WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.720 If I told you that Beethoven, you know, the man 00:00:02.720 --> 00:00:05.200 who composed the sweeping transcendent Ode to 00:00:05.200 --> 00:00:08.660 Joy, also sat down to write a multi -part vocal 00:00:08.660 --> 00:00:11.300 harmony entirely about feces, you'd probably 00:00:11.300 --> 00:00:13.679 think I was, like, making it up. Right. I mean, 00:00:13.679 --> 00:00:16.460 it completely contradicts the image of the pristine, 00:00:16.800 --> 00:00:20.420 untouched classical genius. We tend to project 00:00:20.420 --> 00:00:22.980 this intense reverence onto the past. We really 00:00:22.980 --> 00:00:25.120 do. When you picture the ancient Romans or, you 00:00:25.120 --> 00:00:28.219 know, medieval scholars, it is just so easy to 00:00:28.219 --> 00:00:31.649 imagine these imposs - visibly stern marble statues 00:00:31.649 --> 00:00:33.770 just staring blankly into the distance. Yes, 00:00:33.789 --> 00:00:36.130 speaking only in high -minded philosophy or stoic 00:00:36.130 --> 00:00:39.509 ideals. Exactly. But welcome to today's Deep 00:00:39.509 --> 00:00:42.229 Dive, where we are going to completely dismantle 00:00:42.229 --> 00:00:44.609 that illusion. We have a set of sources today 00:00:44.609 --> 00:00:46.689 that proves the ancients were just as petty, 00:00:47.009 --> 00:00:49.450 profound, and, well, wonderfully messily human 00:00:49.450 --> 00:00:51.609 as you and I are today. And we're working from 00:00:51.609 --> 00:00:55.070 a surprisingly rich, albeit unconventional source 00:00:55.070 --> 00:00:57.490 text for this. It's a comprehensive Wikipedia 00:00:57.490 --> 00:00:59.770 list of Latin phrases beginning with the letter 00:00:59.770 --> 00:01:02.969 C. Which sounds dry, but it's really not. No, 00:01:02.990 --> 00:01:06.269 not at all. Our mission is to basically rescue 00:01:06.269 --> 00:01:09.370 Latin from the dusty halls of academia. We're 00:01:09.370 --> 00:01:12.810 bypassing all the dry legal jargon to extract 00:01:12.810 --> 00:01:15.569 the most fascinating, hilarious, and timeless 00:01:15.569 --> 00:01:18.609 nuggets of human nature hidden within this specific 00:01:18.609 --> 00:01:20.909 slice of the alphabet. It's essentially a massive 00:01:20.909 --> 00:01:24.079 hysterical rabbit hole. And honestly, the sheer 00:01:24.079 --> 00:01:28.019 level of snark is incredible. OK, let's unpack 00:01:28.019 --> 00:01:30.500 this, because right out of the gate, this list 00:01:30.500 --> 00:01:33.340 proves Latin was the ultimate language for delivering 00:01:33.340 --> 00:01:36.579 absolute scorching burns. It really was. Which 00:01:36.579 --> 00:01:39.900 brings us back to Beethoven and the phrase, Cacatum 00:01:39.900 --> 00:01:42.859 non espictum. Right, which translates. quite 00:01:42.859 --> 00:01:45.879 literally to, that's shat, not painted. It's 00:01:45.879 --> 00:01:48.140 just such a visceral insult. And what's fascinating 00:01:48.140 --> 00:01:50.319 is the timeline of how this phrase was weaponized. 00:01:50.420 --> 00:01:53.060 It was a known Latin burn that classical composers 00:01:53.060 --> 00:01:55.680 apparently found hilarious. Yeah, both Joseph 00:01:55.680 --> 00:01:58.120 Hayden and Ludwig van Beethoven actually wrote 00:01:58.120 --> 00:02:01.340 vocal canons based entirely on the text cacidum 00:02:01.340 --> 00:02:04.180 non est pictum. Which is just wild to think about. 00:02:04.319 --> 00:02:06.379 But it didn't stop as an inside joke among musicians 00:02:06.379 --> 00:02:09.319 either. It crossed over into legitimate art criticism. 