[Modern History] Guns Condoms and Electricity

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > [Modern History] Guns Condoms and Electricity

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Some Guy TT posted:

can any brits speak to the liveliness of the churchill cult of personality in england im curious if its as intense there as it is here or if people are just wtf no gently caress that guy the same way there tends to be a gap in terms of how thatcher is perceived

Literally every white Brit over 60 believes they personally fought in WW2 under the benevolent leadership of Churchill, Greatest Briton of All Time.

exmachina posted:

His hatred towards South Asians (and Boers) was intense and well documented, but he did do some good things and people have got to realise their heroes can be tarnished. Early socialist writing is full of antisemitism. Bakunin especially.

Churchill committed genocide, which I think trumps any writings, no matter how badly written.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2021 18:48

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# ¿ May 9, 2024 16:43

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

exmachina posted:

Yeah but Churchill had power and had to make decisions, Bakunin didn't. Early Soviet leadership caused famines that are considered genocidal by certain groups, too.

I am not trying to absolve Churchill by any means.

Famines? In any case, I do not believe the early Soviet leadership has historically gotten a pass on that poo poo. Also, being an antisemite is not the same as being a genocidal antisemite, otherwise there'd have been no Jewish people around for Hitler to agitate against.

Maybe you're not trying to absolve him, but this is definitely a classic example of Whataboutism.

# ¿ Mar 30, 2021 07:02

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Dreylad posted:

To be fair every nation has their myths like this. For a long time every French person of a certain age would claim they were part of the Resistance.

But do people born after the war claim this? 60 years ago is Yuri Gagarin in space, not Yuri Gagarin sabotaging the Nazis.

# ¿ Apr 16, 2021 20:01

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Raskolnikov38 posted:

imo it was the double punch of the invasion and the bombs that finally got the war faction to stand aside

you�re wrong.

# ¿ May 19, 2021 05:39

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Dreylad posted:

That Victoria 2 post is extremely my poo poo, thanks for sharing it. The way Paradox games have represented history, especially over different versions of the game is really interesting and you can see how the changing influences of what the devs are probably reading. EU4 going from the old Westernization decision to Institutions was a notable one.

The thing they're reading is the Paradox thread in games. By heroically calling them Euro/Swedocentric until the non-goon sourced devs largely stopped posting, we have forced them to address the ideological blind spots of their games. Goon entryism has also resulted in Marxist control over the Victoria franchise, the team lead being our very own Wiz, wresting it out of the hands of a Thatcherite. Games is the true vanguard of the revolution.

# ¿ Sep 4, 2021 18:02

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Isn't this just "Vigilante dad kills child molester" at an impersonal scale? You can be against murder, but also not lose any sleep over that sort of thing happening. Admittedly for firebombings it's more like setting the child molester's house on fire while the rest of the family is there too.

Chamale posted:

The US doctrine against Japan was to kill as many Japanese people as possible and eventually they'd surrender. It worked, and it was a war crime. Maybe they could have won the war with fewer casualties if they hadn't done war crimes but that's not a question history is equipped to answer.

What worked was the Soviets declaring war and kicking their rear end, closing off the last chance at a negotiated peace for the Japanese.

Slavvy posted:

Dumb hypothetical: if someone in west Germany ~1950 found a way to round up a bunch of former SS camp guards and killed them, would that person have been prosecuted in an earnest way?

They'd be prosecuted as a Soviet infiltrator, for attacking NATO personnel.

# ¿ Oct 14, 2021 06:17

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Raskolnikov38 posted:

is there oil or some rare fish around the falklands? why does anyone care much about rocks with ~3k people on them

Easy to say when you're not the one with a colony of Brits right next door.

# ¿ Oct 23, 2021 12:08

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

HashtagGirlboss posted:

I don�t know that we get to a missile crisis with Nixon because my gut tells me we would have used the Bay of Pigs as cover for a large scale invasion and there would be open hostilities before the soviets could start moving the missiles in

What I'm getting from this is that the US needs to be even more aggressive, to prevent the world from getting to the brink of nuclear war again. Grab history by the horns and force it into compliance. Don't wait for Russia to make a move, invade Ukraine yourself.

# ¿ Jan 31, 2022 07:18

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i say swears online posted:

was looking up steam ships and just found out that the first one was american, not british. what the gently caress, limeys??

seriously though why don't i know this

First successful one. That said, it makes sense that the British would not be spearheading this line of research, given that a leap in naval technology would mean having to rebuild their entire navy. Sort of like how America probably wouldn't want to invent an entirely new type of dominant ship type, because it'd devalue its current lead. (The MIC might gently caress with that logic though.)

# ¿ Feb 26, 2022 20:43

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vyelkin posted:

But how the hell do you establish which territories are "inhabited by indisputably Polish populations" in a region that has had enormous levels of migration and inter-mixing over the past centuries, and when any definition is by necessity going to either include significant non-Polish minorities or exclude significant Polish populations or both? You can't, and that's why Curzon basically drew a line on a map and said "this is where Poland should begin" without knowing anything about the region or talking to any of the people involved.

