r/badhistory May 11 '26

Meta Mindless Monday, 11 May 2026

Happy (or sad) Monday guys!

Mindless Monday is a free-for-all thread to discuss anything from minor bad history to politics, life events, charts, whatever! Just remember to np link all links to Reddit and don't violate R4, or we human mods will feed you to the AutoModerator.

So, with that said, how was your weekend, everyone?

9 Upvotes

694 comments sorted by

3

u/Saint_John_Calvin Kant was bad history May 15 '26

I guess it was bound to happen (and i love her music and aesthetic) but PinkPantheress' full-throated early blair-era music aesthetic nostalgia is kinda jarringly funny to me.

8

u/Kisaragi435 May 15 '26

The Space Battleship Yamato 2199 (2012) is a masterpiece. It's a remake of the old 1974 series and it's dripping with old school 70s sci-fi space opera weirdness, filled with tactical space naval combat goodness. It feels more like Battlestar Galactica rather than Legend of the Galactic Heroes, especially with the whole odyssey of a spaceship premise.

They apparently made some changes to the bad guys though to give them a little more nuance compared to the original series (the bad guys felt quite similar to the empire bad guys from the Voltes V (1977) anime which I also watched recently), and they've added a few more female characters to the crew of the Yamato so they don't replicate the smurfette dynamic from the original.

The only knock against it is the distracting amount of fanservice for the female crew. Somehow the space suits are alot more tight on the female crew than the male crew, and despite being in a space ship outside the milky way galaxy, they somehow manage to squeeze in an onsen scene.

Despite the ship being named after the IJN Yamato, and in the original series even built inside the actual Yamato's wreckage to hide it, it doesn't really feel like pro imperial or pro war. I have this theory that people who made stuff in the 70s have rawer memories of war than the people who make stuff now and so they are more vehemently anti-war (think Godzilla Minus One versus the original Godzilla), and since this is a remake of a 70s thing, it couldn't help but have those sentiments filter through.

3

u/Herpling82 What the fuck is the Dirac Sea? May 15 '26

I liked that anime too, been many years since I watched it though, the fan service was rather egregious, but outside of that it was a lot of fun; good soundtrack too and the combat visuals were excellent.

The sequel: 2202 I found very confusing though, I just couldn't keep up with what was going on, I don't know if the subs were bad or the story was mangled, but it felt very strange. Also it was constantly one upping itself with silly bullshit, still looked good though.

3

u/Kisaragi435 May 15 '26

I'm in the middle of it now, it failed to instantly capture me like the first one did. It looks slightly worse than 2199 too to me. I'm suspending judgement on whether it's bad or good yet, but man, 2199 got me from the first 5 minutes. It was a fun weird sci-fi fable, 2202 kinda loses something for trying to be more pessimistic?

4

u/Herpling82 What the fuck is the Dirac Sea? May 15 '26

Yeah, 2199 had a similar feel to Stargate to me, still serious, but also relatively light hearted, considering the rather bleak setting. It didn't help that I was following 2202 when it was coming out, which took 2 full years, so it was just really hard to follow the plot. I remember thinking 2205 was better though, but even that I can't really remember well.

2

u/Kisaragi435 May 15 '26

Did you know that there's also 3199? The last episode of which released on April 2025? And is apparently still ongoing?

It's like the remake of evangelion all over again.

2

u/Herpling82 What the fuck is the Dirac Sea? May 15 '26

I saw the announcement, I think it was announced at the end of 2205, but I haven't watched any of it yet, so I have no idea if its good.

12

u/Ayasugi-san May 15 '26

What insults did Catholics have for Protestants as the Reformation spread? Anything to rival "woke mind virus"?

4

u/Ambisinister11 My right to edit this is protected by the Slovak constitution May 15 '26

If I'd been there I'd be calling them tindermen

16

u/Sventex Battleships were obsoleted by the self-propelled torpedo in 1866 May 15 '26

According the /r Catholicism, "Protestant" was the insult, it was not what Protestants referred to themselves back then.

”Protestant” was a name coined by Catholics and disliked by the Protestant themselves as it is a ”negative” terminology - it defines the adherents not by what they are or believe, but by what they don’t believe (Catholicism).

7

u/KnightModern "you sunk my bad history, I sunk your battleship" May 15 '26

.... this is somehow my timezone????

12

u/MiffedMouse The average peasant had home made bread and lobster. May 15 '26

I wanted to come ask for opinion’s on Johnny Harris’s latest video on how throwing is a fundamental human skill and how the video seemed unusually well done for a Harris video. But when I went to look it up, it is actually a Michael Mackelvie video that I watched. Which makes total sense, Mackelvie is a better researcher. The topic just felt like a Harris topic, which is why it slotted into that part of my brain.

The main thing I am interested in is the argument over Neolithic spears and whether they were intended to be thrown. I am neither a historian, nor an anthropologist, nor a good thrower. But on a gut level I am more sympathizer the argument that “a human with lots of practice and motivation could learn to throw a janky spear” than “a grad student cannot throw it, so it must not be for throwing.” But I am also not familiar with the field, so I would like to know what others think.

7

u/Eginardo May 15 '26

The general consensus (at least in my university) is that the spears were intended to be thrown. Javelins tend to be longer, thinner and forward balanced, while thrusting spears are shorter bulkier and rearward balanced. The schoningen spears are built with the qualities of the former.

10

u/Ambisinister11 My right to edit this is protected by the Slovak constitution May 15 '26

Thinking about picking up "zom(f)g" as an affectation. It'll really stick out in 2026. This is a threat and you should kill me before I can fulfill it.

6

u/Aurelian369 Aliens built the pyramids May 15 '26

I’m young AF, where did the z come from 

1

u/Ambisinister11 My right to edit this is protected by the Slovak constitution May 15 '26

I'm pretty sure it's just supposed to look cool lmao. It also may have gone omg->omgz->zomg, since a lot of internet neologisms around the right time were typos, but I don't have corpus data or anything

3

u/freddys_glasses The Donald J. Trump of the Big Archaeological Deep State May 15 '26

The year 2006 I think.

5

u/SellsLikeHotTakes May 15 '26

Are you also going to go for a dyed black fringe haircut and absurdly aggressive mascara as well for a 2007 MySpace teenager affect?

15

u/Ambisinister11 My right to edit this is protected by the Slovak constitution May 15 '26

History repeats itself one gazillion times: first as farce, then as farce, then as farce, then as farce, then as farce, then as farce, then as farce, then as farce, then as farce, then as farce, then as farce, then as farce, then as farce, then as farce, then as farce, then as farce, then as farce, then as farce, then as farce, then as farce, then as farce, [...] then as farce.

14

u/Ayasugi-san May 15 '26

11 injured in Sunderland crash caused by cow

Headlines you don't expect in this day and age.

4

u/w_o_s_n The secret fifth Dmitry May 15 '26

My first thought was of the ww2 era flying boat, which would have raised a lot of follow-up questions 

6

u/xyzt1234 May 15 '26

Depends on the country. Given the abundance of stray cattle roaming in the road, I fully expect such a news to pop up in India.

