What Did The Stoics Get WRONG? | Nick Thompson (CEO of The Atlantic)

Summary

The Daily Stoic Podcast: “What Did The Stoics Get WRONG?”

Guest: Nick Thompson (CEO of The Atlantic)
Date: November 1, 2025
Host: Ryan Holiday

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Episode Overview

This episode features an engaging conversation between Ryan Holiday and Nick Thompson, CEO of The Atlantic, focusing on both Stoicism’s enduring wisdom and its historical blind spots. They discuss themes of adaptation in changing times, the value and erosion of expertise, journalism’s function today, institutional failures, and an in-depth critique of some classical Stoic choices—most notably, Marcus Aurelius’ infamous succession decision. The dialogue naturally weaves personal anecdotes with philosophical meditation, drawing connections between ancient practice and present-day dilemmas.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Burden of Expectations and Changing Competition

• Thompson remarks on his father having once been told by JFK he’d reach the White House, emphasizing how early success can be a curse, continually raising the bar for what counts as achievement.

  “Huge success at a young age is a blessing and a curse.” — Nick Thompson [08:06]

• Holiday and Thompson explore how competitive environments have evolved:
  • More inclusive but consequently much harder (e.g., Harvard’s global applicant pool)
  • The need for adaptability is even more pronounced due to AI and global shifts.
  • The analogy of football’s changing rules reflects this necessity:

  “At some point they invented the forward pass… But that’s not the football we’re playing anymore.” — Ryan Holiday [10:12]

2. Books, Intellectual Lineage, and Professional Wrestling Politics

• Holiday and Thompson admire biographies (e.g., William F. Buckley by Sam Tanenhaus) for how they reveal both intellectual roots and the performative aspects of public life.

  “It’s kind of a key to understanding not just a moment in time, but then this moment in time is a way to understand today’s moment in time.” — Nick Thompson [12:36]

• The concept of “professional wrestling” in politics is critiqued—where politicians attack publicly but foster private relationships, raising questions about authenticity.

3. The Value (and Erosion) of Civil, Cross-Ideological Relationships

• Thompson shares inspiration for his Cold War book, noting Kennan and Nitze’s ability to fundamentally disagree yet maintain friendship—rare in today’s hyper-partisan era.
• Both highlight the dangers of filter bubbles and geographic/political segregation.

  “You live inside an information bubble. You live inside a filter bubble. You live inside a social bubble… And that’s a shame.” — Nick Thompson [14:17]

4. Journalism, the Atlantic’s Mission, and the Signal Gate Crisis

• Thompson describes the Atlantic’s efforts to move outside traditional media bubbles, seeking diverse writers and organizing state-wide events.
• Discussion of the Signal Gate incident (a major news leak involving the Atlantic):
  • The Atlantic’s team “handled it perfectly” by adhering to journalistic ethics—verifying with the White House before publishing. Those denying the story publicly were undermined by prior confirmations.

  “Usually it works the other way around. Normally, you lie and then say it’s true. You don’t say it’s true and then lie afterwards.” — Nick Thompson [17:30]

  • Critique of public figures’ incompetence and lack of strategic thinking in crisis response:

  “This is not a guy I want going eyeball to eyeball with the Secretary of Defense from another country.” — Ryan Holiday [19:27]

5. Journalism’s Decreasing Power and New Forms of Fear

• Holiday observes that public embarrassment, once a major deterrent, has lost effectiveness—officials now fear social media attacks or even physical violence more than media exposés.

  “We are post a world where... a New York Times story or an Atlantic story helps you lose your job because you’re already unqualified for the job to begin with.” — Ryan Holiday [24:27]

6. Can Social Media Be Fixed? AI, Filter Bubbles, and Brain Poisoning

• Thompson proposes that fixing social media is America’s great project:
  • Envisions an online world structured to challenge beliefs, not reinforce them.

  “If you could fix the way the social media algorithms work, that would be it.” — Nick Thompson [29:54]

• The damage of Twitter and information diets is palpable, with Elon Musk as a stark example:

  “That’s one of the starkest examples of what an information diet can do to a person. I mean, he went from... the cutting edge of all these breakthroughs... to fantasy land.” — Ryan Holiday [28:53]

  • They discuss the broader consequences—how social media enables denial, bad leadership, and a lack of accountability even in matters of national security.

7. The Death of Expertise and Institutional Failure

• Thompson recounts the destruction of the U.S. Institute of Peace due to political showmanship and misunderstanding:

  “If what you care about is not expertise in government, but how to get a good tweet, well, then you blow it up. And so the whole institute where my dad spent a lot of his life is blown up with this utter nonsense.” — Nick Thompson [34:11]

• Holiday and Thompson note the failure of process and abundance of chaos—drawing a dangerous analogy to applying Musk’s “Twitter playbook” to government agencies (e.g., USAID, CDC).

8. Navigating Insane Systems: Rationalization vs. Integrity

• Many rationalize working within “crazy” systems, believing they’re essential to preventing greater harm—a point illustrated with characters like Seneca, Mark Milley, and Mike Pence.

  “If everyone convinces themselves of that [being the essential adult in the room], then nobody ever actually does [take a stand].” — Ryan Holiday [41:14]

9. The Stoics’ Great Failure: Marcus Aurelius and Succession

• Thompson and Holiday tackle a core myth: Why did Marcus Aurelius, the paragon of Stoic wisdom, leave the empire to his disastrous son Commodus?
  • Context: Marcus had several sons, most died, leaving only Commodus, who became a catastrophic ruler.
  • Possible reasons: trauma from losing multiple children, the pressure of tradition, lack of precedent for bypassing one's own offspring.

  “This is why hereditary kingships are bad.” — Nick Thompson [43:51] “As far as we’re told, he entrusts his son [Commodus] to the smartest advisors in all of Rome… And then [Commodus] promptly fires all of these people.” — Ryan Holiday [45:08]

10. The Limits of Stoic Philosophy: Agency and Reform

• Holiday critiques Stoic “resignation” to fate, citing George Washington’s inaction on slavery and Marcus Aurelius’ lack of reforms:

  “He seems to have this very circumscribed understanding of what his capacities are. That’s kind of a letdown considering how rare philosopher kings are.” — Ryan Holiday [51:20]

• Thompson extends the critique with the world of running: sometimes real progress comes from refusing to accept limitations (“anti-Stoic” breakthroughs).

11. Stoicism in Practice: Passivity, Agency, and Activism

• Holiday clarifies that Stoics were not all passive:
  • Many were radically active (“Stoic opposition,” the U.S. Founders), and the advice not to be “triggered” is advice for the engaged.
  • The focus must be on self-control and engagement, not just suffering in silence.

  “If you’re in the arena... you gotta be in control of your emotions because the stakes are very high.” — Ryan Holiday [56:17]

  • Stoicism’s orientation towards action vs. disengagement is context-dependent.