00:02:09.560 --> 00:02:13.039 Oh right, the British painter. Exactly. In the 00:02:13.039 --> 00:02:16.979 1820s and 1830s, contemporary critics hurled 00:02:16.979 --> 00:02:20.759 this exact Latin phrase at JMW Turner. They were 00:02:20.759 --> 00:02:22.979 specifically targeting his painting, Regulus. 00:02:23.419 --> 00:02:25.860 I mean, they looked at a painting by one of history's 00:02:25.860 --> 00:02:28.639 great masters of light and atmosphere and essentially 00:02:28.639 --> 00:02:31.300 published a review saying, ah, that is feces, 00:02:31.500 --> 00:02:33.680 not art. It really completely shifts how you 00:02:33.680 --> 00:02:35.680 view the language. Yeah. Latin wasn't just a 00:02:35.680 --> 00:02:38.599 sacred, untouchable relic. It was a living tool 00:02:38.599 --> 00:02:41.379 for art critics to blow off steam and, frankly, 00:02:41.860 --> 00:02:44.400 publicly mock people. It reveals a society that 00:02:44.400 --> 00:02:47.219 was highly observant of human flaws and highly 00:02:47.219 --> 00:02:49.460 motivated to call them out. We see that same 00:02:49.460 --> 00:02:51.500 critical eye applied to literature, right? With 00:02:51.500 --> 00:02:54.479 the phrase cacahuethes grubendi. Yes, which translates 00:02:54.479 --> 00:02:57.680 to an insatiable desire to write. Today, we might 00:02:57.680 --> 00:03:00.520 romanticize the idea of writing constantly. We 00:03:00.520 --> 00:03:02.469 think of the creative muse descending, driving 00:03:02.469 --> 00:03:05.449 an author to fill pages and pages. But the ancients 00:03:05.449 --> 00:03:07.629 viewed it through a much, much harsher lens. 00:03:07.770 --> 00:03:09.889 They absolutely did. The phrase derives from 00:03:09.889 --> 00:03:12.469 the Roman poet Juvenal and his satires. And, 00:03:12.490 --> 00:03:14.250 you know, he wasn't praising prolific writers. 00:03:14.289 --> 00:03:16.830 He was describing an incurable itch. An itch? 00:03:16.889 --> 00:03:19.090 Yeah. In fact, if you look at the medical context, 00:03:19.250 --> 00:03:22.370 the Greek root cacothes literally means a malignant 00:03:22.370 --> 00:03:24.909 disease. Juvenal was diagnosing people with a 00:03:24.909 --> 00:03:27.909 malignant disease of the pen. That is amazing. 00:03:27.990 --> 00:03:29.590 It's the ancient Roman equivalent of someone 00:03:29.590 --> 00:03:32.270 who just cannot stop. posting online. The eternal 00:03:32.270 --> 00:03:34.949 reply guys. Exactly. You see these reply guys 00:03:34.949 --> 00:03:37.129 on social media who have to inject their opinion 00:03:37.129 --> 00:03:40.229 into every single conversation, regardless of 00:03:40.229 --> 00:03:42.509 whether they have anything valuable to say. Juvenile 00:03:42.509 --> 00:03:44.830 was looking around Rome, seeing the exact same 00:03:44.830 --> 00:03:48.090 impulse and labeling it an illness. It's so relatable. 00:03:48.389 --> 00:03:50.550 Juvenile's frustration highlights how deeply 00:03:50.550 --> 00:03:53.270 annoying the Romans could be by their own society's 00:03:53.270 --> 00:03:58.599 excesses. But when it came to insults, the absolute 00:03:58.599 --> 00:04:01.719 sharpest ones were reserved for politics. Oh, 00:04:02.080 --> 00:04:04.400 ways. The historian Tacitus provides perhaps 00:04:04.400 --> 00:04:06.939 the ultimate professional takedown with the phrase, 00:04:07.360 --> 00:04:09.939 Capax Imperianisi Imperi set. This was applied 00:04:09.939 --> 00:04:12.400 to the Roman Emperor Galba, right? It translates 00:04:12.400 --> 00:04:14.539 to, and I love this, capable of imperial power, 00:04:14.659 --> 00:04:18.360 if only he had not held it. Yes. Tacitus captures 00:04:18.360 --> 00:04:21.339 an entire tragic arc of leadership in just five 00:04:21.339 --> 00:04:24.920 words. Galba was highly respected before taking 00:04:24.920 --> 00:04:27.399 the throne. He was a successful general, a stern 00:04:27.399 --> 00:04:30.019 disciplinarian, and widely considered the ideal 00:04:30.019 --> 00:04:32.360 candidate to stabilize Rome. Right. It's the 00:04:32.360 --> 00:04:34.300 ancient Roman equivalent of the Peter principle. 