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my dad posted:Smoothrich, everything you said is correct. Everything is the fault of those damned Italians. I can't ever imagine one of those doing a respectable job.
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Mar 9, 2015 17:30
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Italians? Please. everyone knows its those lazy micks' fault.
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Mar 9, 2015 17:33
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Guildencrantz posted:To get the thread away from New Jersey, here's a random question that popped into my mind: They had snakes too. Tiberius took his pet snake eveywhere.
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Mar 9, 2015 17:47
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According the University of Chicago the ongoing damage to sites in Iraq by ISIS is way worse then anyone feared. Maybe even total site loss.
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Mar 9, 2015 18:03
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Agean90 posted:Italians? Please. Is it really ridiculous to you people that the place in America that has the most Italians who were very influential in local culture might act more like Romans did then people realize? Do you not consider Romans to be Italians? Is talking about "Roman" culture acceptable but "Italian" is racist? Someone in this thread said "What did Italian city-state mercantilism have to do with capitalism?" like they were smart too haha. Smoothrich fucked around with this message at 18:16 on Mar 9, 2015 |
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Mar 9, 2015 18:12
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Smoothrich posted:Do you not consider Romans to be Italians? Roughly three hundred years ago, the English were famous mostly for being overly emotional and prone to weep or laugh at the drop of a hat. Roughly a hundred and fifty years ago, the English were famous for stoicism, a stiff upper lip, and an insistence on being prim and proper. Nowadays, the English have a bit of a reputation as heavy boozers more than anything else. So no, I don't think I'd consider Romans to be Italians. (Republican-era Romans made a virtue of stoicism themselves - compare this with the famous Italian stereotypes popular today.) Tomn fucked around with this message at 18:20 on Mar 9, 2015 |
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Mar 9, 2015 18:17
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It sounds like you people want to pretend like Romans are some idealized superhuman group that lived on a different planet or something. They lived right in Rome! The capital of Italy..
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Mar 9, 2015 18:20
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poo poo, it's as if you are telling me that racial stereotypes aren't an accurate way of judging how people will act. Fake edit: ah right he's trolling
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Mar 9, 2015 18:21
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If you assume that people were I live act like Avars when they ride bicycles...
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Mar 9, 2015 18:21
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Turns out that the cultural mores of two thousand years ago can't be precisely mapped onto the assimilated diaspora of that region in the present day. WHO KNEW?
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Mar 9, 2015 18:22
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Smoothrich posted:It sounds like you people want to pretend like Romans are some idealized superhuman group that lived on a different planet or something. They lived right in Rome! The capital of Italy.. You know, Catullus wrote you a poem...
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Mar 9, 2015 18:25
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Alchenar posted:poo poo, it's as if you are telling me that racial stereotypes aren't an accurate way of judging how people will act. Dude its mostly the corruption. People not from NJ can't even understand how the place is driven by it. Winning an election even in a crappy suburb town is an excuse to steal as much money as possible before you have 10 concurrent corruption investigations going on at once and hope you keep your head and some of that money at the end of it. That is exactly how Romans treated their legal authority after winning elections, a mandate to steal. Do you not see any sort of cultural similarity? Or do you think I am racist for saying New Jersey and/or Rome has a shocking level of corruption by public officials? And both coincidentally.. have Italians? I just don't get the objections here like I'm an idiot when I think I have a point.
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Mar 9, 2015 18:26
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Corruption is a tough topic as it usually a slur used against a process you don't agree with. Corruption doesn't have an objective existence.
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Mar 9, 2015 18:28
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Smoothrich posted:And both coincidentally.. have Italians? Hahaha you are so getting banned.
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Mar 9, 2015 18:28
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What armour would average Joeus legionary have been issued prior to the Gallic Wars? Squamata? Pop culture makes me associate squamata with the Byzantines.
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Mar 9, 2015 18:30
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Quo usque tandem abutere, Smoothrich, patientia nostra? O tempora, o mores!
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Mar 9, 2015 18:30
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The OP just posted a page back that he believes the Mafia inherited many Roman organizational ideas and stuff himself! The Mafia is Italian. They were governing half of Italy themselves a hundred years ago. They created a "legal framework" to make stealing as efficient as possible as their ultimate goal in life like Romans did. Then they did it in NYC and NJ all over the place. Where do you guys lose my train of thought? Honestly, cuz it makes sense to me, but you say I sound real stupid so I want honest criticism on my hypothesis.
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Mar 9, 2015 18:31
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Smoothrich posted:It sounds like you people want to pretend like Romans are some idealized superhuman group that lived on a different planet or something. They lived right in Rome! The capital of Italy.. Did you know? The Lenape tribes of present-day New York, New York have always walked everywhere very quickly while yelling at everyone in short, clipped tones, and organized their society in status groups ranked by their listing in the Fortune 500! News flash, location alone does not automatically confer cultural upbringing, and cultures themselves tend to twist in all sorts of ways over a period as short as one hundred years, let alone two millennia.