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• “Huge success at a young age is a blessing and a curse.”
  — Nick Thompson [08:06]

• “At some point they invented the forward pass… But that’s not the football we’re playing anymore.”
  — Ryan Holiday [10:12]

• “Our country would work a lot better if people who disagreed with each other in politics were also having dinner with each other and able to sort of talk, understand, work through it.”
  — Nick Thompson [13:51]

• “If you could fix the way the social media algorithms work, that would be it.”
  — Nick Thompson [29:54]

• “This is not a guy I want going eyeball to eyeball with the Secretary of Defense from another country.”
  — Ryan Holiday [19:27]

• “If you’re in the arena... you gotta be in control of your emotions because the stakes are very high.”
  — Ryan Holiday [56:17]

• “This is why hereditary kingships are bad.”
  — Nick Thompson [43:51]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [08:06] — The problem with expectations and early success
• [13:01] — Civil disagreement during the Cold War; lessons for today
• [14:44] — Media filter bubbles and geographic segregation
• [15:24] — The Atlantic’s mission: diversity and state-by-state engagement
• [17:09] — The Signal Gate crisis and ethical journalism
• [18:45] — Strategic incompetence in public leadership
• [24:27] — The limits of public embarrassment as a deterrent
• [29:54] — Social media’s algorithmic rot and how to fix it
• [34:11] — The death of expertise and political misunderstanding
• [41:14] — Navigating “insane” systems: rationalization and integrity
• [43:31] — Marcus Aurelius, succession, and Stoic failure
• [51:20] — Stoic passivity, agency, and the problem of limited reform
• [54:08] — The paradox of Stoic passivity vs. necessary progress
• [56:17] — True Stoic engagement: self-control in the arena

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Closing Reflections

Ryan and Nick end by discussing the nuanced lesson of Stoicism: its advice to focus on what we can control is powerful, but must be coupled with engaged, informed action—not resignation. The great Stoics of history wrestled with these same dilemmas, leaving contemporary listeners with both wisdom and warnings to consider.

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This summary provides a full arc of the conversation and highlights central philosophical, historical, and journalistic insights. It’s designed for anyone who wants a comprehensive, episode-length briefing that is true to the hosts’ voices and the spirit of their discourse.

Transcript

[Ryan Holiday]

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[Nick Thompson]

But.

[Ryan Holiday]

You don't choose a Toyota truck to follow the beaten path. You choose it to find the places.

[Nick Thompson]

In between.

[Ryan Holiday]

The detours where each adventure pulls you toward the next. And wrong turns turn out right. So why would you ever take a tour when you could take a detour? Toyota trucks One of the hardest things to watch the last several months has been the cuts to organizations all over the world that provide aid to the poorest, most vulnerable people. That's not just a political issue that has real consequences for real people. And if you're like me, that's sort of heartbreaking to watch. And maybe you're wondering, like, how can I help? What can I do about it? I researched today's sponsor, actually, when I was writing Right thing right now. GiveWell is an incredible organization. It's trusted by tens of thousands of donors all over the world, and it provides free and independent research about how you can provide a big impact. GiveWell has spent the last 18 years researching global health and poverty alleviation, and it directs funding to the highest impact opportunities they've found. Over 150,000 donors have already trusted GiveWell to direct more than $2.5 billion including some donations from me. Their evidence suggests that these donations will save over 300,000 lives and thanks to the donors who choose to sponsor their research. GiveWell doesn't take a cut from your tax deductible donation to their recommended funds. If this is your first gift through goodwill, you can have your donation matched up to $100 by the end of the year or as long as those matching funds last. To claim your match, go to givewell.com and pick podcast and enter the Daily Stoic at checkout. Make sure they know that you heard about GiveWell from the Daily Stoic. To get your donation matched. GiveWell.org, code Daily Stoic to donate or find out more. Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic. Each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, something to help you live up to those four Stoic virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview Stoic philosophers. We explore at length how these Stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend, when you have a little bit more space, when things have slowed down, be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with your journal, and most importantly, to prepare for what the week ahead may bring. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic podcast. I was in Palm Springs a couple of months ago and I went for this little run and this is the reel that I recorded while I was running. It is 4pm in Palm Springs. It is 105 degrees outside. My wife says I have a mental illness, but I am training for this marathon. It's going to be hot in Greece. I'm going to do it early in the morning, but the idea is you do it when you don't want to do it. You push yourself when it's hard. You try to keep it within reason or bounds. Maybe this is beyond that, but it's the only slot I have. We just flew in from Texas a couple hours ago and then we have dinner and then I have a talk tomorrow. So I'm going to do this run. I've done it before. It's beautiful. It's going to be very hot and tough, but you challenge yourself and it all leads you to where you want to go. I just hope I don't get heat stroke and I hope I can make it back. So I've said this before. I don't know if my Running habit is always totally healthy. The fact that I can't not do it is maybe something the Stoics would be a little suspicious of. But you know, you gotta pick your poison sometimes. So I think better this than a more destructive habit. If you listen to part one of this episode, you heard me introduce Nick Thompson, our guest. Nick is the CEO of the Atlantic. He runs to and from his office every day. He's also an American record holder for men in the 45 plus category in the 50k race. So he doesn't mess around. Also a great writer and apparently we go way back. He tells a story at the beginning of part one where apparently I'd asked him about something for an article I was writing for the observer where I was an editor many years ago, almost 10 years ago now. I got this would've happened maybe even more now that I'm thinking about it. It goes way back. Anyways, it was kind of a just a delightful full circle interview. We ended up talking much more than I thought we were gonna talk, which I think is a good sign. You know, you never know when you're having guests on. Are they gonna be someone that you're gonna hit it off with or sometimes people aren't always well set up for the conversation style I do. We've actually taken a briefing guest go. Ryan doesn't always ask questions. Sometimes he just says stuff and then it's your turn. Cause not everyone can handle that. Maybe it's not the best style, but style and I either want to have a good conversation or I want to wrap it up as quickly as possible. And in this one I did not feel that way. We really got into it. And in part two we talk more about the discipline of running. Some of his thoughts on journalism. He's the CEO of one of the longest standing magazines in the country. And we talk about the signal gate crisis, which they were right in the middle of. Then we talk about some stoicism at the end, which was a nice surprise. As I said, nick is the CEO of a magazine that dates back to the 1850 that's published some stoics over the years, including Emerson and Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Previously he was at Wired and the New Yorker. That's where we connected for the little thing we talked about at the beginning of part one. And he's a great runner. He has a new book called the Running A Father, a Son and the Simplest of Sports. I thought it was beautiful. I thought it was haunting. There's a bunch of daily dad stuff in there. Too mostly what not to do as far as his father was concerned. But you can follow Nick on Instagram and on Twitter nxtompson and check out his new book, the Running A Father, a Son and the Simplest of Sports. Hey, it's Ryan. I'm doing a bunch of live dates, including one coming up soon. I'm going to be in Seattle, Washington, on December 3, San Diego, California, on February 5, and Phoenix, Arizona, on February 27. The talk I just did in Austin sold out, so this will almost certainly sell out, too. I would love to see you there. Go grab tickets@daily stoiclive.com.

[Nick Thompson]

This is the problem with my father being told by John F. Kennedy that he's gonna get to the White House before him. Right. It suddenly makes it hard to appreciate little successes because you really need big successes, and so huge success at a young age is a blessing and a curse.

[Ryan Holiday]

Relatively few wunderkins turned out to be that wonderful. It's like the promise is there and all the ingredients are there, but there's something. Maybe it's you needed the drive to really earn it and you don't have it because you think it's yours. Or, I don't know, maybe it's like in the older, less competitive, less meritocratic. Not that our world is perfectly meritocratic, but when they were deliberately excluding large swaths of the population from the competition, you could be mediocre and entitled and still get pretty far.

[Nick Thompson]

And now, lot harder.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah. You're competing not just against men, women, people from all different backgrounds, but also like the whole fucking world.

[Nick Thompson]

Right.

[Ryan Holiday]

Like Harvard used to just be for this small part of the country could go there. And now it's like, no, no, no. Do you know how many people live in China? And they're best people.