00:04:34.480 --> 00:04:36.399 They were entirely capable of being the boss 00:04:36.399 --> 00:04:38.139 right up until the moment they actually became 00:04:38.139 --> 00:04:41.319 the boss and ruined everything. The gravity of 00:04:41.319 --> 00:04:43.660 the Latin is what makes the insult hit with such 00:04:43.660 --> 00:04:46.699 force. It doesn't waste time detailing Galba's 00:04:46.699 --> 00:04:49.480 specific administrative failures or how his rigid 00:04:49.480 --> 00:04:52.079 nature alienated the army. It just cuts to the 00:04:52.079 --> 00:04:54.910 chase. Exactly. It simply presents the paradox. 00:04:55.550 --> 00:04:57.990 The illusion of competence destroyed by the reality 00:04:57.990 --> 00:05:00.269 of power. So if the ancients were this cynical, 00:05:00.389 --> 00:05:02.310 I mean if they were surrounded by bad art, reply 00:05:02.310 --> 00:05:04.670 guys, with the disease of the pen and leaders 00:05:04.670 --> 00:05:06.990 failing upward, it makes perfect sense that they 00:05:06.990 --> 00:05:09.850 had to build incredibly robust systems to navigate 00:05:09.850 --> 00:05:13.910 that society. You don't build a complex legal 00:05:13.910 --> 00:05:16.209 and logical framework if you trust everybody 00:05:16.209 --> 00:05:18.730 implicitly. You build it because you know human 00:05:18.730 --> 00:05:22.370 nature is slippery, self -serving, often deceptive. 00:05:22.550 --> 00:05:24.709 Yeah, they needed mechanics to find the truth 00:05:24.709 --> 00:05:28.209 in a totally chaotic world. Here's where it gets 00:05:28.209 --> 00:05:30.129 really interesting, because that brings us to 00:05:30.129 --> 00:05:32.970 the famous investigative phrase, qui bono. Who 00:05:32.970 --> 00:05:35.990 benefits. Or literally, good for whom. Right. 00:05:35.990 --> 00:05:38.949 And it remains the cornerstone of criminal investigation 00:05:38.949 --> 00:05:42.209 today. When a crime or a political scandal occurs, 00:05:42.870 --> 00:05:45.490 the immediate first step is to trace the advantage. 00:05:45.750 --> 00:05:48.449 Follow the money, basically. Exactly. The philosopher 00:05:48.449 --> 00:05:51.529 Seneca used a very similar variation, qui protest, 00:05:51.769 --> 00:05:54.730 meaning for whom it advances. If an event advances 00:05:54.730 --> 00:05:57.399 someone's social or financial position, you have 00:05:57.399 --> 00:05:59.519 your primary suspect. And the flip side of that 00:05:59.519 --> 00:06:03.860 concept is qui malo, bad for whom. By establishing 00:06:03.860 --> 00:06:06.160 whose life gets noticeably worse because of an 00:06:06.160 --> 00:06:08.959 event, you can quickly eliminate suspects. It 00:06:08.959 --> 00:06:11.040 is a brilliant way to cut through the noise of 00:06:11.040 --> 00:06:13.740 an investigation. It really is. It's pure deductive 00:06:13.740 --> 00:06:16.139 logic. But I have to push back on another famous 00:06:16.139 --> 00:06:19.740 legal phrase from this list, caveat emptor. Let 00:06:19.740 --> 00:06:23.339 the buyer beware. Ah, yes. A foundational concept 00:06:23.339 --> 00:06:25.680 of commerce, dictating that the purchaser is 00:06:25.680 --> 00:06:27.720 responsible for checking whether the goods suit 00:06:27.720 --> 00:06:30.899 their needs. Right. But