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https://www.popularmechanics.com/culture/gaming/news/a28542/wolfenstein-nazis/ It sort of reminds me of how occasionally I encounter people who are upset that i have a "this machine kills facists" bumper sticker on my car
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Oct 19, 2018 15:55
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 https://twitter.com/asscredit/status/1002298312597409792 https://twitter.com/asscredit/status/1052581172633591808 zoux fucked around with this message at 16:56 on Oct 19, 2018 |
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Oct 19, 2018 16:44
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Libluini posted:How strange then, that Britain immediately prepared to snatch up as much of all German colonies as they could, especially in Africa, where they had an agreement to not do this before the war. That was mandated by the League! Britain had no choice in the matter. A terrible burden.
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Oct 19, 2018 16:50
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I've started listening to the revolutions podcast and Charles the first is mighty impressive at creating disasters out of thin air
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Oct 19, 2018 17:13
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bewbies posted:I'm assuming this is a no true communist situation, and no amount of proposed or actual Chinese reforms or policies are going to satisfy whatever it is you're looking for here. Edit: Anyway, I played countless hours of Wolfpack as the German submarines. I think we all agree now that there's a clear line between that and those weird anime games where you can play Big Titty Waifu Himmler. Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 19:42 on Oct 19, 2018 |
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Oct 19, 2018 19:09
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Nebakenezzer posted:I've started listening to the revolutions podcast and Charles the first is mighty impressive at creating disasters out of thin air He managed to combine an impressive lack of understanding of other people's concerns and interests, a self righteousness that he, and he alone, knew how to handle things, and a complete inability to handle things.
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Oct 19, 2018 19:10
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Halloween Jack posted:On the one hand, I don't wanna play No True Comrade. On the other hand, it's not like people are excoriating the concept of democratic republics on account of Algeria, the Congo, the DPRK, et al. And while I won't defend Stalin, it's nonsense to make straight-across comparisons between Hitler and Stalin unless they're going to rope in Churchill and delegitimize every nation with a legacy of imperialism or mass murder in the same breath. Isn't that sort of the point, though? To look at the Congo, in Belgium Leopold II was the "Builder King", a constitutional monarch who was famous for infrastructure and architectural accomplishments, who liberalized the political system and pushed through universal education and improvements for workers, like the right to form labor unions, limitations on child labor, and the guarantee of a day off per week. In the Congo, though, Leopold II was "The Bloody", who introduced wide scale slave labor, ripped up tribes and families, and sacrificed the health and lives of millions to strip the land of resources. Same person, but two completely different outcomes. Leopopld was both an enlightened ruler and a murderous tyrant, and the difference was that Belgium itself was a democratic state where he had to rule according to the will of the people, and the Congo wasn't. The problem with Stalin or Hitler wasn't just that they were bad people, although they were, but that they were ruling in a system where they weren't accountable to anyone, where they were free to tyrannize the population and invade their neighbors, because there was no system in place to stop them.
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Oct 19, 2018 19:23
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More current milhist relevant: Rojava is an interesting study in anarchistic communism evolved to the 21st century. Abdullah Öcalan's pamphlet about Democratic Confederalism is available online for free, and it's extremely interesting in many ways. There's an interesting angle in that success in a sectarian conflict can be achieved through not being sectarian.
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Oct 19, 2018 19:25
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Epicurius posted:The problem with Stalin or Hitler wasn't just that they were bad people, although they were, but that they were ruling in a system where they weren't accountable to anyone, where they were free to tyrannize the population and invade their neighbors, because there was no system in place to stop them. And then there's the double standard in how most people look at these things historically. There's no Victims of Liberal Democracy Memorial Foundation or a bunch of people on the news shrieking about Pinochet whenever someone extols the virtues of free markets.
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Oct 19, 2018 19:41
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Epicurius posted:Isn't that sort of the point, though? To look at the Congo, in Belgium Leopold II was the "Builder King", a constitutional monarch who was famous for infrastructure and architectural accomplishments, who liberalized the political system and pushed through universal education and improvements for workers, like the right to form labor unions, limitations on child labor, and the guarantee of a day off per week. Robbing Zwarte Pieter to pay Leopauld? Rockopolis fucked around with this message at 20:03 on Oct 19, 2018 |
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Oct 19, 2018 19:51
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Epicurius posted:Isn't that sort of the point, though? To look at the Congo, in Belgium Leopold II was the "Builder King", a constitutional monarch who was famous for infrastructure and architectural accomplishments, who liberalized the political system and pushed through universal education and improvements for workers, like the right to form labor unions, limitations on child labor, and the guarantee of a day off per week. Clearly, the only thing needed to prevent the depredations of colonialism was if Africa made some constitutions and presented them to European monarchs.
