Most of our media are owned by a handful of tech billionaires, but there's one place that still operates like the internet was never invented.

On the new season of the divided dial from On the Media, we're exploring shortwave radio, where prayer and propaganda coexist with news and conspiracy theories, and where an existential battle

for the public airwaves is playing out right now. Listen to On the Media, wherever you get your

podcasts.

Good Saturday morning to you. Welcome back to practical Stoicism. I'm your host, Tanner Campbell,

and today we'll be covering Meditation 19 from book 4. Before I dive in, a real quick reminder that you can get rid of ads,

access an AMA feature, and join the listener community by going to stoicism.supercast.com. Check the link in the show notes

for more information about that. Also, please check last Friday's episode for a survey I need your help with.

The results of this survey will shape part of the future of this podcast. Thanks. All right,

here it is. Meditation 19 from book four. How much trouble he avoids who does not

look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks, but only to what he does himself, that it may be

just and pure, or as Agathon says, look not around at the depraved morals of others, but run straight along the line

without deviating from it. We are very in the habit of minding the business of others these days.

For example, when someone says something online, we rush to correct them, agree with them,

or in some other way interject our view on whatever

is being discussed or opined on. When a member of our community, be that a physical community

or an online community, takes an action we recoil at, we want to be involved in chastising them.

We want to watch things and concern ourselves with things as if

all things are a form of entertainment to us, a way to spend our time. We want to be part of the

gossip mill, the sewing circle, or the grapevine telegraph. This desire has become so ubiquitous

in our society that entire media franchises are based off of it.

Do you watch the show below deck in your house?

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