The stoic
An alarm goes off between
unturned pages of Meditations.
One wolf lies dead. Another growls
at the door. The clock marks every second with
a steady hand-- the only stoic in the room.
On eugenics
People often talk about athletes and entertainers when they talk about inherent abilities. Advocates of eugenics love that. They particularly love one piece of statistics: "17% of all American 7-footers play in NBA". There are holes in this statistic, but still it's a striking proportion (lowest estimate I saw in 2.8%). So the assumption is that you can breed a race of 7-footers that will have a disproportionate advantage in basketball, and by extension, you can make similar argument for any profession. But that "extension" becomes a bit more than a stretch when you consider that sports and entertainment are literally exhibitions of simplified traits. So no shit, Sherlock, you can select for specific traits and win medals for it. But human society and activities are complex, a single trait does not define the value of a person. Be it running a business or fixing stuff or cooking meals-- every activity requires a potpourri of skills. And that is the reason we cr...
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