2020-09-16

virtue

No substantial thoughts today. Today didn't consist of any interesting extra-curricular computing or reading really. Too busy doing other stuff! I don't regret it.

I read a great article in the New Yorker the other day - The Man Who Refused To Spy. It tells the story of an Iranian scientist who the FBI attempted to recruit. When he refused, they blackmailed him. He defeated them in court. So he ended up in an ICE detention centre during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the end, he spent about two years in jail and about half a year in various detention centres (essentially a jail). He is treated extremely unfairly by an indifferent justice system, a machiavellian intelligence apparatus and a sadistic immigration system. Something I want to point out is that in such dire conditions, he consistently displays virtue, or moral excellence. Look these up: auctoritas, comitas, constantia, clementia, dignitas, humanitas, industria, veritas and virtus. Worth learning from.