Is mecha the most totalitarian genre? Democracies are almost

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mecha, especially what is often termed real robot, is very politic in nature and reflect the political views of the creator. Many Japanese see imperial japan as something great that it wasn't. They view the current system as weak and corrupt. Hell it goes through prime ministers pretty fast, Abe is breaking the trend with his second go round. Since mecha loves wars and military settings, directors use it as a chance to illistrate their own political views. It's like the old and completely true statement guns don't kill people, people kill people. Mecha isn't totalitarian, directors are.

>>14182031
Because when sides are black-and-white you end up with SEED.

Really though, anime is usually about a hero versus a single society (which is either non-democratic or corrupt, not both, so there is no dialogue between the two types) or in a situation where government is irrelevant. Mecha is one of the few genres that usually focuses on two societies fighting on a large scale, so naturally politics comes up more often. Obviously it helps when mecha is often based on real-life wars.

>>14182031
>>14182046
I see good pasta potential here.

>>14182031
Can somebody post more screen caps from LOTGH?

>>14182053
To add to that and actually answer the question, any time you bring up politics you have to bring up flaws. Government is very susceptible to corruption, therefore you will see tons of political systems paint democracies as corrupt. However, you don't usually root for an undemocratic system. The heroes usually believe in whatever morals we have established at the time. So you'll see more totalitarian governments because there is just more politics in general but I wouldn't say it supports totalitarianism.

>>14182065
Considering I typed that reply for real, you're kinda right. This is one of those guaranteed reply posts.

I never really thought about it, but in mecha/sci-fi you see considerably more totalitarian regimes than any other fiction genres. I wonder why that is?

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>>14182067

>>14182053
lolwut?
SEED was black and black.
Both sides of the war were genocidal and comprised of elected officials. The only group advocating peaceful co-existence was an enlightened monarchy, just like OP said.

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>>14182067

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TIME FOR POLICE BRUTALITY!

>>14182094
>an enlightened monarchy
>monarchy
Anon, Calling lacus princess is a joke. Just her dad was never a king. She is a dictator though. Closer to the castro or the kims in North korea.

>>14182102
This art style looks familiar

>>14182106
Does it?

>>14182103
>Lacus
ORB, YOU DULLWIT.

>>14182108
But ORB is an oligarchy, and how can anyone consider that cluster fuck enlightened after destiny?

>>14182031

Mecha usually just points out that your choices are between a corrupt and bloated oligarchy posing as a "democracy", or authoritarian revolutionaries who claim to be fighting for a noble cause, but use excessively brutal means to reach their goals while often letting their own petty personal vendettas get in their way.

IMO it's pretty correct given the 20th century.

>>14182102
Come to think of it, do we have any reference for what Shirow actually looks like? I thought he just used an octopus-man or something as his self-portrait

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>>14182067

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>>14182121
yep

>>14182121
I've always thought he was a woman because of his love of female leads

>>14182130
Fuck off Bennet, GitS isn't about feminism and your femdom fetish is embarrassing.

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>>14182067

>>14182131
Who?
I just always assume that when I see female leads. No real clue why. Maybe I'm sexist.

>>14182117
>chief representative dies
>his offspring, not one of his peers, is now the de-facto chief representative
>until she gets married, then her new husband is de-facto chief
Sounds like a monarchy to me.
Also no one even mentioned Destiny except you, anon said SEED.
And yes, in SEED the little nation of Orb is the enlightened kingdom of peace and co-existence.

>>14182132
HILDA > FREDERICA

Aww who am I kidding I just wish they were 7 inch tall so I could rub their heads together.

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>>14182067

>>14182106
?

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>>14182143

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>>14182067
I love doing that

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>>14182146

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>>14182152

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>>14182067
I did like Hilda better. Frederica was still good tho.

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>>14182157

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>>14182127
>>14182157

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>>14182163

>>14182102
Needs more horse cocks.

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>>14182166
I never liked her for some reason

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>>14182167

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>>14182067
This bit had me in tears for some reason, I had to make this.

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>>14182172

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you mean to tell me

stories that feature the military frequently depict the military being frustrated with civilian oversight or command?

ooooh nooooooooo

>>14182146

I see this screen a lot, why is he asking him this seconds before (i assume) murdering him horribly

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>>14182172
>>14182178
both of you should relax

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>>14182178

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>>14182186

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>>14182170
She's a bit one dimensional and pretty much tailored to be Julian's girl from the beginning but meh, I've seen worse. She could be way, way more annoying, we have the serious-ish nature of the show to thank for that.

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>>14182193

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>>14182196

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This show is essentially a reaction image gold mine.

>>14182180
Fucking Christ Almighty I forgot about the Tick, I used to love that stupid show.

I'm at episode 60 or so

WHEN IS REINHARD-SAMA GONNA MARRY BEST GIRL HILDA?

I WANNA SEE HILDA IN A BEAUTIFUL WEDDING GOWN WITH A TIARA ON HER HEAD! AND I WANT HER TO LOOK VERY EMBARRASSED BECAUSE SHE'S NOT USED TO GIRLY CLOTHES!