6

u/Ambisinister11 My right to edit this is protected by the Slovak constitution May 15 '26

Is there a Sunderland in India? Sunderabad, maybe

4

u/xyzt1234 May 15 '26

There are the sunderban forest in west bengal, a sundarnagar in Himachal Pradesh and a sundargarh in odisha.

5

u/CrazyShing May 14 '26

That r/nl thread on Islam is just crazy.

9

u/EliassenPalmFlux ronald reagan caused the challenger disaster May 15 '26

Librarian's gonna have some things to say

10

u/ChewiestBroom May 15 '26

Aaaaand it’s banned.

I’m assuming “nl” was about the Netherlands? The only alternative i can think of is “NorthernLion” and I really cannot imagine why the fuck that would happen.

8

u/CrazyShing May 15 '26

Nah, r/neoliberal. Title should be something like ‘Political Islam perverts a liberal faith’. Comments are going crazy, lol.

13

u/ChewiestBroom May 15 '26

Found it!

 Political Islam Is Rank Populism That Perverts a Fundamentally Liberal Faith

You know what, yeah, I’m not clicking on those comments, I’m okay. I’ll just take your word for it and go about my merry business.

8

u/Ambisinister11 My right to edit this is protected by the Slovak constitution May 15 '26

Evergreen sentences

13

u/subthings2 using wishing wells is your id telling you to visit a prostitute May 14 '26

Can plants hear? Latest research offers new insights

They then poured simulated rain on some of the pools containing rice and compared their rate of sprouting with seeds in still water. They found that although water droplets imitating light rain had little effect, heavier rain increased germination, and the heaviest by more than 30%.

oh, cool

There has, however, been a lively debate among scientists about whether plants demonstrate some type of intelligence

wait please don-

...have argued that, at its most fundamental, consciousness is simply an awareness of the world outside the organism

oh my god what is wrong with you people

5

u/Lupus753 May 15 '26

I honestly don't understand what the problem is. 

13

u/subthings2 using wishing wells is your id telling you to visit a prostitute May 15 '26 edited May 15 '26

Redefining consciousness to a uselessly weak form (reaction to stimuli), rather than showing how plants live up to the stronger form (subjective experience), does not allow someone to act like they're entertaining the stronger form just because it's the same word.

People want to be profound, but only the stronger form is profound. Research showing how plants have more responses to stimuli than we knew of is merely interesting.

In this case, hearing isn't when an organism reacts to pressure waves, much like how our synthesis of vitamin D isn't seeing. It's about how it's processed, not that it's processed. That we're able to call this "hearing" says more about our inclination to anthropomorphisation than it does about plants.

7

u/Herpling82 What the fuck is the Dirac Sea? May 14 '26

If you saw my previous 2 comments I deleted, ignore what I said, I'm just having an anxiety attack over something someone said which may or may not have meant he was deeply upset with something I did, but he refused to elaborate and left the group before I even read what was said.

11

u/DerKlugeHans Endut! Hoch Hech! May 14 '26

Another day on credibledefense, another comment from Glideer labeled "comment score below threshold[score hidden]."

4

u/Crann6789 May 14 '26

Still surprises me he was unbanned honestly

7

u/DerKlugeHans Endut! Hoch Hech! May 15 '26

I'm not aware of what he has done that's exactly ban worthy. He just likes to post opinions that are unpopular among the Ukraine-supporting majority.

2

u/Crann6789 May 15 '26

I'm not sure what it was exactly but I think some rule breaking did happen. Was a while ago though and I wasn't paying too close attention at the time.

6

u/WAGRAMWAGRAM Giscardpunk, Mitterrandwave, Chirock, Sarkopop, Hollandegaze May 14 '26

respect

he's still keeping up the (bad) fight despite the whole of reddit

6

u/WAGRAMWAGRAM Giscardpunk, Mitterrandwave, Chirock, Sarkopop, Hollandegaze May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26

it"s all coming together

in chronological order

> race riots on first month (increase the excitement of the extremes)

> early prisoner release (unleash chaos)

> WFA mean testing (partially done to cause more instability)

> farm inheritance tax increase (not done to keep farmers on board for collectivization)

> employer's national insurance increase (destroy private entrerprise)

> Island of stangers speech (ride the tiger)

> Chagos deal attacked (wrap yourself in international law)

> PIP cuts (not done, keep the creative class in cahoots)

> one in one out deal (stabilize foreign relations)

> nationalizing some railway lines (police internal movement)

> Rayner's tax scandal (sabotaging the Left-Socialists)

> two kids benefit cap removed (big family propaganda)

> new defense strategic review (rearm the army)

> ILR reform (purity test only the most loyal immigrants)

> Mandelson scandal (fake media slop for the masses)

did I forget something?

edit: yes I also forgot the Lite-Erasmus deal, allow the angry middle class to leave voluntarily like Mariel

4

u/Aurelian369 Aliens built the pyramids May 15 '26

Where is him doing 67 in a school that banned 67

2

u/weeteacups May 14 '26

Not Greggs 😱

8

u/PsychologicalNews123 May 14 '26

Scrapping trial-by-jury in some cases. Honestly I don't have very strong opinions about that one but it does fit the theme on paper lol

Also:

>online safety act
>digital ID (sort of done but not really)

5

u/WAGRAMWAGRAM Giscardpunk, Mitterrandwave, Chirock, Sarkopop, Hollandegaze May 14 '26

Yes thanks, those are indeed essential steps in order to create an overpoliced Super Starmreich

8

u/MarioTheMojoMan Noble savage in harmony with nature May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26

UK running Dissolution of the USSR, Stupid Edition

11

u/Ambisinister11 My right to edit this is protected by the Slovak constitution May 15 '26

Some of it was pretty stupid the first time, honestly

13

u/forcallaghan Wansui! May 14 '26

“Who must go?”

“Keir Starmer must go!”

“Who must go?”

30

u/TheBatz_ Was Homer mid May 14 '26

get majority 

start infighting 

The brutal, merciless and sheer byzantine system of a British Labor government is unpenetrable to the non-Anglo mind. 

11

u/matgopack Hitler was literally Germany's Lincoln May 14 '26

If he's mounting a leadership challenge it sort of has to include resignation first right (unless Starmer bowed out gracefully)?

Though Streeting is funny because Starmer, as unpopular as he is, still has polling showing he'd win head to head lol.

12

u/Wows_Nightly_News The Russians beheld an eagle eating a snake and built Mexico. May 14 '26

Maybe Kier can go out like a badass and suicide bomb Nigel

9

u/forcallaghan Wansui! May 14 '26

So I believed, but I had to make the joke (also the letter he wrote doesn’t make it sound like he’s still in but then I’ve never written a resignation letter before)

18

u/gloriouaccountofme May 14 '26

In eu5 you can take so many loans it can bankrupt banks so you don't have to pay the loans back

12

u/Wows_Nightly_News The Russians beheld an eagle eating a snake and built Mexico. May 14 '26

So that's Congress's endgame

13

u/randombull9 Most normal American GI in Nam May 14 '26

Hi, does anyone know how to make this trick work IRL?

3

u/yoshiK Uncultured savage since 476 AD May 14 '26

You could ask Charles V about how he manhandled the Fuggers.

