Interesting article about a growth industry: the platonic escort.
I find the ending thought-provoking: that despite that there are no sex acts involved, they are still "sex workers". Sorta makes sense, I might pay for company and arm candy of a pretty young woman, but would I pay the same for an older man, no matter how scintillating his conversation?
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... but would I pay the same for an older man, no matter how scintillating his conversation?
“I would trade all of my technology for an afternoon with Socrates.” --Steve Jobs
“I would trade all of my technology for an afternoon with Socrates.” --Steve Jobs
He doesn't speak English, Steve.
He did not. If he lived today, he certainly would.
He did not. If he lived today, he certainly would.
What an incredibly stupid thing to say!
Well, most educated people in our times do speak english, wether it's their mother-tongue or not. It's a world-wide known language. Don't you agree?
I used to think so, being Scandinavian. But when I visit Germany, I'm surprised how many people, even younger ones, barely speak English at all.
(One factor may be that Germany overdubs speech in American movies, whereas in Denmark it's subtitled, so people *hear* a lot more English. I think that's great.)
Well, all the german people I know speak incredible english, even the really young ones.
But that's not what the point was. I think that today, in our world, the people who are smart, curious and have the intention of traveling and communicating do make the effort of learning english. It is a question of choice and intention. So I think that if an equivalent of Socrates is alive today, then he certainly speaks english, unless he is born in an amazonian indigenous tribe where there is no access to such knowledge. That's what I meant when I wrote that is Socrates was alive today, he would certainly speak english.
Were Socrates born in our time, it's likely he would speak English. But Jobs is talking about the Socrates that lived thousands of years before English existed, so Steve would have learn the particular kind of Greek Socrates spoke.
If Socrates even existed, there's some doubt.
I'm not sure why anyone would give up their billions for an afternoon with a philosopher whose ideas don't really add much of anything to our understanding of the world, the universe as a whole, or even the human condition. I know Eolake will not agree with that, but the Dialogues these days are really only valuable as masterpieces of literature. Probably even more so in the original language. Sort of like how no one would use Johnson's dictionary as an actual dictionary today but will read it as an entertaining piece of English literature.
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