this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2025
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Science Memes

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[–] [email protected] 144 points 1 month ago (24 children)

Let's see...

  • Nazism
  • McCarthyism
  • Vietnam War
  • Racial Injustice
  • South African Apartheid
  • Occupy Wall Street
  • Gaza Genocide
  • etc.

I am curious. Has there ever been a wide-scale student protest movement that WASN'T unequivocally vindicated by history?

[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

The Young Turk movement started with medical students.

There were quite a few pro-segregation protests when schools were desegregated.

There's also a lot of cases where students with real grievances and positive intentions are coopted; most of the students protesting in the early 90s in eastern europe didn't intend to do a color revolution and have their countries stripped for parts.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Thank you for bringing those up. However, unless I'm misunderstanding them, the only one of those where the protesters were in the wrong were the pro-segregation protests, correct? But weren't those protests by-and-large made up of parents? (Perhaps along with some of their children doing what they were told?) Not exactly the "rebellious youth sticking it to the man" we generally mean by the words student protest.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago

weren’t those protests by-and-large made up of parents?

Yes and no, a number of universities had pro-segregation actions by students including protests

History is always more complicated and nuanced than any narrative would lead you to believe.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Closest I can come with is nuclear disarmament. Not because I think they were on the wrong side of it, but I think it's far less clear cut and there's a credible argument that MAD has worked.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

We can't really prove that MAD has worked without seeing what would have happened if we hadn't done MAD.

I'd argue that without MAD, the cold war might not have happened, which could have avoided a massive number of conflicts.

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[–] [email protected] 87 points 1 month ago

Weren't they revoking degrees now for protestors? Anyone who considers Columbia a real school at this point is incurable.

[–] [email protected] 55 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Given enough time, we were always going to have right wing authoritarians back in power.

But call me an idealist, I didn't think it would be actual Nazi sympathizers. Thought the brand was appropriately tarnished what with the Holocaust.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The US always had right wing authoritarians in power. They just prefered to slaughter people abroad.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago

Cherry picking history is what US excels at. So, they're always the good guys. Always…

There'll probably be some footnotes about their heinous history just so they can point and say they're not hiding anything. But the way they control almost all major social media companies and mainstream media. They get to play god with what sticks and what doesn't.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago

Thought the brand was appropriately tarnished what with the Holocaust.

I wish I had the faith in humanity you have

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Didn’t the USA join a war against some Nazis?

[–] [email protected] 70 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Not unprovoked and not for 5 more years. Germany declared war on the US. Until Pearl Harbor, the US was quite neutral.

Edit: correct 4 to 5

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 month ago (4 children)

They were about as “neutral” as they were in the Ukraine conflict under Biden.

They were selling loads of weapons at discount prices and supporting the allies in many ways.

You’re right though that the US public was generally against joining the war, and the US as a whole, tended to be quite isolationist until Pearl Harbour.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

They were selling weapons to both sides. GM controlled Opel until the 1940s, they built a lot of the nazi war machine (using forced labor), the Ford-Werke factory in Germany produced V2 rocket turbines among other parts, and US strategic bombers were specifically told to avoid bombing it because it was owned by an american, Exxon and Dow licensed patents for synthetic rubber and other war materials Germany lacked, Chase provided loans necessary for the rearmament, IBM sold the nazis the computers they used to carry out the holocaust.

The capitalist class looked at fascism as the savior of capitalism; they'd been terrified of a revolution in Germany and Hitler had just shown them an alternative. There's a reason he was Time's man of the year in 1938.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Adolf Hilter was Time's Person of the Year in 1938. Joseph Stalin was 1939.

Source: https://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,2019712,00.html

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (6 children)

Good catch, I have edited it accordingly. Real "giving the nobel peace prize to Henry Kissinger and the guys he is currently dropping chemical weapons on" vibes.

Also: Holy shit, Chiang Kai-Shek is there for 1937.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Person of the year is not a honorific. It just means most important or influential.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

excuse me i won person of the year and i'm taking it as an honorific

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

Time Magazine Person of the Year is for the most influential person of the year. Not the best, or most admirable. Merely the greatest agent of change.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Do you mean the other way around? German companies had the patents for synthetic rubber, most notably Buna-N, and when the USA joined they simply stole it?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago

US was selling stuff to EVERYONE, including the Nazis

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

The USA made a hell of a lot of money off weapons sold to the allies. It created the USA industrial farming system.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago

So I'm not so sure this is actually a Science Meme other than proving that sometimes history does repeat itself?

I was skeptical that this was actually real, but it is indeed on the NYT website and the image was taken from their "Timeline view"

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Yes, yes, every piece slowly falls into place. *Cue maniacal villain laughter

It's like they actually studied history, to try and replicate the desired results as identically as possible. Or they didn't, at all, and this is just 2+2=4 scenario but with history.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

The more things change…

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