While the title and some of the content may fit better in ~society, I actually found this video's comparative history to be the most interesting. I actually went to post this same video in...
While the title and some of the content may fit better in ~society, I actually found this video's comparative history to be the most interesting. I actually went to post this same video in ~humanities today then found it was already posted here.
I was raised protestant, so I learned some theology and heard about Martin Luther etc. I'd never heard before about how pamphlets circulated or exactly how thinkers competed to get out their messages via the printing press.
While every moment in history is unique in some way, I always find it fascinating how many parallels we can draw to the past despite how many centuries have passed. The more things change, the more they stay the same?
We're the constant. Humans. For the same reason porn is usually leading the charge to expand and explore the potential of any new technology that might help with distribution or exhibition or...
We're the constant. Humans.
For the same reason porn is usually leading the charge to expand and explore the potential of any new technology that might help with distribution or exhibition or display of content, humans can always be relied on to screw things up.
It's in our nature. Too many people are just unwilling to settle, to share, or to step aside. They have to be right, they have to be in charge, they have to win. Some of them are willing to step on people, or worse, if it gets them to those goals. Start stepping on folks, some of them step back, or they have friends and family who object, and before you know it there's shouting flying hither and yon, then it's arrows or bullets or laser beams.
I looked it up once, because I do that sometimes. "May you live in interesting times" can't be directly attributed to anywhere in particular. They've found a use of it in the early twentieth century, and that's apparently where the Chinese attribution comes from because that first mention is someone saying a friend told it to them as Chinese. There's no direct proof of its actual origin though.
Regardless though, interesting times usually suck for the people living through them. Fair is a very modern concept. Most of human history, fair came from force. Fair was what you could enforce. If you were strong, you won, or at least kept what you considered yours. The weak were fodder for the strong, always.
It's really no different today. Strong used to be a big tall guy who could beat people up. Some of the people who got beat up managed to change the rules along the way, bring other forms of power up in prominence to give themselves primacy over those whose power was merely physical.
That whole concept has developed, and now we have "power brokers" and "king makers", along with the classic power hungry and greedy and manipulative types. The movers and shakers, the convincers, the swayers, the rulers. All of them people who use others to get their way. They stand up and say "follow me" and if they have enough who do, then they're in charge. But others are standing up too, so they fight with each other to establish primacy.
These days it happens at the wealth level (business mostly) and the political level, as a semi-recent addition to the pantheon of the powerful. It's still the same as it ever was though. People who want power, and who are prepared to do a lot of things to get or keep it.
Some of those things include stepping on the rest of us if it gets them what they want.
Fuck interesting. There's a lot to be said for boring. There's a reason soldiers are often popularized as retiring to a farm. Farms are usually boring. Battles aren't.
Hank Green explaining how in history new forms of communication have been a platform for certain people to market their message to a willing listener.
While the title and some of the content may fit better in ~society, I actually found this video's comparative history to be the most interesting. I actually went to post this same video in ~humanities today then found it was already posted here.
I was raised protestant, so I learned some theology and heard about Martin Luther etc. I'd never heard before about how pamphlets circulated or exactly how thinkers competed to get out their messages via the printing press.
While every moment in history is unique in some way, I always find it fascinating how many parallels we can draw to the past despite how many centuries have passed. The more things change, the more they stay the same?
We're the constant. Humans.
For the same reason porn is usually leading the charge to expand and explore the potential of any new technology that might help with distribution or exhibition or display of content, humans can always be relied on to screw things up.
It's in our nature. Too many people are just unwilling to settle, to share, or to step aside. They have to be right, they have to be in charge, they have to win. Some of them are willing to step on people, or worse, if it gets them to those goals. Start stepping on folks, some of them step back, or they have friends and family who object, and before you know it there's shouting flying hither and yon, then it's arrows or bullets or laser beams.
I looked it up once, because I do that sometimes. "May you live in interesting times" can't be directly attributed to anywhere in particular. They've found a use of it in the early twentieth century, and that's apparently where the Chinese attribution comes from because that first mention is someone saying a friend told it to them as Chinese. There's no direct proof of its actual origin though.
Regardless though, interesting times usually suck for the people living through them. Fair is a very modern concept. Most of human history, fair came from force. Fair was what you could enforce. If you were strong, you won, or at least kept what you considered yours. The weak were fodder for the strong, always.
It's really no different today. Strong used to be a big tall guy who could beat people up. Some of the people who got beat up managed to change the rules along the way, bring other forms of power up in prominence to give themselves primacy over those whose power was merely physical.
That whole concept has developed, and now we have "power brokers" and "king makers", along with the classic power hungry and greedy and manipulative types. The movers and shakers, the convincers, the swayers, the rulers. All of them people who use others to get their way. They stand up and say "follow me" and if they have enough who do, then they're in charge. But others are standing up too, so they fight with each other to establish primacy.
These days it happens at the wealth level (business mostly) and the political level, as a semi-recent addition to the pantheon of the powerful. It's still the same as it ever was though. People who want power, and who are prepared to do a lot of things to get or keep it.
Some of those things include stepping on the rest of us if it gets them what they want.
Fuck interesting. There's a lot to be said for boring. There's a reason soldiers are often popularized as retiring to a farm. Farms are usually boring. Battles aren't.