[Nick Thompson]

They all want to go there, too.

[Ryan Holiday]

They go here, too.

[Nick Thompson]

Yeah.

[Ryan Holiday]

That can be either really inspiring and invigorating, or it can kind of just.

[Nick Thompson]

Well, then it also, like, you can get your credential and you can win in the 1960s in an easier world, and then you're competing in the 1990s and the 2000 in a much harder world.

[Ryan Holiday]

Right.

[Nick Thompson]

And that's. That was tricky.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah. I think that kind of explains the political environment that we're in a little bit, too. Although there obviously is a youth movement to it. A lot of it is like, people going like, hey, like, I don't like this new competitive environment. I'm not as comfortable in this competition. Like, I'm really good at trading stocks, but I'm not good at being polite to people. And you're saying that politeness and respect and collaboration is also one of the skills required to win in this competition. Fuck that. Fuck you. Let's take this part of the game off the table and just compete in the area that I'm comfortable with. And that's not how it works.

[Nick Thompson]

It's not. Well, it shouldn't be how it works.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah, no, right. But it's like, hey, they invented the forward pass at some point in football and so the game changed.

[Nick Thompson]

Yeah.

[Ryan Holiday]

And you're like, no, no, no. I just like to smash into people. That's the football I like. But that's not the football we're playing anymore. It's a different, more elegant, finesse game now.

[Nick Thompson]

And so, yeah, one of the skills that's so important, it's going to change even more with AI when it starts changing, like upending businesses, changing the way we work, changing the way we relate to each other. Like the ability to adapt and to play. Like to adapt to football where there's no forward pass, to adapt to football where there's a forward pass, and to adapt to football where you've got like half your team is robots. Like, yes, that's like part of the skill for the next.

[Ryan Holiday]

Have you read this biography of William F. Buckley, the Sam Tanenhaus?

[Nick Thompson]

I haven't read that.

[Ryan Holiday]

It's incredible.

[Nick Thompson]

Really. He's a great writer. I mean, Tannenhouse is. And Buckley is an amazing person to write about.

[Ryan Holiday]

I mean, I was like, do I need to read an 800 page biography of someone I don't care about and also don't like? And I'm like, no, I need every page of this.

[Nick Thompson]

It's really good.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah, it's really good. And it's kind of the same. You're like, oh, this guy was just born. Well, first off, talk about sort of overbearing fathers. That's like sort of original sin. I was fascinated by the amount of intellectual energy. Once you understand the father, you go, oh, this, all this work and all this thinking and all this sort of rhetoric and elegance and artifice is just trying to dress up the inherent antisemitism, racism, reactionaryism of the anti communism of the father. You're just like, he can't be like, well, dad hates Jews, so I hate Jews. It's like, well, that's not okay anymore. But I gotta figure out, you could.

[Nick Thompson]

Have fought against it. I mean, you do have a bunch of options.

[Ryan Holiday]

No, no, no, of course you could. Obviously that would've been Bad. What I'm saying is he gets the beliefs from his father. He accepts them, but they're not acceptable.

[Nick Thompson]

Right.

[Ryan Holiday]

He creates this whole political movement around, kind of sublimating the raw kind of energy behind it, but making it palatable and creating a way that other people who didn't get that spoon fed to them can believe. Oh, okay. Actually, Joseph McCarthy isn't a liar and a drunkard and a fl. No, he's actually serving this purpose. And it's like. It's fascinating.

[Nick Thompson]

Yeah. Wow. I'll have to go buy that in the bookshop when I'm on my way out.

[Ryan Holiday]

So the idea of the bookstore is it's just the books that my wife and I have loved.

[Nick Thompson]

Okay.

[Ryan Holiday]

And so I've got like 100 pages left, but I will definitely carry it. Yeah. Sometimes there are these figures and you're like, oh, this is kind of a key to understanding not just a moment in time, but then this moment in time is a way to understand today's moment in time. Yeah.

[Nick Thompson]

No, my previous book was on the Cold War. It was called the Hawk in the Dovens about Paul Nitze and George Kennan. And what drew me to that story is something quite relevant today. So they're like the two people who are key in American foreign policy from 1945 to 1990. They completely diametrically disagree on all matters of foreign policy, and yet they maintain a friendship. And part of what drew me to that story was thinking, this is something that needs to be told for today, where we have such a hard time talking to each other. Right.

[Ryan Holiday]

That was very common then, because even with Buckley, Right. He's like friends with all these people that he is either attacking their lifestyles or their choices. And I can't. Part of it's good, and then part of it, you go, there's a professional wrestling element of it that I don't like, which is like, you are saying these horrible things or claiming to believe these things or enacting these policies, but on an individual level, you clearly don't.

[Nick Thompson]

Believe it or that, okay, the professional wrestling analogy is good, but as a general principle, our country would work a lot better if people who disagreed with each other in politics were also having dinner with each other and able to sort of talk, understand, work through it.

[Ryan Holiday]

Two people who sincerely believe diametrically opposed things, them being able to come together, collaborate, not see the other person as the enemy or a traitor or whatever, that's great.

[Nick Thompson]

And then to understand, it's like even just to listen, to get outside of your Filter bubble and to listen. Right. And maybe you don't change your view overall, but you actually understand it in a much deeper way because you've challenged your assumptions. And so much of the problem today is you live inside an information bubble. You live inside a filter bubble. You live inside a social bubble. We've segregated ourselves geographically. Like, where we are right now is actually. It's great. There's a real mix of people across political spectrum, but most of America, it's all blue or it's all red. Right. And that's a shame.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah. No, I do think this sort of great sort that's happening is beneficial in that way. Yeah. I think too many. There's no reason that all media has to be based in New York City or Los Angeles.

[Nick Thompson]

Yeah. I mean, one of the things we're trying to do at the Atlantic, obviously we're based in New York and Washington, but, like, we are starting a strategy of going to every state. Right. Like, we're doing a big partnership with the Texas Tribune Festival in November.

[Ryan Holiday]

He just asked me to talk at that.

[Nick Thompson]

You should talk at that. It'd be great. I'll be there. So we're spending time in Austin. We're doing an event in every state in the country. Right.

[Ryan Holiday]

Wow.

[Nick Thompson]

We are trying to get writers as far across the political spectrum as we can. So we are doing our best to be a magazine about America.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah. And you need people who have a sort of a basis and a familiarity with other parts of the country.

[Nick Thompson]

Totally.

[Ryan Holiday]

I actually think of all the Trump ideas, sometimes there's occasionally a good one. I do think relocating certain government branches makes sense. I think it's good the CDC is in Atlanta. Why would be in Washington, D.C. yeah, you should.

[Nick Thompson]

I mean, let's hope the CDC survives. Of course, I would like it to stay in Atlanta and have as many employees as it did a year ago, but we'll see. Yes. I absolutely agree. Right. Like, move the government around, put it in different places. And with the Atlantic, you know, I love having writers around the country. You just have different perspective. You learn different things. You know, you want people who come from different schools. It's hard. Like, there are a lot of, like, reasons why journalism centralizes in New York, but, you know, do your best to get outside of it.

[Ryan Holiday]

But a lot of it is because at some point you had to, like, physically hand someone the draft of your story that's not so necessary. Or someone wanted to be able to walk downstairs and look at the printers.

[Nick Thompson]

Right.

