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I think some people were talking up the thread about Dan Carlin doing a Hardcore History series about WWI, I was wondering if anybody has listened to the whole first episode. I listened to it for about half an hour and I thought it was sort of ok but he kept mentioning the JFK assassination in a way that implied he didn't think Oswald acted alone, and then the third time he cited Niall Ferguson it got to be too much and I found something else to listen to. Should I give it another shot? I liked his series about the Roman Republic.
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Dec 27, 2013 00:02
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I thought it was decent enough to warrant a full listen. Can't even remember him mentioning Ferguson, but isn't his Pity of War an important enough title to cite anyway? He only went off the deep end afterwards, and AFAIK Ferguson's early work on financial history is good stuff.
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Dec 27, 2013 00:31
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Koesj posted:I thought it was decent enough to warrant a full listen. Can't even remember him mentioning Ferguson, but isn't his Pity of War an important enough title to cite anyway? He only went off the deep end afterwards, and AFAIK Ferguson's early work on financial history is good stuff.  ) Death wish? It's on all the syllabi, but that's only 'cause everyone's mad at it. Also, the entire part about Britain's intervention in the war can be boiled down to  "Liberals Liberals LIBERALS LIBERALS LIBERALS"
HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 00:43 on Dec 27, 2013 |
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Dec 27, 2013 00:37
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Holy poo poo, those guys are loud.
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Dec 27, 2013 00:41
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Can't remember where, but I remember reading that dug up knight skeletons exhibit pretty extreme bone deformation from being so physically conditioned from such a young age. They would likely have been as fit as high-level professional athletes are today, without the added bonus of modern nutrition and training knowledge. In a time-travelling army sort of way, it makes me wonder if you could successfully train a modern SAS soldier or similar to fight with period weapons and beat an actual knight in a duel. I get the impression their physical condition was fundamentally better because of the training from childhood. Like the way the best racing drivers have been doing it since very early teens and it's pretty much impossible to train yourself to that level of skill if you start from a later age.
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Dec 27, 2013 00:46
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Slavvy posted:Can't remember where, but I remember reading that dug up knight skeletons exhibit pretty extreme bone deformation from being so physically conditioned from such a young age. They would likely have been as fit as high-level professional athletes are today, without the added bonus of modern nutrition and training knowledge. Few years ago there was a novelty piece of news according to which professional athlete oarsmen of today were unable to match performance of ancient trireme crews. http://reporter.leeds.ac.uk/press_releases/current/ancient_greece.htm The problem with this sort of research is that both physical and psychological conditioning to perform a specific task - in this case operating a trireme - significantly boosts one's performance compared to somebody who's got just as much training, but not towards the same task. Also, these boosts are not necessarily measurable using the methodology used in this experiment since they are rooted in restructuring of neurological pathways and brain cortexes responsible for managing and gatekeeping muscle activity rather than in metabolism.
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Dec 27, 2013 00:53
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You probably weren't going to beat them at their own gig unless you also started training from the same age.
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Dec 27, 2013 00:57
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a travelling HEGEL posted:Pity of War can kiss my rear end. Germany should have beaten France and dominated Europe economically for a generation? The only people who hated First World War combat were poets? (implication: Hey I only read the reviews, but I gather at least his econ stuff should work  Maybe you feel about it the same way I went through Gaddis' Cold War: a new History? "Oh hey this might be neat and- no wait, cowboy actor with Alzheimer's saves the day, someone please shoot me in the face!" e: VVV quote:"The House of Rothschild remains Ferguson's only major work to have received prizes and wide acclaim from other historians. Research restrains sweeping, absolute claims: Rothschild is the last book Ferguson wrote for which he did original archival work, and his detailed knowledge of his subject meant that his arguments for it couldn't be too grand." 
Koesj fucked around with this message at 01:11 on Dec 27, 2013 |
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Dec 27, 2013 00:58
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Koesj posted:Maybe you feel about it the same way I went through Gaddis' Cold War: a new History? "Oh hey this might be neat and- no wait, cowboy actor with Alzheimer's saves the day, someone please shoot me in the face!" SO ANGRY ANGRY AT BOOKS ON THE INTERNET Didn't Ferguson do that history of the Rothschilds though? That's supposed to be pretty good.
