I have a question for those among us who love the USSR. How can you justify your support for a country that had so little support from its own population. What I mean is that so few people were actually willing to defend it. It seems very odd to me that the second greatest superpower ever could fall apart so easily unless the society was fundamentally broken and excepted as such by the public.
>>1050400
A gun at your head, threat of the US and its "shit" society coming after you, and basic living makes it easy to fall in line.
>live in communist regime
>taught that the state knows all
>state decides to liquidate and balkanize assets
Truly the state knows what's best for us.
>>1050400
>What I mean is that so few people were actually willing to defend it.
Yeah, whole 130 millions.
oday I have came to the conclusion that not everybody who has a university degree is intelligent.
Particularly people with degrees such as graphic design, sound audio engineering, philosophy and art.
As an art lover it pains me to say this but most art students are dumb as bricks and don't even have talent...
>>1050274
>today I have came to the conclusion that not everybody who has a university degree is intelligent.
no shit
>>1050274
>oday I have came to the conclusion that not everybody who has a university degree is intelligent.
How long did that take you?
Academic performance in general isn't reliant at all on intelligence. The only exceptions would be at the fringes of mastering difficult fields.
Why wasnt there mass immigration of Europeans to africa on the same scale as the Americas? I know there was South Africa, Rhodesia, etc, but that wasnt nearly the same amount. Seems like it would have been easier to mass immigrate to Africa since it was relatively closer to Europe, plus the natives were more easily defeated.
>>1049758
North Africa is already established nations. Its also a desert.
Central Africa is jungle
South Africa is nice and thats why the Europeans went there.
>>1049762
/thread
>>1049758
this>>1049762
Also don't forget that entirety of Africa was explored and colonized only in late 19th century, before that no one really wanted to go to what was basically terra incognita
Hey /his/. I just have a small question, since I'm currently writing a paper about the Holocaust and Hitler's expansionism. I was wondering how much Hitler intended on expanding Germany. Did he really plan on conquering the whole world, or was that just American wartime propaganda? Did he plan on stopping at the geographic boundaries of Europe? Or is this something we'll never really know?
probably take back half of poland and re balkanize russia. he didn't want to take over the world. that was communism
He wanted a "greater Germany" which meant depopulating Slavic lands in Poland and bits of Ukraine and Belarus as well.
>>1049073
Hitler did not have firm plans, but constantly evolved gestures of ideas against a theme of German racial supremacy in the East, and the defeat of the stultifying force of Slavs and the corrupting force of Jews. Hitler was not particularly fascinated with the West which he viewed as degenerate and corrupted, as it lacked the land necessary for the "German Race" to cleanse itself in.
Hitler was also not decisive in German planning, Germans regularly tried to anticipate the Führer and, moreover, Hitler's attempts to direct involved ludicrous fantasising in general such as the attempt to hold the entire line in Winter 1941.
However, from early 1941 all German plans for occupation involved the mass death of slavs, including plans to starve every slav West of the stop line over winter. This was a policy that ordinary soldiers, police, and civil agencies were fully on board with.
The hubris of the German state is that it would continue expanding until it faced a rebuff which forced it to contract, as they did, at Kursk.
>He doesn't believe in the Forms
>Stay in your cave of materialism losers!
there's not much point in putting this into a diagram, it's less confusing in words
>>1048609
What is the ideal for emptiness?
>>1048727
BTFO
>peasants produce shit for local lord
>local lord has to/is supposed to give shit back in return to the peasants
Was Feudalism the first incarnation of Communism in Europe in a small-scale way /his/?
I'm pretty sure that's just taxes.
It's really more of an extension of subsistence agriculture.
I think feudal arrangements are common when states collapse and the security provided by a central government disappears.
No. Communes, that opposed feudalism, were commie.
Read on the surplus value theory of exploitation and you'll see why Marxists reject feudalism.
Give me the list of Napoleon's fuck ups in his Russia-1812
In order of, worst or eh.
>>1048308
1. Invading Russia
2. Cancelling his planned aerial invasion of England because the dumb bitch Sophie Blanchard told him it wouldnt work
3. Trusting Grouchy
4. Replacing the Spanish king with his brother
During the opening phases of the invasion Napoleon delagated two somewhat standard but vitally important maneuvers to incompetant people.
his initial plan was to engage the russian army 100,000 strong that had spread itself over a 100 mile front.