[Ryan Holiday]

And so. Yeah. Why it's concentrated there Just like why tech is concentrated in Silicon Valley historically makes total sense. But for the ecosystem to remain vibrant, you want, I think, kind of a diaspora of people in different places.

[Nick Thompson]

And we're doing our best.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah. And, yeah, there's no reason. There's no reason the writers themselves need to all be in one place.

[Nick Thompson]

They don't need to be in one place. And you can send them around and they can live in Washington so they can get all their sources, which is very valuable. Has worked out great for us. But, like, send them around the country. You show up at D.C. cocktail party, sometimes you get added to group chats. It's wonderful. But it's wonderful to have him going around the country.

[Ryan Holiday]

Well, it was funny knowing about that story and then reading the book. I was like, I wonder if he had to go on some long runs to process how to handle this.

[Nick Thompson]

It was funny. I didn't, you know, because I'm the CEO, not the editor in chief. I don't know what the Atlantic is going to run today. Like, I'm not involved in that process. And when that story came out, it all was so clear that we were in the right and that the folks criticizing us were in the wrong.

[Ryan Holiday]

Of course, that.

[Nick Thompson]

And it wasn't like a 6040 thing. It was like a 99.9 to 0.1 thing.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah, no, no, that one's not. That's not even like the Pentagon Papers where there's some moral dilemma.

[Nick Thompson]

It's very clear, very clear. And in fact. And Jeff Goldberg, the editor in chief who gets included in the signal chat, handles it perfectly right. He doesn't disclose the classified information. He calls the White House. The White House says, yep, that's true. No problem, we publish it. Then after they've said it was true and after we've published it, like Nikki Haley and Pete Hegseth go out and like, that story is false. It's nonsense. There's no class. And we're like, usually it works the other way around. Like, normally you lie and then say it's true. You don't say it's true and then lie afterwards.

[Ryan Holiday]

Well, the amateur ness too, of the, hey, it's not true. Even though they could have very clearly looked at the chats and then been like, oh, shit, we gotta be very careful about how we deny and spin this story because we're setting them up for the next move. What alarming to me about how that happened. Not just the general incompetence of it, but let's like you take something like the Cuban Missile Crisis. And you go, okay, Secretary of Defense and the President better be very well versed in game theory, because they do something, the other side does something, and this process can spin wildly out of control. You want someone who's able to have that kind of strategic empathy and savvy.

[Nick Thompson]

So they tell the pilots, if you're shot at, you say, it's birds.

[Ryan Holiday]

Right.

[Nick Thompson]

Know what will happen if they say they're shot at? Right?

[Ryan Holiday]

Yes. And so to get off the plane and be like, there was nothing in this text. It didn't happen. And it's like, he knows, and he's in the media. Right. So he's seen scandals and covered them. And he would have some instincts as a journalist, even a very partisan one, of how he would attack or spin this story if he was trying to make someone look bad. And he, like, doesn't understand that he's so emotional and then nurses these grievances, and then so impulsive that he can't think that he's serving to you on a silver platter your next story and the story after that and the story after that. And you go, this is not a guy I want going eyeball to eyeball with the Secretary of Defense from another country.

[Nick Thompson]

Right? Yeah. It was a very weird situation. So I didn't actually have to go on any long runs to process this. I just sort of sat back and was like, wow, this is working out really well for us.

[Ryan Holiday]

I just meant that not the long runs to decide what you're going to do, but just the stress of. Sometimes you have those days where you're like, have I just spent all day refreshing this as it's coming in? And those are the days that I feel like I really need to process or else I'm just going crazy because I did. I wasn't my regulated self throughout the day. I was in this crisis mode.

[Nick Thompson]

Yeah, no, I definitely had that. Where you're responding to comments and there were things that. They were the perpetual adrenaline dump, I'm.

[Ryan Holiday]

Sure for about 72 hours. Totally.

[Nick Thompson]

And the White House is like, the Atlantic is a failing magazine losing money. I'm like, no, actually, we're doing great. We're profitable. We've turned the corner. Subscriptions at our record high. We've been around since 1857. You can say you don't like us, but financially, I run the P and L. We're crushing it. I got those facts. They're right here. So there were some things I had to respond to.

[Ryan Holiday]

I'm recording this on a Monday, and Monday is our grocery store day. In our family, I usually pick my kids up from school and we go over to Whole Foods, get all our groceries for the week. Although here very shortly we're gonna go over there to get our Thanksgiving turkey because they've got a bunch of great options. Turkeys start at 1.49a pound. If you have prime with organic birds at $2.99 a pound and they only carry no antibiotic ever, turkeys that will bring quality to your table at a great price. Whole Foods has great everyday prices on all your Thanksgiving essentials. Whether you celebrate with a massive family or just a few close friends, everything they sell has high standards to help you shop with confidence. Enjoy. So many ways to save on your Thanksgiving spread at Whole Foods Market. You've probably heard of eight Sleep by now because I talk about it all the time. I woke up on my eight Sleep mattress pad this morning and I've slept on one for years. Eight Sleep is a company that is about improving your sleep and they have dramatically improved mine. The Pod 5 is the newest generation of Eight Sleep's signature product, the Pod, which is a smart mattress cover that you put right on top of your existing mattress. Their results are up to one hour of additional quality sleep per night. Eight Sleep also just came out with their new Pod pillow cover. It syncs with your Pod system and automatically adjusts your head and neck temperature in real time and based on your sleep patterns. And like the mattress cover, you slip it over any pillow you already love. Just head over to 8sleep.com Dailystoicnow and use code Dailystoic to get 350 bucks off your very own Pod 5 Ultra. And the best part is you still get 30 days to try it at home and return it if you don't like it. I think you'll love it. Your body will thank you for this investment in better sleep. Eight Sleep ships to many countries worldwide and you can see all the [e-mail] daily stoic. Well, again, yeah, like you, I think you can get used to saying whatever you want.

[Nick Thompson]

Well, that was the weirdest thing about the crisis. It was like, do they think, like. Because sometimes you can lie and BS your way out of something, right? Do they really think that they can lie and BS their way out of this? Because, like, there's screenshots, right? It's not questionable. It's like, well, here's what I think.

[Ryan Holiday]

Has happened and this is a shift we haven't quite figured out what to do with because I just went through this thing where I was supposed to give a talk at the Naval Academy, and then they basically, they found out that I was going to mention that they'd been removing books from the library and they revoked my thing like minutes before I was supposed to go on. And so I thinking about the old paradigm, I was like, guys, the person delivering the message is obviously not the bad guy. And is it, you know, just someone who's having to think about his pension, right? And I go, I think you think you're going to avoid controversy by not doing this, but you understand it's going to be a lot more controversy. This is how it works. I was like, you've publicly announced this talk. Even if I don't say anything about it, journalists are going to know. Some student is going to say something, you're going to get way more attention. And then he goes, yeah, yeah, I understand. And then I realize, oh, they don't care about negative attention at all. We are post a world where, I mean, the fact that Pete Hegseth did that and didn't lose his job, tells you did the signal gate thing and didn't lose his job, you realize, oh, it would have to be almost unfathomably bad, the scandal that for us to reenter a world where a New York Times story or a Wall Street Journal story or an Atlantic story helps you lose your job because you're already unqualified for the job to begin with and it's embarrassing that you're even in the job. So like this normal world where a journalist reporting that you are unqualified is not serious enough. So what are they afraid of? Like in this case, these people, this is like a three star admiral or whatever that is ultimately making this decision. He or she is worried not about the New York Times piece that I'm gonna write about my invitation being revoked or the subsequent, you know, CNN story. They're worried about the President screaming at them, right? Or they're worried about someone coming after them for mortgage fraud or Elon Musk sending a tweet about them. Or they're literally worried about a crazy person showing up at their house, right? Because of the attention. And so I think that's the scary world we're entering where it's actually public embarrassment or losing face is no longer an effective deterrent because on the other side you have this stick of violence or.