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Dec 27, 2013 01:08
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The 30yw's windfall forced lots of Germans to move to America... Hence it indirectly helped them. QED.
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Dec 27, 2013 01:13
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Koesj posted:The House of Rothschild remains Ferguson's only major work to have received prizes and wide acclaim from other historians...  Consider historians' opinions of pundits. Edit: steinrokkan posted:The 30yw's windfall forced lots of Germans to move to America... Hence it indirectly helped them. QED. 
HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 01:47 on Dec 27, 2013 |
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Dec 27, 2013 01:35
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Niall Ferguson's deal is that he is very talented, educated at the very best institutions, and wrote very good work early in his career, but rather than continuing to do serious history he chose to work his way into a position as court historian and pet intellectual for British and American conservatism. Pankaj Mishra's fierce takedown of Ferguson in the Guardian is a great read and a good explanation of why Carlin's citation of The Pity of War turned me right off. He's basically a Tory piece of poo poo who writes books about how we'd all be better off if stuffed shirt Brit aristocrats had ruled the world forever.
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Dec 27, 2013 01:52
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EvanSchenck posted:He's basically a Tory piece of poo poo who writes books about how we'd all be better off if stuffed shirt Brit aristocrats had ruled the world forever.
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Dec 27, 2013 01:54
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I did go through a full listen of Carlin's WWI episode, but by that time I had already finished Castles of Steel and was maybe a quarter of the way through A World Undone and didn't really pull anything new from Carlin's work aside from his pointing out the relationship between the levee en masse of the Napoleonic Wars and how it shaped the national armies of WWI.
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Dec 27, 2013 02:23
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EvanSchenck posted:Pankaj Mishra's fierce takedown of Ferguson in the Guardian is a great read and a good explanation of why Carlin's citation of The Pity of War turned me right off. He's basically a Tory piece of poo poo who writes books about how we'd all be better off if stuffed shirt Brit aristocrats had ruled the world forever.
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Dec 27, 2013 03:05
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EvanSchenck posted:Niall Ferguson's deal is that he is very talented, educated at the very best institutions, and wrote very good work early in his career, but rather than continuing to do serious history he chose to work his way into a position as court historian and pet intellectual for British and American conservatism. Pankaj Mishra's fierce takedown of Ferguson in the Guardian is a great read and a good explanation of why Carlin's citation of The Pity of War turned me right off. He's basically a Tory piece of poo poo who writes books about how we'd all be better off if stuffed shirt Brit aristocrats had ruled the world forever. Doesn't Mishra reserve far tougher words for Ferguson's later work though? I think most people ITT would agree that Ferguson's total body of work points to him being an insufferable shitheel, but the article you linked to goes into how he developed these views over the years, which has implications in the way you might look at his earlier stuff. Plus, after reading Ferguson's replies, I'm not sure I'm very comfortable with Mishra's diatribe either. Anyway, maybe I should read The Pity of War since I'm kinda burned out on the early Cold War right now anyway. For one I could see where Dan Carlin comes from with leaning on a work like this, he always seems to be reaching for the hyperbolic (not that I mind, in a podcast).
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Dec 27, 2013 03:20
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EvanSchenck posted:Niall Ferguson's deal is that he is very talented, educated at the very best institutions, and wrote very good work early in his career, but rather than continuing to do serious history he chose to work his way into a position as court historian and pet intellectual for British and American conservatism. Pankaj Mishra's fierce takedown of Ferguson in the Guardian is a great read and a good explanation of why Carlin's citation of The Pity of War turned me right off. He's basically a Tory piece of poo poo who writes books about how we'd all be better off if stuffed shirt Brit aristocrats had ruled the world forever. I remember Niall Ferguson...fondly...for being one of the first authors to introduce high school aged me to the idea that I should take all my history reading with a grain of salt, since there isn't one "history" that's universally agreed on, but a lot of view points, and some of them are crackpots. The War of the World has to be one of the most disturbing books I've ever read, both for the detailed descriptions of genocidal atrocities during WWII, but also for taking all the bloodshed he's detailed and saying "it's a real shame this all happened, since all our self-destruction has made us too weak to keep our boots on the Third World hordes' throats and they're going to inevitably overtake the West now."