without a modern regulatory 00:06:30.899 --> 00:06:33.779 agency, doesn't let the buyer beware basically 00:06:33.779 --> 00:06:36.420 mean it's a scammers market? Like, it sounds 00:06:36.420 --> 00:06:38.740 like an ancient get out of jail free card. How 00:06:38.740 --> 00:06:41.399 do you mean? Well, if I buy a broken chariot 00:06:41.399 --> 00:06:44.120 from a merchant and they just shrug and say, 00:06:44.300 --> 00:06:47.519 caveat emptor, what mechanism forces them to 00:06:47.519 --> 00:06:49.480 actually care about the quality of their goods. 00:06:49.720 --> 00:06:52.220 It just seems incredibly one sided. It's very 00:06:52.220 --> 00:06:54.420 easy to look at it that way from a modern perspective, 00:06:54.639 --> 00:06:56.399 assuming it was just the Wild West where the 00:06:56.399 --> 00:06:59.079 loudest, most deceptive merchant won. But the 00:06:59.079 --> 00:07:02.699 sources provide the crucial counterbalance. Caveat 00:07:02.699 --> 00:07:05.860 Vendager. Let the seller beware. Exactly. But 00:07:05.860 --> 00:07:08.139 how did they actually enforce that? Without a 00:07:08.139 --> 00:07:10.720 better business bureau, isn't caveat vended or 00:07:10.720 --> 00:07:13.839 just a polite suggestion? Not at all. The legal 00:07:13.839 --> 00:07:16.500 framework itself forced the seller to take responsibility. 00:07:17.100 --> 00:07:19.480 Caveat Vendator discouraged the sale of items 00:07:19.480 --> 00:07:21.839 of unreasonable quality by establishing liability. 00:07:22.000 --> 00:07:24.459 Oh, so they could actually be held liable. Yes. 00:07:24.980 --> 00:07:27.339 If a merchant deliberately hid a latent flaw, 00:07:28.019 --> 00:07:30.839 say a disease in livestock or a structural crack 00:07:30.839 --> 00:07:33.259 in a piece of equipment, the legal system allowed 00:07:33.259 --> 00:07:35.420 the buyer to hold them accountable for the deception. 00:07:35.620 --> 00:07:38.920 Oh, wow. They recognize market balance. The buyer 00:07:38.920 --> 00:07:41.879 cannot be willfully blind, but the seller is 00:07:41.879 --> 00:07:44.420 legally prohibited from being actively deceitful. 00:07:44.939 --> 00:07:47.920 Both parties had skin in the game. That makes 00:07:47.920 --> 00:07:50.720 a lot more sense. It wasn't just anarchy. It 00:07:50.720 --> 00:07:53.639 was a system of mutual liability. And this obsession 00:07:53.639 --> 00:07:55.680 with building protective frameworks extended 00:07:55.680 --> 00:07:58.160 beyond the marketplace into the realm of logic 00:07:58.160 --> 00:08:00.600 itself. Right. They were constantly trying to 00:08:00.600 --> 00:08:03.100 defend against flawed human reasoning. A perfect 00:08:03.100 --> 00:08:06.279 example from the list is Kuhnhoch -Ergo -Propterhoch. 00:08:06.620 --> 00:08:09.079 With this, therefore, on account of this. The 00:08:09.079 --> 00:08:11.980 classic logical fallacy of confusing correlation 00:08:11.980 --> 00:08:14.790 with causation. Yep. Just because the rooster 00:08:14.790 --> 00:08:16.529 crows before sunrise doesn't mean the rooster 00:08:16.529 --> 00:08:19.550 caused the sun to rise. Exactly. By explicitly 00:08:19.550 --> 00:08:22.209 naming this fallacy, the Romans were building 00:08:22.209 --> 00:08:25.829 a defense mechanism against bad logic. They understood 00:08:25.829 --> 00:08:28.069 that just because two things happen simultaneously, 00:08:28.470 --> 00:08:30.490 it does not mean one caused the other. It's a 00:08:30.490 --> 00:08:32.350 protection against manipulation. Absolutely. 