If you're gonna support horrible warlike slave-states. At LEAST have the dignity to pick one of the cool ones like Rome.
this post was submitted on 12 Apr 2025
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I'm absolutely fascinated with Roman history. But anyone who actually admires the Roman Empire is fucked in the head.
tbf that's often where they start. It goes something like: I like Rome-->I want to see that today-->How can someone build an empire in the modern world-->Oh yeah, a few guys did try that...
I think racism is more of an independent correlation than any causative element. The cause seems to be an oversimplification of the world into "natural laws" that are poorly understood, usually surrounding a shallow understanding of survival of the fittest and hierarchical structures in animal behavior. This root branches out into both racism and authoritarianism independently.
an oversimplification of the world into “natural laws” that are poorly understood, usually surrounding a shallow understanding of survival of the fittest
It's especially ironic because the only real measure of the "health" of any gene pool is its diversity. Species that lack diversity are doomed to go extinct sooner or later as the environment changes. The eugenics obsession with "racial purity" is the exact opposite of what you would want if you want your group to survive.
an oversimplification of the world into "natural laws" that are poorly understood, usually surrounding a shallow understanding of survival of the fittest and hierarchical structures in animal behavior.
well put. this is why lobster discourse inexplicably drew national media coverage ~5-6 years ago.
for those dumb enough to fall hook line and sinker for the Naturalistic Fallacy and apply lobster behavior as prescriptions for how to organize human societies, it's an easy jump to look at historical conquests/subjugation and proclaim "it's natural for some groups to dominate others, see, it happened in the past so it must be an innate characteristic!"
for a succinct (and entertaining) analysis along these lines of pseudo-intellectual justifications for fascism, i highly recommend Some More News' takedown of Canada's stupidest pundit
Losers following a loser, makes sense.
I love Japanese culture, mythology, and history. It's so different from my culture, mythology and history, that it feels as close to a real fantasy world as you can get.
Speaking of fantasy, I wish the D&D Oriental Adventures system wasn't demonized so much for the word "oriental" - as superficial a criticism as calling the whole game "satanic".
Knowing your enemy is definitely a good thing to do! Also, I wouldn't even label it history if they're purposefully trying to create a false narrative in the past. If you slap me with me an old Herodotus quote, I'll slap you.
Conquests are cool when it's not your colour.
My point is: there's a big black scary book with a swastika on it called "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich". It's a fucking battle to get through, but it really helps you figure out why fascism can rise so quickly. It's also written by a British correspondent.
Also, I love the art style.
Read it.
Long, but the details are clutch, it's amazing how little things helped make such a massive catastrophe for the world.
I love Indonesian archipelago, and their cultures, a vibrant history that connects nearly every continent, every type of person you can think of, it's such a jolly research topic and you learn a lot.
As a Dutch person most of what I know about Indonesian history isn't very jolly (due to us)
Does this apply to Napoleon?
Cause he was an absolute chad!
Our modern life wouldn’t have been like this without the Napoleonic code.
Edit: thought people would catch the slight sarcasm cause I used the absolute chad meme, but just in case: there are no good conquerors.
Napoleon was not a "chad". He was a horrible warmonger that helped destabilize nearly all of Europe for decades, even centuries in some parts
Oh yeah, for sure.
What I meant was that there are cooler warmongers out there that did some good instead of being straight up evil.
And he also was actually good at winning battles, which imo can’t be said about the Austrian guy.
Was he a warmonger though? It seems like Europe just really didn't like him.
Anciens Regimes propaganda still going strong 200 years later 😔
Plus, in the US we get a lot of our European history via England.
You realized that he never started any of the wars. It was always the rest of europe wanting to crush this democracy thing.
Neither Napoleon's consulate nor his empire were democratic. Even the directory that he overthrew only stayed in power by nullifying electoral results that they didn't like.
Lol his empire was just him appointing his dumbass relatives (and his somewhat less dumbass friends) as kings. It couldn't have been less democratic if he'd tried.
Don't forget he also reinstated slavery throughout the French empire, which had been banned by the Republic he toppled. He also led thousands upon thousands to their death and caused massive loss of life in Europe. He did some good, but his legacy is definitely mixed to say the least
He's cool and all but some of the other guys of that time period where insane.
I would LOVE to see a movie about Bernadotte or the Duke of Brunswick.