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  • Yep! Hell of a thing to tempt Neptune when you've hardly gotten your sea legs.

  • By the layout and visible amenities, I'd guess this to be middle-class? I doubt it'd be quite rich. The rich in every country tend to be somewhat more... ostentatious.

    It's very common for houses in this region to be painted like this though.

  • Gone... reduced to boils

  • Jesus fucking Christ. What a fucking slug Trump is.

  • All things are relative - like I said, I mean it only in contrast to a fall the way the Roman Empire went.

  • Explanation: Ancient Romans were very fond of interpreting omens - augury. One of the most common forms was augury by birds. In one notable incident, sacred chicken kept by a priest in the Roman fleet were fed in an attempt to see if it was wise to offer battle on that given day. The chickens did not eat, which was a bad omen. The Roman commander, enraged, reportedly tossed the chickens into the ocean, saying "If they will not eat, let them drink!"

    He lost the ensuing battle, returned to Rome in shame, and was stripped of his command by the Senate, retiring in ignominy.

  • Explanation: Ancient Romans were very fond of interpreting omens - augury. One of the most common forms was augury by birds. In one notable incident, sacred chicken kept by a priest in the Roman fleet were fed in an attempt to see if it was wise to offer battle on that given day. The chickens did not eat, which was a bad omen. The Roman commander, enraged, reportedly tossed the chickens into the ocean, saying "If they will not eat, let them drink!"

    He lost the ensuing battle, returned to Rome in shame, and was stripped of his command by the Senate, retiring in ignominy.

  • Explanation: Dysentery, before the modern day, was an extremely common way to die, especially when drinking from uncertain water sources was involved. Also, it's an infamously common way of dying in the early computer game "The Oregon Trail".

  • The people who use the term are often pretty heavy on the "Capitalism falls because of its own contradictions" line of thinking, which is a touch too 19th century materialist for a 21st century analysis.

  • It's not the average one we're hunting

  • At 100 ELO, I am the rake

  • The idea of there being an 'end-stage' of capitalism is deterministic nonsense.

    Feudalism lasted 1000+ years. Capitalism is not going to destroy itself; we need to destroy it.

  • Read the whole thing. Everyone involved in this, author included, seems to be batshit insane?

  • I'm about halfway through.

    I didn't realize Mastodon was big enough for so much fucking drama.

  • What do you mean by this? Why would the US be more likely to be hegemonic over the entire world than just the Americas? Their heavy-handed political interventions in Latin America are well-known.

    Our power is built on global structures, not pan-American structures. Our meddling in Latin America is well-known, but if we collapsed, and my three choices were "The world goes in crisis", "The Americas go in crisis", or "Life goes on, like after the fall of the SovUnion", I would number the likelihood as

    1. "Life goes on"
    2. "The world goes in crisis"
    3. "The Americas go in crisis"

    Just because everyone overestimated Putin’s military at the beginning of the war doesn’t mean they’re not a serious power.

    Even before the Ukrainian invasion, every serious analyst knew Russia's future was cooked. Now it's just that they're unambiguously turned themselves into a vassal state for the PRC on account of having dropped a full percentage of their young men into a meat grinder in the midst of an already-dire demographic crisis, experienced a mass brain drain, wiped out their economy, and isolated themselves from Western trade.

    While they may not be quite on the level of the US or the CPC, they’re still the 5th largest in the world and I think despite the war casualties, their military production and organization are stronger than they were before.

    Only by unsustainable deficit spending, and their production quality has dropped markedly since the beginning of the war. When you read "Russia has produced another 200 tanks!", you have to remember that "produced" means "refitted old Soviet T-72s (which are good enough, mind you) stock", not "made brand new equipment".

    North Korea is the third largest military in the world, you don't see it dominating global politics.

    Russia has wiped out a massive amount of its materiel, financial, and human resources in a war on its own border with a country a fourth of its size, wherein it still has not managed any major gains past the initial surprise attack three years ago. Its military is anything but capable of meaningful force projection at this point.

    Their abilities in information warfare and nuclear arsenal also made them punch above their weight.

    This much is true.

    I think they will remain a global power barring some kind of major political or economic collapse, and in a post US world might be more likely to come into conflict with the CPC.

    There's no reality in which the Russian Federation, in any recognizably modern form, conflicts with the PRC. It's like saying a Pomeranian is gonna rumble with a Neapolitan Mastiff - if it was stupid enough to do so, it wouldn't be anything more than a joke to the mastiff.

  • But who is Britannia? The Britons, who still led several uprisings trying to oust the Roman invaders?

    Bruh, Britannia hadn't had a major native uprising in over 300 years at the time Roman Britain was abandoned.