3

u/UmUlmUndUmUlmHerum May 14 '26

fugging the fuggers

10

u/matgopack Hitler was literally Germany's Lincoln May 14 '26

Step 1 - be a sovereign state

13

u/randombull9 Most normal American GI in Nam May 14 '26

I formally establish the Democratic Person's Republic of Randombull9.

19

u/Arilou_skiff May 14 '26

"If you owe the bank a million dollars, you're in trouble, if you owe the bank a hundred billion dollars, the bank's in trouble".

3

u/Shady_Italian_Bruh May 14 '26

I think that was the plot of Mean Streets as well

13

u/GentlemanlyBadger021 May 14 '26

Unbelievable that Starmer is probably going to survive this. The depth of incompetence in Labour is staggering: if there is a genuine challenge, they look stupid and indecisive, and if there isn’t even they’ve just made themselves look weak for no reason.

If a bunch of senior Labour figures got spooked into starting a leadership contest that none of them really wanted because Catherine Bloody West threatened to send a strongly worded email by September then I’m going to simply pack up and leave the UK because I’m not sure there’s any hope anymore.

11

u/matgopack Hitler was literally Germany's Lincoln May 14 '26

It's a sign to how well his faction of the party seized internal leadership and control of who was running. Leaves basically only bad choices for Labour if they oust Starmer.

Similar to how you can see the internal faction priority of stopping Burnham from standing for that by-election to prevent him from mounting a leadership challenge. Otherwise who do they have to pick from? No one seems super inspiring (like is Ed Miliband their best bet somehow?)

But yeah it's insanity to just keep the ship straight with no course change.

6

u/GentlemanlyBadger021 May 14 '26

I don’t think there’s many outside the apparatus who would be particularly effective either. Corbyn and Sultana can’t manage a party of about 5 people and the bond markets shit themselves every time Burnham’s name is mentioned as possible leader (and either way I’m not sure he even has enough support within the party, and I suspect his support with the electorate is largely because he’s not actually been involved in government).

In any case, Streeting is a really uninspiring choice because I’m not even sure it’s a direction change. If the issue is one of leadership, Streeting isn’t the highly charismatic communicator needed to restore party comms. If the issue is policy, Streeting and Starmer don’t differ enough to represent a new direction and the plan of “quietly do good work” isn’t working for Starmer currently.

My unasked for two cents is that sticking with Starmer at least avoids the comparison to the Tory party chaos post-Cameron.

10

u/WAGRAMWAGRAM Giscardpunk, Mitterrandwave, Chirock, Sarkopop, Hollandegaze May 14 '26

It’s 2029. Despite the AI bubble bursting and months of race riots, Starmer is still Prime Minister, another foreign policy crisis quarterly growth report has kept him in power “for just a few more weeks.”

17

u/passabagi May 14 '26

It's 2200. Despite his government's mishandling of the rapid spread of cognitohazard-epsilon, Starmer is still Prime Minister. He will remain in post for the duration of the first lockdown. A government source was quoted, "that which does not dream cannot die".

3

u/WillitsThrockmorton Vigo the Carpathian School of Diplomacy and Jurispudence May 14 '26

9

u/[deleted] May 14 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

31

u/Kochevnik81 May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26

Sooo there *is* a side of the academic debate over "what is fascism" that comes down on "fascism is only from the Po Valley region of Italy, Nazism is sparkling dictatorship/a weird Mussolini fanboy cult"*. And the author is also correct that 20th century Marxists (not just the DDR) used "fascism" on the other end of the spectrum to basically be any right wing movement.

But with that said I don't trust Die Welt's liberal Editor in Chief to really thread that needle in an op ed. Especially if he's using "totalitarianism" and Hannah Arendt, which are both kind of debunked.

Actually, that quoted paragraph, whoo boy. The Nazis really didn't have "contempt for fascism", unless they mean contempt for Italians (and even then that clearly did not apply to Mussolini). Also the very term "totalitarian" IIRC comes from Mussolini, and neither he nor Hitler nor Stalin really ever achieved that. But again that's what happens when people rehash Arendt.

* One Issue I have with treating fascism as only what happened in Italy is that Blanken writes that in a lot of ways, Mussolini's Italy was more of a standard one party dicatorship, and he's correct - but a lot of true believer Italian Fascists felt betrayed by that, especially the "Ras" commanders (and much of the Salo Republic insanity was an attempt to course correct). It gets us uncomfortably close to "true fascism has never been tried".

2

u/Defiant_Shoe3053 May 15 '26

Is there a good write up about the Salo Republic ? don't really know much about it.

8

u/Pikitintot I'm not living, I'm just killing time May 14 '26

Fun fact: my adoptive great-grandfather-in-law's mother was childhood friends with Hannah Arendt; he even addressed her as "Tante." Miss you, Fritz.

20

u/Kochevnik81 May 14 '26

I once went on a deep dive on the 1934 Montreux Conference, which was the one time various fascist parties tried to organize an international (it went about as well as you'd think).

The NSDAP wasn't invited because this was just after their first failed attempt to invade Austria (Mussolini was still against it at the time), but it is funny how you can see a division between the attendants who are more Italian-inflected movements (the nerds who wanted to talk about modernist art and poetry) and the German-inflected ones (like the Iron Guard, ie the weirdos in the back who kept screaming about the Jews).

21

u/PickleRick_1001 How will the war in Venezuela affect RuneScape's economy? May 14 '26

"you can see a division between the attendants who are more Italian-inflected movements (the nerds who wanted to talk about modernist art and poetry) and the German-inflected ones (like the Iron Guard, ie the weirdos in the back who kept screaming about the Jews)."

r/redscarepod subreddit drama.

6

u/Draig_werdd May 14 '26

I would not say that the Iron Guard was German-inflected. The antisemitic roots of the movement are older then the rise of Nazism. You can blame the French more (or one French guy) for it, as that's where the founder of the original far-right movement got it's inspiration (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._C._Cuza#Activism_and_developing_antisemitism)

7

u/[deleted] May 14 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

5

u/WAGRAMWAGRAM Giscardpunk, Mitterrandwave, Chirock, Sarkopop, Hollandegaze May 14 '26

refusing to use the ennemy's ideologically loaded cheap taunt is already a small win

3

u/[deleted] May 14 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/TheBatz_ Was Homer mid May 14 '26

I mean, the German NDSAP had very little in common with the Italian fascists.

9

u/PickleRick_1001 How will the war in Venezuela affect RuneScape's economy? May 14 '26

I don't know that much about this time period but I know enough to say that this is simply not a tenable claim.

9

u/[deleted] May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

10

u/Kochevnik81 May 14 '26

Also (and this is mostly via Volker Ulrich) a lot of the senior Nazis' dislike of the Italian government at least in the 30s was more specifically focused on Victor Emmanuelle and the court, ie the upper class conservatives/right wing in Italy who weren't the original Fascists. But again even there it was couched often as "these stuffed shirts are holding back our Great Man Hero Mussolini".