00:08:32.669 --> 00:08:34.970 If you don't have a term for that cognitive trap, 00:08:35.450 --> 00:08:38.450 it is incredibly easy for a populace to be manipulated 00:08:38.450 --> 00:08:41.570 by politicians or merchants, linking unrelated 00:08:41.570 --> 00:08:44.149 events to push an agenda. Here is where the pursuit 00:08:44.149 --> 00:08:46.990 of truth gets incredibly tricky, though. You 00:08:46.990 --> 00:08:48.990 can have all the logic in the world. You can 00:08:48.990 --> 00:08:51.899 understand motives perfectly with Quibono. But 00:08:51.899 --> 00:08:54.700 sometimes the vessel of language itself sets 00:08:54.700 --> 00:08:57.960 a trap for you. Oh, the phonetic trap. Yes. We 00:08:57.960 --> 00:09:00.960 have to break down the phrase, cane neuromagnabella 00:09:00.960 --> 00:09:04.100 persica. This is a brilliant example of how elusive 00:09:04.100 --> 00:09:06.960 meaning can be. What's fascinating here is how 00:09:06.960 --> 00:09:10.039 comprehension is entirely dependent on context, 00:09:10.340 --> 00:09:13.379 geography, and the slow drift of time. Because, 00:09:13.500 --> 00:09:16.659 as a Latin sentence, Cane Nero Magna Bella Persica 00:09:16.659 --> 00:09:19.539 is grammatically flawless. It translates to, 00:09:20.059 --> 00:09:22.759 tell O Nero of the great wars of Persia. It is 00:09:22.759 --> 00:09:25.600 an epic poetic invocation. You are commanding 00:09:25.600 --> 00:09:27.779 an ancient emperor to sing of glorious sweeping 00:09:27.779 --> 00:09:30.100 battles. But if you walk up to a modern Italian 00:09:30.100 --> 00:09:32.320 person, specifically someone speaking the dialect 00:09:32.320 --> 00:09:34.519 of Rome today, and you utter those exact same 00:09:34.519 --> 00:09:36.659 syllables, the meaning fractures entirely. It 00:09:36.659 --> 00:09:38.690 really does. It's so funny. Let's actually break 00:09:38.690 --> 00:09:40.330 down how this works phonetically, because the 00:09:40.330 --> 00:09:43.090 mechanism of the trap is hilarious. In the modern 00:09:43.090 --> 00:09:46.690 Roman dialect, cain means dog. Right. And nero 00:09:46.690 --> 00:09:50.070 means black. Exactly. Magna sounds exactly like 00:09:50.070 --> 00:09:52.850 mangia, which means eats. Then bella translates 00:09:52.850 --> 00:09:56.669 to beautiful, and persica is a peach. So you 00:09:56.669 --> 00:09:58.730 think you are channeling the spirit of the Roman 00:09:58.730 --> 00:10:02.490 Empire, but the person listening hears, a black 00:10:02.490 --> 00:10:06.429 dog eats a beautiful peach. It perfectly illustrates 00:10:06.429 --> 00:10:09.929 why the truth requires constant vigilance. Words 00:10:09.929 --> 00:10:12.350 that carry the weight of history to Tacitus or 00:10:12.350 --> 00:10:15.129 Seneca mean something absurdly different to a 00:10:15.129 --> 00:10:20.409 modern Roman. But a profound reminder to always 00:10:20.409 --> 00:10:22.789 question your translation of the world, because 00:10:22.789 --> 00:10:24.909 the linguistic ground is constantly shifting 00:10:24.909 --> 00:10:27.230 beneath your feet. So we have a society that 00:10:27.230 --> 00:10:29.730 is deeply cynical about bad art and obsessive 00:10:29.730 --> 00:10:32.830 writers. They are building complex logical systems 00:10:32.830 --> 00:10:35.009 to unearth hidden motives and regulate their 00:10:35.009 --> 00:10:37.330 markets. And they're doing all of this while 00:10:37.330 --> 00:10:39.429 wrestling with a language that is inherently 00:10:39.429 --> 00:10:42.330 slippery. Why? What was driving this immense 00:10:42.330 --> 00:10:44.690 effort to structure their reality and call out 00:10:44.690 --> 00:10:46.950 human flaws? If we connect all these disparate 00:10:46.950 --> 00:10:48.669 phrases to the bigger picture, it ultimately 00:10:48.669 --> 