Idiot: How did energy come into being?

Socrates: It never did. It always was.

Idiot: But how?

Socrates: There is no how, there just is.

Idiot: Like the first law of thermodynamics.

Socrates: No, because you’ve made an arbitrary boundary based on what you can perceive.

Idiot: So physics is wrong?

Socrates: No, but it’s a model.

Idiot: A model based on reality.

Socrates: The forms of reality.

Idiot: Forms?

Socrates: The forms are the effects of substance.

Idiot: And substance?

Socrates: Substance is the totality of the inherent.

Idiot: So the forms are the inherent?

Socrates: No.

Idiot: But they came from substance.

Socrates: Yes, but the two are distinct.

Idiot: So what’s the point?

Socrates: To learn the principles which are their effects a posteriori.

Idiot: Not sure I understand. What are these principles?

Socrates: The principles govern existence, and those who learn them best, will rule best.

Idiot: Okay, but what are they?

Socrates: You want to know but you don’t want to learn.

***

Idiot: Why do we exist?

Socrates: [to himself] Athena save us
[to the Idiot] Because it’s preferable to non-existence.

Idiot: But why is it preferable? I didn’t ask to be born.

Socrates: If we had remained in non-existence, we wouldn’t have discovered the nature of beauty and order.

Idiot: Okay, but there is still horror, suffering, and evil.

Socrates: Without these, their contrasts would not exist, or would have less meaning.

Idiot: Agreed I guess, but life just seems pointless to me. Stupid people everywhere.

Socrates: And here you are.

Idiot: What?

Socrates: If life is meaningless, make your own meaning.

Idiot: But how?

Socrates: You just said you don’t like stupid people.

Idiot: So?

Socrates: [Zoroaster show them a new way] If stupid people didn’t exist, would the world be a better place?

Idiot: Of course, instantly. No more rules to protect them, no more gun control and no fines for jaywalking. Let them shoot themselves in the face or get run over by trucks for being morons.

Socrates: They will harm others too.

Idiot: Good. Idiots upon unprepared idiots.

Socrates: So you want anarchy.

Idiot: First anarchy, then order and stability when smart people reclaim ownership.

Socrates: The smart people will die in the anarchy.

Idiot: Not all of them.

Socrates: How would the survivors, if any, re-establish order?

Idiot: I don’t know, but it’s a start.

Socrates: Your homework is to read up on the failed revolutions of history and why they were stupid.

Idiot: ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

***

Idiot: So what then? There must be an answer. Politics must have a tangible goal.

Socrates: It’s like you’re answering your own questions.

Idiot: Which makes you useless.

Socrates: You came to me.

Dostoyevsky: Why are you wasting time on this idiot?

Socrates: Why did you?

Socrates: [to the Idiot] The stupid perform a role and a function.

Idiot: They’re useless. They will eventually be replaced by machines.

Socrates: And who will operate these machines?

Idiot: Artificial intelligence. Self-operational. Learned intelligence from interaction with humans over time.

Socrates: Robots don’t have souls.

Idiot: Neither do humans. They’re apes with car keys.

Socrates: Misanthropy is for the weak.

Idiot: No one else faces these questions. They are the ones who are weak. Weak and stupid.

Socrates: All men must die. If they did not face them in life, they will face them in death.

Idiot: Doesn’t seem satisfying.

Socrates: Then you are lost. In death, reality is unfolded with clarity like crystals in the sun, and the forms are known as they truly are.

Idiot: It’s like you’re redefining death. Death is not a continuum.

Socrates: But life is?

Idiot: I don’t know. Maybe.

Socrates: If you make death a binary, you’ve made life the same. When the forms are known in this way, they are forced upon you, so it is better to do as I prescribe.

Idiot: I’m lost.

Socrates: Even if you are intelligent, life is not just numbers and mathematics.

Idiot: So?

Socrates: The inherent is order. If you refuse to obey it, you must run from it, but you are running into futility.

Idiot: But how do you learn the inherent?

Socrates: You have reached it.

***