Going by the letter instead of the spirit of the speech, you do it by giving Poland every territory with more than one person identifying as Polish.

# ¿ Apr 5, 2022 08:10

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bedpan posted:

And from what I've read, yes, they did swap uniforms at other occasions IRL and would pretend to be the other monarch just for the sake of screwing around with the general staff and court officials. Both monarchs spoke with a marked German accent making the swap even harder to spot.

I'm pretty sure that was George and Nicholas, since you didn't need goon face blindness to mix them up.

# ¿ Apr 10, 2022 12:13

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

exmachina posted:

The best king was Bernadotte, a French Republican who became king of Sweden. He had to hide a tattoo on his chest that said "death to all kings"

That's the opposite of a good king. Class traitor and poser in one.

# ¿ Apr 16, 2022 12:49

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Disease is just repeated micro-violence.

# ¿ May 11, 2022 05:32

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

StashAugustine posted:

I remember hearing that the Habsburg armies fighting Napoleon required officers to oversee enlisted if they had to go take a poo poo in the woods because they'd run away otherwise

This is the reason boys don't go to the bathroom together anymore, while girls still do.

# ¿ May 11, 2022 17:12

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Raskolnikov38 posted:

that number seems incredibly low

Disney Land rules?

# ¿ May 11, 2022 21:03

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

�The United States is also a one-party state but, with typical American extravagance, they have two of them.�

Anyway, I feel like this dictator/democratic dichotomy is a faulty way of looking at things. Whether an institution is democratic should be determined by whether it represents its constituents, not how easily leaders change. In the case of the US, the desires of 90% of the public has NO influence at all on policy, making the US at best 10% democratic.

# ¿ May 17, 2022 08:04

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mawarannahr posted:

i was looking for a pic based on the above conversation and found a different one

Dude was doomed with that name. Impossible to not be a huge racist with a name like Carleton.

# ¿ Jun 6, 2022 20:52

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

I don't see the big deal. It's commendable that people back in the day used to entire soldier, when today people just use prestige parts like skulls and ears.

# ¿ Jun 21, 2022 11:18

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We need five threads:

Pre-history
Pre-modern history
Modern history
Post-modern history
Post-history

# ¿ Jun 26, 2022 20:05

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Fly Molo posted:

got it
same thing
itt
covid thread
biosphere collapse thread

pre-history is not the same as pre-modern history. pre-modern history only goes back as far as history.

# ¿ Jun 27, 2022 04:34

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Weka posted:

No British prime minister is directly elected to the role. It's a royal appointment. Nevertheless he was elected as an MP and appointed as Prime Minister with the support of the majority of the house of commons, ie in the usual way. If you are referring to the war time government continuing without further elections, it does not change that he was elected to the role in the normal fashion in line with the constitution of the United Kingdom.

Oh and I feel like you are severely underestimating the racism of the lords if you think they would have voted for a foreigner and a commoner over churchill.

the uk isn't a democracy

# ¿ Jul 6, 2022 06:13

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Weka posted:

How so?

Powerful royal institutions, headed by a queen that has been in power for as long as basically any politician has been in office, an unrepresentative political system, as well as laws that allow the powerful to suppress basically any stories that cast them in a bad light.

e: oh yeah, the capture of state media by one political party too, further decreasing the public's ability to make informed decisions

A Buttery Pastry has issued a correction as of 18:25 on Jul 6, 2022

# ¿ Jul 6, 2022 18:21

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Venomous posted:

let's not forget that the feudal system is still a thing in the UK

Yeah, it's probably not fair to just roll that up in the royal institutions bit, even if the two are related. In terms of political reform towards a more democratic system, the British system is the equivalent of pre-1849 to 1915 Denmark, depending on which exact aspect you're looking at. And it's not like Denmark is a perfectly democratic state with no royals, a perfect voting system, and no moneyed interests influencing politics.

Another indicator of being undemocratic is voter participation rates, which are kinda poo poo.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2022 20:21

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Weka posted:

Most people in the UK seem to support keeping the monarchy so I'm not sure getting rid of it would be democratic.
FPP might not be perfectly democratic, but then what is? It is a flawed democratic system. Athens was a democracy, just a very flawed one.
The last two are just problems you tend to see in democracys. You would probably see them in some hypothetical ideal democracy.

If something is sufficiently flawed compared to the standard, then it should not count as belonging to that group. And while I am not sure I'd call any existing state a true democracy, the UK is so far from meeting the standard that it doesn't even belong to the charitable "flawed democracy" group.

I definitely would not call Athens a democracy either. The percentage of the population who were able to participate was like 30%, and only 10-20% did. There is no world where that is a democracy.