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>>14182201

>>14182208
after he fucks her, so SOON I think

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>>14182208
I'm on episode 57 and I feel the same way, with a side of "If only Kircheis were here."

I also wonder if LOGH will make it impossible to enjoy other mecha anime after watching it. Will half the main characters seem like knockoff Reinhards and Yangs now? Being an LOGH fan and watching shows Geass and Aldnoah must have been fucking suffering.

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Bewcock was the best.

>>14182208
>expecting Hilda to be the embarrassed one

Oh, anon. Also get the fuck outta this thread, does that question mean you want to get spoiled on purpose or what.

>>14182225
What if Hilda dyed her hair red and pretended to be Kircheis in order to seduce her Kaiser?
wouldn't that make for a very spicy doujin?

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>>14182234

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>>14182225
funny you should say that

>>14182236
I'm sure Oberstein would think nothing of crossdressing to further his evil plans

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>>14182238

>>14182183
he doesn't kill him
WATCH THE SHOW

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>>14182031
>Job Trunicht will make Earth great again 2016

My favourite LotGH character.

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>>14182248
A smile I'd trust with my vote!

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>>14182068
>Government is very susceptible to corruption, therefore you will see tons of political systems paint democracies as corrupt.

Lemon, get Vindel outta here. He's drunk, again.

>>14182180
President or Premier, there has to be oversight.

WW1 shows what happens when war is left to the generals.

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Most satisfying moment in the entire series.

>>14182046
I think everyone takes democracy for granted, which is why it is often portrayed negatively.

But I think people forget that totalitarianism and dictatorships are MUCH more corrupt. Look at Khadafi: guy began great but after a while he had his bodyguards bring schoolgirls to his bedroom.

>>14182248
Not the same, he was basically Secretary of Defense previously before running for president

>>14182286
They have the potential to be more corrupt. It's not an inherently broken system, there's no such thing (except maybe a kleptocracy). People is what fucks it up, if the Philosopher-King ideal of Plato was impossible then Marcus Aurelius wouldn't have existed.

>>14182286
>I think everyone takes democracy for granted
Most people who dislike democracy live in an oligarchy of economic power with the pretense of democracy

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This bitch be crazy.

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It's been a while since I watched the show, but what was the deal with her again? Was she leeching off Rubinsky, was she his lover, a spy for him or all of those things? I do remember she was very fucking sharp, dignified and trustworthy, all the more surprising considering she looked like a cheap harlot, that's the reason she stood out so much for me.

I kinda liked her.

>>14182388
seemed like she was mainly there for someone that rubinsky could talk to and do a bit of exposition without having to say things out loud alone.

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>>14182415
>Kikkoman Soy Sauce

Holy shit, that's the one I use.

>>14182415
>hyper smell bombs
>POTUSA
>(king of dance)
>Panties appears to be upwards of 2000t
Every time.

>>14182415
I am going to make a image with everything listed. Gimmie a minute.

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>>14182425
Well, yeah, that's a given, but what WAS she in-universe? Did they ever explain her relationship with Rubinsky, where did she came from or why was she so well-educated? I've just read she was a dancer/singer, that would at least explain her looks.

>>14182428
Hah, I kinda liked how this snake stayed with Yang's crew for so long and even ended up being useful to them.

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>>14182415
>>14182441

>>14182225
>Being an LOGH fan and watching shows Geass and Aldnoah must have been fucking suffering.

Or any other anime that's not trying to be LOGH nor reach the same audience, for that matter, which is over 90% of them. It's irrational to expect the industry to make something like LOGH without: a)tons of episodes. b)good source material already written by someone else. c)freedom of the OVA format.

>>14182508
You're doing God's work, friend anon.

>>14182225
Does LOGH even have robots in it?

>>14182318
>except maybe a kleptocracy
Except we live in a modern-day kleptocracy. The government literally steals money from you in the form of "income" tax, "social security" payments, and the "individual mandate" and gives it all to other people. Mostly its own employees or corporations that are friendly to the government's goals.

>>14182468
The novels explains that she's just a hooker who Rubinsky took a liking too and might've been his half-sister.

>>14183503

That's literally the way taxes are supposed to work. If you don't like it, don't expect the roads to get paved or the firemen to have their jobs.

And we don't live in a kleptocracy, we just have a problem with cronyism. A kleptocracy would be like a mafia-run state.

>>14183530
That's not how taxes are supposed to work.

Income Taxes are a very new phenomenon in world history, barely 200 years old.

Social Security, where people are forced to pay their money and savings into a general savings account for the entire nation and pray they get some of it back in their old age, are also a new phenomenon.

The Individual Mandate, which forces citizens to buy product they neither want nor need, could only come about in a kleptocracy.

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>>14182031

>not wanting to live under a philosopher-king

>>14183657
>The Individual Mandate, which forces citizens to buy product they neither want nor need, could only come about in a kleptocracy.

While I disagree with the mandate being forced, the reality is people need health insurance if the government refuses to create a free healthcare system, because do you know what happens to most people without insurance when they get sick? They go to the hospital and stiff them on the bill, and the hospital bills the state for reimbursement.

