This “state in which the mind continues calm and strong, undisturbed by … any … emotion” Democritus called athambia (inability to be astonished or frightened) and, according to Stobaeus (DK 68A67), ataraxia (inability to become agitated or upset), the term which descended through the two Democritean lineages—the dogmatic or Epicurean and the critical or Pyrrhonist. It is related closely to the apatheia (nonemotionality) taught by the Cynics and seems substantially the same as the condition which the Prajñaparamita literature attributes to one who knows emptiness: One who is convinced of the emptiness of everything is not captivated by worldly dharmas, because he does not lean on them.
An increasing demand for an increasingly free flow of information is yet another way in which markets fragment and disperse power.
It is doubtful if any large society has ever succumbed to a single-event catastrophe. And the cause of understanding is not advanced by the suggestion that collapse is caused by accidents. `Accidents,' notes R. M. Adams, `happen to all societies at all stages of their history...' Too many societies encounter accidents without collapsing.
Weak circulatory muscles are a side effect of living in a very narrow band of temperature variation.
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