Esoteric Roman v. Greek Ranting (was Philosophers)

[Cor2]

thejeff said:

And, one for one, I believe Oriads are better at research. Not more cost-effective, but more rp each. So philosophers aren't even good at research, they're just cheap. I buy them when I'm low on cash, but that's about it.

Without checking, I dont think that is true, if you have taken sloth 3.

My problem with them is that they have old age, otherwise I swear by them. in the Clash mp game I had no fewer than 15 at a time. Needless to say I was light years ahead of the compitition in research

[noname]

I don't have much more to say, except that, in the Laws, Socrates doesn't appear. This is important to note because Socrates was used as Plato's mouthpiece in so many of his dialogues. This means that he has no character which expounds his viewpoints in this dialogue. Personally, I've always thought that the Laws were a dialogue on what law was, what the role of intellect was in making laws, the natural laws, and the connection between philosophy and politics. Although a Cretan city is mentioned, the book was probably not intended to be a literal, step-by-step guide for making a city.

[tibbs]

I always use Oreiads for home province research. If your capital is sieged you have good casters for defense and you can also use their lure ability to convert/kill enemy generals.

[Tichy]

I'll accept that in part; the Laws are a very late work, and since at least the middle period of the Republic "Socrates" was at an almost explicitly critical distance from Socrates. My take is that in the Laws Plato finally abandons the ironic use of "Socrates" to offer his own view more directly. (Plato is the Athenian stranger, much as he was when he went to Sicily to try his own hand at statecraft...) A lot of what you say about the Laws seems right -- it's not a how-to manual for statecraft -- but it still seems that an aristocracy (in the meritocratic sense of rule by those whose intellects are capable, disciplined, and trained in philosophy) is supposed to be empowered to make and enforce the laws meditated upon in the dialogue.

My interest in all of this has been to avoid both the one-sided hero Plato and the villainous anti-open-society Plato, because both make him less interesting than he is. I got a bit rankled when you claimed me for a Popperite. And then the thread derailment began in earnest.

[Tichy]

And a game question: how successful are Oreiads at seduction? As good/better/worse than Succubi?

[noname]

I never meant to call you a Popperite. I apologize if I came across that way.

[Jazzepi]

What's a Popperite?

Jazzepi

[noname]

A Popperite a follower of Karl Popper, a writer who blasted Plato in his book "The Open Society and its Enemies", calling Plato a proponent of tyranny in spite of the fact that Plato considered tyranny to be the worst form of government. Of course, Popper's work is rather limited to science and his political philosophy is rather limited due to his distrust of historicism. Of course, Popper saw himself as a liberal, and yet his ideas on society were, if anything, degenerate and possibly Marxist.