In classic napoleonic stratgey he would drive through the center concentrate his power on one half and leave a small but worthy force to engage the other.
When the concentrated power defeated the first half it would turn to beat the other.
He appointed his step-son Eugene de Beauharnais to pin down begrations army.
HIs brother Joseph failed him yet again.
Clauswitz of course argues that Napoleon made no actual mistakes given the information he had. Fate just dealt him a bad hand.
Had his subordinates carried out hteir task the RUssian army would have been forced to engage rather than retreat to the interior of Russia which led to scorched earth, stretched supply trains, and kept Napleon in Russia into october.
1. Alexander I
2. Russian Light Calvary
3. Logistics
Hey guys I was browsing thought my files and I found some notes I did for a religion class so I figured I'd dump them here and see what discussion/corrections it generates...oh who am I kidding this will just lead to shitposting won't it?
Well fuck it I said I'd post them so I'm going to post 'em. Also keep in mind these are not necessarily my personal views so don't be too surprised if I look like a total retard if I'm being totally shit at defending some of the points.
World Religion
Five Myths about Religion
...and a couple of things to consider.
Myth: Religion and religious leaders are rarely if ever "socially progressive."
Examples to the Contrary:
1) In the western world, religious organizations were at the forefront of providing for the poor for 1500 years before governments got involved.
And Hospitals (in our sense) did not exist until Christianity was legalized in the 4th century...and Christians' willingness to care for the sick (during frequent outbreaks of plague) seems to have been a major factor in many conversions to the new faith.
More recently, the early 20th century "social gospel" movement was linked strongly with a broader social justice movement called..."progressivism."
2) In the Middle East today, one reason for the popularity of fundamentalist Islamic movements is their focus on the needs of the poor.
3) The anti-slavery and civil-rights movements were all religiously-based...and their main leaders were very religious:
e.g. William Wilberforce, leader of the anti-slave trade movement in Britain
e.g. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King and Islamic Minister Malcolm X, leaders of the two main wings of the U.S. Civil Rights movement.
4) Latin American "liberation theology" on the behalf of the poor and oppressed.
e.g. Catholic Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, assassinated in 1980.
The current Pope, Francis, has been recently criticized for sounding "Marxist" by U.S. conservative talk radio.
The Catholic Church also opposes capital punishment, euthanasia, and is very concerned about climate change.
5) Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize for his work against apartheid during the 1980s.
6) Rev. Brent Hawkes of Toronto, a prominent gay rights activist for many years.
He was very near to achieving legalization of gay marriage in Canada through the courts...when this was overtaken by political developments in that direction.
Myth: Religion is unusual in taking a position on things most people consider personal and private, especially in a free society.
Examples to the Contrary:
1) "Pornography is harmful" is a view held by some prominent feminists.
2) "Don't eat animal products (e.g. meat and dairy) or wear fur," we're told by animal-rights activists.
3) Don't use regular light bulbs, we're told by environmental activists...and now the government too.
Myth: Religion and science are natural enemies and always usually have been in conflict.
This is a very large topic; we'll spend a lot of time on it later in the course.
Myth: The worst wars in history have been religious wars...and the most oppressive ideologies have been religious ones.
Examples to the Contrary:
1) The French Revolution's "Terror" phase, in the mid-1790s (extremely hostile to religion)
2) World War One...with an unprecedented toll of death and destruction. (Not a religious war)
3) World War Two...even more destructive...and an ideological war...but not a religious one.
Hitler's hatred of the Jews was based on racism, not religion...e.g. even completely non-religious Jews were often victims of the Holocaust.
4) Stalin
5) Mao
6) Pol Pot
7) the Kim family of North Korea
These last four were (or are) mass-murdering dictators...of officially atheist regimes...focused on the socio-political dream of an eventual communist utopia.
If you average it out...Stalin killed as many people every day for 25 years as died in the whole history of the infamous Spanish Inquisition.
In the last 50 years, even modern terrorism has more often been driven by political extremism of some kind (e.g. nationalism, anarchism, or Marxism...)...than it has by religious fanaticism.
