As someone who consumes a lot of ancient history, it can also make you like “Ah yes, another city rises, another is displaced by climate disaster, and another falls due to land mismanagement. ‘Tis the way of things.”
Nonsense, I look on Ozymandias, king of kings’ works daily and despair!
I was literally thinking about this poem moments ago.
It’s one of the greats.
It’s true. I wonder how many ancient Babylonians, Greeks, Chinese, Egyptians, Persians, Romans thought:
“Surely, this empire will last forever! Look upon our works, ye mighty, and despair!” (EDIT: LOL It appears we’re all of one mind remembering this poem. We must be doing something right. XD)
Especially in modern times it’s insanely difficult to imagine the geopolitics shifting drastically, but it’s happened before, it’s happening now. The difference being that the rest of the globe is now much more invested in your shenanigans with your neighbors, but it’s still happening.
What does one do amidst a regime change?
I’m glad I’ve never had to seriously consider it until now. …but it unnerves me that I probably need to start.
You forgot an important difference between ancient history and now. Now, when the empire falls it has the power to take the biosphere with it.
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how does one consume ancient history? do you eat the source documents?
That’s unrealistic— some of them are etched into stone
You need some papurus dust to sprinkle on those, like a lick-a-stick.
Civilizations of a heirarchal centralized type definitely feel like temporary abberations, after reading Graeber and Wengrow
It is emotionally and intellectually painful using critical thinking while those around you are calling the other side Nazis.
1 Nazis are bad 2 The other side are bad 3 The other side are Nazis Optional: add an example that confirms bias
Both sides calling the others Nazis doesn’t imply that centrists are using critical thinking. It just means that one side is lying. Nazism is a far right ideology.
“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words.”
— Jean-Paul Sartre
Nazis and tankies are both totalitarian - people just seem to have forgotten the term.
What is it “Tankies” advocate for that is “totalitarian?” The term “tankie” is the new “woke,” it’s a strawman and a bundle of contradictions based on misinterpretations, misunderstandings, and being entirely unfamiliar with Marxism.
I suggest reading Blackshirts and Reds, Communism and Communist movements are and have historically been entirely different in aim, goals, practices, and context from fascism and fascist movements.
Boy I sure do love living through historical events that will likely end up in textbooks in the future
My history teacher said that the greatest curse you can give someone is telling them “May you live in interesting times” and boy do I feel that now.
Bold of you to presume that people will be allowed to read about these times, in the future:-).
That’s why I said they’ll likely be in textbooks, no guarantee lol
Fair enough!:-)
May you live in interesting times…
Edit: Ah, was done below, great minds…
I’ve been working through a few biographies of the top brass of Nazidom, and even with the rather perfunctory understanding I’ve gained from these books of Hitler’s seizure of power and all that followed in Nazi Germany, my ears are pricking up in horror every day as I listen to the latest news from around the world. And I’m not even going so far as the Holocaust. If the Holocaust and WWII never happened, the Nazi regime would still have been an unmitigated nightmare.
The language certain politicians are using is plucked directly from the mouths of Goebbels’ and Himmler’s rotting corpses. How can they not see what lies ahead if they continue with this shit? We know how this story ends. We have examples of it from recent memory, we don’t even need to cast our minds back to the 1930s 🤷
The language certain politicians are using is plucked directly from the mouths of Goebbels’ and Himmler’s rotting corpses. How can they not see what lies ahead if they continue with this shit?
What’s even more infuriating is that when you try to point this out to others, they act like you’re insane/exaggerating.
…because most don’t study the rise and causes of what happened. They only study the result. “Never again” refers to the holocaust, but nobody puts that sign on the the road that led to it.
- Wealth disparity and inflation
- Fear of “others” taking what little people have
- Traumatized populations from decades of war
With populations scared and desperate, they’ll latch on to any demigogue that appears.
But it’s not literally the Holocaust again, so it’s fine /s
I’m trans, god help me…
poland better not be the epicentre again - signed a Polish trans person
Not literally the Holocaust again yet.
I am not familiar with this, would you share what country you are talking about?
Germany for example. The AfD is gaining more and more support by using phrases like “This development that is happening right now, creation of mixed populations to destroy the national identity and thus give our autonomy to the EU - that is simply not bearable!”, “Such humans we should of course dispose of”, “When a [n-word] in my neighborhood coughs at me, I have to know if he is sick or is he not sick.” or “The reason why we are being flooded with culturally foreign people like Arabs, Sinti and Roma is the systematic destruction of civil society.” https://www.volksverpetzer.de/analyse/10-rechtsextreme-zitate-der-afd/
To be fair, they curently decide to see the AFD as an extremist organization.
Some of them see it, and approve.
Others are old and mentally ill, and care only for what power they can gain in their remaining few years, regardless of what that will bring later.
Others are merely useful, and go along with whoever is currently in power.
Others are afraid, so they do not oppose the changes, for fear of losing what they have, and desperately cling to hope that something else will stop the worst from happening.
Others…
and on and on it goes, just as it did before, just as it ever was, and quite frankly, now I see that so will it ever be.