[Nick Thompson]

And you gotta hope that somehow this reverses and we get a more trustworthy, believable civic discourse. But we haven't been going in the right direction for quite some time now.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah. I don't know how you put that car back on the track.

[Nick Thompson]

Well, my hypothesis a couple years ago was that if you could fix social media, Right. So that you would go on Twitter, you would go on Instagram, you would go on threads, and you would emerge with a deeper understanding of the world as opposed to just like a hotter understanding of your viewpoints. Right. If you could do that. Right. You would solve a lot of these problems. Like, if you could have the Internet exist as a place where it's like Ken and nhtsa, where you're learning from each other. And so I tried to build a social media platform, and the moment to do this is now, while social media is fragmenting and while you have the opportunity with AI, AI can introduce you to new viewpoints. AI can help you challenge your assumptions. AI can help you think through things more deeply. There is an opportunity to do this. I don't know who is going to do this. And it doesn't seem like the platforms are doing that because there's obviously a business imperative to. Twitter just moves further and further to the right, deeper and deeper. Filter bubble threads is countering that blue sky. But there is a way to get there. Like, you're probably in group chats where you can have real discourse. And you're in the group chat because you're like, you agree on something else that put you in the group chat. Like, you're either you're part of a community, you're soccer dads, you're whatever. So you have this thing that binds you that's outside of the hard issues. And then you can talk about the hard issues. That is doable. Right. And, like, getting that done at scale is like a project that would do so much good for America.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah. You could argue that Elon Musk might ultimately do the world a service by effectively destroying Twitter.

[Nick Thompson]

Yeah.

[Ryan Holiday]

You know, like, it's certainly gotten worse and made had real consequences for how many brains it's broken, but, like, it's also dying at the same time.

[Nick Thompson]

I had, you know, when he took it on, I was like, it's probably gonna get worse, but maybe he'll make it better. But it hasn't.

[Ryan Holiday]

Well, it's interesting that he decided to. It's clearly like it broke his brain quite some time ago. Right. Like, how does this guy that used to read Soviet rocket manuals and host salons about space so we could figure out the aerospace industry and the solar industry and then electric cars and batteries and all, like, this guy that was this first principles thinker, not that Long ago. Like, recognizably a first principles thinker at the highest level. Go to a guy that's like tweeting misinformation from like Russian bots. How does that happen?

[Nick Thompson]

Three in the morning, right?

[Ryan Holiday]

Yes. And hundreds of times a day. Yeah, right. Like, clearly, to me, that's one of the starkest examples of like, what an information diet can do to a person. I mean, he went from being like, as good a shape as you could be in to like one of those people that, you know, is like on the TV shows where it's like, I weigh 3,000 pounds and I, you know, I have to be lifted out of my house by a crane. Like, it's. He went from as healthy as you could be. I mean, also probably always an asshole and weird on the spectrum and whatever, but like lived in not just reality, but on the cutting edge of all these breakthroughs, right?

[Nick Thompson]

Like lived in the future and now just.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yes, in fantasy land.

[Nick Thompson]

I do think that the more time you spend on Twitter, like, the more likely it is to break your brain. You see that with lots of colleagues, you see that with lots of people you work with, not with everybody. And if you could change the architecture, right, if you could somehow fix it and change it, or you could build an alternative platform, that would do. I mean, my inspiration for this project, which we since Seoul shut down, was a conversation with a friend of mine where we're like, what is the best thing you could do for America right now? All the things that one could possibly do. Part of the reason I work at the Atlantic is my genuine view that the Atlantic helps American democracy by informing people across spectrum, by knocking at everybody, by doing deeply fact checked reporting, and that my skill is like, building business models for publications like this. So if I'm gonna do something good for the world, it is to make as much money for the Atlantic as possible so we can hire as many journalists as possible and put them into our editorial machine. And I had this conversation with a friend, like, what is the best thing you could, like, reasonably do for America? It's like, well, if you could fix the way the social media algorithms work, that would be it.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah. No, because it certainly has broken a lot of people's brains. And I do think that's a big part of it. But when I said it, I don't know how you put that cart back on the. On the tracks. I mean, like, where we all agreed that there were certain things, like if you accidentally add a reporter to highly sensitive, you know, sort of war plans, and you don't resign in shame.

[Nick Thompson]

Right.

[Ryan Holiday]

Like, that's.

[Nick Thompson]

Or even admit it was the wrong thing to do.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah, yeah, that's obviously a social media problem, but that's also, like, that's what happens when you. When you live in a culture or world where honor means nothing and reputation means nothing like that. That's further upstream, I think, than even social media. Imagine you think about the. When he's asked, right, if he wants to be Secretary of Defense, he should have said, I'll be spokesman for the Defense Department. Because he's just like, no part of him is like, I am not. Like, if there was ever an instance where imposter syndrome needed to rear its head, it should be here. You know, like, it's remarkable.

[Nick Thompson]

I mean, he really believed. He has a strange sense of what needed to happen, the most important thing for American war fighting. But he did have a sense that, like, to fix the American war fighting machine, you have to sort of get rid of the trans soldiers. And he really believed that was the number one thing to do and he was the guy to do it. So I guess. I guess in a way I'm defending him. Like, he, I don't agree with, he thought was the central problem in the American military, but he did think there was a central problem, that he was the first person.

[Ryan Holiday]

Well, I think he thinks that's the central problem with the American military and sort of the global ecosystem, because he just doesn't know literally anything about it. Like, I think all of them have this view, Musk included, of, like, how the world works from, like, tweets they've read, like, tweet threads they've read and from, like Fox News stories, but they just don't. They don't. They, like when you. They don't understand how these organizations and systems evolved, why they exist, you know, and part of that, I think, is the Silicon Valley thing of, like, I don't know anything about this industry, but I'm going to disrupt it, right? Is like kind of become an ethos of all of. Not like I'm going to understand it inside it out and then fix it or improve it or blow it up because of X, Y and Z. But it's like, yeah, yeah, I get how it works, you know, and then that goes to your first book. Like, take someone like Kenan or like, they were deeply informed, not just like on a intelligence basis, but like, they knew all the literature and the class. They were just.

[Nick Thompson]

You speak the language, right? Like, you speak Russian, you go and you live there and that helps, gives you an understanding. You don't do, like, one real estate deal for McDonald's in Moscow. Right. And suddenly you're the guy. The guy to do it. Yeah. We have given up a lot on expertise in our government, which is a real shame.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah. I mean, one of my favorite Atlantic writers is Tom Nichols and his book about the death of expertise. Like, just this sense that, like, I know better because I thought about this for eight seconds.