Examples of some of the atheistic left-wing revolutionary ones:
--the Baader-Meinhof gang
--the Symbionese Liberation Army
--The Red Brigades
--The Weather Underground
--Carlos "the Jackal"
A Final point to Consider:
Religion is often judged very harshly because distortions of its teachings have sometimes led to great evil.
(e.g. Christianity and the Crusades...or Islam and 911...or Hinduism and the caste system).
But consider the evil in the name of Marxism (as seen above)...through revolution, police-state oppression, and terrorism...a death toll around 100 million.
Many on the left insist that these "distortions" or "excesses" don't affect the value of Marx's ideas or his analysis.
In other words, Marxism is still essentially "good."
Religion is almost never judged in this forgiving or nuanced way.
Similarly, consider the evils that came in the late 19th and early 20th century, in the wake of Darwin's theory of evolution:
1) "Social Darwinism:" the idea that "survival of the fittest" should apply to societies, cultures, and even races.
This was used to justify the European imperial expansion of the period, which brutalized much of Africa and Asia.
2) Eugenics...part of which was forced sterilization of the mentally challenged.
Hitler was famously an avid proponent of this...but so were many others (e.g. the U.S. Supreme Court...and even Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood).
But Darwinian natural selection is never judged harshly by these excesses...and remains for many, as Richard Dawkins puts it, "elegant."
Religion is, however, almost always judged only by its excesses or distortions.
>tfw you'll never live in classical antiquity.
>>1048228
iktf frater
>>1048228
tfw think about this every day
>>1048254
I also do this unironically
wonder if I'm autistic
Who started the fire?
Definitely not our team
No one. It was always burning since the world's been turning.
>>1048161
Prior to the Waco Disaster, there had been talk within the Clinton administration (and also earlier, during Bush I) about eliminating the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco & Firearms and shifting their duties to the FDA and FBI, so the ATF management set about looking for something, anything that they could use to justify their continued existence (and maybe even increase their budget) until they hit upon the Branch Davidians and the rest we know…
Did they lift?
>>1048092
>>1048092
I wonder what workouts they did
I remember reading Mark Antony liked wearing short togas because Cleopatra liked mirin his muscular thighs.
>>1048211
Lol quality post, the one you shared.
Why was there such a split in the world after WW2? Why did it divide between the capitalistic West and communist East? Was there a cause for it or was it inevitable?
There can only be one king of the hill, if the Nazis had won it would have been Democracy vs Fascism
the Ideology didn't matter, it helped though in the us vs them mentality.
>>1048063
As usual, fpbp.
>>1048063
Was it the result of two different ideologies held by two different superpowers , or was there something inherent within communism and/or capitalism that made conflict unavoidable?
What are some of your favorite religious texts? Why?
I personally am fond of the Dhammapada from Theravada Buddhism. What attracts me to it is that it explains the deepest buddhist messages in the simplest ways possible. And the more you know about buddhism the deeper the message is.
I also see this in Proverbs from the Old Testament, which I am also quite fond of. Put it simply: I love simple religious texts which have deep meanings buried within.
>>1048027
I've been getting into buddhism lately I have to read this.
>>1048036
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/dhp/dhp.01.than.html
Also check your local library, you can probably find it in book form. My Uni's library has like 3 different translations.
>>1048027
have your read Bhagavad Gita, thats my favourite so far, the upanishads are next on my list
I am drinking fruit punch, tell me the most interesting thing you know
I know that I know nothing
fruit punch causes AIDS
>>1047954
fuck
How many did were raped under Axis occupation? After hearing quite a bit about the Red Army's rapes I was interested if the Axis ever did the same however I am not able to find anything on the topic. I constantly hear that it wasn't allowed and that any Axis soldiers who raped would be shot but I still would like some statistics if the Axis raped at all and if they did how many,
>>1047909
Although Rapes were not allowed in the Wehrmacht normally, it was fair game in the east so some estimates reach up to 10 million rapes for Russia alone, which is about 1000x more than how many German women that were raped in Berlin.
>>1047909
Rape was officially allowed in the East and I would guess it was regularly carried out. Who knows how many were raped but you are talking about millions of soldiers occupying places for several years. Millions of times wouldn't be a bad guess.
>>1047909
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crimes_of_the_Wehrmacht#Rapes_2