>>14183657

Yes Taxes are new and they're fucking good. What do you want to go back to the way things were in the old days, where taxes were in the form of "The local lord raping your daughter, taking some large percentatge of your harvest, and making you lick your boot"? Or maybe you want some shit like "oh the government doesn't have money to pay for infrastructure or public service".

Fucking randroids.

>>14183726
In all of history we've only gotten like 3 of them.

>>14183744
>Or maybe you want some shit like "oh the government doesn't have money to pay for infrastructure or public service".
It's not an either-or. We had public service and infrastructure before income tax (shocking, I know). The gas tax is ostensibly to cover the highways, for example.

There is a level of funding that a government needs, and (at least in the U.S.) it has far, far more than that. We're also not getting good return for our taxes, largely because of corruption and unnecessary bureaucracy.

>>14183795
I wouldn't argue that we have very big problems with corruption, but the fact that income taxes and government programs for caring for the wealthy are "new" doesn't mean they're bad ideas. It's not as if they popped out of the ether, they were proposed as responses to problems equally new in human history--industrialization combined with rising lifespans meaning more older people lived away from their children and needed help, the powers of government expanding from enforcement of contract, national security, and infrastructure to things ranging from scientific advancement (grants to universities) to cultural development (money spent on landmarks, national parks, etc). Even if income taxes are a relatively recent development, they still hew to the spirit of the social contract--individuals sacrifice some of their money in return for stability and prosperity.

>>14183741
People do not need health insurance. Do you even know how people paid for medication and doctors visits before the 1970s? You can pay out of pocket, and the only reason why most people don't is because employers started offering them as benefits to get people to accept lower wages. The principle of the matter is that the government can now tell you to buy whatever they want just because "It'll be good for the country."

They can now require everyone to buy Ford or GM cars, because the Rust Belt needs revitalizing. They can force everyone to go to Las Vegas for a day, because they need to inject money into government coffers by taxing winnings and casino earnings. They can also force companies to sell products designed by the government, to meet arbitrary standards, like telling all car dealers to stop selling diesel vehicles because muh environment, or Coca-Cola from making soft drinks because muh obesity.

It's the government stealing your freedoms and your money. It's horrible.

>>14183744
You realize that taxes before the income tax existed were only on property owners, right? If you owned land or income-producing businesses, you paid taxes. If you were a wage slave, you didn't pay an income tax. If you were an investor, you didn't pay a capital gains tax. If you put your savings into a bank, you didn't get taxed on the interest. And guess what? We still had essential public services, a military, and a functioning international diplomatic corps.

The only things we didn't have were welfare programs, tons of national infrastructure that grows more outdated every day, and a huge international welfare program that doles out billions to "impoverished" countries around the world.

>>14183795
I would argue incompetency more than corruption. I live in Honolulu and they're building a 20 mile train line. It is currently estimated that it will cost $11.7 BILLION for 10 miles. There is NO level of corruption that could possibly pass this much muster, even in a Democrat/union-controlled state; it has to be incompetency.

>>14184011
>It's the government stealing your freedoms and your money. It's horrible.

No, it's stealing yours. I moved to Hong Kong 10 years ago, the last truly free place on earth. No outside force has any power here, especially not copyright law. The city does everything for its benefit, and if a foreign power wants to trade, we're going to get the better end of it.

At least, it'll be that way until 2047

>>14184012
They've been talking about that thing for decades. I'm surprised it's even getting built. And I'm sure you're well aware of the debacle that H3 was... (source: born there, half the family is from there, look like either a local or Japanese tourist, sound like a haole)

>>14184011
We should just embrace anarchy and natural selection, right? Survival of the fittest. No rules, no safety nets, just right. You can't afford that surgery? Better hope you have enough for a funeral.
-But keep the military around, because we need to hero worship something, and maybe keep some services around, just for general safety. No more public transportation unless it's fully privatized and can pay for itself, no more government oversight of what people are doing with their companies, and definitely no support parks and recreation.
...and while we're at it, should we embrace state religion as well?

Democracies are painted as shitty because people are frequently shitty

It's like Yang says, if everything is shitty in a democracy, everybody is at fault a little. If everything is shitty in an autocratic state, then the blame can be pretty legitimately laid at the feet of whoever claims to be in charge

>>14184079
The H3 is at least useful. Way overbudget, but it's the nicest highway on the island.

>>14182046
Read all of that shit in Stan Lee's voice.

>>14182031
>always
You what?

>>14184710
SIEG KAISER REINHARD

>>14184084
Also because most people who write fiction have never actually lived outside of a democracy. It's like people who want to move to Japan because it's so great just like in my animes.

>>14182162
this show was to deep for me, damn

>>14182107
>>14182145
There's a drawbro on /m/ that draws just like this, I remember them drawing something about that magic doll thing.

>>14182132
If you camalCase your image names, reading them is much easier.

>>14182130

He likes drawing hot lesbians in tight clothes. He refuses to work if he can't.

>>14182183

Nah, the kid says yes and he lets him run away. Rosenritters a best.

>>14185337
>that magic doll thing
What?

>>14182196

Disappointed Wolf is best Imperial.

Well anon after Aurelius died Rome got an insane degenerate.

That's the flaw with monarchies.