[Nick Thompson]

Yeah. One of the stories that just crushed me from the last year was the story of the United States Institute of Peace, which is where my dad worked. And like, my dad, for all his foibles and flaws, like, knew a ton about Asia. Right. Lived there, written lots of books, studied it, cared a ton about it. And then Musk comes in, and it turns out there's a guy the US Institute of Peace has been funding who's been advising us on our strategy in Afghanistan and helped us prepare for meetings with the Taliban. But a long time ago, he worked for the Taliban before he overthrew the government, and then he switched sides and he'd work for him because that was how you got a job. And so Musk comes in, it's like, United States Institute of Peace is funding the Taliban. You're like, no, that's not what's going on there. Like, this guy who 25 years ago had an administrative job, switched side, in fact, advised the Trump administration on how to meet with the Taliban. He got a grant. Cuz that's what the United States Institute of Peace does. It funds people who have expertise, who advise our government so we can make the right decisions about policy in Afghanistan. Right. But if you, like, kind of just want to destroy it and what you care about is not expertise in government, but how to get a good tweet, well, then you blow it up. And so the whole institute where my dad spent a lot of his life is blown up with this utter nonsense.

[Ryan Holiday]

Right.

[Nick Thompson]

And it's like, was the United States Institute of Peace, like, the most efficient organization? I have no idea. Right. Based on what my dad said, maybe it could have been better here and there, but, like, surely it's the kind of thing that we should be doing in the world. And to blow it up over stuff like that just made my heart break.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah. I mean, it's interesting that he basically takes. And he's a big character in the book I'm just finishing, but I think it's a fascinating trajectory of a human being. But he basically takes Twitter, wrecks it, and then drives its valuation into the toilet. Although there's some now financial chicanery about whether it's an AI company and it's supposedly worth billions of dollars.

[Nick Thompson]

He's made a lot of money off Twitter, Net net. I mean, like, he's drove the business into the toilet, but he's, like, used it to help his other businesses and, like, gotten leverage and political power and.

[Ryan Holiday]

Is that real or is that financial shenanigans? I think so. Put that aside. But basically, the business of Twitter itself, which he, you know, so he takes it over, but. Sorry, he takes. The lesson he takes from all this is like, this is an effective and smart way to do reforms and changes. Right. So there's not a playbook for hostile takeovers that, like, has also been, you know, figured out over generations. But, like, probably Twitter did have way too many employees and a bunch of them needed to be taken off the books, like, for it to maintain its viability. That's very different than laying them all off indiscriminately and then having to rehire some of them and then accidentally laying off the janitor who, you know, cleans the toilets. And now the toilets are overflowing. And, you know, maybe there is too many leases on the books, but just not paying the leases is not enough. Like, there's a way to do things, and I don't mean it. It's like, this is how we do things in polite society. But there's, like, there's a way to do things, and then there's chaos and dysfunction. And, like, it's interesting that we have taken a lesson in the dangers of chaos and dysfunction and been like, let's apply that to the place where we make nuclear weapons.

[Nick Thompson]

Right?

[Ryan Holiday]

It's insane.

[Nick Thompson]

It's. And, like, let's, like, let's blow up all of USAID in such a way that we now have warehouses full of food that we were going to send to children in Africa that it's now rotting and we're not sure how to dispose of.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah, yeah. You could just say, hey, get rid of. Give all the stuff to Africa, and then we're closing it down. You can still end up with the same outcome. Just one isn't incredibly wasteful and extra cruel. But if cruelty is the point, as the famous Atlantic story puts it, then you don't care. And then that's actually the algorithm that you're trying to game.

[Nick Thompson]

Yeah.

[Ryan Holiday]

And that's not good. It's not. Just not good for the world. It's not good for the people doing it either.

[Nick Thompson]

That's not Remarkable for anybody. And I think about NHTSA and Kenan and what they would think about this. And just watching the world of expertise where you fought hard and you disagreed and then a world where expertise doesn't matter.

[Ryan Holiday]

And like, that's the question. Do you think if you drop them into where we are today, yes, they might go, this is crazy, you can't do any of this. But what's interesting to me is how many experts and people who were of, and in love with this system even have become those like, you go, this is a Supreme Court justice. Like, if there's anyone who could be like, I might agree with some of the policies, but I don't agree with the way you're doing it, it would be that person. I think you're watching how, how difficult it is to remain sane in an insane environment.

[Nick Thompson]

Yeah, it's.

[Ryan Holiday]

The world is full of tours.

[Nick Thompson]

But.

[Ryan Holiday]

You don't choose a Toyota truck to follow the beaten path. You choose it to find the places.

[Nick Thompson]

In between.

[Ryan Holiday]

The detours where each adventure pulls you toward the next. And wrong turns turn out right. So why would you ever take a tour when you could take a detour?

[Nick Thompson]

Toyota trucks.

[Ryan Holiday]

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[Nick Thompson]

I think a lot of people go along with the insane environment because they're afraid, as you mentioned earlier, they're afraid of the consequences of not going along with it. But also a lot of people, like, some people just feel like, okay, the system is insane, and my best role is to do the best I can.

[Ryan Holiday]

Right.

[Nick Thompson]

Like, I'm gonna. And those. You know, I have a bunch of friends who, like, work in the Trump administration, some of whom work on, like, AI policy, where, like, it's actually pretty good. Right? Like, there are a bunch of, like, smart people, and I disagree with the way they deal with China and all that, but, like, you know, I have a bunch of friends who have made a commitment saying, you know what? This is crazy. Right? There's a lot of nonsense going on, but I'm gonna go in there and do my best. And I do actually wonder with Nitze. My grandfather, like, he would have wholly objected to everything, but he also might have said, you know what? I'm gonna go in and try to move it in my direction as best as possible, because this is America, and we're all committed to America, and that's the most important thing.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah. And the human capacity for rationalization is immense. And the capacity of ego to tell yourself, like, no, no, no, I'm essential, and I need to keep my powder dry or I need to be there in the room for when this really bad thing happens. That's. If I'm not there, like, it's this sort of tense. It might be true, but also, if everyone convinces themselves of that, then nobody ever actually does.

[Nick Thompson]

But sometimes it's true. What if, like, you know, was it true of Mark Milley in the last two months of the Trump administration, the first term, that, like, you know, who knows?

[Ryan Holiday]

Yes. No, no. I think about that a lot because one of the classic examples in antiquity is, like, Seneca is Nero's advisor, and he has to. You know, he probably is rightfully telling himself, I'm the adult in the room. I'm preventing this from getting bad. He's also the guy that's like, look, I know he just murdered his mom, but, like, this is my job, you know? And so it's this interesting thing because, yes, there are sometimes that person. Right. If Mike Pence is not there on January 6, it goes very differently. And yet, almost certainly you are not Mike Pence.

[Nick Thompson]

Right. But somebody was. There was one person who was Mike Pence.

[Ryan Holiday]

Right, right, right, right.

[Nick Thompson]

So how do you know?

[Ryan Holiday]

You don't. That's, like, where the sort of academic philosophy meets real world reality.

[Nick Thompson]

So do you think Seneca should not have worked for Nero?

[Ryan Holiday]

I don't know. Well, and then you go, okay, the last time, what happened when we tried to get rid of that one emperor? How did that go? Oh, yeah. Rome had a horrendous civil war, and then we ended up with another emperor forever.

[Nick Thompson]

Yeah.

[Ryan Holiday]

So, like, there is this. There's a book I'm gonna give you in the bookstore about this exact topic. But, yeah, I don't know. I think you can debate it either way, and I think it's actually very important that you debate it. Yeah, but it's complicated.

[Nick Thompson]

All right, let's go to another one.

[Ryan Holiday]

Okay.

[Nick Thompson]

Why did Marcus Aurelius hand the emperorship to his son?

[Ryan Holiday]

This is the infinitely fascinating one.

