Cripple. History Major. Irritable and in constant pain. Vaguely Left-Wing.

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Cake day: July 21st, 2023

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  • Explanation: The Novgorod Republic was a Medieval republic in what-is-now Russia. There is some evidence of a relatively high rate of literacy, and a complex system of governance that included democratic elements. Novgorod merchants were known throughout Europe (and had something of a rivalry with the Germanic Hanseatic League). The republic was eventually conquered by Ivan III of Moscow, and then massacred by his grandson Ivan the Terrible a few decades later.



  • Explanation: Flaming pigs were an occasional device used in antiquity to counter enemy war elephants. The pigs would be slathered in pitch and set on fire all at once, then loosed towards the elephants. The squealing, burning pigs sprinting towards them would terrify the elephants and disorder them (ideally into each other, or even into the enemy lines). G’wan, git’em!

    One of the big problems with war elephants is that you do not want six tons of weaponized meat getting, in any way, out of control. Training elephants to not panic at groups of armed men is (relatively) easy enough, since armed men are easy to come by when training a military force - but who thinks to train their war elephants to not fear burning pigs sprinting under their feet? SCREAMING BACON FLAWLESS VICTORY










  • No smoking gun, but PugJesus gives the time period “medieval” (not a term used academically for time periods),

    ‘Medieval’ and even ‘Medieval studies’ remain academically accepted terms.

    but the roundhouse is a typically pre-Roman Iron Age dwelling in Britain, so there’s some inconsistency there.

    Rural houses of that design, of thatch, wattle, and wooden supports, are common all the way up to the early modern period in numerous regions of Europe.

    Not sure the clothing is very “medieval” either.

    Hose, braies, tunics, what am I missing here that isn’t medieval?


  • Speaking as a moderator, moderating communities isn’t exclusively about ideology. I believe, ideologically, in freedom of speech - but I’m not going to let shitheads shit up my communities just because they have the legal or moral right to spout off. I have the right to keep a clean house - to not provide a platform to whoever wants it. Hell, this extends to the simply irrelevant - if someone, genuinely and innocently but insistently - started posting fantasy artifacts in !historyartifacts@lemmy.world, I would remove their posts in a heartbeat.

    Freedom of speech doesn’t mean giving everyone your platform to speak out - anarchism doesn’t mean communities cannot be curated. Though, I believe, in terms of praxis it would mandate a more democratic means of curating communities, but as has been pointed out elsewhere in this thread, Lemmy’s not really got the tools for that.


  • See, I think liberal democracy is perfectly capable of stopping its worst harms in the case of an educated and active citizenry (what a fucking endeavor that is to undertake… we’re nowhere close to that at the moment), but I also support organizations that build power outside of electoral politics, as alternative bases of power mandate negotiation, implicit or explicit, from the ruling power, and reduce the chance of abuse of power.

    While the view of the government as a single unitary entity is foolish in my view, and thus even a society without strong non-government entities is not automatically doomed to tyranny because of the necessarily factional and disunited nature of government, a society with strong non-government entities providing alternatives is almost always better poised for liberty (and the preservation of liberty) than one without. At least within the modern context of statehood. Pre-modern polities were often worse off regarding liberty with strong non-government entities.

    It’s why I like anarchists, even though I don’t count myself as one. I view their methods and goals as conducive to liberty, even if I’m not sure as to the desirability or practicality of entirely abolishing the state as we would recognize it.


  • Pretty strong language. If anything I think she might actually be overstating its significance, though obviously this depends on our predictions of future events which are ultimately unknowable. So I won’t disagree with her assessment even though I don’t completely share it.

    All language is couched in context. “Election important” and “Trump bad” are mealy-mouthed condemnations that can be read without implication of support for the only practical anti-fascist candidate. If Trump wins, it’ll be a “q.q I warned you q.q”; if Harris wins, it’ll be “I never said to vote for her, she’s just Another Fascist Pig.” It’s intentionally ambiguous language that almost immediately departs to elaborate on all the reasons Harris in particular is guilty and how neither side will change anything.

    Call me a cynic, but I fought with this kind of argument all the goddamn time in college.

    But that’s just not the main point of the post. Most people in liberal democracies consider it their civic duty to vote. But they do not consider it their civic duty to engage in direct actions that reduce the harms of violent state actions or build support for marginalized people in their communities. This is a very important and valid critique of our collective political consciousness.

    I agree.

    Furthermore, pointing out that both candidates support extremely harmful policy positions, particularly on Palestinian issues but also in terms of fossil fuel extraction, while acknowledging that one is worse, is not the same as “BOTH SIDES BAD”. We need to be able to understand and confront the crimes of the system in order to change it. I am not going to pretend that actively supporting ethnic cleansing is OK because Trump is worse. I think that’s a dangerous way to engage with democracy. It’s exactly the type of thinking that keeps moderate Trump supporters in line.

    There’s no need to pretend that ethnic cleansing is okay, or that supporting it is okay, or even that failing to oppose it is okay - but there is a need to be clear in opposition to literal fascism, and playing with cheap rhetoric for ambiguity to avoid responsibility for taking a serious position is not something that is in any way respectable. Something (ironically?) that Harris does on the issue of Palestinian genocide.


  • This is exactly why anarchists generally don’t put forth candidates or actively campaign or support political parties in the existing system. Because embedding a different, even better person into a corrupt system will only lead to further corruption.

    I feel obligated to point out that the goal is not necessarily to make the system ‘good’, but to avert catastrophic consequences from the very-powerful-current-system taking an all-out position of “Crush the workers, kill the minorities” when such a thing is very much negative for anarchist initiatives and very much avoidable.

    All politics is about power, whether its restraint, its redistribution, or its dismantling - and decisions from anyone who considers their political positions serious must, in that vein, be strategic, not merely spiritual.