[snide]

I've always like Ben Franklin's 13 virtues. It's a short list.

TEMPERANCE. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.

SILENCE. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.

ORDER. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.

RESOLUTION. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.

FRUGALITY. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.

INDUSTRY. Lose no time; be always employ’d in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.

SINCERITY. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.

JUSTICE. Wrong none by doing injuries or omitting the benefits that are your duty.

MODERATION. Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.

CLEANLINESS. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation.

TRANQUILLITY. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.

CHASTITY. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dulness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.

HUMILITY. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

[stuartjohnson12]

That sounds like a very boring and miserable way to live. To respond with one of my own:

---

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple

With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.

And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves

And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.

I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired

And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells

And run my stick along the public railings

And make up for the sobriety of my youth.

I shall go out in my slippers in the rain

And pick the flowers in other people’s gardens

And learn to spit.

[mindtricks]

I think it's fair to have principles and still have an interesting an active life. The best example of this would have to be, well, Ben Franklin.

[lazide]

I find the list hilarious, because Ben Franklin was a notorious player, and his time in France (as American ambassador) was legendary - if documented today, it would make the Wolf of Wallstreet jealous. In modern parlance, ‘coke and hookers’ galore.

He also, by all accounts, was instrumental in getting France to support the US war of independence, without which the war would likely have gone an entirely different way.

Not to say he treated anyone badly - by all accounts, all participants enjoyed themselves immensely.

But don’t take these pronouncements as documentations of fact, but rather playing to an audience. He was also one of the major publishers and propagandists in early America, and his audience was profoundly conservative (often in the puritan sense), rural, and poor. It’s how he made one of his first fortunes [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poor_Richard%27s_Almanack].

He probably did follow some of them, when it suited him, but clearly was never hesitant to let them get in the way of a good time either. Taking it too literally is like taking one of those popular business books too literally.

[MichaelZuo]

Can you link the source for these claims?

Considering he didn’t have any embassy bureaucracy beyond a few staff helping him, and that any reply from washington would be many weeks away… it seems extremely unlikely he would have had much free time at all in Paris.

[lazide]

which part? your timelines seem pretty off if you think ‘weeks’ was a remotely possible timeline at the time either.

There was no electronic communication of any sort (electricity was barely understood at the time), and best case transit time was around 6 weeks each way, often 8-12 if possible at all. It was also highly seasonal, and still very dangerous.

So the absolute fastest turn around time was 12 weeks/3 months, and more realistically 4-6 months. With some decent odds that one of the legs of the trip might sink, losing all hands.

It’s why a literal founding father (and one of the most influential ones) was the ambassador. No one else could be trusted.

[https://www.history.com/articles/benjamin-franklin-france]

[MichaelZuo]

Are you confused about what “many weeks” means? it means >>few weeks

[ericmcer]

I was teaching my dog to bark less, and I worried a bit that it might make him sit silently when I actually want him to bark, like if a stranger was coming through the window.

After a ton of training I realized he will never stop barking, he can realize that what he is doing is not right, but the urge to bark at every noise he hears will always be something we have to work on. We will never get it "right".

I think Ben Franklins strict rules are the same way. Obviously you can't run your entire life with military discipline, but you have to set the ideal fairly high because you are going to fall short over and over.

[wordpad]

That's the problem with set rules.

Overly productive and active people create rules to better focus their productivity and tame their impulses.

Someone unambitious and lazy would see more benefit from a single rule that says go do something, literally anything!

[metalman]

my dogs, when I have them, dont bark, but have exceptional freedom and are expected to act with discretion, I talk to my animals a lot, and watch them closely, responding to there needs and comunications......a big dogs warning "CHUFF" says everything needed....."big dog here....please observe formalitys, aproach calmly, say hi, be pleaant and confident, and all will be fine", with the understanding that I can order a stand down, for non dog people who are of no threat. dogs, and animals, offer a real ,genuine , opinion on many aspects of life, a check.......,can I walk away from that expectant look...sometimes it's , ha! nice try you manipulative fucker, and other times it's hang it all, your right, lets do the thing, now..... the leson bieng, to be aware of everything, and one of those things is that try as you might, there are loose ends, which will unpredictably re prioritise everything, and the final proof of living well, is having the capacity to re prioritise, and then go on from there and a child, or a dog, or a horse, will call your bluff

[xyzwave]

Fair critique, we should never lose the spirit of play, but Franklin’s guidance seems very much in line with a quote from Gustave Flaubert I often see echoed:

> Be steady and well-ordered in your life so that you can be fierce and original in your work

[gatlin]

Genuine question: if you could tell Ben Franklin this, would you? I'm not even disagreeing with you, nor do I think there is a correct answer, but your answer and the reasoning behind it would genuinely interest me.

[stuartjohnson12]

Sure I would. The conversation would go about as well as it would with any moral realist who believes he has identified the set of virtues or deontic norms which obligation would have us adhere to. I do not know if Mr. Franklin was a "serious man" as de Beauvoir described it, but these are certainly the same kinds of self-flagellatory ethics you would expect a serious man to have.

My interactions with such people usually reflect a piteous tone, as if it were a tremendous shame that I had not stopped for a second to think of the gravity of the situation. That is a necessary frame for them to hold given the preconditions which led to them becoming a serious man.

[reverendsteveii]

while I like redhatting as much as anyone the interesting wrinkle to this criticism of franklin in particular is that this is much more like the way he actually lived than the principles he listed were. in fact, I dare say the only thing he missed on this list was making up for the non-existent sobriety of his youth.

[readthenotes1]

The poem:

https://www.poetry.com/poem/141551/warning

(When I am an old woman, I will annotate other people's comments, With inapposite quibbling or info they already know ...)

[xandrius]

Some are about breaking out of self-imposed constraints and some are just dickish: don't come into my garden and pick my flowers, thank you very much.

[bix6]

Today I learned about the red hat society, thank you

[os2warpman]

Having read quite a bit about Franklin, his life was defined by an extremely generous interpretation of some of those virtues.

[dole]

"Franklin did not try to work on them all at once. Instead, he worked on only one each week "leaving all others to their ordinary chance." While he did not adhere completely to the enumerated virtues, and by his own admission he fell short of them many times, he believed the attempt made him a better man, contributing greatly to his success and happiness, which is why in his autobiography, he devoted more pages to this plan than to any other single point and wrote, "I hope, therefore, that some of my descendants may follow the example and reap the benefit."

[0] https://www.ushistory.org/franklin/autobiography/page38.htm

[BizarroLand]

This week, I will avoid murder. Other than that, all bets are off

[jajko]

Better be careful around you next week then

[arealaccount]

Clearly Mr Franklin has never hyperscaled a tech company

[euroderf]

> TEMPERANCE. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.

"Not to elevation"? Let me direct you to the Finnish language. It contains two tightly related concepts: "nousuhumala" (ascending alcohol buzz) and the subsequent & corresponding "laskuhumala" (descending alcohol buzz).

If you recall the course of an evening of overindulgence, you may notice that these two concepts do describe the terrain.

[IncreasePosts]

AIUI these are from his autobiography, which he wrote during the last 20 years of his life. I wonder if he wrote this section before his decade in France? As I understand it, while there, he very intentionally led a life with little temperance, silence, frugality, moderation, and chastity.

[s_dev]

Reminds me of the Core Principles from Severance.

[srik]

It's funny that this is by Ben Franklin, someone notorious for routinely violating at least half of these virtues.