As recently as 1800, China was on equal footing with the Western world. In fact, for 18 of the last 20 centuries, China’s GDP was the largest in the world. And then it changed. From 1800 onwards China’s economy began to stagnate and decline. After dozens of decades of decline, China’s fortune changed yet again. In the 1970s, Chinese revolutionary and statesman Deng Xiaoping unleashed economic reforms and reverted China’s trajectory. Since then China has been climbing to the top, challenging the United States as a global superpower. In the history of the world change is the only constant. Things never stay the same. Empires rise and fall. Generations come and go. The only thing that we know for sure is that things are going to change.
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In his book, The Republic, Plato presents his allegory of the cave to compare the effect of education on our nature. Despite being written over 2000 years ago; it is still relevant today.
In the allegory, there is a cave in which prisoners are kept. The cavemen are chained to a rock unable to move their heads, with a bunch of flickering shadows displayed on a cave wall in front of them. The cavemen are mesmerised by these shadows as this is the only reality that they know.
“It is in vain, sir,… there is no peace,” he shouted standing upright, one hand in an elevated position. “The war is actually begun!” Patrick Henry, American attorney and orator for the American Revolution, was enraged. “Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?” Henry was aware that infringement on liberty was intolerable and that a different future was necessary.
The German philosopher and sociologist, Theodor Adorno was a critic of what he described as the culture industry, which is the term he used to describe the commercial marketing of culture. In the book, Dialectic of Enlightenment, it was described that the purpose of the culture industry is to ensure the masses continue to follow and obey market interests for economic benefit.
Consider the following scenario… You've just finished creating your latest YouTube video and shared it with the world for all to see.
Soon afterwards you receive a notification of a comment. When you read it, it is such a vicious, unprovoked and personal attack on you and your work, that you’re shocked. What should you do?
You have three options. You could use the weapons or tactics of your opponent, even if you find them unpleasant, and reply in just as vicious a tone (fight fire with fire).
Technology has introduced both positive and negative impacts on society as a whole. It has made our lives easier but has also made people lazier. Social networking is one aspect of many people’s lives that may well be hindering them more than helping them. In his documentary, “Hyper Normalisation”, Adam Curtis refers to social media as an “echo chamber”, where the algorithms are so strong and know so much about you, they only give you what they know you like.
The Greek philosopher Aristotle was a student of Plato, who in turn was a student of Socrates. He was a teacher of Alexander the Great and is seen as one of the greatest philosophers in the history of western philosophy.
Being able to focus is a key capability when it comes to high productivity. When asked “what was the most important factor in their success through life?”, both Bill Gates and Warren Buffet answered “focus”. Gates was particularly relentless when writing software prior to the launch of his company, Microsoft. He spent two weeks in Harvard’s computer lab, sometimes even falling asleep at the terminal. This distraction-free environment helped him prepare the software code that would help initiate the personal computer era.
Before I started this YouTube channel, I watched several videos that gave some great advice on how to start and grow a channel, but one question I had that I couldn’t get a proper answer to is should I be focusing on quality or quantity when it comes to YouTube videos. Of course in an ideal world, you’d produce lots of videos that were all of the highest quality possible but our time is finite and a balance needs to be struck.
How can we control our anger in the modern world? Perhaps Seneca’s wisdom can help us.
Seneca was a stoic philosopher who acted as a tutor and advisor to the Roman Emperor Nero. Back in Seneca’s day anger was seen as a great problem and he even wrote a book called “On Anger” that offered his advice on controlling the emotion.