[Nick Thompson]

This history is not my history. I've always had. I won the Marcos Aurelius award when I was in high school, so I've always had, like, a little bit of interest. I mean, it's kind of an interesting part of the book where I win this big award at Andover for just, like, scholarship and leadership, and my dad is drunk and, like, storms the stage to congratulate me, which was amazing. But in any case, you know, it's like, the perfect life philosophy. You talk about it all the time. It's incredible. Like, his writing's just amazing. Meditations are awesome. I really think that, like, part of the reason I'm so excited to do this podcast is, like, the lessons of stoicism are, like, so deeply ingrained in my book in, like, a subtle way, not in a way I ever lay out there. And yet he makes the decision that, like, ends the Roman Empire.

[Ryan Holiday]

To be fair, it does go for, like, another 300 years.

[Nick Thompson]

Yeah.

[Ryan Holiday]

But, like, the decline of Rome is trajectory.

[Nick Thompson]

Kind of like if you're the last.

[Ryan Holiday]

Of the five good emperors, that says something about you. Right.

[Nick Thompson]

So what happened?

[Ryan Holiday]

I know. It's so. I think part of it is related to the themes of your book, which is, like, trauma. Right. So five emperors in a row or four emperors in a row don't have a son, so they get to choose their successor. Well, Marcus Aurelius not only has a son, but he has, like, five sons.

[Nick Thompson]

Yeah.

[Ryan Holiday]

So it's already complicated.

[Nick Thompson]

Yep.

[Ryan Holiday]

I think one thing we can take from this is this is why hereditary kingships are bad.

[Nick Thompson]

Totally.

[Ryan Holiday]

Right.

[Nick Thompson]

When you have five sons, it's easier to not give it to any of them than if you have one son.

[Ryan Holiday]

And so he tries to get. The plan was to give it to the first one, then the plan was to give it to another one. Then the plan was to have two of them rule as. As co emperors as he did with his stepbrother. And then the problem is they keep fucking dying. So all of them die. He loses six children die before adulthood. So Commodus is the only one left. Which, in and of itself, if you're like, why is Commodus as bad as Joaquin Phoenix portrays him? Which he is. You go losing half your siblings before adulthood would fuck you up, right?

[Nick Thompson]

So if you're Marcus Aurelius, maybe you should realize that and then be like, okay, I'm not gonna give it to this guy, I'm gonna give it to this other guy.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yes, right. But this has also never happened before in human history where a king has chosen someone over their own children. Right? So, like, this is. This is the dilemma, and this is where I think stoicism has this kind of idea of, like, duty and you're not in control and you play the hand you're dealt. Maybe falls woefully short in this instance, but like we're told by historians who are writing around this time, actually, I have a chapter about this, weirdly, to connect it back to Elon Musk. It comes back to, like, who advises you? So it's not like everyone, as far as we understand from the evidence. It's not like everyone's like, commodus is a psychopath at age 11, and he can go nowhere near. And Marcus Aurelius won't hear anything about it and does it anyway. As far as we're told, he seems somewhat promising. And by the way, Nero has five good years. First it's called the Quinium Neuronis, where he listens to Seneca, and then he goes off the deep end. So there's some evidence that it seemed like it was going in an okay direction. And then we're told that he entrusts his son, who is not, you know, fully of. Of age, as I understand, you know, he's not 30 or something. He entrusts his son to, like, the smartest advisors and thinkers in all of Rome, many of whom had taught Marcus himself. And the idea is like, hey, if you listen to these people, you'll do all right. And he promptly fires all of these people and does not listen to them. And so to me, it's something about, yes, power corrupts absolutely. But this is why we have corporate boards. This is why there's checks and balances. And it is very hard.

[Nick Thompson]

So Marcus Aurelia should have figured this out and somehow, like, okay, I'm gonna give it to you, but you have to listen. You have to have your Seneca.

[Ryan Holiday]

Well, no, no, what I'm saying is, I think he did. One argument is he did basically everything you can do. And if someone chooses not to listen to their advisors and rejects all of the teachings that they've been given, decides to be a wild maniac instead, there's only so much you can do about that. Yeah, Right. So I think mostly what we use classical history for is to teach kind of anecdotal lessons that are more applicable to our slightly less insane situation. So what I take from Common is, okay, this is what happens when you reject the advice of people who are more informed than you. But I think if Marcus Realis was sitting here, the first question you have to ask is, what happened? This is insane, because I don't think there's anything in the historical record that explains it. There's no. He knew it was a bad idea and did it anyway. And there's no. Like, we were all surprised by it. It's kind of this black hole of, you just don't know.

[Nick Thompson]

Right.

[Ryan Holiday]

I mean, maybe it's. I mean.

[Nick Thompson]

And there's nothing in his diaries about the choice.

[Ryan Holiday]

No.

[Nick Thompson]

Yeah.

[Ryan Holiday]

Or his letters. And, yeah, it's weird, but it's like, Churchill's son sucks. Roosevelt's sons suck. There are very few world leaders who have had amazing children.

[Nick Thompson]

I mean, we're now dealing with the RFK junior testimony today after rfk. The RFK the First.

[Ryan Holiday]

And you gotta lay a good chunk of that not on his dad, but on his grandfather, who was a maniac and a monster.

[Nick Thompson]

Right.

[Ryan Holiday]

You know, like, so it's. I think part of it. Part of it has. It's almost more explicable in those full dynasties, like King Charles. You're like, okay, this is why we don't have this system.

[Nick Thompson]

Right.

[Ryan Holiday]

It's a dumb system. But what's remarkable about this period of Roman emperors is that it wasn't that system.

[Nick Thompson]

Yeah.

[Ryan Holiday]

Like he was violating precedent.

[Nick Thompson]

Right. He didn't have to do it.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yes.

[Nick Thompson]

Yeah. And there could have been some other, like, stop or some way to.

[Ryan Holiday]

Anyway. But what's remarkable to me, like, I think that's fascinating. Equally fascinating and baffling, is what happens when Marx really becomes emperor, which is the first thing that he does is give half the power to his adopted stepbrother. So you're like, at some level, he's not like this power loving, like, dynastical, you know, Macbeth character.

[Nick Thompson]

And that comes through in the diaries and in all the notes and everything. And, like, you know, and you really appreciate that kind of leadership and the humility in that kind of leadership.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yes. And then even Hadrian, who doesn't have the son to set this in motion, is remarkable.

[Nick Thompson]

Which makes the ultimate decision so much more shocking.

[Ryan Holiday]

It's fucking fascinating.

[Nick Thompson]

Yeah. It's like. It's a great historical. I mean, I'm not a Roman historian, but it is an amazing question, and I've always wondered about it.

[Ryan Holiday]

I suspect the only reason there is not a book on it is that there's just not the material.

[Nick Thompson]

Right. I mean, who knows? Maybe they.

[Ryan Holiday]

No, no. I just mean, like, the evidence is so there's, like, five lines about it. You know, there's not. But it is a. Maybe it would make a better novel. I would read that.

[Nick Thompson]

That would be an excellent novel about, like, Marcus Aurelius. Choice.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yes. Why? Yeah, because you could decide to make commonest cartoonish or not. Like, you know, and there are all kinds of things.

[Nick Thompson]

When you have, like, an unqualified son like this, like, the Saudi princes do this. Like, you give him, like, something amazing, like you go run this, like, beautiful piece of land.

[Ryan Holiday]

They could have said, look, Egypt's yours.

[Nick Thompson]

Right?

[Ryan Holiday]

But this guy is yours.