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Oct 19, 2018 19:56
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Isn't it more parsimonious to assume leopald was just super loving racist and didn't care what happened to subhuman browns?
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Oct 19, 2018 20:00
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I'm interested in what year was the first not-racist person born. I get that "race" is a relatively recent construction but Romans thinking all non-citizens are barbarians isn't hugely different from modern bigotry imo. It was normal and fine to hate "the other" until at least the 19th century.
zoux fucked around with this message at 20:05 on Oct 19, 2018 |
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Oct 19, 2018 20:02
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Halloween Jack posted:And then there's the double standard in how most people look at these things historically. There's no Victims of Liberal Democracy Memorial Foundation or a bunch of people on the news shrieking about Pinochet whenever someone extols the virtues of free markets. 
HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 20:13 on Oct 19, 2018 |
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Oct 19, 2018 20:06
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First and last probably about 350,000 years ago
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Oct 19, 2018 20:07
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Tunicate posted:Isn't it more parsimonious to assume leopald was just super loving racist and didn't care what happened to subhuman browns? Take a look at what the Tsarist Russians did against their serfs who were just as Russian as them. European monarchs didn't need race as an excuse so long as the system didn't prevent them from getting up to nasty bullshit. Including Tsars renowned for being enlightened reformers.... on the behalf of the aristocracy and to a limited extent the urban populations, but didn't give a hot poo poo about helping the masses of serfs they'd treat like cattle. Wasn't uncommon for the Tsar to just "give" 100,000 serfs to a favored aristocrat as a present.
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Oct 19, 2018 20:08
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Rockopolis posted:Wasn't the point of colonialism explicitly for the latter to fund the former? Edit: It wasn't enmity against dark skinned people, he thought about a bunch of other places first. he settled on the Congo because it had just become famous at the time. no other monarchs would sell him little bits of their dominions so he needed a terra nullius. HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 20:19 on Oct 19, 2018 |
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Oct 19, 2018 20:08
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Tunicate posted:Isn't it more parsimonious to assume leopald was just super loving racist and didn't care what happened to subhuman browns? you can do a lot of tremendously hosed up things to people who are no different from yourself
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Oct 19, 2018 20:18
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fishmech posted:Take a look at what the Tsarist Russians did against their serfs who were just as Russian as them. European monarchs didn't need race as an excuse so long as the system didn't prevent them from getting up to nasty bullshit. The Tsars treated their serfs pretty well, the serfs of the Imperial estates were more prosperous in general and were freed without entering debt bondage. The serfs on noble lands, they were bought by the government, freed, and then slammed with the cost of their freedom. Shameful stuff from Alexander III, who honestly should have just murdered all his nobles like Ivan IV. HEY GUNS posted:not Leopold II's. He was a very very weird dude, everyone in Europe hated him because they knew he was into teens and he decided to take the congo specifically because Belgium was liberal and he wanted to be the absolute monarch of something. so he convened an international humanitarian congress to manipulate into giving him permission. You don't really need personal enmity against a race to do racist things. The international humanitarian congress for example, who thought little about granting the lives of a few million people to some Belgian pedo, probably weren't filled with seething hatred for the Congolese. To discount the resources of the Congo as something separate from its fame is also questionable.
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Oct 19, 2018 20:19
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:To discount the resources of the Congo as something separate from its fame is also questionable.
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Oct 19, 2018 20:25
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HEY GUNS posted:didn't the rubber thing only really take off the ground later? they don't have to be profitable for the colonizing countries to want to have them, i know german colonies never broke even let alone made a profit but the germans kept dumping their cash into there Before the plantations it was ivory and rubber gathered by nonindustrial means. Ivory was quite the big deal, Conrad really emphasizes it in Heart of Darkness. And really, a lack of immediate profitability was expected, the general mood in Europe was to seize as much land as possible because the resources would surely arise. The Germans were so late to the colonizing game that I think it was more of their great power inferiority complex that kept them at it. They should have stopped to wonder why the Brits didnt grab Namibia before jumping and genociding people for nothing.
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Oct 19, 2018 20:46
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The Congo was rich enough that Belgium was the compromise candidate, because none of the major powers could let it to go to a rival. "Didn't break even" is such a galling evaluation. Aside from the fact that, no, a bunch of people got stupid rich doing it, it's like getting mugged and then mocked for being poor. At least have the good grace to pretend you got something out of it. At least a Russian serf can point to like, a Faberge egg or an onion dome or something - those poor Congolese can't even point.