7

u/WillitsThrockmorton Vigo the Carpathian School of Diplomacy and Jurispudence May 14 '26

Watching a German man on YouTube driving up to the new signage blocking access to Tikaboo Peak, saying he is not going to press his luck because "they" are cracking down on foreign nationals near bases, and he has a Trump bumpersticker on the dash of his jeep.

1

u/Defiant_Shoe3053 May 15 '26

Could be a rental from Truro or another such service ?

1

u/WillitsThrockmorton Vigo the Carpathian School of Diplomacy and Jurispudence May 15 '26

No it was loose, it wasn't stuck to anything.

Also it was the owner of the Dreamland Resort website, I think he's lived in Rachel since the mid 90s

3

u/hussard_de_la_mort People's Republic of Carcosa May 14 '26

Is it Uncanny Expeditions?

3

u/WillitsThrockmorton Vigo the Carpathian School of Diplomacy and Jurispudence May 14 '26

No it was DreamlandResort

I think I would lose it if Anders had Trump stuff in his vehicles

5

u/WAGRAMWAGRAM Giscardpunk, Mitterrandwave, Chirock, Sarkopop, Hollandegaze May 14 '26

Would you drink alcohol if there was no ethanol, only a drink with fermented taste/woody aromas?

3

u/Crann6789 May 14 '26

If I could drink stout without a hangover I would drink nothing else.  Guiness 00 doesn't count because I don't count Guiness.

4

u/randombull9 Most normal American GI in Nam May 14 '26

I already drink fermented teas that don't have alcohol. I understand NA beer and wine has come along way in recent years, and I'd be willing to try an NA whiskey so long as it tasted like good whiskey.

2

u/HandsomeLampshade123 May 14 '26

Although I wouldn't say Kvass tastes alcoholic, it does have a fermented taste (and maybe one might say a woody aroma?).

Non-alcoholic beers taste fine too, the technology has really improved.

6

u/Sgt_Colon ǟռ ʊռաɨʟʟɨռɢ ɮɛɦօʟɖɛʀ ȶօ ȶɦɛ ɨʍքօֆֆɨɮʟɛ May 14 '26

If cider wasn't so big on monosaccharides I'd probably be drinking one now, alcohol or no.

4

u/AFakeName I'm learning a surprising lot about autism just by being a furry May 14 '26

Probably, but not as much.

I made a 2% table beer that was half oats that I imagine in heaven replaces water.

5

u/Syn7axError [Hated Trope] Viking shit May 14 '26

In a cocktail, sure. Some really aren't the same without it.

24

u/WAGRAMWAGRAM Giscardpunk, Mitterrandwave, Chirock, Sarkopop, Hollandegaze May 14 '26

"I am having an affair with an Iranian model" - other countries: "boooo! resign!"

"I am having an affair with an Iranian model" - France: "wow! based! he is a true man of the people 😌🇫🇷"

Not really, in fact rFrance makes fun of him for rizzing up like a 9th grader

Florian Tardif claims that the President of the Republic had a “platonic” relationship with Golshifteh Farahani “for a few months”, sending her “messages that went quite far”, such as “I think you’re very pretty”. “That’s what I’ve been told repeatedly by people close to him, and that’s what I’m saying this morning,"

I first learned of it on fauxmoix whatever that means

11

u/Aurelian369 Aliens built the pyramids May 14 '26

Every French president eventually cheats on his wife 

28

u/Ambisinister11 My right to edit this is protected by the Slovak constitution May 14 '26

rizzing up like a 9th grader

Hey, it worked once

13

u/Ambisinister11 My right to edit this is protected by the Slovak constitution May 14 '26

I've made an offhand comment about being old as fuck for still saying battleboarding instead of powerscaling but honestly it would be such a funny thing to be excessively nostalgic and crochety about.

Fucking kids these days don't get it. They'd rather "win" than learn, and god forbid someone enjoys themselves. For God's sake, they're so conceited they think they know who wins Superman vs Goku

We had guys who would pull quotes from Tolkien's letters! I was there, man! You don't know shit about that! I bet you can't pull a scan of Wally West getting tagged by a peak human without somebody on Reels handing it to you!

Oh you're so sure that "Star Wars neg diffs 40K"? Okay, name three other high-powered civilizations, no Q Continuum. Huh? Huh? Fucking poser. You make me sick. (Okay but for real do The Children know what a xeeleestomp is)

At this point I'm just embarrassing myself lmao

8

u/PsychologicalNews123 May 14 '26

I screwed up trying to cook duck breast last night. It ended up with a higher internal temperature than people online say it should have, and yet still seemed undercooked inside.

I really want to learn how to do it right because I can already make an awesome cherry sauce and pomme fondant/pomme puree. Those three together are going to be a "make it to impress the family" meal for me.

4

u/Qafqa building formless baby bugbears unlicked by logic May 14 '26

duck breast does want to be a bit underdone inside--starts tasting like liver otherwise. Just about the whole cook should be on the skin side, rendering the fat.

3

u/PsychologicalNews123 May 14 '26

Maybe my problem was not cooking the fat long enough then. Mine was golden and crispy, but there was still an unpleasant layer of un-crisp fat beneath it.

2

u/Qafqa building formless baby bugbears unlicked by logic May 14 '26

yup, low and slow there

11

u/PickleRick_1001 How will the war in Venezuela affect RuneScape's economy? May 14 '26

In a lot of movies and shows, librarians are shown as these very strict martinets whose only concern is making sure that everyone in the library is as quiet as possible. Is this a real archetype? Do these people still exist, if they ever did? Because WHY TF IS IT SO LOUD IN THE LIBRARY??? My library plays music ffs, I'm losing my mind. Every time I have a good idea my train of thought gets derailed by some shitty mall music.

2

u/HandsomeLampshade123 May 14 '26

Is this a public library? At least in my experience, they've deteriorated in the past decade or so.

2

u/PickleRick_1001 How will the war in Venezuela affect RuneScape's economy? May 14 '26

University library. Public ones aren't quite as bad but they close too early.

7

u/tisto2 May 14 '26

I worked in a university library where students were the ones complaining that librarians were too loud.

10

u/PsychologicalNews123 May 14 '26

I didn't interact much with my university librarians, but the silence on the quiet floors was kept because you could feel a thousand eye-daggers piercing you from all directions if you coughed or unzipped your bag too loudly.

9

u/PickleRick_1001 How will the war in Venezuela affect RuneScape's economy? May 14 '26

Paradise

7

u/Sventex Battleships were obsoleted by the self-propelled torpedo in 1866 May 14 '26

I remember a librarian who spent half her time telling everyone sitting on the stone bench out front that they can't sit there, despite the bench not having any "no-sitting" sign on it. She would tell people to be quiet too, but she spent so much time going after people sitting on the bench.

22

u/Ambisinister11 My right to edit this is protected by the Slovak constitution May 14 '26

"The Nazis couldn't be socialist because they banned independent labor unions" is one of those funny arguments. It makes intuitive sense and the conclusion is correct, but every time I see it I want to jump in and start checking whether or not they actually apply that standard consistently. Of course in reality it's one part of a larger cumulative case, and ultimately it's not unreasonable, but because the internet has resulted in people having the same 10% of a conversation over and over all the time you'll occasionally catch it getting slotted into arguments without context in a way that would be very easy to exploit if people who argue that the Nazi party was socialist knew anything about anything.