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Dec 27, 2013 03:23
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steinrokkan posted:Few years ago there was a novelty piece of news according to which professional athlete oarsmen of today were unable to match performance of ancient trireme crews. There are methods of comparing baseball players across different eras, and it turns out that even Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig would only be about as good as an average modern major-league player. Simple athletic activities, like sprints and freestyle swims, have seen steadily improving times since the first modern Olympics. I find it hard to believe ancient athletes had better overall fitness than modern stars, although of course they were probably better trained at specialized activities of their eras.
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Dec 27, 2013 03:28
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Slavvy posted:Can't remember where, but I remember reading that dug up knight skeletons exhibit pretty extreme bone deformation from being so physically conditioned from such a young age. They would likely have been as fit as high-level professional athletes are today, without the added bonus of modern nutrition and training knowledge. I wouldn't call it extreme but you're probably thinking of Blood Red Roses, the excavations from the battle of Towton. Where and how their muscle attachments developed was particularly striking. On archers the bones were also different from modern men because of how they were trained from youth. What makes you think that modern training for splitting heads from horseback is superior to medieval training? Modern nutrition might be better in terms of constancy of food supply but you can bet that higher-level nobles never went hungry except when at war. quote:In a time-travelling army sort of way, it makes me wonder if you could successfully train a modern SAS soldier or similar to fight with period weapons and beat an actual knight in a duel. I get the impression their physical condition was fundamentally better because of the training from childhood. Like the way the best racing drivers have been doing it since very early teens and it's pretty much impossible to train yourself to that level of skill if you start from a later age. Why an SAS man? Training to shoot people and run around in the wilderness with a heavy pack and jump from airplanes develops extremely different skills than training to cut arms off and wrestle in armour. Moreover, much of Historical European Martial Arts is still a very fledgling discipline. The survival of lots of historical manuals helps, but there's still a lot of hucksters, incompetents, and (ugh) SCA-types out there. That's like saying 'what if we took an NFL wide receiver and gave him some basketball lessons. Would he be able to out-shoot an NBA point guard?'. Maybe in a fluke but not regularly.
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Dec 27, 2013 03:31
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Rodrigo Diaz posted:I wouldn't call it extreme but you're probably thinking of Blood Red Roses, the excavations from the battle of Towton. Where and how their muscle attachments developed was particularly striking. On archers the bones were also different from modern men because of how they were trained from youth.
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Dec 27, 2013 03:44
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Koesj posted:Doesn't Mishra reserve far tougher words for Ferguson's later work though? I think most people ITT would agree that Ferguson's total body of work points to him being an insufferable shitheel, but the article you linked to goes into how he developed these views over the years, which has implications in the way you might look at his earlier stuff. This is exactly the issue. Considered in isolation you might have a different and better impression of The Pity of War than the one you get when you look at it as part of his declining body of work. quote:Plus, after reading Ferguson's replies, I'm not sure I'm very comfortable with Mishra's diatribe either. I'm not sure we're reading the same exchange. Ferguson comes off very very poorly there.
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Dec 27, 2013 03:49
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AATREK CURES KIDS posted:There are methods of comparing baseball players across different eras, and it turns out that even Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig would only be about as good as an average modern major-league player. Simple athletic activities, like sprints and freestyle swims, have seen steadily improving times since the first modern Olympics. I find it hard to believe ancient athletes had better overall fitness than modern stars, although of course they were probably better trained at specialized activities of their eras.