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Oct 19, 2018 20:47
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HEY GUNS posted:didn't the rubber thing only really take off the ground later? they don't have to be profitable for the colonizing countries to want to have them, i know german colonies never broke even let alone made a profit but the germans kept dumping their cash into there They started with other resources. Pulling wealth out was always part of it, although you’re right about Leopold in particular having a desire to be a “proper king” somewhere since he couldn’t do it at home. Early on the major good exported from the Congo was ivory, along with some other stuff like tropical wood. Lots of 19th century pianos fitted out with ebony and ivory from the Congo.
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Oct 19, 2018 20:48
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Rockopolis posted:
Sure they can. They just have to point at all those wonderful buildings in Brussels that “Leopold the builder” is famous for erecting. Now that does someone in
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Oct 19, 2018 20:51
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there was a whole lot of mining going on from roughly 1905
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Oct 19, 2018 20:52
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Oct 19, 2018 20:53
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Nebakenezzer posted:I've started listening to the revolutions podcast and Charles the first is mighty impressive at creating disasters out of thin air Somewhere in the part about the French revolution, Mike Duncan makes a very convincing argument that Charles I and Louis XVI were far more incompetent than evil. But when your actions determine the fates of millions, is foolishness really that much better than malice?
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Oct 19, 2018 20:53
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Nebakenezzer posted:I've started listening to the revolutions podcast and Charles the first is mighty impressive at creating disasters out of thin air
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Oct 19, 2018 20:56
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cross posting with the medgood thread https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1279680/?fbclid=IwAR2WKGOjrIXXT1-CKULgzVlJFCcQ__VPlZATH-eY1JyobQH_7XUR-3W6mcU quote:
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Oct 19, 2018 21:03
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Cyrano4747 posted:Sure they can. They just have to point at all those wonderful buildings in Brussels that “Leopold the builder” is famous for erecting.
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Oct 19, 2018 21:17
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golden bubble posted:Somewhere in the part about the French revolution, Mike Duncan makes a very convincing argument that Charles I and Louis XVI were far more incompetent than evil. But when your actions determine the fates of millions, is foolishness really that much better than malice? I mean sure, why would they be evil. Louis XVI didn't create the system that he was born in, and he wasn't the one who tanked the French government's finances with fraudulent accounting. He was just really bad at politics, crushing rebellions, making up his mind, and staying awake during hearings. Charles is a lot less excusable, since he kept causing trouble and raising armies because he just believed so much that he shouldn't have to answer to any parliament or promises or whatever. A real rear end in a top hat.
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Oct 19, 2018 21:21
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You can still point with a stump - A Belgian Colonial Official
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Oct 19, 2018 21:31
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HEY GUNS posted:didn't the rubber thing only really take off the ground later? they don't have to be profitable for the colonizing countries to want to have them, i know german colonies never broke even let alone made a profit but the germans kept dumping their cash into there And the non-profit thing caused a huge backlash in German politics over time. It lead to things like Germany exchanging the North Sea island Helgoland for exotic and far away Sansibar, for example. There was a lot of outrage from people drunk on Nationalstolz at the time, especially for people who didn't really understand that Sansibar was never a German colony, so essentially Germany got concessions in Africa and Helgoland in exchange for an island they didn't even own. 
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Oct 19, 2018 22:23
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Ice Fist posted:Pull up thread! Otherwise ArdentCommunist is going to come in here and he's going to be pissed Haha, it's good to know somebody remembers me. I was sleeping, but really I'm not some kind of demagogue with ideological blinders, I've got no problem with a nuanced discussion on whether the current Chinese state is moving towards or away from Communism, it's a worthwhile discussion to have. My main sticking point is when people uncritically parrot propaganda about the evils of Communism, because it may influence people away from supporting Communism. Main opinion on China as it is currently is limited to comparison with India, which is a country of similar proportions, and has undergone similar growth economically, but is even less evenly distributed than China. However, you could argue Kerala, the Red State of India, is probably a better place to live than China. At least China still prosecutes the occasional corrupt billionaire. But it's not my area of expertise, so I'm willing to hear and discuss people's opinions. More relevant to the thread, I've been reading a report on the Russian military, by the American military monitoring group, which I could post if anyone else wants to read, but it goes into the big differences in training with the American, where the author believes that while Americans take a more holistic approach to officer development, where people get moved around a lot and to different fields, so they have a good shallow knowledge of anything they could lead, while the Russian (and the Soviet) armed forces tended to focus people, so for an example, an armoured officer would stay in that career path, moving up and sticking to armoured units, so that they continually evolve their understanding on their specialty. The people that take the more holistic approach are the staff officers, which are almost an entirely different career track, but influence commanders. It also talks about how orders are comprised of smaller, well practiced movements, so that they can be given quickly and be understood, and any shuffling of personnel does not result in major breakdowns in command and control as people have to adjust to new leadership styles. Now, my thoughts of military development is that fighting against stronger opponents, and winning, prove to create stronger strategies. Since the Soviet Army won the Great Patriotic War, they had to have a military theory which allows for massive changes in leadership as people are killed or captured, but still prove effective. Deep battle, and especially the sleight of hand that goes along with it, were massively effective against the Nazis, and I'd argue that they have a better experience in beating near-peer opponents than the American army has since the Civil War. Do you think that the Soviet focus on preparing for casualties, anti-air being a huge focus, artillery being a major operational element versus the American focus on airpower, are more or less useful in a near-peer conflict than the American focus, with an army that has an enormous back-end, but it seems, to have less focus on getting more done with less. Perhaps nukes make such a discussion useless, but it's an interesting thought experiment.
