 20s during the Bangladesh independence war, when Pakistan engaged in genocide of Bangladeshis: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/genocide-us-cant-reme.... Even leaving aside the violence—when they were growing up, 1 out of 4 kids didn’t make it to age 5. They can talk about the war in, if not neutral, objective and unemotional terms. They would never suggest they’ve encountered any adversity in their life. But certainly nothing that happens in America gets them all that worked up.

And I can’t help but feel that this really does make them better, more capable, and more effective people. They’re able to grapple with reality in all its messiness in a detached unemotional way.

Which is to say Mujib’s famine killed as many Bangladeshis as the Pakistanis did (as per the excellent book The Black Coat)

This going from zero to fascism in ten seconds flat is exactly the type of mindset OP is rightly criticizing.

We do not live in the time of weak men; we live in a time which has not made men strong in the way other times have. endurance through hardship is what makes strength. Being strong in the way that many hardships make you comes with its own complexity.

Everything you said I agree with, but I'm very pessimistic that the average person has either the intellect or the will to change their outlook (and thus behaviour) voluntarily, at least over the general population. I do think it's an interesting hypothesis (and I'll claim it for the moment) that the current world, with its facile TikTok morons and the litany of other issues that I think the Romans, Greeks, and even people from the early 20th century would chalk up to stupidity, ignorance, and naïveté, is the result of TOO MUCH peace and prosperity. The overwhelming majority (more than 99%) of the Western world has no idea what proper existential struggles look like, and they haven't for 80 years now. I recall Jefferson's prognostications about the need for repeated revolutions.

I think we need catastrophe and suffering to bring out the best in ourselves, because without them society writ large trends inexorably in a direction that nobody would argue represents the best of our species.

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