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Dec 27, 2013 04:00
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EvanSchenck posted:This is exactly the issue. Considered in isolation you might have a different and better impression of The Pity of War than the one you get when you look at it as part of his declining body of work. Fair enough, I couldn't tell without having read the book itself. quote:I'm not sure we're reading the same exchange. Ferguson comes off very very poorly there. I'm pretty sure we're reading the same exchange. I don't think you'll have to believe Ferguson comes off anything other than poor for believing Misha's arguments favor the polemical over the factual in the comments. Considered in isolation, I would have had a different and better impression of his 'fierce takedown', which comes off as a bit parochial in the end.
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Dec 27, 2013 04:05
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Fangz posted:There's a distinction between never going hungry, and getting anything close to a balanced diet with a healthy lifestyle to match. If I'm not mistaken Roman legionaries were entitled to 5000 calories a day and French Napoleonic soldiers close to 250 gr of meat and other stuff (plus a bottle of wine every 4 ) a day , soldiers usually get to be fed above average. The healthy lifestyle that's another thing , but let's face it a bunch of the current day enlisted scum don't live the healthiest of lives. I think that basically the physical requirements of being a soldier when it comes to strength , stamina are the same.The amount of kilos and kilometers that soldiers used to march are very comparable when it comes to romans , french napoleonics and whermacht germans. hump day bitches! fucked around with this message at 04:59 on Dec 27, 2013 |
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Dec 27, 2013 04:33
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It obviously varied, but plenty of nobles would uh, indulge. As Fangz said, getting lots of food doesn't necessarily mean that food is what you should be choosing- although in younger dudes at least that probably didn't matter too much. But nutrition is a literal science these days, and one our professional athletes pay keen attention to, and for that I'd say their diets are pretty indisputably better suited than what old nobles had.Rodrigo Diaz posted:What makes you think that modern training for splitting heads from horseback is superior to medieval training? Better understanding of anatomy, along with a whole world of fighting traditions  to build off of. I dunno about our figure skaters and rhythmic gymnasts and skiiers and synchronized swimmers, but for our boxers and wrestlers these days I don't think there's much of a contest. It is important to disabuse the notion that knights were plodding and useless, but modern professional athletes really are on a league of their own.
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Dec 27, 2013 04:59
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Koramei posted:Better understanding of anatomy, along with a whole world of fighting traditions The theoretical understanding of head splitting is very different than actually splitting the head of another dude. The old dog tricks of actually doing that are worth their weight in gold. Experience matters a lot , and we don't have a lot of people experienced in how to use warhammers to kill people. hump day bitches! fucked around with this message at 05:14 on Dec 27, 2013 |
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Dec 27, 2013 05:09
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I agree, I think just being raised from age ten to literally structure your entire life around killing dudes is a massive advantage over someone who has to worry about bills and career and housing and all that other poo poo.
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Dec 27, 2013 05:11
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Okay, yeah if you're talking about literally using a warhammer or axe or whatever then sure, but just "fighting" and being "physically fit", no. And many professional athletes literally are raised from 10 (or younger) for their trade. Not all, but then not all Medieval nobles would be either.
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Dec 27, 2013 05:18
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Rodrigo Diaz posted:Observe: Are suits of armor normally that amazingly loud, or were they doing something wrong?
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Dec 27, 2013 05:26
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The filming location (enclosed area on stone) and quality of the microphone probably weren't helping anything but I can't imagine metal on metal being anything but clanky and noisy.
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Dec 27, 2013 05:30
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Koramei posted:Okay, yeah if you're talking about literally using a warhammer or axe or whatever then sure, but just "fighting" and being "physically fit", no. And many professional athletes literally are raised from 10 (or younger) for their trade. Not all, but then not all Medieval nobles would be either. That's more interesting , but it depends on the rules of the fight.Whoever fights with his rules has a huge advantage. Pankration used to brutally disfigure people because they would tie iron plaques to their hands , and when the Olympics came around they kind of fought to almost death. I would like to see a modern MMA dude facing poo poo like that.