00:10:51.549 comes down to the ticking clock. Mortal. Yes. 00:10:52.129 --> 00:10:54.269 The foundational reason the ancients were so 00:10:54.269 --> 00:10:56.919 obsessed with a sta - truth and securing a legacy 00:10:56.919 --> 00:11:00.039 is that they were acutely, painfully aware of 00:11:00.039 --> 00:11:03.120 their own mortality. Time was their ultimate 00:11:03.120 --> 00:11:06.240 constraint. Which leads us to arguably the most 00:11:06.240 --> 00:11:10.039 famous phrase on the entire Wikipedia list. Carpe 00:11:10.039 --> 00:11:14.960 diem from horse's odes. Seize the day. It is 00:11:14.960 --> 00:11:17.419 ubiquitous today, but the common translation 00:11:17.419 --> 00:11:19.779 strips away the vital texture of the original 00:11:19.779 --> 00:11:22.570 Latin. How so? Well, the verb carpery does not 00:11:22.570 --> 00:11:25.669 mean seize in a militaristic, aggressive or conquering 00:11:25.669 --> 00:11:28.470 sense. It refers specifically to the plucking 00:11:28.470 --> 00:11:31.659 of flowers or fruit. Wow, that distinction completely 00:11:31.659 --> 00:11:33.720 changes the philosophy of the phrase. When we 00:11:33.720 --> 00:11:36.419 say seize the day now, it feels tied to modern 00:11:36.419 --> 00:11:38.580 hustle culture. Right, the grindset. Yeah, it 00:11:38.580 --> 00:11:39.940 sounds like you have to go out and conquer your 00:11:39.940 --> 00:11:42.120 to -do list or do something reckless like modern 00:11:42.120 --> 00:11:44.860 yolo, you only live once. So what does this all 00:11:44.860 --> 00:11:47.120 mean for the plucking metaphor, then? Well, think 00:11:47.120 --> 00:11:49.440 about picking an apple off a tree. OK, it's less 00:11:49.440 --> 00:11:51.559 like conquering a battlefield and more like having 00:11:51.559 --> 00:11:53.740 a concert ticket for tonight. You cannot save 00:11:53.740 --> 00:11:56.080 the ticket for next week. You either use it the 00:11:56.080 --> 00:11:58.700 moment the doors open or it becomes completely 00:11:58.700 --> 00:12:01.320 worthless. The same goes for picking a ripe piece 00:12:01.320 --> 00:12:03.820 of fruit from a branch. You are forced to consume 00:12:03.820 --> 00:12:06.779 it right now because the present moment is highly 00:12:06.779 --> 00:12:10.200 perishable. It will spoil. That is a highly accurate 00:12:10.200 --> 00:12:12.799 way to interpret Horace's intent. You aren't 00:12:12.799 --> 00:12:15.340 dominating time. You are simply enjoying its 00:12:15.340 --> 00:12:18.100 fruits before they inevitably decay. The list 00:12:18.100 --> 00:12:20.639 reinforces this exact sentiment of another phrase 00:12:20.639 --> 00:12:24.529 attributed to a Sonius or Virgil. College Virgo 00:12:24.529 --> 00:12:28.509 roses. Kick girl, the roses. A very direct exhortation 00:12:28.509 --> 00:12:31.289 to enjoy youth and beauty before they fade. And 00:12:31.289 --> 00:12:33.669 we see how people adapted this core philosophy 00:12:33.669 --> 00:12:36.970 to highly specific, sometimes absurd situations. 00:12:37.309 --> 00:12:39.629 It wasn't just about the day. The list includes 00:12:39.629 --> 00:12:42.350 Carpe Vinum. Seize the wine. A sentiment I think 00:12:42.350 --> 00:12:44.029 we can all relate to at the end of a long week. 00:12:44.250 --> 00:12:47.070 Definitely. We also see Carpe Noctem. Seize the 00:12:47.070 --> 00:12:49.740 night. This was historically utilized when Carpe 00:12:49.740 --> 00:12:51.700 Diem simply didn't fit the activity at hand. 00:12:51.940 --> 00:12:53.600 Like what kind of activities? Well, for instance, 00:12:53.960 --> 00:12:55.879 astronomers use it as a rallying cry to make 00:12:55.879 --> 00:12:58.679 