It does feel a bit 1930s at the moment doesn’t it
the decent thing to do for WW3 is to start it on the 100th anniversary of WW2.
i can only hope that the '39s would serve as a reminder each century to just fucking stop. (but more importantly, i hope to be naturally dead by then)
Until the last contemporary witness dies at least.
Well you know what “they” say: those who study their history - FUCK! - still end up repeating it, when nobody else around does the same.:-(
Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Those who do learn from history are doomed to look on helplessly as everybody else repeats it.And those who try to prevent the teaching of history intend to repeat it
Not always, sometimes they are merely useful idiots who legitimately do not know. Which makes them all the more dangerous bc they don’t come across as supporting Nazis, and they don’t even realize themselves what agenda they are furthering.
Well said
Not my words, it’s another cliche to add to the other ones in the thread. Just as true tho
And due to such things as gerrymandering, we all get to share in the outcome.
Another thing that “they” say:
A stitch in time saves nine
It is not for me to judge exactly, who was not quite there, but very little of what has been done has been performed in secret. People have been watching, and yes even warning us, every step of the way. Now, people are shocked, Shocked I say, SHOCKED, but… we should not be. We all knew, or at least were warned, about the consequences, we simply chose to ignore it all.
e.g. Brexit looks to be something that can never be undone - as in even if it were technically to be done, the UK will never hold such a place of prominence again. It will fade into obscurity, eventually counting itself lucky to join the EU on whatever terms the latter will choose to dictate at that time.
And the USA looks likely to not survive to see that happen - in its current form at least. Assuming that Trump loses the upcoming election, which seems still roughly 50% at this juncture, the Supreme Court shenanigans, the absolute, I mean near-total brokenness of Congress, and the very next election in little more than 4 years time still await. And this time, whoever sits atop the Executive Branch will have the legal authority to assassinate all of their political rivals. Like Brexit, this is by no means over and done, and we can still go so much lower from here.:-(
Which might not be such a bad thing after all, to replace a broken system with a better one, but I do worry about this transition period.
Hegel remarks somewhere[*] that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce
Something something heglian dialectics, something something new vegas, something something “Fuck caesar,blow his ass away, and Legate Lanius too”
This fantastic opening quote must have also been Marx’s weirdest flex.
I really have begun to believe that politicians should employ historians to give advice on certain political events by drawing comparisons to previous situations.
That only really works in a benevolent dictatorship. In a democracy, the masses can vote for reality-rejection candidates.
It’s a pity democracy seems to be better than all the alternatives in practice, cause in principle there should be ways to improve things more. Inevitably though all other forms turn into draconian crap. Well, democracy does sometimes too, but less often.
What’s odd about today’s “democracy” is how increasingly little government itself matters, next to corporations that are stronger than nations.
Cyberpunk was supposed to be fiction, not a blueprint :(
Just wait for the cyberpunk crossover with The Handmaid’s Tale. This is the worst timeline.
Government could choose to reign these corporations in, but the money the give officials makes them choose not too
“It’s okay, I’ll enjoy my retirement long before corporations start buying literal states, springing up company towns, employing workers younger than my current children, and buying and selling people via contracts, whilst waging open war with drones and wageslave conscripts.” –Most Politicians as they watch their green line go up, probably
Right, so whether they “can’t” or simply “won’t”, either way they don’t, and the problem just grows and grows with no bounds.
Because corporations are not democratic
Sure, we have democratic political systems, but the economic systems are very much not. Since when can you vote un your workplace? It your boss tells you to do something, you do it, or risk losing your livelihood, the thing that you depend upon for survival
That’s not very democratic
In the past, let’s use the USA as an example, we’ve had both “business” side-by-side with “government”, with the role of the latter often thought of as to balance and foster the true spirit of the former. Keeping the worst excesses of business at bay, and doing things like scientific research that spurs innovation within the realm of business, were both considered the realm of government.
But times change, and now the role of government is getting smaller and smaller, while the roles of corporations are looming larger and larger - there are even businesses that provide a place to live for their employees!
Anyway, businesses were never democratic, but it used to not matter so much when business was merely the place where you worked, while government took care of you at home. Whereas now, they are taking on increasing prominence in people’s lives in terms of dictating every single aspect of life - e.g. government healthcare (Medicare & Medicaid) is dying (being killed) off, leaving only business as the provider of “healthcare” available to people - which is what ObamaCare was trying to fight against.
So we still “have” democracy… technically, it’s just that it matters less and less as the role of government is continually diminished, and powerful corporations greedily take all the power available unto themselves.
It’s like democracy is the least bad system…
A well crafted political system is one that stays uncorrupted the longest (or can recover less violently from corruption).
The Neoliberal ideology, with its core principle of making Money the greatest Power, above the State which is the Power controlled by the vote of citizens, was always meant to destroy Democracy.
Whilst the theatre used to distract us has been different, we’ve been going in the same direction as Russia when it comes to the vote: making it a meaningless act whilst we’re told it’s “democratic”.