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Oct 19, 2018 22:43
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HEY GUNS posted:didn't the rubber thing only really take off the ground later? they don't have to be profitable for the colonizing countries to want to have them, i know german colonies never broke even let alone made a profit but the germans kept dumping their cash into there Yeah, in fact Leopold ran up such large debts in the Free State's first decade of existence that he nearly lost the company to his creditors. According to my memory of the book King Leopold's Ghost, it wasn't until the completion of the Matadi–Kinshasa portage railway and increase in demand for rubber that the colony became profitable. However the fact that many colonies never produced profit is not necessarily evidence that extracting profit was not a motivation for the creation of these colonies. A good analogy is the way most restaurants and other small businesses quickly go bankrupt and never make a dime. There were colonies that were legitimately never intended to be profitable, but these were mostly coaling bases like Djibouti or places taken for other strategic reasons. A comparison with business ventures is fair in the case of the Free State, as the reason Leopold was taking on so much debt was his investment in extractive infrastructure. In fact many colonies that ultimately become very profitable required many years of patient development before producing any sort of profit, it very much a high risk high reward industry. Dutch Taiwan much like the Free State was a net money sink for at least a decade before producing consistent profits. 
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Oct 19, 2018 22:45
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The other thing to remember is that the costs were not always born by those who reaped the profits. I'm not even talking about how hosed the colonized peoples got in all this. If you add up the administrative and military expenses for a lot of colonies they exceed the profits from extraction, but those costs go to the state (and ultimately the tax payer) while the profits frequently went into the pockets of rich investors. Rich investors who, frequently, sat in parliament because that's what rich people do with their pare time, so they could pressure the government to keep supporting the colonial ventures oh so vital to So Johan Burger and Tommy Taxpayer end up indirectly paying for a lot of dumb poo poo but the Hon. Lord William Fussypants III BA (Oxon) KBE DL, FRS, Esq. is making fat bank as is his German third cousin and (simultaneous) brother-in-law. Basically you know that common refrain about how bank bailouts privatize profit and socialize risk? This is v. 1.0 of that. edit: in summation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sh4kz_zhyo Cyrano4747 fucked around with this message at 22:57 on Oct 19, 2018 |
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Oct 19, 2018 22:49
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Didn't Claymore mines specifically have "Do Not Eat" printed on them for a while because grunts in Vietnam took to eating the C4 inside (either because they thought it would get them buzzed or to intentionally get sick to get out of duty)?
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Oct 19, 2018 23:09
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who the gently caress was the first person to realize that eating a small amount of semtex would get you high
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Oct 19, 2018 23:13
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Mr Luxury Yacht posted:Didn't Claymore mines specifically have "Do Not Eat" printed on them for a while because grunts in Vietnam took to eating the C4 inside (either because they thought it would get them buzzed or to intentionally get sick to get out of duty)? http://n.neurology.org/content/22/8/870 neither, they used the C4 as cooking fuel because it burns fine but doesn't blow up without a proper detonator giving it the right kind of encouragement. Naturally, you chop the C4 up to avoid burning more than you need, wipe your knife off on whatever is least dirty, and get to stirring/prepping your food while inhaling the fumes of the burning C4. needless to say they didn't have a good time.
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Oct 19, 2018 23:17
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HEY GUNS posted:who the gently caress was the first person to realize that eating a small amount of semtex would get you high The second Marine issued one after the first one discovered he couldn't gently caress it.
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Oct 19, 2018 23:18
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