Welcome
My name is Sam Alaimo. I’m a former US Navy SEAL and current AI entrepreneur with a Masters from Columbia University.
The essays I post here are an attempt to understand our role as individuals capable of self-rule as well as our place in the cosmos through the lens of anthropology, war, technology, and Stoicism. I do not write about philosophy as an idea or as an abstract academic study – I apply it as a practice and to every subject possible.
The mission is to gain perspective and wisdom in order to improve in the act of living.
I often write in the form of discourse because that is how we speak to ourselves in our minds and how we speak to others in the world around us. Said another way, this is not theory - it is a path.
This is a highly enjoyable and brutal process. The more flawed we are — and as ancient humans living in a modern world we are not built for, we are heavily flawed — the more profound the benefit.
The benefit for readers
You may find value in these lessons learned and thoughts.
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What then?
I call this platform “what then?”, because the ancient Stoic Epictetus asked “τί οὖν” again and again, which translates to “so what?” or “what then?” He did this because it forced the individual he was examining — or, if there was no one else to tear into, when he examined himself — to dig deeper, to think one layer further, to keep asking until some fundamental truth was revealed and a more beautiful life could be lived.