Unsurprisingly as people felt more and more powerless, pushed around, exploited and unfairly treated all the while being told this is Democracy, they turned more and more to those selling something else than Democracy.
It seems the natural end state of Neoliberal Capitalism is Fascism.
Always has been.
Perhaps.
Though the people involved may not recognize it as such, bc who actually stops to think prior to acting? Or even does so afterwards? And especially not during.
And those who do, do not act. While again, those who act, do not think.
It’s hardly even their “fault” bc the skills involved are entirely distinct. Should we blame the professor or philosopher for not conveying what they “know” to others? Some very few are taking up that charge, e.g. Kurzgesagt, and John Oliver, but even the more intellectual audience here on Lemmy downvotes those as much as upvotes, with both being single digits so really, on the whole, nobody cares (I get it: people here primarily like Linux, and everything else is mostly a side show:-). (Also even this much of what I’ve said reveals a further layer of complexing: are these “actors”, in the political sense, or “thinkers”, or really are they not enactors of the thinkers, specializing in the conveyance of information? anyway it’s definitely not a binary distinction here, even if it may not quite be a full spectrum either)
Or should we blame the politician for not thinking? But it’s really not their job - as the skills required to motivate others, plus get elected in the first place, in a “democracy” and especially a plutocracy, are again entirely distinct. That’s what counselors are for.
Similarly should we blame the front-line battalion commander for not winning the war? Their job is to do, not so much to strategize - it is the tactician who devises those, but in absence of actual facts, how can those tactics be adjusted to the real-world situation?
Mostly I keep coming back to it being “our” fault - as in all of us - for allowing things to happen. A true team effort of fuckery. But when we aren’t distracted by wars externally, we turn our lusts internally and eat our own… and we know that, so then… why didn’t we account for such? And that’s as far as I can see. Others who see farther, more clearly, seem to be running the show. So perhaps it was always going to be thus? Our naivety constantly being burned away in confrontation with real-world facts, never willing but nonetheless always learning, not desiring to yet always changing,
I am not smart enough to understand what is going on. And therein lies the rub: every smart person realizes their ignorance and failings, whereas the actors who are not bothered by pangs of conscience are free to move forward without hindrance, hence can go so much further and faster than their competition.
“The Official Committee of Learning From Previous Blunders” lol what-if.
What surprises me is that they (people in the past) didn’t have past examples about similar things happening with very bad consequences, we do.
You would think the knowledge would make a difference…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historian
Systematic historical thought emerged in ancient Greece, a development that became an important influence on the writing of history elsewhere around the Mediterranean region. The earliest known critical historical works were The Histories, composed by Herodotus of Halicarnassus (484 – c. 425 BCE) who later became known as the “father of history” (Cicero).
Now how many people had access to this knowledge is another matter, but studying history and learning from it was an important aspect in the education and training of leaders to be since more than a thousand years at the very least.
If we look at Moses and the Pharaoh as well as ancient Greek democracies, we can conclude that the principles of politics have not changed all that much in the past 3000-4000 years of human history. The knowledge was always there and the same mistakes are always repeated, with some very incremental progresses and regressions in between.
Herodatus wrote narratives more than he wrote histories.
The definitive ‘beginning of history’ is “The History of the Peloponesian War” by Thucydides, highly recommend, well written and accessible even now and spells out the politics very clearly and explicitly.
If we look at Moses
Ah, that one was warped somewhere between Atrahasis and Gilgamesch epos and then again to bible. Might not be historically accurate (it’s unlikely that he existed).
They so often did though, how many massive fires broke out in London before the great fire finally convinced them to stop building overlapping thatched rooves.
Even during The Plague of Justinian scholars wrote about what was essentially ancient social distancing practices, 2000 years ago later we still can’t do it properly.
How many times did they have to put up with rat plagues and stinking open cess pits, followed by a big town clean up, and then nothing change in infrastructure or waste management practices, only to do the whole clean up again …until the Great Stink got to close enough to the windows of parliament that those in power decided maybe they should address the root problem instead of applying bandaids every few years.
(I don’t have a history degree so I’m pulling these details out of the memory depths of my dusty documentary viewings, and I’m probably wrong.)
I’m sure they had some knowledge. It’s just that the priests foretold victory in the course chosen by the leaders, the gods are with them! So off they go to war and conquest or whatever.
Same. I haven’t used my history degree at all. It has just enabled the “oh, fuck” overdrive in my brain over the last several years. I hate it.
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When have we had AI so good the turing test lost it’s whole meaning overnight?
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I’ve checked my PC looking for the tiny man managing my local llm, no luck yet but perhaps they’re smaller than I thought…
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They sure put a ton of money into sweeping it under the rug that exploiting workers at near-slavery wages is always what makes these “technological revolutionary marvels” actually tick.
Whether it’s new FoxConn chips, EV batteries, “free shipping”, or LLMs.
Every. Time.
Be a better person. Less ignorant, more useful.
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Uh… No.
History majors rise up
cries in enviro. sci
geopolitics included?
Geopolitics is technically geography iirc.
Weird, that’s also the only thing my Politic Science degree has ever gotten me!
