1mo ago

Ken Burns is in your future

146 comments

I've got class war, which is a real doozy.
- Yooo same. Why the fuck don't these people just fuck off and relax? I can't imagine having that much money and still feeling like I have to go to work.
  
  Because at some point after the first few million you turn into a dragon that must hoard wealth and the people that generate that wealth become a cost to minimize.
- Old and busted: class war
  New hotness: culture war

My sheet says "rome"
Uh oh
- "So, what's Rome's history like?"
  "It's all war."
- Republic or Empire?
  
  Western.
  Not gonna lie my eyes glaze over a bit at the byzantium complexity

Hell yeah, I got the Dominion War. Time for another DS9 rewatch.

I'm the War on Christmas guy, and I'm getting my ass handed to me every single year.
- i’m the war on advent guy. you don’t know how nice you have it
- I'm the war on drugs guy and I... what was I talking about? Man, those brownies were strong! strolls off

I participated in the war on drugs...
- On the winning side, I imagine.
  
  By winning, you meantaking copious amounts of drugs?
  
  I think so, it's all a haze.

The best class I took in college was an intercession course about the Vietnam War. We had to read an entire book pretty much every day, which was great prep for grad school.
I basically learned that the entire war was completely unjustified, it was horrific and brutal on both sides in ways that aren’t talked about, but that ultimately the United States had absolutely no business interfering. Vietnam had spent years under French colonial control, which they overthrew under their own power. They had already asserted a desire to rule themselves.
Tonkin was also a genuine false flag, which just isn’t acknowledged? We manufactured the cause for an extremely unpopular war. So many young man died or were disabled because of something that was pointless.
That class was first that really got me to question the patriotic narrative I was taught about American history in high school.
- Of course we can't acknowledge it, because then we can't make the same "mistake" again and people will start questioning real causus belli like saddams WMDs which we'll find any day now.
- Vietnam got a rough fucking deal in the 1900s. Shortly after the US left, the Cambodians under Pol Pot invaded, and they were brutal
  
  And Vietnam ended up kicking Pol Pot off which is impossible to argue as anything but a win for humanity.
  
  China also invaded.

All I got was Star Wars

The seven years war is fantastic and is utterly critical to understanding the US Revolution as well as understanding how the Iroquois pulled a power move on the other first nations that worked, but later led to the current situation with first nations in North America.
On the revolution: Namely that corruption was so endemic in the colonies that when the UK actually started to do something about it the revolution happened albeit with a lot of pushing from the upper crust of the colonies.
- Fun couterfactual to consider: how many MPs would "the colonies" have needed to blunt popular support for the revolution?
  Probably can't go very high, but maybe one per charter? If not that high (Scotland only had 45, I think), then what would have been enough "representation" to preclude the American elites from making a compelling case, or what paths to personal status would have tempted enough of them that there wouldn't have been a critical mass of will and resources?
  The British colonized the Americas, particularly North America, very differently than Spain and France did, but didn't seem to think of the purpose or integration of colonies as any different.
  
  The answer would probably be "none".
  For example, the factors that led the average member of "sons of liberty" in New York after the initial elite only membership was worried about the elites owning massive tracks of land and driving up the cost of land for them.
- The UK trying to section off an Indian reserve as a buffer state after the French and Indian War was 100% a cause of the Revolution. Also the UK trying to step in and say “no, you are not allowed to purchase all of Kentucky from one random person.”
  Funny how that’s never talked about in K-12 history. Or even undergrad. It’s all about those nasty taxes (after spending how much on troops to kill Indians who kinda had every reason to be pissed off?)
  
  Yes, it is more complex than that.
  It was that the UK was saying the Ohio valley, which the entire NA part of the war was over was off limits to the colonists.
  However, the UK could not have won the war when they did had those native groups not changed sides to ally with them. Given the dire state of the UK finances, its questionable how much longer they could have fought.
  That land would also not have been needed had the elite of the colonies not taken ridiculous amounts of land for themselves.
  At least particularly to Pennsylvania, in the middle of the war; the Iroquois interfered with a treaty that would have seen the colony recognize the land held by the Delaware tribe in the Ohio river valley as Delaware tribe land. They(the Iroquois) did so because they wanted to be the only tribe to make deals with the English and would force the other native groups to work through them. This strategy is also why the Delaware tribe had been relocated by the Iroquois to the Ohio valley in the first place.
- TIL:
  It is now believed that the Ottoman military was able to maintain rough parity with its rivals until the 1760s, falling behind as a consequence of a long period of peace on its western front between 1740 and 1768, when the Ottomans missed out on the advances associated with the Seven Years' War.[66]
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_decline_thesis

Due to a typo, I ended up with "The Cod War"
https://www.icelandreview.com/travel/the-cod-wars-in-iceland/
- Pretty sure they made a video game series about that.