the most of a clear sky. There is an astronomical 00:12:58.679 --> 00:13:01.740 challenge called a Messier Marathon, where observers 00:13:01.740 --> 00:13:05.519 try to spot a massive specific catalog of deep 00:13:05.519 --> 00:13:07.899 sky objects in a single night. Oh, that makes 00:13:07.899 --> 00:13:09.399 sense. Yeah, you can't seize the day for that. 00:13:09.559 --> 00:13:12.120 You had to Carpe Noctem. It is all about making 00:13:12.120 --> 00:13:14.700 the immediate moment count, whatever that moment 00:13:14.700 --> 00:13:17.600 demands. But reading further down the list, the 00:13:17.600 --> 00:13:19.799 tone regarding mortality shifts drastically. 00:13:20.059 --> 00:13:22.440 It wasn't entirely focused on picking roses and 00:13:22.440 --> 00:13:25.539 drinking wine. No, not at all. There was a deeply 00:13:25.539 --> 00:13:28.000 fatalistic undercurrent in their worldview that 00:13:28.000 --> 00:13:31.019 we cannot ignore. Consider the phrase derived 00:13:31.019 --> 00:13:33.720 from the biblical book of Isaiah and cited by 00:13:33.720 --> 00:13:42.860 John Crease Austin. Let us eat and drink, for 00:13:42.860 --> 00:13:45.940 tomorrow we die. That hits the air completely 00:13:45.940 --> 00:13:48.220 differently than Carpe Diem. Carpe Diem is rooted 00:13:48.220 --> 00:13:50.299 in the appreciation of beauty. Eat and drink 00:13:50.299 --> 00:13:52.379 for tomorrow we die. Feels like, well, surrender. 00:13:53.039 --> 00:13:54.980 It's the attitude of, well, the ship is sinking, 00:13:55.080 --> 00:13:56.659 so we might as well raid the buffet on the way 00:13:56.659 --> 00:14:00.139 down. It reflects the stark, unforgiving reality 00:14:00.139 --> 00:14:03.139 of the ancient world. You could not outmaneuver 00:14:03.139 --> 00:14:07.149 death. This helplessness is hammered home by 00:14:07.149 --> 00:14:09.669 a phrase originating from medieval medicinal 00:14:09.669 --> 00:14:13.730 texts. Contravemortis noncrescent erba in hortus. 00:14:14.090 --> 00:14:16.330 No herb grows in the gardens against the power 00:14:16.330 --> 00:14:18.809 of death. Imagine the psychological weight of 00:14:18.809 --> 00:14:21.529 being an ancient or medieval physician. You possess 00:14:21.529 --> 00:14:23.529 all this specialized knowledge, you cultivate 00:14:23.529 --> 00:14:26.549 these complex gardens of medicinal herbs, but 00:14:26.549 --> 00:14:29.990 ultimately you are powerless. Right. There is 00:14:29.990 --> 00:14:33.909 no biological cure for mortality. This fatalistic 00:14:33.909 --> 00:14:37.350 reality perfectly balances the joy of carpe diem. 00:14:37.830 --> 00:14:39.490 They weren't plucking the roses just because 00:14:39.490 --> 00:14:41.570 they enjoyed horticulture. They were plucking 00:14:41.570 --> 00:14:43.389 them because they were staring directly into 00:14:43.389 --> 00:14:45.809 the void, knowing with absolute certainty that 00:14:45.809 --> 00:14:47.649 the garden would not save them in the end. That 00:14:47.649 --> 00:14:50.590 context adds such incredible depth to this entire 00:14:50.590 --> 00:14:53.070 deep dive. I mean, we started with a simple alphabetical 00:14:53.070 --> 00:14:55.330 Wikipedia list of Latin phrases, starting with 00:14:55.330 --> 00:14:57.929 C, and it took us on a massive journey. It really 00:14:57.929 --> 00:15:00.940 did. We saw snarky art critics roasting masterful 00:15:00.940 --> 00:15:04.399 paintings with Cacatum non espictum, and we watched 00:15:04.399 --> 00:15:06.639 the ancient version of the Peter Principle play 00:15:06.639 --> 00:15:09.139 out with Galba. We explored the mechanics of 00:15:09.139 --> 00:15:11.759 human logic. detailing