>>14182330
Yeah sure. But nobody has ever come up with a better system than the democracy we have now.

>>14182177
Don't worry, I was as well.

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>>14184084
What always amuses me is that most people don't even go out to vote anymore. The democratic system we have now is clearly the best we shitty humans can come up with

>>14185616
They ain't all gonna be Henry V

>>14185634
If you feel the system doesn't listen to the people and the changing of leaders isn't relevant, then really your vote doesn't matter.

But that's not why they don't vote, they're just lazy most of the time.

>>14185624

You realize the rhetoric of "the system sucks, but it's the best we've come up with" has been a statement used for every from of government that is currently popular in world history by the leaders in it, right?

>>14184710
SIEG KAISER REINHARD

>>14185651
The reason I don't vote is because I know that what I want is what nobody else wants.

>>14184710

SIEG KAISER REINHARD

The one commiefag in this thread is the funniest part.

God, the moment Bernie Sanders drops out he's going to kill himself.

>>14185651

I'm voting for the American Newtype, the man who can't be stumped. Get on my patriotic level.

>>14185709
Same.

>>14184710
SIEG KAISER REINHARD

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>>14182318
>They have the potential to be more corrupt. It's not an inherently broken system, there's no such thing
If there was any such thing, it'd be actual democracy. As in rule by the majority - not the representative democracy or republic that most people mean when they say democracy.

>>14182046
>Many Japanese see imperial japan as something great that it wasn't.
>that it wasn't
Nice bias. I think it has do with mecha's having a pretty solid history of not taking sides with good vs evil in the two opposing parties like most media. The 'bad guys' aren't simplistic ebil nazis, but one's with a ruling structure that are sympathetic even if antithetical to the heroes'.

Not everyone has to buy into the propaganda that American style democracy is the ultimate ideal government with no possible alternatives. Any objective look at its track record would conclude it's been pretty fucking terrible. Monarchy and feudalism, for example, were highly effective for their contexts -obviously you can't simply reimplement them without adjustment in the modern world and expect them to work, but example's like Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore make a strong argument for their partial inspiration even while embodying inherently anti-progressive ideas like >>14182283
>Before freedom and equality, could we have bread and meat?
i.e. Singapore does not have freedom of the press with the justification that it undermines stability.

For example, consider the case of post-colonial Africa, ie Rhodesia vs Zimbabwe.
Is it really so easy to say that stability, industry and order without "freedom and equality" is than war, famine and disease but with "freedom and equality"? It's a question that borders on heresy in today's political climate and one most people would never entertain out of principle, but one very much worth asking, and something a work like LoGH is mature enough to engage with without black and white prescription.

>>14185518
Black Magic 66. An earlier Shirow-story. The artist's apparently a frenchman who loves the poofy 80s hair.

>>14182046
>Many Japanese see imperial japan as

Nazis and Otaku, yes.

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>>14182429
>not posting Kenji's iconic kikkoman bottle design
PS senpai try Wholly Gangang, you can get it for $6 on Amazon prime. Not dirt cheap but it's actual soy sauce. Fermented soy is really good for you. This stuff tastes so good too, I use it in everything

>>14185838
>didn't even quote the important part
>implying Nazis are bad

>>14185828
Oh, you mean F6-402! alright.

>>14185819
We need to find a way to increase the rate of this post for it is severely underrated at the moment.

>>14185728

But I live in HK, I can't vote in US elections anymore.

>>14185846
Yes anon, they were. As Eisenhower once famously said, my men may not know what they are fighting for, but now they certainly know what they are fighting against

>>14186040
Not really

>>14186048
at the very least, they were bad at winning

fuck along now

>>14186030
Hong kong? You expatriated? How's that like?

I might do a college exchange there next year.

>>14186066
You first

>>14185665
Considering nobody is getting off their ass to start a revolution I'd say the majority is fine with what we have. Myself included. I have pizza, anime and videogames.

>>14186127
I don't know if "it's not bad enough that I'd sacrifice my life to overthrow it without any predictable replacement" is the same is being fine with it.

>>14183744
>Tariffs don't real

>>14186127
Most people dramatically underestimate how bad things have to be in a developed nation for revolutionary activity to take place (outside interference apart, of course) because for the last hundred years or so we've seen gorillions of shitty little countries thousands of miles away from anything of consequence fill their streets with blood and because it's politically incorrect to call them a bunch of savages the impression is fostered that western civilization is only a hop-skip away from something on the scale of Red October. It's not. Germany's economy had to crash to Zimbabwe-tier before a revolution started (backed, of course, by Russian Bolsheviks) and even the American Civil War had ~40 years of preface much worse than pretty much anything people whine about these days.

>>14185819
>>14185846
The funny thing is, a while back I was talking to some anon from /pol/ who claimed he had been there before nazis took the board over--he made an argument (that I've heard repeatedly, in fact) that Hitler was an example of "democratic," not autocratic government because he claimed to rule in the name of the "German people" instead of the "divine right of kings" or something suitably monarchial. Dunno if you're the same guy, but it did strike me as mildly amusing.