# ¿ Jul 7, 2022 02:39

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Weka posted:

The world where Athens is a democracy is classical Greece, where it was more democratic than most.

You shouldn't grade democracy on a curve.

Weka posted:

What actually existing polities would you consider good enough to count?

None. If we accept liberal democracies, then I'd first look at voter turnout. Based on Belgium and Australia getting turnouts of around 90% with compulsory voting, maybe any country without compulsory voting and a turnout of +80% with universal voting rights. Because at least the population believes it's worth participating, which should indicate some form of representation within the logic of liberal democracy. Flawed liberal democracies can be the 75-80% group.

# ¿ Jul 7, 2022 03:32

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TheSlutPit posted:

america�s founding fathers appear in the clouds with a big thumbs up. Once we get rid of the monarchy everything will be fine�

America got rid of the title of king, not the monarchy. The American president is a monarch.

# ¿ Jul 7, 2022 06:41

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HootTheOwl posted:

He's actually an executive because America is a business.

Those are synonyms when the state is a business.

# ¿ Jul 7, 2022 13:49

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YOLOsubmarine posted:

This is the politics version of �we should let people sign slave contracts.�

that aligns well with calling a slave state a democracy

# ¿ Jul 7, 2022 17:59

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Raskolnikov38 posted:

i think they just didnt consider what 2022 minus 100 is given that they included the somme as a possible answer

It also says "or so", which I think most reasonably people would mean you could extend it back a decade to include WW1 too.

# ¿ Jul 26, 2022 06:01

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Punkin Spunkin posted:

i'd be down to die in a cool war, and I'm pretty sure any war is about as cool as you make it

like, y'all talk about how hard Verdun was, but I'm pretty sure (based on meticulous research) the average height of a man back then was like 4'3", so I'm pretty sure I'd be okay.

I am not sure being two feet taller than everyone else would be an advantage in trench warfare.

# ¿ Jul 30, 2022 08:43

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vyelkin posted:

reaction to the 70s shocks, basically. Those two big spikes are the 1973 Arab-Israeli war and the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the associated oil shocks. By the early 80s, Western economies were consuming less oil because prices were high, industrial economies were contracting from high prices, and the combination of economic contraction and energy conservation led to double-digit declines in oil demand in North America, Europe, and Japan. At the same time there was an increase in global supply because of new non-OPEC oil fields coming online in places like Alaska, Siberia, and the North Sea. So a combination of decreased demand because of high prices in the 70s and increasing supply trying to capitalize on high prices in the 70s led to the initial decline in the early 80s. OPEC responded by continually cutting production to try and maintain artificially high prices, but in 1985 Saudi Arabia stopped this policy and resumed full production, which led to the second enormous rapid drop in prices. As far as I can tell from brief research (this isn't my field), the Saudis did that in part because they were tired of other OPEC countries cheating the quotas and partly because they were worried about losing long-term market share to non-OPEC countries that were investing in new oil sources because prices were high and supplies were low, but also partly because they were a Cold War ally of the US and the US wanted low energy prices to boost its own economy and to hurt the Soviets.

I'd add that apparently peak (per capita) oil production hit during the 70s too, which would presumably exacerbate the issues you already mentioned to make the price shoot up, causing the resulting drop to be even harsher.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2022 22:02

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StashAugustine posted:

well actually it was just a French genocide, they let the Anglos off with a warning

They also designated Poles as Black in reward for turning on the French.

# ¿ Aug 7, 2022 18:05

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The whole thing is kind of farcical, when you dive into it. Send a bunch of soldiers deeply committed to the idea of national independence, lead by a man of African descent who had personally been racially abused by Napoleon, to quell a slave revolt you claimed was a prisoner revolt. How are they not going to rebel against you or at least become insubordinate?

# ¿ Aug 7, 2022 18:21

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Some Guy TT posted:

can anyone make a decent comparative guess as to how gay rights were treated in the united states versus the soviet union in the eighties i tried browsing wiki for it and noted with some suspicion that while the soviet article focuses on legal definitions and number of convictions the american article is about all these social movements as if each of these countries had only one or the other

# ¿ Aug 8, 2022 06:40

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The CIA, having realized they bungle any operation they get seriously involved in, just found lone gunmen and helped them get in place to take their shot. If Oswald hadn't succeeded, Kennedy would've just been shot by some other lone gunmen somewhere else.

# ¿ Sep 5, 2022 05:32

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Pryor on Fire posted:

That is pretty funny how Elizabeth got to watch UK decline steadily year after year for her entire life. Just a massive column of Ls.

Got to watch = Had an active hand in ensuring it happened

# ¿ Sep 10, 2022 07:52

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Grevling posted:

The tank podcast Totally Tanked had an episode on the cold war Chieftain tank recently and that was another bad British tank. For having invented it they're apparently not very good at making tanks.

britain has a history of inventing poo poo they're not very good at, from soccer to industry

# ¿ Sep 12, 2022 05:26