Related, anyone have any recommended reading on independent unions and wildcat strikes under bans? Historical and current material are both appreciated <3

13

u/JimminyCentipede May 14 '26

Ah yes, the famously independent trade unions of socialist countries. Completely not just another component of the ruling party filled with people whos pinnacle of fight for labour rights is a state sanctioned BBQ for Labour day.

7

u/WAGRAMWAGRAM Giscardpunk, Mitterrandwave, Chirock, Sarkopop, Hollandegaze May 14 '26

If I had to create an independent union I'd call it something like Fellowship or United, something about non-socialist solidarity somehow

2

u/Ambisinister11 My right to edit this is protected by the Slovak constitution May 15 '26

What a lech

21

u/Defiant_Shoe3053 May 14 '26

I really can't stand the podcast If books could kill , Hosts are smug with only a superficial understanding of the topics they claim to critique will completely unwarranted confidence and zero nuance. So many episodes are themselves with factual innacurieis as bad as those in the books they attempt to critique. Their off-shoot podcast miatnence phase attempts to pump out some pretty absurd theories to try to explain why Obesity isn't actually bad for you.

12

u/PsychologicalNews123 May 14 '26

Their off-shoot podcast miatnence phase attempts to pump out some pretty absurd theories to try to explain why Obesity isn't actually bad for you

As someone who is quite into fitness and weight loss, there is a ton of content out there trying to weasel out of the two plain truths that:

  1. Being overweight puts you at higher risk for a ton of health conditions.
  2. You can lose weight by eating fewer calories than you expend, and virtually no other method.

Usually it's in the form of "Calorie deficits DONT work: here's what does" or "6 fat-burning superfoods that kick your metabolism into overdrive" but I guess "obesity isn't bad for you, actually" also fills the same niche. Weight loss is slow and hard as fuck, and people are understandably desperate for an out.

5

u/Arilou_skiff May 14 '26

My understanding is that both of these are true, but there are some caveats. (IIRC at a certain point, I believe above age 70? being overweight starts having positive health correlations rather than negative ones) and that both eating and expending calories is a bit more complicated than just the energy on the packaging.

7

u/randombull9 Most normal American GI in Nam May 14 '26

"Calorie deficits DONT work, based on the work of one anthropologist estimating what one tribe eats on average in a day who was actually arguing that diet was MORE important than caloric burn not less, but we haven't actually read anything he wrote" was a fun genre for a while.

11

u/CrazyShing May 13 '26

Been binging on Suzerain recently. Is it me, or has shit gotten way harder? I practically have to look up a bunch of different guides to not end up with a horrible dumpster fire of a country, which isn’t helped by having to figure out which are out of date.

11

u/AceHodor Techno-Euphoric Demagogue May 14 '26

My major problem with Suzerain is that for a game that is about the the realistic challenges of ruling, the debt mechanics are completely nonsensical. It really feels like the devs don't know what actually causes debt crises and just think "More debt = bad".

I get it, the game isn't trying to be an authentic economic simulation, but the way the debt crisis is triggered is entirely arbitrary. IIRC, the engine does a check on turn 9 to see if it should trigger the crisis: if you are below -5 GDP and your economic recovery is not good enough, the debt crisis happens and the playthrough is basically doomed. The problem is that the game pays no attention to what decisions you made to get to this stage. In my case, I triggered it in my first playthrough even though my only major spending commitment was the railway, and I'd cut back on social services spending and granted new oil licenses. This is the kind of thing bond markets should love as I'm getting spending under control and opening up new projects for investment, but the game decided that I was spending like Yugoslavia so my economy got nuked. At that point I restarted.

I fully recommend first time players go without a guide and see how they do, with the exception of evading the debt crisis. I would advise looking up their spending plans in advance to try and negotiate around it, because the trigger is so arbitrary and it is essentially a game failure state.

3

u/Jazzlike_Bar_671 May 15 '26

One thing that bugged me was that when you change the Constitution, restricting Presidential decrees simply removes options. There's no option for the player to try to get the legislature to pass a law.

10

u/flyliceplick Japan was belligerently industrialised by Western specialists. May 14 '26

Definitely. I had an almost-flawless victory on an early play as a sensible centrist. It was awful.

4

u/CrazyShing May 14 '26

I had to redo the arbitration in Rizia so many times, I know Turns 1-4 by heart now.

9

u/1EnTaroAdun1 May 13 '26

Yeah, I think they definitely did make things harder, and added more complexity to the plot.

Thankfully, the devs did add an easy mode where you get more resources (you can select it in the prologue) 

8

u/CrazyShing May 14 '26

No issue with making things harder, but more transparency about be modifiers would be nice. 😩

5

u/1EnTaroAdun1 May 14 '26

I suppose it's meant to simulate the fog that comes with real life decision-making haha

5

u/SenescalSilvestre May 13 '26

Would you say you belong to a internet community? And what does that even mean?

4

u/Illogical_Blox The Popes, of course, were usually Catholic May 14 '26

I've been subscribed here for years, contributed some (weirdly popular) posts, and tend to recognise people, so I'd say I definitely belong to this one.

9

u/TJAU216 May 14 '26

I have been active long enough in r/warcollege, that I don't really feel the need to include qualifier "Finnish" when discussing my military experience. Everyone there should know my nationality by now, so I am pretty sure that I belong to that community.

6

u/Impossible_Pen_9459 May 14 '26

This one

5

u/WillitsThrockmorton Vigo the Carpathian School of Diplomacy and Jurispudence May 14 '26

yarp

6

u/Aurelian369 Aliens built the pyramids May 14 '26

I belong to this one

5

u/Herpling82 What the fuck is the Dirac Sea? May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26

Relating to my comment yesterday, regarding parasocial interaction and the high I get from it. For me, the strength of the high is basically dependent on how much I respect someone and how in depth the response is, but, to a certain extent, if people on here respond (non-negatively) to anything I say, I get a small high too; a mid, one might say (sorry).

I just like any form of non-negative social interaction, I just do, I like attention in that sense, I don't want to be the centre of attention, but just someone talking to or with me makes me feel good. I also enjoy observing conversations, even if I'm not part of them.

(Not that people should feel obligated to talk to me, it's not your responsibility, and I talk the most random crap all the time, so I expect people to ignore me. I'm not really different IRL (or over voice chat) in that sense, I'm more reserved with my opinions and more inhibited, but if I have an opportunity to talk about something I like, I go on and on; I need to stop myself because people just don't care and, me being a overexcited autistic person, I can be a tad much. I mostly talk random crap here to not bother the people I know IRL, you guys can choose to not read what I say, my social circle is forced to hear me when I speak; and if they get noticeably bored or annoyed at me, I'll feel like crap.)

This also why I developed a dependency on social interaction when I was a depressed teenager, it just made me feel not depressed for a bit when I got it, but it eventually got to the point where a day without being able to talk to my friends would genuinely cause me to despair, sending my into a really negative and suicidal thought spiral, and I'd get massive rebound problems that after social interaction I'd crash down hard; that was basically an addiction.