In any case, though, if you're praising "stability, industry, and order," Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan might not be the best examples of such, considering how badly they ended up losing. And if you want to praise LoGH for portraying both autocracy and democracy in a relatively balanced light, you can't really mention Nazi Germany in the same discussion, because the Hitler equivalent of LoGH, Rudolf Goldenbaum, is consistently portrayed to be an utterly contemptible villain by everyone, including autocrats like Reinhard.

>>14184710
SIEG KAISER REINHARD

>>14186086
Well it helps to learn Cantonese, but about a third of the city understands English, even if they don't speak it all that great.

That aside, weather is generally really nice. The natives are usually polite and friendly, mainlanders not so much. Income is absolutely insane though, since the richest of the rich and the poorest of the poor can live literally across the street from each other. Even the poor are pretty well educated though. All in all a nice place to live, and dirt cheap if you aren't picky.

>>14186326
Income gap*

>>14185651
>then really your vote doesn't matter.
*then really your vote doesn't appear to you as if it maters
The relevance of your vote is not dependent on your feelings about the system. It is true that your vote in an election doesn't mean as much as the vote of the representative elected by your district, and the motives behind the highly indirect means by which presidential candidates are selected and elected are fairly questionable. But your local government actually has more effect on your life than who is in the white house, and those local government offices are directly elected so your vote does have an effect. An effect inversely proportional to the number of people who vote, but an effect nonetheless.

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>>14186286
First poster you quoted here. Though I posted a hitler image, I'm not the same guy you mentioned and didn't use nat soc as an example.

Though, imo it's unfair to discount the governmental ideology as unstable when circumstances unrelated to the theory of rule itself thrust it immediately into war. Until the war began, it seemed to have worked out pretty well - if you ignore the fact it started with defaulting on its pre-existing debts.

Personally I believe that monarchism and aristocracy have proven to be the most effective governments historically. Besides a possible neo-monarchism/aristocracy, I find formalism or patchwork are the most promising untried systems for the near future.

>>14186326
What's the job market like?
I'm a 16 year commercial electrician. Unfortunately the bulk of my foreign language skills is insults and taunts picked up from video games and mexican spanish from working in construction. I wouldn't mind learning, though.

Also how would the locals feel about my being taoist? I've always had trouble taking any religious text seriously, but as a philosophy the Tao Te Ching is simply beautiful. Would that be seen as a "stupid weeb/cultural appropriation" kind of thing or welcomed as appreciation of eastern philosophy? I wouldn't be going around in "this is what a taoist looks like" t-shirts or anything, but whenever anyone asks my religion I answer honestly (which often doesn't go over well here in South Carolina).

>>14183407

Naa, they do deal with the idea of robots, but they were outlawed millennia ago in the Empire, along with being a fag.

>>14186433
>do you wanna play some sports?

>>14186386
>Until the war began, it seemed to have worked out pretty well - if you ignore the fact it started with defaulting on its pre-existing debts.

The defaulting on its debts thing is a pretty significant criticism, especially if one is has economic stability as a primary goal, but even aside from that Nazi government wasn't terribly effective. I've heard many people go on about how "hitler was a great leader because he took Germany from a depression into world power status!" but closer examinations of the German economy have shown it to be a house of cards. I recommend Richard Evans' "Inside the Third Reich" trilogy as well as Adam Tooze's "The Wages of Destruction." Essentially, Tooze argues that a lot of Nazi economic "success" was either a mirage (easy to claim unemployment is low when you've "liquidated" a lot of undesirables and given their jobs to your party cronies) or completely unsustainable in the long run--the Nazis essentially pushed German industry far beyond what its resources within its borders could maintain, *necessitating* the war you correctly note ended up shattering its power. Hitler's government relied on plunder to prop itself up, which isn't really a compliment--again, at least if you hold up stability to be one of the primary goals of government.

This isn't even going into the deleterious effect Nazism had on German science and culture. You can't really argue the whole "Aryan science" stuff was anything but pants-on-head retarded. Hitler driving away scientists like Einstein meant that the Allies would get A-bombs that much sooner, and even the world-class scientists they did manage to keep, like von Braun, lived under a stifling atmosphere of suspicion and harassment, according to his memoirs.

>>14186135
>>14186209

That's the point isn't it? Looking at all the third world shit holes or even China we have it pretty good all things considered.

And when you look at history: well I don't starve and don't have to do back breaking manual labour for 12 hours every day.

First world democracies are pretty stable because the people know that it is the only way. There are no totalitarian systems that can provide the same level of living standards or public safety.

>>14186286
The nazi economy was already breaking down by 1939. There is a reason why Hitler was in a rush to go to war.

>>14186597
Sure, but liberal democracy will run its course just as every other system of government has before it and will continue to do after it.

Frankly, I think that a softer form of National Socialism could be a damn good system of government for western countries because it's one of the few since before the French Revolution to explicitly focus on the immaterial and abstract needs of a people and because of that it has a cult following to this very day. You could say the same for some forms of Marxism, as well, but Marxism generally tries to assuage metaphysical appetites by crushing extant outlets and creating new ones that they can keep a lid on; just look at the cult of Lenin.

