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Music Hey there, Prokaptan. Today we've got just a great episode. And I'm going to do some, I don't know what we call this post-mortem introduction recording to talk about what this episode is and why I've done it and how fortunate I am to have such an

illustrious guest on the show. If you are unfamiliar with A.A. Long, there's a link in the show

notes to his vast Wikipedia page. When it comes to minds within

stoicism, minds which are still alive, Tony Long is without peer, really. If it were not for

Tony, no one who has a career of any sort from people like Ryan Holiday and myself, to people

like Chris Fisher and the College of Stoic Philosophers, to people like William Stevens, who co-hosts

this episode with me, and Massimo Pigliucci. None of those people would have the careers they have without the work

that this man did. Now, he's very humble about that fact, and we thank him many times throughout

the recording for that being the case, and he is, again, very humble about it. And he probably

feels that way, as you'll hear, because he didn't go after Stoicism with the intention of resurrecting it.

He just went after it with an academic interest in studying something that wasn't very popular

or being studied to, in a way, set himself apart from what his peers were working on.

He had no grand ambitions, so to speak. But again, without him,

none of the rest of us would really be here, career-wise anyway. So every Stoic influencer you follow,

regardless of whether they are modern Stoics or traditional Stoics or popularizers or, like me,

communicators of Stoicism, they wouldn't be here without this guy.

Now, you might imagine that someone who I'm giving this much pre-recording attention to, let's say,

that I'm building up in this way, is going to really over-deliver in regards to just how much

he knows and how valuable this discussion

...