I got the Emu War
- Don't let that obsession drag you down under.
- For reference:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu_War

WWIII nut here.
Get yourself a Red Cross emergency kit, a lot of water jugs, and ramen. You're underestimating your chances of survival and how much you'll want to.
- You’re underestimating your chances of survival and how much you’ll want to.
  yes, you too can live out the remainder of your miserable days scrambling for rat meat in the irradiated future.
  of course, the desire to live, to survive, overcomes a lot, but 'want to live' I think is stretching it a bit.
  
  I've worked briefly with civil defense stuff and got to visit and learn a whole bunch about bunkers. That cemented my "take out the long chair, open my best bottle, put on some shades, and enjoy the brief light show" approach to a hypothetical nuclear alert.
  
  I suspect what they're getting at is: there are a lot of scenarios other than "all out exchange between major powers", and when the fallout starts floating, you can either just hang out at home (and die of cancer in a year or two), or shelter in a basement for a week (and emerge to a troubled but liveable world.)
- Mine just says WW15 and has a picture of a green tiger in space
  
  I bet we’re all space tigers by then
  
  Is there also a buff blonde dude with a sword in a fur loincloth?

Huh. "Galactic Civil War" and "War of the Ring."
Neat. Wizards in both!
- Galactic Civil War
  First or second?
  
  I don't think he knows about the second galactic civil war, PIp

But which civil war...
- Second Sudanese Civil War of course (1983-2005)
- ~~The one about slavery.~~ ~~I mean state rights.~~ I mean Northern Aggression.
  
  The proper term now is War of the Demonic Democrats Against the Party of Lincoln and Trump
  
  Oh, I though they meant Syria or Sudan or something.
- Guns 'N' Roses
  
  Civil waooaoaooor!

War of the Roses, winner of Best Named War ;)
- I'm partial to the War of Jenkins' Ear myself
  
  The Football War has entered the chat.
- The Great Emu War would like a word.

WWI was objectively the most world changing and sets the stage for the entire modern era, if you squint WWII was just the Extended Edition of WWI all that being said WWIII was still my favorite.
- « Ce n'est pas une paix, c'est un armistice de vingt ans » — Ferdinand Foch about the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.
  Often translated as "This isn't a peace treaty, it's an armistice for twenty years." but some might prefer "This is no peace, it's a twenty-year ceasefire."

i got the soviet-afghan war and wow did that recontextualize a lot of things about the modern world
- Such as?
  
  bear in mind i was 10 during 9/11 so a lot of it was just upending things i had taken for granted. but like, how the US was pretty much allied with the taliban throughout the 80s, giving them training and weapons to fight against the soviet-friendly progressive, secular government of afghanistan.

I missed the memo. I am just generally anti war and don't like reading about them. War is all because of dickhead leaders that can't act decent, treat others right, or talk things out without being little insecure manbabies. And when manchildren in power have their big boi pp insulted they make the less powerful fight for them instead of doing anything respectful. Some rebellions which lead to wars are justified. Gotta stick it back to the empowered manchildren sometimes. But it all comes down to a shitty leader.
- I decided to focus on wars of leftest and/or peasant uprisings. Often heart breaking, but man if you've ever enjoyed cheering for the underdog, they are definitely that. Plus, you're automatically learning about the Class War at the same time :D
  
  May I recommend Summer of Blood: The Peasants' Revolt of 1381 by Dan Jones?
- It can be very valuable and interesting to study the surrounding context of a war. Military history with battles and kill counts and discussions of tactics is something I find boring af, but there are endless discussions to be had about how the causes of the American Civil War can be traced back to before even the Revolution and tracing the repercussions of the war all the way up through to current politics.
  Think about how the Taiping Rebellion, which killed more than 20 million people, would have affected day to day life in 19th century China - which weakened China and rendered it more vulnerable to European powers. Think the Opium Wars. Think about how Hong Kong was just returned to China in 1999 - and all of the complexities that entailed.
  Or how the World Wars depopulated Russia. You had a generation dead or traumatized. Russian alcoholism is usually treated as a joke - trauma can have intergenerational changes in genetic expression.
  Wars also make excellent chronological signposts. I’ garbage at dates, but usually wars segment significant social/economic/cultural/blah/blah/blah changes that they help me keep events organized in my head.
- I think you missed the joke, it's not making a point about all wars being bad it's about middle aged dudes being obsessed with wars
  
  I understood the joke just fine. I started my comment off with "I missed the memo" implying I never took any interest in wars or never got assigned a war to obsess over.

Yo professor, which Falkland Islands you talking about?
https://youtu.be/42_oWaWsiYs
- Are you talking 'bout the Malvinas falkland islands?