>>14186605
Sure, but if he'd won then things would probably have been ducky for Germany for a good long while as they could have continued their industriousness in the form of "muh lebensraum" before tapering down to a sustainable level for international trade. It was a gamble and they lost, but it was quite winnable.

>>14186286

Earnest nazism on /pol/ was kind of a short-lived thing. They get triggered too easily, and the general opinion these days seems to be that Hitler fucked everything up for autocratic nationalists.

>>14186761

His mistake, one that people continue to make over and over again, is that he fucked with the slavs.

Fucking with the slavs is always a precursor to them swarming you.

>>14186761
>then things would probably have been ducky for Germany for a good long while as they could have continued their industriousness in the form of "muh lebensraum"

It really wouldn't have. I again refer to Tooze's "Wages of Destruction." The Nazi economy (and ideology) relied on the plunder of the countries it subjected, which quite naturally would have led to a near-perpetual guerilla war with the inhabitants. The German experience in the Eastern Front is a good example of this--many Slavic peoples, such as the Ukrainians, initially welcomed the Nazis as liberators from Russian domination, but quickly became fiercely anti-German because the Nazi occupation was so harsh due to both economic and ideological reasons. Ideologically, because of the whole "Slavs are untermenschen!" thing, but also economically, because the Nazi vision of industrialization and development was simply too grandiose to sustain itself reasonably within Germany's means. It wasn't really "winnable," unless you define a perpetual war against partisans to keep millions of Slavic people--and judging by how the Nazis looted France, many "Aryans" would have suffered the same fate--to be "winning." And assuming you're the guy complimenting 'stability' earlier, I presume a long-term peace with as few uprisings, retributions, etc. is what you're after. That being the case, National Socialism is unlikely to be a "damn good system of government."

>>14186403
>What's the job market like?
For natives or people that have been here long enough, decent. It's gotten a lot harder for expatriates now, and basically all white collar work requires knowledge of Mandarin because you'll be working with the mainland.

>>14186403
Forgot to address the second part. People won't really care. The vast majority of the city is agnostic/nonreligious, but there's a sizeable taoist population

>>14186464
>Hitler's government relied on plunder to prop itself up, which isn't really a compliment-
Mussolini tried the same thing. Problem is, war is very very expensive, and it only works if you can keep invading rich countries that aren't tough enough to beat you and have no strong allies.

>>14186821
Basing your entire economy on plundering resources and slave labour is cheating. Besides it's not much fun for the slaves!

>>14186928
Something tells me the happiness of the slaves in that scenario is somewhat irrelevant

>>14186928
So what? Rome kept doing that for centuries.

>>14188217
While Rome could be very harsh on its subjected peoples (see Carthage), in other respects they could be very enlightened in their treatment of foreigners assimilated into their empire. In Britain, for instance, Roman legions built aqueducts, baths, all that good stuff. Even in France the Nazis didn't really do anything like that for the people, and it goes without saying they didn't do so for the Eastern Front. The comparison doesn't really hold.

nice to know some /m/ anons that aren't stupid

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>>14182208
>>14182212
>finish episode 68
>they still aren't married, this is bullshit
>spoiled for the fact that they get fuck and then get married just from browsing /m/ for a few years
>Google when it's supposed to happen
>episode 89 and 100, respectively

Fuck.

>>14188217

Rome also had a tendency to uplift the people they conquered.

>>14188281
>complaining about Nazis not building generous public works during 6 year total war when Romans had centuries

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>>14189283
>Rome also had a tendency to uplift the people they conquered.

The regions all around the shores of the agean seas were inhabited by people both older and more advanced than them.

>>14189333
>: ZARDOZ
zOMG

>>14189333
>The alcohol is good
>The Mashengo is evil

Sure but let's be honest here,you'd likely be a slave, not a an arian elite.

>>14189389

Society doesn't only exist in extremes. You can in fact be somewhere in between

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>>14182067
the best one

>>14189499
>Homo marriage
>Legalizing marijuana
>The global warming/enviro-cult taking over

Oh god it's all coming true.

>>14189499
That actually sounds pretty cool.
>>14189517
except that we also have techno-fanatics being manipulated by corporations, so technological stagnation isn't a thing yet.

>>14189499
That's not how conservatism works, actually vice-versa.

>>14189431
Lol we're talking about nazis anon. You're either Arian or untermensch.

And I have blond eyes and blue eyes but my brother is half Turkey. I'm kinda glad the Nazis lost.

>>14189560
Cultural and moral stagnation/corruption/dissolution is our real problem. I would trade technological stagnation for a return to cultural/moral improvements any day.

>>14189582
The fracking industry is pretty conservative. Even after it was established that without a doubt fracking does poison the ground water and does cause localized earthquakes, they refused to budge.

Or the general Roman attitude that your win has got to be somebody else's loss, which makes sense when you're living in an economy in which actual growth simply is the high road to societal and enviromental collapse.

He's talking about that sort of conservativism.

it's amazing how neither SJW bullshit nor DEGENERACY bullshit comes up in real life at my job.

