• kryptonianCodeMonkey@lemmy.world
    47·
    1 month ago

    Counterpoint, when you have a real informed opinion, take a stance. When you have no informed opinion, take an absurd stance.

    “I believe that the Kim and Kanye drama proves that there was a second gunman on the grassy knoll.”

    • lad@programming.devEnglish
      4·
      1 month ago

      I believe Markus Aurelius was a secret alien agent and wrote this only to undermine Xitter warriors’ efforts

  • nialv7@lemmy.world
    21·
    1 month ago

    Sure, but do realise sometimes not having an opinion is a very privileged position to be in. There are others who are forced to have an opinion, or are currently being forced to live someone else’s opinion.

    • molave@reddthat.com
      17·
      1 month ago

      Sometimes

      I strongly believe the internet forgets that and mandates everyone to have a position on anything and everything, regardless on how well-informed one is.

    • AVincentInSpace@pawb.socialEnglish
      3·
      1 month ago

      “Yes, well, there are people whose lives are directly impacted by this issue, therefore you should have an opinion on it”

  • Signtist@lemm.eeEnglish
    20·
    1 month ago

    You absolutely don’t have to have a concrete, well-constructed opinion on everything, or even really anything, but if you plan to spread an opinion you have about something, you should make sure it’s concrete and well-constructed first.

  • Match!!@pawb.socialEnglish
    14·
    1 month ago

    if you do have an opinion it should be concrete and well-constructed otherwise do not

    • Keith@lemmy.zip
      3·
      1 month ago

      I mean it was understandable— everyone praises the five good emperors for choosing successors but none of them actually had biological kids, and there was no precedent that the successor would be chosen. Realistically, Aurelius wanted to avoid a civil war and wasn’t like entirely throwing, I think I saw like a story about how he like. Didn’t want to do it but it was like the only good outcome or optimal at least

      • PugJesus@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
        5·
        1 month ago

        Commodus doesn’t appear to have descended into megalomania until a few years into his sole rule. One expects the power got to his head rather than him simply being born wrong. C’est la vie!

        • Klear@lemmy.worldEnglish
          4·
          1 month ago

          Was he even as bad as they say? I mean, probably, absolute power and all that, but from what I hear the madness of Caligula is severely overblown since the main sources we have on him are the Roman versions of tabloids, so maybe it’s similar with Commodus.

          Never really looked into it too closely though, and it’s probably safe to err on the side of “absolutist ruler was an asshole”.

          • PugJesus@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
            2·
            1 month ago

            Was he even as bad as they say?

            Commodus was likely as bad as they say. Emperor Septimius Severus is said to have decried Marcus Aurelius for not strangling the kid when he had the chance. Of course, Septimius Severus’s kid would turn out to be a gruesome fellow like Commodus, so he doesn’t actually have much room to throw stones.

            I mean, probably, absolute power and all that, but from what I hear the madness of Caligula is severely overblown since the main sources we have on him are the Roman versions of tabloids, so maybe it’s similar with Commodus.

            Caligula revisionism is… very problematic. The most I would say there is that some of the pop culture interpretations of him are false, and some of the incidents mentioned as rumors by Roman historians are likely exaggerated. He was pretty unambiguously a tyrant and extremely arbitrary in his rule. If you take ‘madness’ as ‘detached from reality’, Caligula probably wasn’t mad. If you take ‘madness’ as ‘sociopathic and impulsive’, then Caligula was almost certainly mad.

    • minyakcurry@monyet.cc
      1·
      1 month ago

      He was a bit busy trying to not form an opinion about people who are smelly and don’t take care of themselves (yes, an actual line from Meditations)

      • PugJesus@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
        5·
        1 month ago

        Marcus Aurelius: “Guys, I just found this new medical treatment, it’s so fucking good, everyone in the Empire has to try it”

          • PugJesus@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
            4·
            1 month ago

            Funny enough, we have an extant letter from one of Aurelius’s teachers yelling at him (while he was Emperor no less) for going down to a nice beachside resort town and then spending the whole time working on affairs of state, including working by candlelight all night long. Some sleep would have done poor Marcus some good, one expects.