The seven year war, which is what the rest of the world calls the French Indian war should actually have been called World War One.
It was also started by an incompetent 22 year old George Washington being sent out in his first command who ignored the equivalent of the sergeant put in charge of the new lieutenant advice and executed a French person he shouldn't have.
The taxes that started the revolutionary war? Those were to pay the war debts on the seven year war. Dude literally led an army to avoid paying the consequences of his actions.
EDIT: it's also possible to draw "ALL WARS"
- In the Pays d'en Haut Anglo settlers were moving in, French forts were rapidly expanding and militarizing, and both colonial powers were jockeying for Indigenous allies and exclusive trade partners. And in Acadia the oaths issue was still unresolved and considerable swaths of the country that France 'ceded' to Britain was under the control of the French-allied Wabanaki.
  Another war was inevitable, Washington just lit the powderkeg.

I got the Cola Wars
- As a traumatized veteran of the Cola Wars, I eventually decided to drop out entirely and become a tea drinker.

pfft. enlist when you're 18, you'll get a whole new war.

Sweet! I got Star Wars!
- But it's the Disney sequel trilogy.
  
  Andor FTW!

The galactic civil war....

I listened to Hardcore History's series on World War I in that window, so that was my assigned war of interest.
- This was me too. I probably listened through the "Blueprint for Armageddon" series three times. Never really found any other history podcast that piqued my interest nearly as much as that did.
  
  I like that he’s very open about the fact that he’s not an expert/professional historian. He walks the line between storytelling and rigor pretty well for a pop historian. My favorite episode is the one about the Memnonite (edit: Anabaptist) rebellion that ended with corpses being left up for centuries.

Mine just says WW3, should I be concerned?
- So much to learn, we don't even know how it ends yet

I'm glad I missed this.
btw, did you know that the Australian government killed almost 1000 Emus in the Great Emu War and still lost?
The military used over 10,000 rounds of ammunition. that would mean they used around 10 rounds per Emu.
- They also used actual military tactics to fight the Emus, like mapping their routes and setting up ambushes. In one of these, they managed to get close to a flock of about a thousand emus and attacked them with machine guns only allowing the escape of... lemme check... about a thousand emus.
- I typically have a 60% accuracy in Helldivers 2 and I'm fighting swarms of giant bugs. I think I'll forgive the Australians for 10 rounds per bird, especially since winging an emu probably doesn't stop it.
- Compared to the amount of bullets expended per casualty in any modern war that is actually very good. The US probably fired thousands of bullets for each insurgent killed in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Hey, the Falklands is the one I'm obsessed with and it's actually really interesting. Only "modern" war between near peers before ukraine.
- Iran Iraq war also known as first gulf war?
  
  Wut
  The Iraqi army got absolutely obliterated
- I'm sure you've come across it but David Hart Dyke's book on the loss of HMS Coventry is one of the more vivid depictions of grief I've read.
- Near peers? Pretty sure there's a whole ocean separating Argentina and Britain, even if the islands where the conflict occurred were "just next door" to mainland Argentina.
  
  That's not what the near in near peer means...
  It's a measure of military capability between nations. A Near Peer would be a nation that shares similar capabilities for force projection or in otherwords the powerscale is 1:1.
  
  I think they meant "near" as in "evenly matched".

I got the second Punic war, but I think that's just a freebie. I also spent a lot learning about the Falkland's war just to annoy Argentinians online.

There are 64 books in the Horus Heresy.

My favourite war was the War on Everything

the century of war between Berwick-upon-tweed and Russia

"WTF is Granada?"
- Some one needs to play some crusader kings or EU4

I got Brood.

I fought in the Cola Wars as a member of Dr Pepper's insurgency

I got The Late Night Wars. I'm on Team Coco, obviously.

My case was Paraguay War a few weeks ago and I learned so damn much that school completely glossed over. What surprised me the most was just how much of a madman Solano Lopez, the Paraguayan dictator, was. You dare bring bad news to him? You bet your ass you'll be flogged. You failed to follow one of his suicidal orders? Off to forced labor camp. You didn't put him above God and Christ? Say your prayers, you'll be ~~shot~~ bayoneted in order to save bullets.

Napoleonic wars for this guy.
- I just watched The Cynical Historian's review of the recent Napoleon flick. It was great. The review I mean, not the movie. It tried to tell Napoleon's whole story, which is just not feasible in the span of a single film.
  I had no idea there were 7 coalition wars, that's crazy.

It's probably just too broad to treat as one war, but I always return to reading the fall of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Empire. So many poetic, cinematic moments that for western civilisation defined our subsequent history. Where are we if Crassus doesn't desperately need a triumph but gets fed molten gold instead? If Marc Anthony and Cleopatra rule the Mediterranean from Alexandria? If a comet doesn't convince half of Rome that Caesar is a literal God?
- !roughromanmemes@lemmy.world
- I'm in the same boat but during the Sumerian reign. Fall of civilization did an excellent video on it "8. The Sumerians - Fall of the First Cities".

You know, I don't think there's a single war I Care about more than any other...
Now technological era, on the other hand.... I'm a sucker for anything from Europe/Mediterranean coast from the 1200s-1500s.
And who doesn't love exploring early human history from Gobekli Tepe to Ur.
Fascinating stuff.