>>14182031
It'd work better if the alternative to the corrupt democracy wasn't an equally corrupt dictatorship.
>do things our way, because your current leaders are shit
>well so are you evidently
>SHUT UP OR WE'LL KILL YOU

LoGH is the one time off the top of my head I can recall the dictatorship not being hideously repressive to their own people right off the bat. They disappeared a few guys, sure, but they were generally shitheads, and it's not like we see the Reich's goons running around in the streets and knocking over old ladies for giggles.

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>>14182207

>>14189305
Even if the Nazis had centuries they almost certainly wouldn't have been as generous as the Romans were (at least to the extent that they actually were, I did concede the Romans could also be very harsh). The Romans didn't really have the same "race war"/untermenschen mentality the Nazis did; they tended to be more practical. While many Romans of course believed that Rome had a "manifest destiny" (so to speak) for world conquest, this didn't necessarily entail mass extermination or even exploitation. Romans, on the other hand, often gave subject peoples all the rights and protections of Roman citizens except the right to vote. Even given a millennium the Nazis would never have done that to any of their subjects. In the long run, the Nazi way of life was simply far less sustainable than the Roman one.

>>14184710
SIEG KAISER REINHARD

>>14189668
But that quote didn't discuss the environment? I haven't seen that episode so I don't know its context, but it seems to be discussing the degeneration of societal order and morals.

The anon you were replying to pointed out that this is exactly what political conservatism intends to preserve and what 'progress' considers dead-weight, but I think they're using it in the context of cultural and technological progress/stagnation, not political.

>>14189333
>both older and more advanced than them.

Oh yeah, then why did they lose to the Romans?

>>14190077

>Even given a millennium the Nazis would never have done that to any of their subjects.

The French had all that. Same with the Austrians and the Norwegians. If you weren't Slavic, Jewish, or Roma then you were generally doing alright under Nazi rule.

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>>14189499
>those talking points
It's actually older than you think

>>14195117
Because those lands were peaceful, its inhabitants kind.

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>>14182102

>>14189499
>a historian
Every time

>>14195173
Not really, there's a reason the French had La Resistance and the Norwegians were willing to bomb the Vemork plant. Wikipedia isn't the most reliable source, but the article at the moment has links to papers from university presses backing up its arguments, so I feel safe in using it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_military_administration_in_occupied_France_during_World_War_II#Daily_life

>The life of the French during the German occupation was marked, from the beginning, by endemic shortages. They are explained by several factors:

1: One of the conditions of the armistice was to pay the costs of the 300,000-strong occupying German army, which amounted to 20 million Reichsmark per day. The artificial exchange rate of the German currency against the French franc was consequently established as 1 RM to 20 FF.[12] This allowed German requisitions and purchases to be made into a form of organised plunder and resulted in endemic food shortages and malnutrition, particularly amongst...the more vulnerable sections of French society such as the working urban class of the cities.[13]

>The Germans seized about 80 percent of the French food production, which caused severe disruption to the household economy of the French people.[14] French farm production fell in half because of lack of fuel, fertilizer and workers; even so the Germans seized half the meat, 20 percent of the produce, and 80 percent of the Champagne.[15]

>During the day, numerous regulations, censorship and propaganda made the occupation increasingly unbearable. At night, inhabitants had to abide a curfew and it was forbidden to go out during the night without an Ausweis.

The Romans, on the other hand, brought all kinds of technological developments, ranging from good roads to aqueducts, that improved trade and food production for the people under their rule. Their rule was indisputably more beneficial than the Nazis; one reason their Empire lasted far longer.

>>14195273
>Their rule was indisputably more beneficial than the Nazis; one reason their Empire lasted far longer.

The nazis were still in the middle of a goddamn war. Caesar wasn't building roman latifundas and aqueducts while besieging Alesia.

>>14182031
The third "protagonist party" faction is almost always not a government at all. It's non-democratic insofar as it's often some kind of informal band of fighters or a literal military hierarchy, but... that's because their role is that of a fighting force. However they are quite commonly working towards preserving a democratic government, with the goal of improving that government, and often fighting a totalitarian enemy.

Anyway the idea that democracies are slow+safe and fascism is fast+dangerous is very much a recurring theme in human history. Mecha like Gundam doesn't particularly try to choose sides. If anything the protagonist faction represents the opposite of government; an impossible, morally driven force that ostensibly represents the will of good people, the power of understanding, etc. etc.

You can't compare Rome building infrastructure in places they've annexed to a few year long military occupation. They weren't intended to do the same thing

If Caeser had got kicked out of Gaul then Rome wouldn't have built any roads there and all we'd remember is that time Rome invaded Gaul, looted it and killed up to a million people.

>>14195208

Holy shit, did BLM write a comic book or something?

Gunlord, do you just read history and sociopolitical books whenever you're not working? Because you always seem to have knowledge on these things.

>>14195208

Why do they look like Cobra Commander?

it is such a rare occassion that we have a constructive threads on /m/ these days...

good job and keep it up guys!

>>14195273

But we were talking about giving the citizens of the occupied state the same rights and protection as their native citizens did. German food production had to go to war effort as well, and German citizens dealt with curfews, propaganda and censorship as well. So how is this a counter example ?