how to isolate motives 00:15:11.759 --> 00:15:14.899 with Cuebono, and how the law forced market balance 00:15:14.899 --> 00:15:17.580 with caveat venditor, all while navigating the 00:15:17.580 --> 00:15:20.600 bizarre phonetic traps of black dogs eating beautiful 00:15:20.600 --> 00:15:23.240 peaches. And finally, we arrived at the profound, 00:15:23.539 --> 00:15:26.480 highly perishable nature of time. It really proves 00:15:26.480 --> 00:15:28.740 that these are not just dusty words from a dead 00:15:28.740 --> 00:15:31.440 language. They are a mirror reflecting exactly 00:15:31.440 --> 00:15:34.389 who we are. The technological dressing has changed, 00:15:34.789 --> 00:15:37.690 but the core human condition—our flaws, our logic, 00:15:37.809 --> 00:15:40.490 our mortality—hasn't shifted an inch in 2 ,000 00:15:40.490 --> 00:15:42.929 years. So, to you listening right now, whether 00:15:42.929 --> 00:15:45.509 you are actively trying to avoid a shady online 00:15:45.509 --> 00:15:48.169 transaction and practicing your caveat emptor, 00:15:48.470 --> 00:15:50.809 or maybe you are fighting the urge to post a 00:15:50.809 --> 00:15:52.750 six -paragraph rant on social media that you 00:15:52.750 --> 00:15:55.409 really shouldn't send, battling your own kakaotis 00:15:55.409 --> 00:15:57.929 skrebendi— We've all been there. Or maybe you 00:15:57.929 --> 00:16:00.230 just plan to go home tonight, karkovinum, and 00:16:00.230 --> 00:16:03.429 enjoy a great glass of wine. Just remember that 00:16:03.429 --> 00:16:05.769 you are participating in a beautifully messy 00:16:05.769 --> 00:16:08.809 human tradition that spans millennia. You are 00:16:08.809 --> 00:16:12.230 operating within a very long, very familiar lineage. 00:16:12.470 --> 00:16:14.629 But before we wrap up this dip dive, I want to 00:16:14.629 --> 00:16:16.389 leave you with one final thought from the source 00:16:16.389 --> 00:16:18.559 material. We didn't get to explore it during 00:16:18.559 --> 00:16:21.200 the main discussion, but the text outlines a 00:16:21.200 --> 00:16:24.620 concept called circulus viciosus, which in logic 00:16:24.620 --> 00:16:28.100 is a vicious circle, or in science, a positive 00:16:28.100 --> 00:16:31.019 feedback loop. Right. It is closely related to 00:16:31.019 --> 00:16:34.340 another phrase on the list. Circulus in probando. 00:16:34.539 --> 00:16:37.740 which translates to circular reasoning. Exactly. 00:16:38.100 --> 00:16:40.559 It describes an argument or closed -loop process 00:16:40.559 --> 00:16:43.419 that just feeds endlessly on itself, going around 00:16:43.419 --> 00:16:45.259 and around without ever breaking out to find 00:16:45.259 --> 00:16:48.059 an external truth. Now, combine that concept 00:16:48.059 --> 00:16:51.100 with Juvenal's Kokobius Gribendi, that incurable, 00:16:51.379 --> 00:16:54.399 malignant desire to constantly write, document, 00:16:54.519 --> 00:16:56.879 and post every thought we have. Okay, I see where 00:16:56.879 --> 00:16:59.240 you're going with this. Given humanity's modern 00:16:59.240 --> 00:17:01.779 obsession with churning out endless content, 00:17:02.179 --> 00:17:05.890 are we today trapping our in a massive digital 00:17:05.890 --> 00:17:08.650 circulus improbando, are we stuck in a vicious 00:17:08.650 --> 00:17:10.890 circle where we just consume information that 00:17:10.890 --> 00:17:13.569 merely references other information, scrolling 00:17:13.569 --> 00:17:15.829 endlessly through feeds without ever actually 00:17:15.829 --> 00:17:17.970 looking up from our screens to Carpe Diem and 00:17:17.970 --> 00:17:19.450 pluck the fruit that is right in front of us?