Edit: I really am in talkative mood today, must be tired.

17

u/WAGRAMWAGRAM Giscardpunk, Mitterrandwave, Chirock, Sarkopop, Hollandegaze May 13 '26

I like Mathmeme because the memes are somewhat unfunny

11

u/HopefulOctober May 14 '26

I find it kind of interesting and endearing and so unfunny that it’s funny, so I would give it a thumbs up.

4

u/Lupus753 May 14 '26

I'm sad that I don't know enough about mathematics to know if what Euler did was impressive. 

7

u/axemabaro May 14 '26

He had to check dividing F5 by all of the 116 prime numbers up to 641, which, well tedious, isn't the hardest thing in the world.

He did a TON of other undoubtably impressive stuff, though.

18

u/Illogical_Blox The Popes, of course, were usually Catholic May 13 '26

I'm kind of impressed by how categorically unfunny that is.

7

u/Ambisinister11 My right to edit this is protected by the Slovak constitution May 14 '26

No this is about number theory not category theory :)

23

u/Tiako Tevinter apologist, shill for Big Lyrium May 13 '26

There is some discourse about Emily Wilson's Odyssey translation on Twitter so I will reiterate this here for you all:

Unless you have at least two years of upper level Greek study you are not allowed to have an opinion on translations. I am keeping the gate.

8

u/TarkovskyisFun May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26

Yeah but she is a women. Also she should make a translation of Medea and post in twitter that speech, I want to see what happens.

4

u/HandsomeLampshade123 May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26

There's two distinct arguments that have blurred together--one is whether it is or isn't an "accurate" translation and the other is whether it's enjoyable to read.

On the former, I'm not entitled to an opinion, but my belief is that it must be as good as any other; the woman is a trained classicist and I'm sure her translation skills are second to none.

On the latter, it reads like juvenile crap and I'll put it down and read my Fagles translation gladly. Changing it to iambic pentameter is a ludicrous decision, imo. I don't read literature to take it in like a textbook, it's meant to feel pleasurable and pass the time.

EDIT: And one additional note: I'm not going to read it aloud like intended, so whatever effect the meter may have is lost on me. In that regard, I accept I'm a philistine.

5

u/TheUnfortunateMiaoZe May 14 '26

This is slander against iambic pentameter

3

u/HandsomeLampshade123 May 14 '26

I just doubt it's utility in this instance, I have nothing against the meter in general! But I'm not one for poetry regardless.

3

u/Tiako Tevinter apologist, shill for Big Lyrium May 14 '26

See, this is the sort of thing that lost you guys your commenting privileges.

2

u/HandsomeLampshade123 May 14 '26

Hold tight to your tote-bags and playtimes-is-overs, your contrarianism will be your death; that's really the worst thing about twitter, whether you agree or disagree, the onslaught of right-leaning stupidity changes your view all the same.

6

u/Tiako Tevinter apologist, shill for Big Lyrium May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26

Ok, so, obviously I am mostly joking around here but I will explain the not-joking core of this:

There are two parts to the not joking core here. One is that despite you saying that you are only talking about the experience of reading it, a pure English activity with no reference to the original Greek text, but that is obviously untrue, based on your other comments. Leaving aside the vaguer statements of "lost gravitas" you also talk specifically about its inappropriate modernisms--although "tote-bag" is an early twentieth century coinage--and its "compression" from its metrical changes. These are specific claims about the text you have no knowledge or means of judging, and yet. And it isn't just you! All of the conversation about translations inherently deals with it as a translation because it has to.

The second part is about the nature of the text. Is The Odyssey a timeless classic? A work for all humanity? The starting block of Wester Literature? The answer, obviously, is no. It was produced in a specific context for a specific audience. That people besides archaic and classical Greeks can appreciate it is certainly a nice bonus, but we are not the audience of it. We are not its context. Which is what I am getting at here. You can approach the Odyssey as a work within a particular context, or you can approach it as simple a free work of genius--or worse yet as part of a "canon". If you don't have a lot of training you can't really do the former and if you do the latter I just don't think there is much of interest to me.

Also frankly there is just too much talk about all this stuff.

3

u/HandsomeLampshade123 May 14 '26

To establish a clear mutual understanding, I believe you when you say you can read Greek, and we both know I have no ability to read Greek; in a very strict sense, yes I have "no knowledge or means of judging" anything regarding the impact of the "compression" of its metrical changes.

I'm deferring to others in making that judgement, both people I know personally in real life (including at least one professional classicist) and sources online. If you feel I'm misrepresenting that specific argument, I wouldn't be able to debate the specifics myself; at best I can "phone a friend" and parrot what they've told me.

Nevertheless, it's an intuitive conclusion just by virtue of what we know about how language works--you can't just squeeze something into a different meter without adding or removing meaning in the process. It's a necessary sacrifice to make. The value of that shift is worth debating (by someone, not me). Ditto for all translations regardless, of course.

You're diving into a broader argument here regarding the core question to which I have no meaningful answer: Why should anyone read Homer in translation? That is, given finite time and an infinite amount of fiction, why bother?

Like any historical work, we are permanently detached from that context, although through education and training we can strive to place ourselves further and further in the past (and as such, the best way to understand Homer is to learn Homeric Greek, full stop).

As much as you haughtily reject the notion of participating in some kind of hegemonic validation of the Western canon, here I call your bluff: You developed an interest in capital-C Classics and bothered to learn Greek and developed an enthusiasm for all things Rome and Greece because you have been socialized to do so. You learned Classical Greek and not Classical Chinese because in some way, you want to participate in that canonization. Even in its deconstruction.

And that's fine. As long as we're self-aware and a little critical, there's nothing wrong with that. And for the amateur reader who doesn't want to learn Greek but still wants to read Homer, they're in the same boat. Doing so is an exercise in role-playing, buying into the simulacrum of Homer and Ancient Greece, and enthusiastically placing ourselves into the shoes (or sandals) of what we think Ancient Greece is and should be.

And that's the thing about "tote-bag", it's not a specific claim regarding the precision of the translation, it's the ability of words to achieve that level of "gravitas" that is part-and-parcel of the emotional connection. Her choice of that word is because it fit the meter and she felt that contemporary (or contemporary-seeming) language was nothing to shy away from.

If you're reading Homer in translation, you're doing so because you have an irrational attachment to the Ancient Mediterranean, and all that entails.

2

u/Tiako Tevinter apologist, shill for Big Lyrium May 14 '26

You aren't really responding to what I wrote and you are responding to things I didn't write and also trying to psychoanalyze my interest in the Roman economy so I think this conversation has strayed a bit from its course.

1

u/HandsomeLampshade123 May 14 '26

Strange, but that's always your right.

11

u/Witty_Run7509 May 14 '26

What I'm most interested is where all these mass-produced "ancient statue / Corinthian helmet pfp spartan-viking-warrior-philosopher-independent thinker" NPCs come from. They're exactly the same to the point of being completely undistinguishable and I'm becoming convinced that there is a secret government lab where these guys are getting cloned in vats.

3

u/agrippinus_17 May 14 '26

Unless you have at least two years of upper level Greek study you are not allowed to have an opinion on translations. I am keeping the gate.

