• Manifish_Destiny@lemmy.world
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      26 days ago

      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.

      • themoken@startrek.website
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        25 days ago

        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.

          • MajorHavoc@programming.dev
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            25 days ago

            When I’m a billionaire (and no longer temporarily embarrassed), I’m going to fund so much tasteless art. And by art I mean mostly pornography. But I’ll hire the best advisors to make sure it’s a classy positive influence on society.

  • justOnePersistentKbinPlease@fedia.io
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    26 days ago

    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.

    • wjrii@lemmy.world
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      26 days ago

      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.

    • andros_rex@lemmy.world
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      25 days ago

      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?)

      • justOnePersistentKbinPlease@fedia.io
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        25 days ago

        Yes, it is more complex than that.

        1. 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.

        1. 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.
    • Sergio@slrpnk.net
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      25 days ago

      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

  • andros_rex@lemmy.world
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    25 days ago

    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.

  • stupidcasey@lemmy.world
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    25 days ago

    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.

    • palordrolap@fedia.io
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      25 days ago

      « 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.”

  • lime!@feddit.nu
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    25 days ago

    i got the soviet-afghan war and wow did that recontextualize a lot of things about the modern world

      • lime!@feddit.nu
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        25 days ago

        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.

        • CitizenKong@lemmy.world
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          24 days ago

          Charlie Wilson’s War is a pretty great movie about that, starring Tom Hanks, directed by Mike Nichols and written by Aaron Sorkin, although it’s more of a political satire and plays it fast and loose with the historical details.

        • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
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          24 days ago

          The Soviet-friendly Afghan government wasn’t a) progressive and b) wasn’t secular. The government is explicitly Marxist-Leninist who oppressed and forced people to drop their religion as part of state atheism.

          The progressivism and secularism you refer to was during the kingdom era before being overthrown by the communist Afghan military. The more liberal attitude is only contained in a bubble in the capital city of Kabul. The rest of 80% of Afghans are still religious conservatives living rural and in poverty. An Afghan female former politician lamented not seeing this because she grew up in liberal Kabul.

          Also more importantly, it’s a misconception that the US helped the Taliban. The mujahideen was composed of various factions, some are secular, some are conservative, while some are more Islamists. But, the ultraconservative elements only came later in more definite form under the Taliban, which defeated both the secular and conservative forces.

          • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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            24 days ago

            forced people to drop their religion as part of state atheism.

            Sounds like

            progressivism and secularism

            To me

            • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
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              24 days ago

              Forcing someone to change their beliefs is considered progressivism and secularism? I did not get the memo that progressives are authoritarians. What were the Afghans resisting the Soviets for then?

                • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
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                  24 days ago

                  As much as I want religion to be gone, you can’t force people to change their beliefs overnight. We frown upon forced conversion by one religion on another; why can’t atheist apply the same standard to theists? That was the mistake of communist Afghans and it only led to a severe backlash of inducing the mostly conservative Afghans to become ultra-consenservative Islamists. Every reaction has an opposite but equal reaction. Social changes has to be organic.

              • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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                24 days ago

                Same as always

                People that make those decisions want to continue to make those decisions

  • Boozilla@lemmy.world
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    25 days ago

    I’m the War on Christmas guy, and I’m getting my ass handed to me every single year.