    Do we follow the Roman lead of stopping the borders of Britannia arbitrarily at Caledonia and Hibernia and declare the people of those lands as being without value because they had less tribute to extract?

    "Britannia" as in "The Roman province of Britannia", guy.

    Or do we look only at the accounts of the handful of British tribal kings who were willing to appease the Romans in exchange for preferential treatment, enough to be more positively written about in their surviving history?

    ...

    Fucking what.

    Beyond Britannia, was Rome great for Judea?

    Before and after the Jewish-Roman Wars in which religious fanatics attempted to murder everyone who wasn't their coreligionist or was their coreligionist but in the wrong way, yes. During them, not so much.

    Did the tribes of Germania enjoy being invaded every time some emperor wanted to improve their legacy and try to one-up their forebears?

    See, now this is a potentially legitimate point. I would counter, though, that most major cross-border incursions into Germania by Rome after the campaigns of Augustus were provoked by attacks and raids on Roman land and allies - Germania remained unconquered for the same reason that it was not really all that great as a target for loot and plunder - it was dirt poor. Rome's primary reason for expeditions against the Germanic tribes was defense of the borders - the Germans were neither prestigious nor prosperous targets.

    Now, Persia? Persia was a perpetual dream of Roman conquest, and they were probably quite glad to hear half of their enemy's empire had collapsed.

    Did the remaining Gaulish tribes miss Rome after the fall, if only because they were the only ones left alive after Caesar’s conquest?

    Yes. Unironically.

    And, perhaps most importantly, was life in Rome great for all of the people enslaved by it throughout its history?

    No, but was life as a slave of a British chieftain or a Spanish warlord great? It seems an odd question to level considering the ubiquity of slavery in the ancient world.

    I really do get what you are saying, but keep in mind that Rome was a great place to be a Roman—it wasn’t so great for everyone else.

    No, man, this is pop history shit viewing the Roman Empire through an extremely modern lens of imperialism and exploitation.

    There was violence and strife during its fall, but so was there in its rise and later stagnation.

    This is like saying there was hunger in the medieval period, but there's also hunger in developed countries today. It entirely misses the fucking point.

    It’s mainly just lucky for Rome that they were the best record keepers of their time, to have written so many one-sided perspectives about how great it was, which certainly gave later Europe a wonderful ideal to miss after it was gone.

    Huh. I wonder why Romans were such great record keepers and were so keen on writing about 'how great it was' (since you think it's self-praising pamphleteers that we get our view of the Empire from) while everyone else utterly failed to do so. I guess it was coincidence.

    But the foundations of that empire were nevertheless built on a brutal cycle of conquest, exploitation, and enslavement.

    The idea of the Empire's foundations being built on a cycle of conquest, exploitation, and enslavement is insane. That's plunder economy shit that hasn't been taken seriously in nearly a hundred years.

  • Fire Memes for Traitor Haters @lemmy.world

    God is good 🙏

    The Democratic People's Republic of Tankiejerk @lemmy.world

    The People's Hunger

    History Memes @lemmy.world

    Kuznechik is a comrade and a hero in this house! o7

    NonCredibleDefense @lemmy.world

    HIGHLY DECORATED WAR HERO

    Rough Roman Memes @lemmy.world

    Reverse Roman Empire

    Political Memes @lemmy.world

    I wish Chomsky wasn't so fucking campist that he can regularly be counted on to play genocide apologist if it's "anti-West"

    NonCredibleDefense @lemmy.world

    Luigi Cadorna is as noncredible as it gets

    Enough Musk Spam @lemmy.world

    "Maybe this next one won't realize what a loser I am"

    memes @lemmy.world

    "Maybe this next one won't realize what a loser I am"

    Dogs @lemmy.world

    Tired buddies

    WLW Memes @lemmy.world

    They do say combat is the sixth love language

    Microblog Memes @lemmy.world

    This is SICK. This is depraved. It can't be legal

    Fallout @lemmy.world

    Hardly seems fair

    The Democratic People's Republic of Tankiejerk @lemmy.world

    Marx being based as usual

    Moved to !latin@piefed.social @lemm.ee

    "BEHOLD, A GOD!" - What barbarians actually believe smh

    History Memes @lemmy.world

    "BEHOLD, A GOD!" - What barbarians actually believe smh

    Rough Roman Memes @lemmy.world

    "BEHOLD, A GOD!" - What barbarians actually believe smh

    grimdank @lemmy.world

    Thank the God-Emperor for The Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer!

    Flippanarchy @lemmy.dbzer0.com

    "It seems that every heart that beats for freedom has no other right than a bit of lead, so I claim mine!"

    History Memes @lemmy.world

    "It seems that every heart that beats for freedom has no other right than a bit of lead, so I claim mine!"