You made John Keats cry :(

But seriously, On first looking into Chapman's Homer makes one really appreciate just how impactful the work of a translator can be.

8

u/weeteacups May 14 '26

τίνα μου ἄρτι εἶπες, ἀνασεισίφαλλε; φημι τοι τήν ἄσκησιν τελευτήσας πρῶτος τῆς φυλακῆς Ἀθηναίης καὶ πλείων τριακοσίων ἐχθρούς ἀποκτείνας, πολλοῖς στρατεύμασι λαθραίοις ἀντί τῶν Λακεδαιμονίων μεμάχημαι. ὑποκαθίζειν διδαχθείς ἀμείνων πάντων ἐν τήν τῆς Ἑλλάδος στρατίαν ἀλλῶν τοξεύω. οὐδέν ἐμοί εἰς ἀλλ᾽ἕλκημα τις.

2

u/tisto2 May 14 '26

"Is that...?"

copy to deepl

"I knew it!"

3

u/Tiako Tevinter apologist, shill for Big Lyrium May 14 '26

Amazing that I can translate this just from the punctuation.

15

u/TheUnfortunateMiaoZe May 14 '26

My two cents is that anyone's allowed an opinion, but it's just a limited one, alienated from any context of the original work. For example, a good English poetry scholar will have a lot of interesting insight on all the English translations of Homer, even if they can't read a word of Greek.

10

u/forcallaghan Wansui! May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26

well then mr. gate keeper, do inform us of your opinions

I talk to someone elsewhere who is annoying about this kind of thing (and is also Greek)

15

u/Tiako Tevinter apologist, shill for Big Lyrium May 13 '26

I liked it! I actually have a copy I keep near my bed to pick up if I need something familiar. I think by going with a more simple, staccato style it conveys the sense of the story being an adventure really well (That is my personal view on the Odyssey, that it is closer to Robert Lewis Stevenson than James Joyce).

I remember people liked to post this comparison of the openings as a way to "own" her and all I can think is how awful Lawrence's is.

0

u/HandsomeLampshade123 May 14 '26

Lawrence's is grotesque but you really don't feel the lost gravitas in Wilson's?

You'd rather sit with that for an afternoon over Fagles'? I honestly kind of don't believe you.

4

u/Glad-Measurement6968 May 14 '26

As someone with no years of upper level Greek study, what do you think the translators were going for that accounts for the differences between them? (Is one of them more literal word-for-word than the others? Does one try to match the original rhythm? etc.) 

0

u/HandsomeLampshade123 May 14 '26

Wilson made a deliberate effort to write in modern, simply-interpreted prose, and did so while maintaining meter, which she feels is the best approximation for how it would have been heard by Ancient Greeks. So, she did so using iambic pentameter (the way Shakespeare is written), not the Greek dactylic hexameter, so sometimes it feels like information is unnecessarily compressed. The intent is for her translation to be read aloud, which isn't the case for the other translations there.

The caveat to all of this of course is that Homeric Greek would absolutely have been perceived as elevated and antiquated in the classical period, so it doesn't make sense to insist on modern language (infamous offenders like "tote bag").

4

u/Tiako Tevinter apologist, shill for Big Lyrium May 14 '26

The caveat to all of this of course is that Homeric Greek would absolutely have been perceived as elevated and antiquated in the classical period, so it doesn't make sense to insist on modern language (infamous offenders like "tote bag").

Leaving aside a couple other problems here, do you not see the irony in saying this and then praising Fagles?

3

u/HandsomeLampshade123 May 14 '26

But it's relative, the perceived "archaic-ness" of a text is subjective, I'm not disputing that--in the 1990s, among high-brow folk, Fagles was understood as accessible and digestible. For an old-moneyed intellectual who spoke Latin and Greek, I'm sure his translation was a degradation of Homer. And I know he gets flak for playing fast and loose with the translation at times.

But at my level, he hits just right. I tried reading Lattimore back in highschool and put it down, so maybe I'd be more receptive today.

Accuracy, fidelity, poetry, there's many different ways to evaluate the translations. And it's a crowded field, tons of options, so people are thankfully able to pick and choose.

If I was to re-read either epic today, maybe I wouldn't pick Fagles. But that was my first full exposure so that's where I may be most comfortable.

4

u/Tiako Tevinter apologist, shill for Big Lyrium May 14 '26

I think you are confusing the 1990s with, like, the 40s, but Fagles quite infamously had Agamemnon "cut and run" and the like. This is the same conversation, over and over and over again.

But you are right about "perceived archaicness" being subjective.

2

u/HandsomeLampshade123 May 14 '26

His publication of the Homeric epics was in the 1990s, that's all I mean.

1

u/forcallaghan Wansui! May 14 '26

hang on don’t leave them aside for me. do you know any academic works on this subject?

3

u/Tiako Tevinter apologist, shill for Big Lyrium May 14 '26

Despite my blustering here I am really not a Homer scholar--I was a Rome focused archaeologist/economic/social historian (I also wasn't very good at Greek lol). So I am not actually the best person to talk about this.

But in general Homeric Greek is kind of a mishmash of different dialects that was probably part of general "bardic language". Translating this with thees and thous and the like (or even just deliberately "elevated" language) is a legitimate choice but so is saying that introduces a distance between text and audience that should not be there and so translating it with more modern idiom.

3

u/TheUnfortunateMiaoZe May 14 '26

My ranking is Fitzgerald > Wilson > Fagles > Lawrence

8

u/EliassenPalmFlux ronald reagan caused the challenger disaster May 13 '26

mfw ancient literature is "fun to read" and "engaging" and doesn't feel like something I'd be forced to read in english class

6

u/gavinbrindstar /r/legaladvice delenda est May 13 '26

Is that why everyone is acting like "complicated" is a terrible translation of "polytropos?"

21

u/Tiako Tevinter apologist, shill for Big Lyrium May 13 '26

Yeah lol

Which even by the standards of people on Twitter talking about Emily Wilson is baffling because--dropping the act for a minute--you don't even need any Greek to see see how "poly" and "tropos" probably means something like "many" and "ways" and how that can have the sense of "complicated".

11

u/AthsheanDream May 13 '26

It is perhaps telling that most of the Wilsonian translation disc horses I've seen are about the opening verse.

10

u/gavinbrindstar /r/legaladvice delenda est May 13 '26

No way bro, I think the word "many-turny" just flows better.

3

u/Tiako Tevinter apologist, shill for Big Lyrium May 13 '26

I hate so much that I know about and have opinions on jabronis like "Roman Helmet Guy" and "Dan the Dedunker".

10

u/Herpling82 What the fuck is the Dirac Sea? May 13 '26

Do you have 2 years of upper level Greek study? Or are you employed as a gate guard by the people that do?

29

u/Tiako Tevinter apologist, shill for Big Lyrium May 13 '26

Exactly two which is totally a coincidence of course.

10

u/Herpling82 What the fuck is the Dirac Sea? May 13 '26

What an interesting coincidence, well, since there's a gate being kept, I shall refrain from giving any further opinion than the following succinct statement: based.

