Lamhfada

I'd love to see more about the cultural and social revolutions which occurred in Ferenginar which were happening in the background of DS9 that resulted in the first Ferengi to be a trade union leader becoming Grand Nagus.

I think Nagus Zek and Moogie were working on ways to modernise Ferengi culture but the realpolitik of it means it can't just have been the two of them. I feel like there was a coalition of feminists and Ferengi workers in the proletariat growing in popularity.

Ferengi's seem to have been isolated from the Dominion War but it doesn't mean they weren't impacted by it, as the 3 biggest Empires closest to them were all actively in full scale war mode. I also think it's likely that prior to the war there may have been a kind of Gold Rush into the Gamma Quadrant which left many Ferengi investors overextended when the war started and the quadrant was cut off.

I think Zek and Moogie were trying to reform in this context. It's Russia in 1916-17 without the overt involvement in the war.

Ferengi workers and women, surrounded by the cultural hegemony of the Federation must have been causing strikes, protests and riots in the background, and the wealthy class of Ferengi were weakened due to their gamma quadrant investments failing.

While Rom was radical to lead a strike in the first place, it's possible he was seen as a moderate by the time of Season 7 after a few months of continuous disruption to Ferengi economy and politics. Also as a hero of the Allies fighting the Dominion who saved millions of lives with his role in keeping the wormhole closed and the resistance, he'd have a good diplomatic influence to regain trade with those powers and access to DS9 as a port.

So my working theory is that there was a gradual revolution in Ferengi culture, and that a coalition of Ferengi trade unions, feminists, Federation enthusiasts and socialists and democratic reformers were able to claim victory at the same time as the war ending.

But of course the FCC and the power of Capital amongst the elite must still have been immensely strong. 100% of a culture won't change overnight - but however the Ferengi left coalition gained influence (I'm thinking at least a general strike and riots - why else is Zek's message to Quark so garbled that he thinks he will be the next Grand Nagus) Rom was seen as a good compromise by both sides. The FCC working on their prior intelligence will see him as the moron brother of minor barkeeper they may be able to keep in line and manipulate, and who at this time is less radical than demands of some Ferengi revolutionaries, but to the left he's hugely symbolic as their first trade union leader. Both sides also accept that diplomatically he's going to be popular with the Federation.

There's no way Rom gets to be Grand Nagus without massive social and political change, without some kind of Marxist dialectic happening in the background.

I think Rom is the Social Democratic compromise between various political movements and also the first wave of further integration into the Federation and its ideals.

But we only get the surface level information of it. I think there's at least a double episode in it. Maybe a future Ferengi Star Fleet officer in Discovery could retell this story of cultural evolution after first contact with a particularly capitalist new alien culture.

There was that civilian led plan to create a new continent that Picard was thinking of leaving Star Fleet for.

Plus a lot of the guest scientists that go on the enterprise to study particular stars and planets or go to DS9 to study the wormhole seem to be mostly non Starfleet.

Most colonists of new colonies are also civilian. Jake Sisko's future fame shows artists are celebrated in their lifetime.

So lots of civilian opportunities, we just don't see them on screen a lot.

I think prior to the Borg near capture of Earth and the Dominion War, Starfleet life is seen as more of a civil service life. Something that's nice if you have a calling for but it's not the only way to enhance your life and humanity.

Literally three days ago nobody needed to summon a dermatologist.

As a nerd with regular cycles of bad skin from dermatitis since my teen years I doubt nobody in a community of nerds needed to summon a dermatologist, but we may soon hit the sweet spot of being big enough to have specific expertise in comments without people lying for clout or karma farming!

Divine mania seems to much more limited in scope than I had initially thought. At best, maybe it’s tangential to concepts within Apollonian and Dionysian aspects.

From a Platonic perspective I'd say it's the other way around,that Nietzsche's absolute distinction between the Apollonian and Dionysian is tangential to the providence of the Gods.

As I mentioned there's something of a false dichotomy that's to my mind somewhat ahistoric when looking at Nietzsche's Apollonian vs Dionysian. For Plato and the Platonists that follow him up to the 7th Century CE the Gods are not symbols that can be reduced into frameworks but instead are the causes of all things.

For Plato, Apollo and Dionysus aren't frameworks to look at life but particular Gods, worthy of piety and devotion. There's actually a lot of Dionysian themes in Plato but not in our modern Nietzschian framework eg but from Plato's context as a devout Polytheist influenced by the religion around him and Orphic Mysteries. As Plato himself says in the Phaedo

"The thrysus bearers are many; the mystics few".

I’ve had a little trouble believing there are 4 sources, given prophetic and ecstatic were both likely drug induced, ethylene gas poisoning and drunkenness.

There are 4 sources types of Mania that were mentioned, but remember in the Phaedrus the main theme is how Erotic Mania (specifically a kind of homoerotic mania at that) elevates the Soul to its leader God and the banquet of the Gods.

So for Plato, as an Idealist and Polytheist wouldn't accept the physical causes of these things you mention but instead find the causes in the Gods (see Timaeus).