[Nick Thompson]

You're not gonna make the decisions, right? Like, you can go run this hotel chain. You can have a great time. We'll set you up with a nice car.

[Ryan Holiday]

Right?

[Nick Thompson]

But, like, you're not gonna make the important decisions. Cause it's not really. Right.

[Ryan Holiday]

But that's also easier when you have 40 sons, right? And not one who left after. And then there was one.

[Nick Thompson]

Yeah.

[Ryan Holiday]

And then also, I mean, you think it's like, it's a major innovation when they're like, actually, the daughter can do it too.

[Nick Thompson]

Right?

[Ryan Holiday]

Like, that's a thousand years later that they're like, oh, maybe the daughter can do it, and then she can get married. And that's an innovation.

[Nick Thompson]

Are there other elements of stoicism where you're like, this is wrong. Like, this doesn't apply now.

[Ryan Holiday]

Well, I just think it's interesting. You talk about, like, you're sort of groomed for some job. At no point is Marcus, like, I don't want to do this.

[Nick Thompson]

Right.

[Ryan Holiday]

Like, he would have been so much happier as, like, an academic or as a philosopher or as the advisor to the emperor. At no Point does he seem to think like, oh, yeah, I can do what I want.

[Nick Thompson]

Right.

[Ryan Holiday]

Because there is this kind. I think the idea of agency is a concept that comes later. Or even. I just did this daily stokey mail. There's this letter from George Washington where he's like, basically like, I really hope someone does something about this slavery thing, because it's like, so bad.

[Nick Thompson]

Yeah.

[Ryan Holiday]

And it's like, I don't know, maybe the guy starting a new country could do something about. Like, there's literally no one in a better position to do something about this problem than the guy writing this letter going, I hope someone does something about this. And it's interesting that you get this guy who's literally the most powerful person in the world, and he seems to have this very circumscribed understanding of what his capacities are. And I guess that's kind of a letdown considering how rare philosopher kings are. Like Jimmy Carter, one of the most thoughtful, fundamentally decent people to ever become president, to become the most powerful man in the world, immediately gets to work and he's like, here's all the important things I want to do. There's not really any of that in Marcus Aurelius, which I find also fascinating. Like, there's no reforms. There's no like. Like that scene at the beginning of Gladiator where he's like, rome is meant to be a republic. Like, I'm gonna do. Like. I think he takes from Stoicism that that's just not how it's done in real life.

[Nick Thompson]

Right. So in a way, like, what you're teaching is like, follow these lessons. But there's some things you should do a little differently. Right. If you are made emperor of the world, like, you don't have to be quite as humble as the Stoics are teaching. Like, you should go and, like, maybe fix some of the problems.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah. I mean, look, there's what's in our control and then there's what's not in our control. That's the basis of Stoicism.

[Nick Thompson]

Yeah.

[Ryan Holiday]

What about all this stuff in the middle? There's obviously some stuff that we have some ability to influence or some say over or should try. And that's, I think, missing in the Stoics. There's also just the. I mean, there's not a resignation, but. Yeah. There's just an understanding that the status quo is what it is. And that I think can be helpful. But if everyone thought that, where would we be?

[Nick Thompson]

Right. You really don't change a whole lot.

[Ryan Holiday]

Yeah. And I Think that's Seneca's dilemma in the court of Nero. Yeah.

[Nick Thompson]

And I think I, you know, I, as I said earlier, like, my running life, I think about stoicism like, a decent amount because, like, the daily habits of running connect very deeply. And I fully believe that part of what went wrong with my father is, like, kind of alluded. It was almost like he didn't have this, like, stoic belief. Right. But the other thing about running that's so interesting is that, like, sometimes you have to not accept, like, how fast you can go. Like, when I think about my running life, you know, there are a couple of moments where I just made these huge breakthroughs by essentially denying the sort of what seemed like the obvious limit once, kind of inadvertently, because I didn't know how far I was running the other, like through sort of a more psychological process in my 40s. But that's kind of anti stoic, right? It's like it's sort of flipping it.

[Ryan Holiday]

Well, it's anti stoic and it isn't. I mean, there's that famous line about how a reasonable person adapts themselves to the world and the unreasonable person adapts the world. Thus progress depends on the unreasonable man.

[Nick Thompson]

Right, right.

[Ryan Holiday]

So, like, where would we be if there weren't people who challenged things and tried to do things and whatever at the same time, like, it's easy to overstate the passivity of the Stoics. Then when you look at who they were and what they did. I mean, Cato doesn't accept this. The founders are steeped in Stoicism. They're like, we should start a new country. So there is this sort of long lineage of sort of Stoics who are active in public life, who are not just, like, doing their duty and questioning nothing, but are kind of not just actively engaged, but, like, radical. There's a whole generation of Stoics known as the Stoic opposition. So for you, contrast Seneca in Nero's court with this guy named Thrasia who's basically the perpetual thorn in Nero's side and is active and ultimately gives his life in that sort of resistance. So I think our understanding of who the Stoics were is over informed by what they wrote and not informed enough by what they did. And that is interesting because it's so much a philosophy about you're supposed to do it, not say it. Yeah. And you go, oh, that's a funny irony. Okay, so maybe they're like, sure, don't get too passionate. Don't get too worked up about things. That's because they're super passionate, involved, active people. And like, so. So it's not the. Like, sometimes I'll see this because I'll post something about, like, especially in this kind of very aggravating, triggering, outrageous world we live in, it's like, about not being upset by everything you read. And people go, so you're just telling me to sit here and do nothing? Suck it up. Yeah. And it's like, well, you're probably already doing nothing. So let's, you know, I mean, you're commenting on TikTok pieces. Like, I don't think you didn't take time out of the massive, you know, global nonprofit that you run to comment on this thing. You're already doing nothing. But, like, I think they're saying, no, no, no. If you're in the arena.

[Nick Thompson]

Yeah.

[Ryan Holiday]

Then you gotta be in control of your emotions because the stakes are very high.

[Nick Thompson]

Right.

[Ryan Holiday]

And so I think we sometimes, if you take it that these are people involved in the thick of things saying, don't get triggered, don't get upset. Manage your emotions, Focus on what you control. That's very different than, like, the epicureans in their garden saying the same thing, because the default for one is engagement and the default for the other is disengagement.

[Nick Thompson]

Yeah.

[Ryan Holiday]

You want to check out some books?

[Nick Thompson]

Yeah, I'd love to check out some books.

[Ryan Holiday]

I got time.

[Nick Thompson]

All right, great.

[Ryan Holiday]

Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on itunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it and I'll see you next episode.

[Nick Thompson]

Foreign.

[Ryan Holiday]

My family owns a 2023 Toyota 4Runner, and honestly, it's my favorite vehicle that I've ever owned around town. It's smooth and reliable, but where it really shines is on our trips into the backcountry. We've taken it on backpacking adventures to Colorado and New Mexico, loaded up with gear and never had to think twice about whether it could handle the terrain. That's what Toyota trucks are built for. Off road confidence, rugged durability, and the freedom to explore. Toyota has a long history with the outdoor community, and they're committed to helping more people get out there and experience what nature has to offer. From remote trails to scenic byways, Toyota trucks empowers you to take the detour, roam freely, and discover places that still feel wild and untouched. And they're not just making great trucks. They're working to expand access to adventure so more people can connect with the outdoors and. And pass that passion on to the next generation. Discover your uncharted territory. Learn more at toyota.com trucks adventure-detours that's toyota.com trucks adventure detours and now a.

[Nick Thompson]

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