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Mar 9, 2015 18:35
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Smoothrich posted:The OP just posted a page back that he believes the Mafia inherited many Roman organizational ideas and stuff himself! The Mafia is Italian. They were governing half of Italy themselves a hundred years ago. They created a "legal framework" to make stealing as efficient as possible as their ultimate goal in life like Romans did. Then they did it in NYC and NJ all over the place. Where do you guys lose my train of thought? Honestly, cuz it makes sense to me, but you say I sound real stupid so I want honest criticism on my hypothesis. Honest criticism: the temporal gap between when the idea of Roman institutions as we see them was last relevant and when the Mafia & co. appear in Italian history is broadly 1300 years. You'd be better off thinking about facets of post-Medieval Italian society.
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Mar 9, 2015 18:37
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You keep acting like Romans are so hard to understand but all they cared about is getting rich and having respect, which they called "dignitas." Then they used that moral guiding principle to justify stealing money wherever they got elected or appointed into positions of power, to build their own powerbase and collect favors and influence and name recognition and all that. Its exactly what dirty politicians or organized crime like the Mafia do in American cities. We have Roman law and Greek philosophy as the foundation of our own constitution in America, by design too. Roman stories we all seem to enjoy because they are so relatable to us in the first place. Yet here you all say we could never relate because it happened long ago? Then the next page someone will post how Romans drew dicks on walls and crap and people will laugh at how things never change. I feel the same way about elected officials stealing money for their "dignitas" then and now. What is the disconnect here? You people aren't engaging with it except saying it was too long ago and I am racist. That's it?
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Mar 9, 2015 18:44
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Dick and streetshitting jokes are pretty straight forward. Political culture of a pretty complex polity, etc. that lasted for over thousand years isn't.
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Mar 9, 2015 19:00
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Why does this thread attract the crazies?
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Mar 9, 2015 19:14
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Smoothrich posted:Then the next page someone will post how Romans drew dicks on walls and crap and people will laugh at how things never change. The difference is that most of us think that Romans drew dicks on the wall because they're human, not because they're Roman. If somebody suggested that we currently draw dicks on the wall because of inherited Roman cultural traditions he'd be as soundly mocked as you are right now. I mean, hell, if you suggest that modern Italian-Americans (how many generations down, anyways?) are corrupt because their distant Roman ancestors were corrupt, then you're suggesting that culture directly leads to corruption. How do you explain corruption in non-Roman cultures, then? Do the Chinese or Indians have direct Roman influences that causes them to be corrupt today? Is there some magical culture somewhere that eliminates corruption amongst its ranks? Or is the corruption of other cultures "just different"? Or does corruption have more to do with basic human desires that react in largely similar ways given largely similar situations?
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Mar 9, 2015 19:17
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You guys just wouldn't get it. It's a New Jersey thing.
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Mar 9, 2015 19:21
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Hogge Wild posted:Why does this thread attract the crazies? Ancient history has a long and proud tradition of attracting the crazies. Hell, the early Romans tried to tie themselves to the glories of what was already Greeks of a rather distant past.
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Mar 9, 2015 19:21
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homullus posted:Torturing slaves for confessions. Yeah the brutality towards the weakest in society and general lack of ethics in the modern american justice system would disgust antoninus pius
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Mar 9, 2015 19:24
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Smoothrich posted:some racist poo poo If you're sick and tired of government corruption in your area, fine. Nobody else would enjoy that poo poo either. But it doesn't have anything to do with this thread. If you're convinced the corruption is because of Italians, because they're somehow naturally inclined toward corruption, and you're in this thread fishing for educated opinions to agree with you, get the gently caress out and take your wondrous femininity with you. You are a racist. Nothing about systemic corruption is at all specific to any particular race or culture. It has to do with how power is distributed and who's watching over whom.
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Mar 9, 2015 19:30
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First the Atlanteans, now New Jersey.
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Mar 9, 2015 19:36
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New Jersey is run by the Atlantean Mafia 
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Mar 9, 2015 19:38
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JaucheCharly posted:First the Atlanteans, now New Jersey. Surely you mean Nova Caesarea?
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Mar 9, 2015 19:38
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I hereby move, that we get this thread back to order, lest the consuls will send it down the Tarpeian Rock.
