Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by virissimo 1469 days ago
IMO, this entire essay is misguided. There isn't anyone going around practicing Stoicism as it was practiced in Ancient Rome. Instead they take their psychological techniques (some of which are shared by Buddhism, Christianity, and cognitive behavioral therapy) such as the dichotomy of control and negative visualization and reject some of the other parts of the overall philosophy (mostly the metaphysics and similar).

Either those techniques works or they don't. If they don't work, then they should be abandoned for that reason. If they do work, the fact that Seneca had a disciple that turned bad as an adult or that Aurelius wasn't an abolitionist doesn't do anything to change that.

This is just the genetic fallacy in essay form.