Sister blog of Physicists of the Caribbean in which I babble about non-astronomy stuff, because everyone needs a hobby
Wednesday 28 February 2018
If Plato had Microsoft Excel
More statistics on Plato's highly un-utopian utopia, a.k.a. Magnesia. What can you be punished for ? All kinds of things. Having too much money is a big no-no, even if you don't do anything immoral to obtain it. Being unmarried past 35, or not having children, or not loving your children, or failing to discipline your children, or inviting too many people to your wedding (>20), they're not good either. And there's a whole bunch of laws about fruit, for some reason. Don't even think about having your own shrine, because that'll see you on the block. Interfering with your neighbour's bees is frowned upon. But mostly, don't disobey the state. No, not even when its laws contradict each other, which happens quite a lot : theft must always be punished with a fine, except for when it's punishable by death, and bribery must always be punished by death, except for when it's punished by a fine; citizens must always get harsher treatment than non-residents, except sometimes it's the opposite because why not. Oh, and it's explicitly possible to file charges for kidnapping in some circumstances, but there's no law describing what the penalty for kidnapping is.
Funny old thing, philosophy.
... though if Plato had access to spreadsheets and any basic text editor with a ctrl+f or equivalent search function, history would have been a lot different.
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