Your post is highly detrimental to the GDP !!! ...🤣🤣🤣
Do we NEED something because of an inner call or do we WANT something to compensate for personal insecurity, be able to brag, entirely kindled by outer influence from peers, family or general advertising ??? ...
Which kid has the will (and wisdom) to decide wether to get one ice-cream instantly or to have the patience until after tomorrow but then joyfully being able to lick on two of them ???
With current inflation, sometimes it's best to purchase for 500 today than to have to dole-out 700 next year for crap of even less quality ... Really valuable, solidly made products can be an investment.
Fortunately, I have been gifted with two hands that craft many things and spend a lot of resources on useful, good quality hand- or electrical tools and machinery for curent or future projects. DIY-addicted so-to-say which, as you mentioned before, provides a LOT of satisfaction, experience and self-assurance; all essential basics for a little bit of happiness in these bleak times. Have a good time !!!
You were probably joking, and consumption does drive parts of GDP (See China's current problems), but there's a reasonable argument that more investment and innovation, at least in the US, would drive more GDP in the long run.
Even chronic disease, car accidents, meat-processing plants going up in flames, train-derailments with highly toxic contents, DEW-induced firestorms, "guided" hurricanes with deadly floodings, fatal pharma prescriptions, deadly products of the military-industrial complex, all of them keep the economy bustling and finally boost the GDP ...
@JudithStove — Substack is glitching and wouldn't let me reply to you comment. But to answer:
I started teaching myself Latin about a year and a half ago. I'm making steady progress but I'm not to the point of reading the "classics" of antiquity or even the Renaissance without significant assistance. I've been able to tackle a few of the simpler medieval texts with significant dictionary help. I estimate it's going to take me another three years to be reading at a high level with the small amount of time I can devote to learning.
Much of my current reading is modern pedagogical texts or stuff from the 19th century. A lot of those older texts, which are often quite useful as stepping stones, are out of print. And what's in print is often expensive and shoddily constructed.
The PDF scans, however, are often in the public domain and free. I hate reading on glowing screens and sitting hunched over a laptop, but I do find E-ink devices with some app support to allow dictionary lookup to be eye-friendly and portable. Having one would open up the huge percentage of Latin texts that are not in print.
As for my interests — Seneca, of course, and Cicero has some great work, but I enjoy history as well. I'm curious about the Neo Stoics and some of the late antique/Medieval philosophers who were really hybridizing classical philosophy with a kind of Christanity that was really unsettled by the hidebound standards of Christianity today.
There's all kinds of surprising writing from after antiquity that everyone has forgotten about and has never been translated. Many historians don't read Latin anymore. It's a huge pool of cool stuff that's virtually unknown.
Great advice, but I'm most interested in the 'obscure Latin PDFs' you like to read! Which authors/subjects, if you don't mind saying? Thanks, Andrew.
👍👍👍 !!!
Your post is highly detrimental to the GDP !!! ...🤣🤣🤣
Do we NEED something because of an inner call or do we WANT something to compensate for personal insecurity, be able to brag, entirely kindled by outer influence from peers, family or general advertising ??? ...
Which kid has the will (and wisdom) to decide wether to get one ice-cream instantly or to have the patience until after tomorrow but then joyfully being able to lick on two of them ???
With current inflation, sometimes it's best to purchase for 500 today than to have to dole-out 700 next year for crap of even less quality ... Really valuable, solidly made products can be an investment.
Fortunately, I have been gifted with two hands that craft many things and spend a lot of resources on useful, good quality hand- or electrical tools and machinery for curent or future projects. DIY-addicted so-to-say which, as you mentioned before, provides a LOT of satisfaction, experience and self-assurance; all essential basics for a little bit of happiness in these bleak times. Have a good time !!!
You were probably joking, and consumption does drive parts of GDP (See China's current problems), but there's a reasonable argument that more investment and innovation, at least in the US, would drive more GDP in the long run.
Even chronic disease, car accidents, meat-processing plants going up in flames, train-derailments with highly toxic contents, DEW-induced firestorms, "guided" hurricanes with deadly floodings, fatal pharma prescriptions, deadly products of the military-industrial complex, all of them keep the economy bustling and finally boost the GDP ...
@JudithStove — Substack is glitching and wouldn't let me reply to you comment. But to answer:
I started teaching myself Latin about a year and a half ago. I'm making steady progress but I'm not to the point of reading the "classics" of antiquity or even the Renaissance without significant assistance. I've been able to tackle a few of the simpler medieval texts with significant dictionary help. I estimate it's going to take me another three years to be reading at a high level with the small amount of time I can devote to learning.
Much of my current reading is modern pedagogical texts or stuff from the 19th century. A lot of those older texts, which are often quite useful as stepping stones, are out of print. And what's in print is often expensive and shoddily constructed.
The PDF scans, however, are often in the public domain and free. I hate reading on glowing screens and sitting hunched over a laptop, but I do find E-ink devices with some app support to allow dictionary lookup to be eye-friendly and portable. Having one would open up the huge percentage of Latin texts that are not in print.
As for my interests — Seneca, of course, and Cicero has some great work, but I enjoy history as well. I'm curious about the Neo Stoics and some of the late antique/Medieval philosophers who were really hybridizing classical philosophy with a kind of Christanity that was really unsettled by the hidebound standards of Christianity today.
There's all kinds of surprising writing from after antiquity that everyone has forgotten about and has never been translated. Many historians don't read Latin anymore. It's a huge pool of cool stuff that's virtually unknown.
Impulse buying is what drives so much advertising.