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Dec 27, 2013 05:33
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Thanks Hegel, it's been bugging me what those things on the armor were for, I had to rush through because apparently my sister isn't as impressed with arms and armor as I am and kept saying we should see the other parts of the museum that don't involve killing people.Rodrigo Diaz posted:
And sorry to bring this back up from last page and detract from the fight chat, but I was looking through my pictures again and I actually do have photos of something like what he was talking about.   The plaque beneath   The plaque beneath It's pretty much exactly what Rodrigo was describing. Though apparently the concept of small slits still hadn't reached Germany, the slit for that helmet is big enough to fit my hand through. One last question, this:  It looks like the gunsmith couldn't decide what kind of firing mechanism to use, so he used all of them. Please tell me that's what actually happened, it would be so 
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Dec 27, 2013 05:51
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Koramei posted:Better understanding of anatomy, along with a whole world of fighting traditions The key difference between sport and military training is that athletes fight in a way that doesn't kill or maim the opponent. I think an elite modern soldier would win a fight against an elite ancient soldier, and an MMA fighter would beat a pankration fighter, but either athlete would lose to a soldier who knows how to cripple or blind his opponent rather than subduing him. edit: Lamadrid is right, the rules make a huge difference. When there are no rules, the dirtiest fighter will win.
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Dec 27, 2013 05:59
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AATREK CURES KIDS posted:The key difference between sport and military training is that athletes fight in a way that doesn't kill or maim the opponent. I think an elite modern soldier would win a fight against an elite ancient soldier, and an MMA fighter would beat a pankration fighter, but either athlete would lose to a soldier who knows how to cripple or blind his opponent rather than subduing him. Pretty sure military training includes "Ways to kill people". So many sweeping statements of "This mans could beat these guy", kinda reminds me of Deadliest Warrior.
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Dec 27, 2013 06:41
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Don Gato posted:Thanks Hegel, it's been bugging me what those things on the armor were for, I had to rush through because apparently my sister isn't as impressed with arms and armor as I am and kept saying we should see the other parts of the museum that don't involve killing people. Ask in TFR, someone there would probably know. It looks like all that crap is decorative though.
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Dec 27, 2013 07:04
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Fangz posted:There's a distinction between never going hungry, and getting anything close to a balanced diet with a healthy lifestyle to match. What makes you think knights had neither a balanced diet nor a healthy lifestyle? Sugar was rarely available except in the form of honey, and they never smoked, what with having no tobacco. They might drink a lot but the same can be said about modern soldiers of any branches or experience. Common knightly pursuits included:
Lack of modern medical care would be an issue to a point, but that falls outside of diet and lifestyle Koramei posted:It obviously varied, but plenty of nobles would uh, indulge. As Fangz said, getting lots of food doesn't necessarily mean that food is what you should be choosing- although in younger dudes at least that probably didn't matter too much. But nutrition is a literal science these days, and one our professional athletes pay keen attention to, and for that I'd say their diets are pretty indisputably better suited than what old nobles had. Yes but our soldiers do not, typically, pay such careful attention. quote:I dunno about our figure skaters and rhythmic gymnasts and skiiers and synchronized swimmers, but for our boxers and wrestlers these days I don't think there's much of a contest. It is important to disabuse the notion that knights were plodding and useless, but modern professional athletes really are on a league of their own. I dunno about our figure skaters and rhythmic gymnasts and skiiers and synchronized swimmers, but for our boxers and wrestlers these days I don't think there's much of a contest. It is important to disabuse the notion that knights were plodding and useless, but modern professional athletes really are on a league of their own. In their sport but, I cannot stress this enough, stabbing someone through a gusset with a longsword is not their specialty sport. Rent-A-Cop posted:It's amazing how fast fitness science has improved. The average 100m time in the NFL today was a world record a few decades ago. Professional athletes of our generation would be multiple event gold medalists in an Olympics of the 60's. lmao if you don't think this is overwhelmingly the result of performance enhancing drugs. Koramei posted:Okay, yeah if you're talking about literally using a warhammer or axe or whatever