>>14195273
I feel that another large factor would be the prior conflicts between France and Germany (WW1), or it's predecessor in the form of Prussia and it's allies (Francco-Prussian war)

Especially the end of the First World War when France played a large role in having Germany take the responsibility for the war with the treaty of Versailles. Which in turn left Germany with a crushing debt and a lot of resentment. A lot of it focused on France.

I feel that this would, especially at political levels, reduce the odds of Germany assisting France in any way even if they were to be given more time.

>>14195902
You mean Germania?

>>14195789
>The nazis were still in the middle of a goddamn war.
>>14195902
>You can't compare Rome building infrastructure in places they've annexed to a few year long military occupation.

That would seem to reveal another reason the Roman model was ultimately far more sustainable than the Nazi one: For all their expansionism, they at least enjoyed periods of peace in which to build up the infrastructure of the places they conquered. That sort of lasting peace would have likely never come about under the Nazis. In Mein Kampf, Hitler repeatedly extolls war and violence and it's fairly likely he would have started another total war not long after winning the one he fought (and lost, fortunately, in reality)--which would, naturally, necessitate the continued exploitation of rather than improvement of subject nations.

In any case, this is all straying from the original topic. Even if we were to concede that the Romans were the Nazis of their day, that would be a scathing criticism of the Romans and proof that their way of life is inappropriate for a modern, post-industrial world, not a defense of the Nazis. The Romans could continue their millennia-long expansion because they never faced an organized, *worldwide* alliance of people who wanted to take them down. Their expansionism would have came to a grinding halt real quickly if Carthage had teamed up with everyone ranging from the Celts in Britain to the Chinese--but of course, in antiquity, before radio and flight and even the telegraph, such an alliance would have been impossible to maintain. World War II, on the other hand, saw everyone from the Americans to the British to the Chinese to the Russians (and the first two groups hated the latter two) to gang up on Germany. Nowadays, a ruthlessly expansionistic state is going to find the whole world allied against it. Ruthless expansionism, therefore, is just no longer practical. Hitler learned that the hard way. We would do well to learn from his mistakes.

>>14182031
Hey, I reject that. I live in a corrupt democracy!

>>14196510
The Republican romans loved their war too, which didn't stop them having periods of peace.
The only differences are, like you said, the scale of it. The romans were generally just better at not ending up at war with everyone at once

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>>14196510
Except Hitler's initial intention was only the return of the German land given to Poland. Northern Europe, for example, was conquered in order to secure supply lines from British interception. The attack on the Soviets was similarly justified. Nazi Germany was almost immediately under pressure of attack from its inception and its armament only heightened tensions. It's impossible to criticize the government's plausible long term behavior based on actions under the extreme duress of war.

Your conception of Nazi Germany as a purely expansionist government simply seems grounded in goodthink propaganda and not reality.

Even the Romans policed "undesirables" and categorically organized its people in degrees of agency and morality, including, obviously an entire slave class. And the American left wing were heavy advocates of eugenics before the outbreak of WW2, too. This doesn't mean their governments are defined by plunder. Why should the Nazi's hate politics define it too? In any case, you're slapping Hitler on the wrist for doing imperialism poorly - for choosing genocide over ethnocide. They're equally (un)justifiable.

>We would do well to learn from his mistakes.
It's hard to say that when his war was the first war of ideologies. 'Ruthless expansionism' was the de facto logic of world power up until then. Not the colonial America that laid the new law down on Hitler, but even the natives, i.e. the Incans, they replaced. If anything, WW2 demonstrated the end of the era of traditional imperialism. The colonization of space often represents space for its resurgence.

>>14197044

Periods of peace were what always fucked the Romans.

>>14198218
That's a lot of words to say DINDU

>>14198218
>It's impossible to criticize the government's plausible long term behavior based on actions under the extreme duress of war.

I think it's quite fair to criticize a government's long-term behavior based on what its architects wrote *before* the war started. Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf that "man has become great through perpetual struggle. In perpetual peace his greatness must decline." There are tons more like it from the book. Nazi ideology seemed and seems to place more emphasis on war and colonial expansion as a good in and of itself than most Roman philosophies or even those of colonial nations. Even the other ruthless expansionists you allude to, American settlers, Spanish conquistadors, etc. throughout had some 'altruistic' motives (spreading Christianity, making money, etc). War as an end in itself seems to be a peculiar and distinctive characteristic of Nazism which makes it particularly odious, even above and beyond the other philosophies described above.

>Why should the Nazi's hate politics define it too?

Because Nazi racial philosophies were more developed and more central to it than in either of the contrived examples you gave above. The Romans indeed treated their slaves harshly but their categorization of "undesirable" groups was nowhere near as extensive as Hitler's--read David Brion Davis' "Inhuman Bondage," p. 46--"Nothing in the Roman world was really like the racial slavery that came to pervade the Western Hemisphere. Romans imported slaves from countless countries and all directions, including blond, blue-eyed slaves from northern Europe, highly educated and professional slaves from Greece," etc. Rome might have been harsh and expansionistic, but it simply did not have the extremely rigid, organized, and stratified conceptions of race the Nazis did (or other racist regimes, such as that of the antebellum/Jim Crow US South). The comparison of Nazism to Rome, while not entirely baseless, is very strained under closer examination.