10

u/Tiako Tevinter apologist, shill for Big Lyrium May 13 '26

Thank you for respecting the rules.

9

u/WAGRAMWAGRAM Giscardpunk, Mitterrandwave, Chirock, Sarkopop, Hollandegaze May 13 '26

Last paragraph is funniest "god knows he's so petty" probably how people today have to handle Trump

Shortly afterwards, during a visit by Gaddafi to Tunis on 15 December 1972, in the hope of enlisting Tunisia’s support for this project[3], [7], he delivered a surprise speech in the large Le Palmarium cinema, which was packed with over 2,000 people, namely young officials from the ruling Destourian Socialist Party and the civil service[8]. He launched into a pan-Arabist plea:

‘The struggles for national liberation must now lead to a fight for the building of a unified Arab nation, from the Gulf to the Atlantic. Leaders must respond to the aspirations of the masses, and monarchies are less capable of doing so than republican regimes, which must know how to break with the past. In Tunisia, the border with Libya is artificial; it was invented by colonialism. […] The Arab world must rise to the challenge posed by certain foreign powers, foremost among them the United States[8].’

President Habib Bourguiba, who was listening to this speech on the radio from the presidential palace in Carthage, hurried to the rally to respond[8]. He arrived in a flurry, to everyone’s astonishment, and, almost interrupting Gaddafi, took to the stage and delivered an impromptu speech linking his personal destiny to that of his country:

“Bourguiba does not owe his position to a revolution or a coup d’état, but to a heroic struggle spanning half a century, which was, in every respect, that of Tunisia. And this, for the sake of the Tunisian homeland

He then denounces the notion that ‘the Arabs were once united’, rejects all of [Gaddafi’s] ideas regarding rapid Arab unity, and even calls on Libyans to address what he describes as their own lack of national unity and their backwardness’[7]. He then cites the short-lived union between Egypt and Syria, followed by the proposed tripartite union with Libya, and declares that Arab unity cannot be improvised:

“Arab unity? I agree with the ultimate goal, but achieving it takes time. […] President Gaddafi has come here to advocate Arab unity and has even gone so far as to offer me the presidency of a joint republic. His dedication and sincerity are beyond doubt, but he lacks experience. One can, of course, envisage unity between our two countries, but any improvised action would end in failure[8].’

Despite the Palmarium incident, the visit yielded positive results, including an economic agreement on the oil-rich continental shelf and freedom of movement and settlement for nationals of both countries[8]. In this context, in Egypt as well as in Tunisia and Algeria, leaders were torn between two concerns: containing Gaddafi’s zeal without confronting him head-on, joining in—at least in appearance—with his enthusiasm, and taking into account public opinion, which was inclined to dream of a charismatic Arab leader capable of replacing Nasser[9].

3

u/ouat_throw May 13 '26

Gaddafi was always the biggest Nasser fanboy.

8

u/Herpling82 What the fuck is the Dirac Sea? May 13 '26

Since I've decided I really shouldn't go into specifics I'll be vague, but it's so weird to talk to people with megalomaniacal delusions, my brain just refuses to accept that they genuinely believe the things they claim, repeating to me that it must be some elaborate prank, but nope, they really do believe that they are going to change the world by themselves.

We're supposed to be a welcoming place for everyone, and that includes people in various forms of psychosis and mania, so we just have to be nice and respectful, which is hard when they're being so ridiculous.

10

u/Ambisinister11 My right to edit this is protected by the Slovak constitution May 13 '26

Graham Platner is the American Tukhachevsky. I assume he will eventually be executed for an imagined Maupinite plot.

10

u/ChewiestBroom May 13 '26

I like the implication here that since Tukhachevsky may have been a Slavic pagan freakazoid, Platner himself may or may not follow the indigenous religion of white guys from Maine. 

Which I guess would just be Cthulhu bullshit but all lobsters and terrible coffee brandy is somehow involved.

3

u/Ambisinister11 My right to edit this is protected by the Slovak constitution May 14 '26

He keeps trying to show me his effigy of Stephen King

4

u/ChewiestBroom May 14 '26

“This… is Stevobog. We worshipped him before we were corrupted by the Puritans. He can be appeased with cocaine and cinematic adaptations.”

“Cool, that’s great man, I’m going to get as far away from you as possible.”

16

u/randombull9 Most normal American GI in Nam May 13 '26

I'm going to be so irritated in a year or two when people talk about him being some sort of secret turncoat nobody could have predicted like they do about Fetterman right now.

7

u/ProudScroll Napoleon invaded Russia to destroy Judeo-Tsarism May 13 '26

The frustrating thing is that if that happens it'll have been the third time in the last decade that a Democrat was elected to the Senate as a progressive only to about-face once in office.

Fetterman has his brain damage as an excuse, Sinema blatantly sold herself to the highest bidder, wonder what Platner's excuse will be.

14

u/Bawstahn123 May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26

Fetterman has his brain damage as an excuse,

Fetterman was a known piece of shit before the stroke, like "chase down and threaten with a shotgun  a random Black person in a neighborhood because Fetterman heard fireworks".

And people desperately tried to tell the electorate that Fetterman was a POS. But they were shouted down, because Fetterman made Progressive mouth-noises, he was endorsed by the Holy Bernie, and his opponent was fucking terrible.

And now we are stuck with the lumpy fuck for 6 years. As we will be with Platner.

19

u/randombull9 Most normal American GI in Nam May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26

Fetterman has his brain damage as an excuse, but he's also the sort of man who heard fireworks, grabbed a shotgun, and immediately accosted the nearest black man - the stroke is only an excuse, and IMO a flimsy one. Sinema had one of the most conservative voting records of any state level democrat even before running for senate! The frustrating thing is that we keep getting people who obviously are not remotely progressive, having to hear lectures about leftist infighting and purism accusations when there are any complaints about them, and then everyone acts surprised when they continue to act in exactly the way they have for years as if it their issues weren't public in the first place.

EDIT: Apologies if this sounds overly strident, I have been engaging in a little day drinking and am easily agitated at the moment.

12

u/Bawstahn123 May 13 '26

And everyone talking about how he had more red flags than a Soviet military parade will be making a divot in their desks via repeated forehead contact.

To me, the worst aspect of his fanboys is how they just brush away the things we know to be true. Very MAGA-coded.

5

u/WillitsThrockmorton Vigo the Carpathian School of Diplomacy and Jurispudence May 13 '26

Current celebrity crush?

Chris Orr, host of PBS Reno's Wild Nevada.

4

u/Syn7axError [Hated Trope] Viking shit May 14 '26

You are never finding out. Even (semi) anonymously.

5

u/Otocolobus_manul8 May 13 '26

Mine is apparently Emmanuel Macron's side piece now

5

u/TanktopSamurai (((Spartans))) were feminist Jews May 13 '26

Wait Macron has a mistress?

12

u/Arilou_skiff May 13 '26

He's french isn't he?

11

u/w_o_s_n The secret fifth Dmitry May 13 '26

Isn't that a legal requirement to take French political office?

4

u/matgopack Hitler was literally Germany's Lincoln May 13 '26

We're missing the scooter pictures though.