then sure That's the only thing we were ever talking about. Slim Jim Pickens posted:Pretty sure military training includes "Ways to kill people". With a gun, yes, but hand-to-hand training is kinda a joke. quote:So many sweeping statements of "This mans could beat these guy", kinda reminds me of Deadliest Warrior. It started off that way and I was trying to keep it off that track but I've failed so I'm going to drop it. All I'll say is my core contention is that 'fighting' is not a general skill that can be transferred across all weapons and circumstances. This is not D&D, and someone who has been trained from youth to fight with swords and lances will be much better at it than someone who has been trained to shoot people with guns. They both kill people, yes, but their skills and physiology are not readily transferable to the other tools. Don Gato posted:Thanks Hegel, it's been bugging me what those things on the armor were for, I had to rush through because apparently my sister isn't as impressed with arms and armor as I am and kept saying we should see the other parts of the museum that don't involve killing people. It's not that the concept 'hadn't reached Germany' but rather that there were preferences as far as the size of the slit. Remember that the front part of this helm (called frog mouths) reaches up almost to block your eyes, but by leaning forward you get a much better view of what's in front of you. With these types of helms you are meant to lean back right before impact so that, in case the enemy hits you in the head, you do not get a face full of sharp and nasty splinters. Additionally that helm is from around 1500, but the Italian one was from the late 1500s. The usefulness of jousting as martial training had rapidly diminished over that time, and there's every reason to assume that the increase in protection was the result of further concern for safety over visibility. quote:One last question, this: There's a wheellock mechanism (you can tell by the square protruding wheel shaft, which would be wound with a key). Why there are two dogs (the vice-shaped things) I don't really know. Maybe one is the main and the other a back-up? There is only one mechanism, since there is no steel for the second dog to strike were it carrying flint rather than pyrite. Sorry I can't help, but Hegel might know.
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Dec 27, 2013 07:46
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This type of helmet is for mace tournaments. (Streit)Kolben = Mace, Turnier = tournament I have posted another picture like this before:  You put a small flag on top, the job of your opponent is to smack it down and viceversa. These helmets are not meant to give good protection from bladed weapons, for obvious reasons. Just a reminder what happens if you get hit in the face by a lance:  I think the Duke of Urbino considered himself lucky. Power Khan fucked around with this message at 11:15 on Dec 27, 2013 |
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Dec 27, 2013 11:07
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Don Gato posted:Thanks Hegel, it's been bugging me what those things on the armor were for, I had to rush through because apparently my sister isn't as impressed with arms and armor as I am and kept saying we should see the other parts of the museum that don't involve killing people.  Is she feeling OK? Rodrigo Diaz posted:There's a wheellock mechanism (you can tell by the square protruding wheel shaft, which would be wound with a key). Why there are two dogs (the vice-shaped things) I don't really know. Maybe one is the main and the other a back-up? There is only one mechanism, since there is no steel for the second dog to strike were it carrying flint rather than pyrite. Sorry I can't help, but Hegel might know.   or side by side on opposite sides of the thing:  I looked up what that gun is, which is this, on the Met's website, but there is no further explanation. God, I'm wondering if I should just phone them, since I have Google Voice instead of a phone, which allows me to call the US for free as though from an American phone. Ensign Expendable posted:It looks like all that crap is decorative though.    (Although to be fair, something with ivory inlay like this on it would only rarely have been used, if at all, to avoid damaging it) Meanwhile, I found these:   Yo dawg Edit: InspectorBloor posted:
Sorry, man HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 16:00 on Dec 27, 2013 |
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Dec 27, 2013 15:25
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Clearly modern man would win against a medieval knight because it's hard to win a fight when you're hundreds of years dead.
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Dec 27, 2013 15:34
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SlothfulCobra posted:Clearly modern man would win against a medieval knight because it's hard to win a fight when you're hundreds of years dead. Edit: And it's easy to win against the dudes I study, just wait for them to reload. And wait OK, he's fussing with it still waiting poo poo a stiff breeze, now what HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 15:41 on Dec 27, 2013 |
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Dec 27, 2013 15:36
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