This is something the later Platonists continue. Proclus, in the Platonic Theology (Book I, Chapter 24), writes that

As therefore through the first goodness all the Gods are boniform, and through intelligible wisdom they have a knowledge ineffable, and established above intellect, thus also, I think, through the summit of beauty, every thing divine is lovely. For from thence all the Gods derive beauty, and being filled with it, fill the natures posterior to themselves, exciting all things, agitating them with Bacchic fury about the love of themselves, and pouring supernally on all things the divine effluxion of beauty.

So here the Dionysian mania, the Bacchic fury, is the Providence of the Gods which overflows into all of reality and fills us with a love of the Gods through the Goodness and beauty of the Gods, an overflowing providence which causes reality to exist. In this light the 4 manias specifically mentioned become the providence of 4 particular Gods emanating their Providence in individual ways - so while these are the four kinds worth mentioning for Plato, as being the most visible examples in Greek Polytheism and culture of how divine mania impacts us, aren't necessarily the only forms.

I think you're right to say Plato didn't invent these manias, 100%.

Instead Plato is describing things he sees around him which he thinks are caused by the Gods. The Oracles of the Gods and the impact of initiation into the Mysteries and the power of poetry and Eros are well known by Plato to be a) not rational but also b) facts of reality for him which c) are of divine origin.

Definitely the best podcast with academic sources and expert on the history and origins of esoteric concepts in religion and philosophy from antiquity on.

Same.

I had deleted my main reddit account that I had for 13/14 years a few months ago. I created a new alt so I could check in and talk about some of more niche interests, but I deleted that 3 weeks ago, just couldn't be dealing with the increasing enshittification.

I've had a Twitter a/c since 2009, have a lot of mutual followers and a lot of people I know only for there, but decided today that it's definitely not going to get any better. I had a Mastodon account since last year, but it was very slow and quiet, and again, not a lot of niche interests I have over there yet. But this weekend's bullshit (and obvious lies from Musk) makes it clear twitter isn't going to get better. Even if the stupid rates thing improves in the next while, it will just be something else Musk decides which will be making twitter worse.

So I'm just going to enjoy the chill vibes and explore all the different communities here.

Fascist governments got to fascist.

Targeting the LGBTQ+ population and eroding their rights and making it a focus during a time of an international cost of living crisis, is a tried and true practice of the right wing to hide their incompetence in governing and in matters of economy.

Simon McGarr who does a lot of legal work around data, confidentiality and GDPR found out last year that An Post and the Ordinance Survey were collecting data on every household in Ireland through "Geodirectory", he had a mastodon thread about it here.

For Plato the Apollonian madness as I remember it from the Phaedrus is the mania which the Oracle of Delphi has when she is possessed by the God.

As such it is still a Mania, one where the divine power of a God overcomes the rational soul. Which would seem at odds with Nietzsche's very 19th Century conceptions of a solar God of rationality and harmony.

Nietzsche was a Classicist and Philologist before he was a philosopher though, so he would have been familiar with the myths and references in Plutarch to differences in art and music between Apollo and Dionysus. But this was more of a thematic contrast than the binary dichotomy of opposites which Nietzsche paints in the Apollonian/Dionysian.

Eg, in Greek Polytheistic Religion, when Apollo vacates Delphi for the winter months, it is Dionysus who takes over the role as Patron God. The two Gods, both sons of Zeus are individually quite different, but also complementary, and Platonically speaking as Gods their providence can descend downwards to the world of appearances and share their providence in the form of a divine mania. The Mania of Prophecy from Apollo and the Mania of Ecstasy and the Mysteries of Dionysus are still both manias, and therefore not really as binary opposites as Nietzsche has the Naturwahrheit, the truth of Nature of Dionysus and the Kulturluge , the lie of culture of Apollo portrays.

So I think Plato is in the background for Nietzsche here. Classicist Richard Seaford in his book Dionysos writes that Nietzche was likely influenced by 18th and 19th Century German intellectuals like Winckelmann, Schelling and Bachofen in creating this kind of ahistorical view of Dionysus, which causes him to ignore the democratic elements to Dionysus worship.

As the God most widely worshipped in the Mediterranean world of antiquity, but who is rarely mentioned in the Homeric epics written for the Aristocratic warrior class, and whose worship was associated with slaves, including feast days where slaves were liberated and women, and in Rome as Liber was part of the Aventine Triad of the Plebian Class (Liber, Libera/Proserpina, and Ceres the agricultural Gods of the working class), Dionysus has democratic aspects which are at odds with the kind of aristocratic tendencies of Nietzsche.

I think the end episode before this kind of implied that La'an feared or suspected that some of her augmented genes were active in her conversation with Una's lawyer.

I don't think your attraction per se is a controllable thing, but sometimes I find I need to spend some time in queer spaces/talking with queer friends/consuming queer media/art to feel a sense of connection to the broader LGBT+ community and the community of gay/bi/men who have sex with men subcultures.

Remember, bisexuals in "straight" relationships or outside of relationships who are feeling more attracted to the opposite gender are still bisexual.

So I'd say, relax, don't sweat it, but maybe see about making some bi/gay friends or spending times in LGBT+ spaces?

While I hate to pull the "it's a cartoon influenced by pulp scifi" card...it's a cartoon influenced by pulp scifi.

A bit of timey wimey changes is in line with the spirit of the show. It's more like how it "retconned" Fry being in the future by accident and it being a plan of Nibbler to get him to the future to fight the brains.

And having time to see some of Fry and Leela's relationship in the moment could be nice too.