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Mar 9, 2015 19:42
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Being corrupt made you exceptionally successful in Roman society. I'm sure Italian merchant city states were led by the most corrupt local douchebags who had a family legacy to respect and wielded influence with bribes and favors. The Mafia did that there too then brought it to NJ NYC and Chicago as shadowy underworld governments that shaped their regional cultures in a similar way where you got rich if you got favors and influence and stole the poo poo out of anything you could. Not cuz of their race but because of their success and arrogance in it. The Roman method of success never stopped being successful it's just real trashy and ruinous to people not participating in the money making. That's what I see when I read about 'dignitas' a philosophy that can't literally translate into our language. Corrupt douchebags. It is extremely pandemic in NJ government in ways other states cannot imagine as well so I am familiar with it. And all the cultural baggage that comes along with expecting bribes and stealing from communities you are supposed to be serving. It's almost universal I'd think. If this is all crazy sounding to you people then haha sorry but it was learning that term Dignitas that set me off. Scholars approach it like it is hard to understand but it describes the things I hate about local government the most perfectly like it's the same thing. People caring about their egos instead of the society they serve.
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Mar 9, 2015 19:46
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JaucheCharly posted:I hereby move, that we get this thread back to order, lest the consuls will send it down the Tarpeian Rock. How badly did someone in ancient Rome need to gently caress up to be tossed from there?
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Mar 9, 2015 19:46
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LordSaturn posted:Nothing about systemic corruption is at all specific to any particular race or culture. It has to do with how power is distributed and who's watching over whom. Are you sure? It seems like Romans did it exactly how America does. By egomaniacs taking authority. We learned from the best. I'd like to hear how I'm wrong instead of how I'm crazy.
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Mar 9, 2015 19:50
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my dad posted:How badly did someone in ancient Rome need to gently caress up to be tossed from there? Being mentally retarded for example.
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Mar 9, 2015 19:51
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Tomn posted:I mean, hell, if you suggest that modern Italian-Americans (how many generations down, anyways?) Smoothrich, you are probably going to get banned, but stugats, I've got to admire your balls.
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Mar 9, 2015 19:51
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JaucheCharly posted:Being mentally retarded for example. Ouch. 
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Mar 9, 2015 19:52
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Smoothrich posted:And both coincidentally.. have Italians? Rome never included Italians. It was made up of Romans, with uniquely and distinctly Roman morals and municipal processes. Italy wasn't really a thing until the later 1800s, and wasn't really a coherent, monolithic (ref. Roman) identity until the early 1900s, and a good chunk of that identify evolved in another country entirely. The "corruption" thing you so insistently pin on the influence of these Italians is a product of no one nationality or ethnicity but rather one that is shared by any urbanized society and is best suited for use by small, close-knit immigrant communities in a relatively hostile host culture, much like the one my grandfathers found when they landed in New York. This is the kind of thing that you can easily find in Rio, Omaha, Prague, whatever, difference is that over a few generations, it becomes an institution rather than a subversion. You make the leap that any sort of connectivity and centralized influence in a municipal political structure automatically means that it is corrupt. The current, and historical statuses of the cities, both modern and ancient in your examples lend more credence to the fact that they were all cultural, economic and political powerhouses in a widely distributed democratic republican civilization. To put it another way, you're seeing a feature, not a bug. my dad posted:How badly did someone in ancient Rome need to gently caress up to be tossed from there? It was a hugely symbolic deal and usually meant that the family of the condemned were socially shunned after the fact. Romans were dicks. Immanentized fucked around with this message at 20:01 on Mar 9, 2015 |
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Mar 9, 2015 19:52
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You guys seem to have strong opinions against mine but won't elaborate besides saying I'm racist or ignorant. I'm posting here cuz I'm asking a question and just being insulted for it. If I am wrong there must be good reasons people aren't saying cuz we act pretty drat Roman in my eyes. Like they are western civilizations legacy after all but the greed is the worst part about it. They were a greedy culture so is ours right?
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Mar 9, 2015 19:56
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All right, here's a question: From what I understand (admittedly mostly through pop culture), during Late Antiquity and the Early Medieval era, the shieldwall was a common military formation for infantrymen, where everybody locked their shields, advanced in a group, and used their neighbors to protect them from blows while trying to break the enemy line. Tactically speaking, this seems on the surface to be more or less the same basic idea as how Legionaries were supposed to be fighting. Does anybody here know more about the differences and similarities between those two methods of combat, and whether or not they were related? Smoothrich posted:It is extremely pandemic in NJ government in ways other states cannot imagine as well so I am familiar with it. What exactly makes you think that massive corruption in New Jersey is that much different from massive corruption anywhere else in the world? Have you done comparative studies on this? Have you made a deep and close analysis of the history of corruption in Shenzeng Province or Weimar Germany or Siberia or Bombay and noted how New Jersey remains unique compared to every other case of corruption in the world save that of presumably Italy? Hell, for that matter, are you talking about North Italians or South Italians? There's so much of a difference between cultures there that there's a major political party specifically devoted to seeing North Italy secede from South Italy. Which one of these are the uber-corrupt Italians?
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Mar 9, 2015 19:58
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