It's been a while since we had a lighthearted talk on here about something silly, and this question has been bouncing around my head for years now. Figured it'd be fun to ask and see what people come up with!

So, you can take one person from any time period and send them to any historic event for a duration of your choice. You can go for serious stuff, like sending a bodyguard to save someone from an assassination, or yourself to some moment in history you're curious about... Or you could send Stephen Hawking to his own time traveler party. Maybe throw some conspiracy theorist at Roswell 1947 or let some ancient king crash Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee.

The options are literally limitless. I'm just interested to see what everyone comes up with!

https://mastodon.social/@tef/112763581163648202

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Erd%C5%91s#Personality

His colleague Alfréd Rényi said, "a mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems", and Erdős drank copious quantities

After his mother's death in 1971 he started taking antidepressants and amphetamines, despite the concern of his friends, one of whom (Ron Graham) bet him $500 that he could not stop taking them for a month. Erdős won the bet, but complained that it impacted his performance: "You've showed me I'm not an addict. But I didn't get any work done. I'd get up in the morning and stare at a blank piece of paper. I'd have no ideas, just like an ordinary person. You've set mathematics back a month."

https://kolektiva.social/@sidereal/112764385284252961

They were called the "greatest generation" because they collectively had far easier access to stimulants than anyone before or since

Random showerthought time:

The war on drugs, medical skepticism, stigma, and other factors caused stimulants and medications, especially those useful for treating conditions such as ADHD, to become less accessible. This adversely affected the people who needed or would otherwise benefit from these stimulants and medications, and scientific progress and society more widely has suffered because of it.

I'm preoccupied with a couple of things.

The first being that the federal budget was just released and I'm feeling like a national school lunch program and an injection of money into housing with the expectation that cities build higher density dwellings is... Something they should have done mid mandate?

Is there even time to implement this stuff? Are we getting close to the point where we've spent too much?

Second is a quote from a compilation of personal accounts from travellers into this country's north in the 1800s. Farley Mowat assembled the stories and wrote the forward for "Tundra" in the 1960s and says the following

"Until 50 or 60 years ago, the Arctic was a living reality to North Americans of every walk of life. It had become real because men of their own kind were daring it's remote fastness in search of pure adventure", unprotected by the vast mechanical shields that we now demand whenever we step out of our air conditioned sanctuaries".

He goes on to talk about how -- most of all -- easily heated dwellings and running water had a softening effect on people, and that (basically) we fear and avoid Canada's climate far more than our forebearers did.

Wondering what people's thoughts on this are.

From what you learned from grandparents or earlier generations about spending time outside, would you agree that the comforts of home are just too damned seductive?

Asked because I like the idea of reading about the past and feel unsatisfied by r/history and r/askhistorians mainly because reddit's search isn't that great and those subs have a much wider scope than most news archives.

I'm gonna do this on a Q&A format. Note that "old news" doesn't need to be news articles, it can be blogs for example.

If you read old news/articles, where do you get them from/find them?

What kind of "old news" do you read?

What historical period do you tend to read about?

If you're reading an article about a historical event you remember, how does your memory tend to compare to those articles?

How often do you do it?

What do you think about subreddits like r/twentyyearsago, since they're basically trawling through those news archives?

Despite not even being his most famous speech, I think that Martin Luther King's final speech "I've Have Been to the Mountaintop" is the most amazing example of public speaking ever.

The grand finale of Dr. King's great legacy. A speech given by a man who knew that his days were numbered. A speech given by a man who knew he would not live to see his dream come to fruition. Dr. King discusses the adversity that the Civil Rights movement had already faced and how these challenges were overcome through non violent methods. He challenges America and it's citizens to live up to the ideals of the country.

Somewhere I read of the freedom of assembly. Somewhere I read of the freedom of speech. Somewhere I read of the freedom of press. Somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for rights. And so just as I said, we aren't going to let dogs or water hoses turn us around. We aren't going to let any injunction turn us around. We are going on.

The speech ends with Dr. King foreshadowing the possibility of his death, an event which would occur the very next day when MLK was assassinated at his motel in Memphis, Tennessee.

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live – a long life; longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. So I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

So that's my vote. What do you view as the greatest speech in history and why?

I have these 2 quotes here. This quote is apparently from this book, cited in this article:

If the two parties do not develop alternative programs that can be executed, the voter’s frustration and the mounting ambiguities of national policy might also set in motion more extreme tendencies to the political left and the political right. This, again, would represent a condition to which neither our political institutions nor our civic habits are adapted. Once a deep political cleavage develops between opposing groups, each group naturally works to keep it deep. Such groups may gravitate beyond the confines of the American system of government and its democratic institutions.

Assuming a survival of the two-party system in form though not in spirit, even if only one of the diametrically opposite parties comes to flirt with unconstitutional means and ends, the consequences would be serious. For then the constitution-minded electorate would be virtually reduced to a one-party system with no practical alternative to holding to the “safe” party at all cost.

Wow.

There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution. -John Adams

There is also this text from the Pew Political Typology of the US in 1999 which I found somewhat funny:

The polling shows more compassion toward the poor and less hostility toward immigrants. A greater percentage in this survey than in the recent past think the government should do more to help needy people, and fewer express strong support for tightening our borders to further restrict immigration. Both of these trends may reflect the increased economic satisfaction and diminished financial pressure registered in this year’s survey. Gains in economic contentment have been greatest among upper income groups, while people in the lowest income category report less financial pressure but no more financial satisfaction than in the mid-1990s. Unexpectedly, despite these trends, Americans report no greater satisfaction with their wages than in the recent past. In fact, middle-income people are less satisfied than they were in 1994.

DAMAGED AND SCUFFED, MY HANDS HAVE BEEN CUFFED, BUT I DON'T PLAN TO GET HUFF, FRANTIC AND PUFF OR PLAN TO GIVE U-

That has aged pretty uniquely if you see it as the immediate effects of neoliberalism.

Anyway, do you have anything to share?

(Hot take alert)

I personally think mass protests should be brought back. Many governments around the world are rejecting democracy and so can really only be held accountable with drastic measures. I'd even argue people should be armed and follow domething like in the Charlottesville gun rallies or the 1968 DNC riots as a model for protesting particularly egregious stuff like Trump's impeachment trial. A few hundred thousand armed people pointing at the US Senate saying 'A trial without witnesses is unconstitutional, the president is not above the law' would definitely send a message to the Republicans there and watching in FOX.

The mission

You have been tasked with the mission to kill Hitler. The mission is mandatory and you cannot decline it. You have access to a state of the art time machine: a simple Casio wristwatch in which you enter the time, date and location where you wanna travel to. It can travel to any point in past Earth's history, and it is programmed to automatically and safely return you to the present time as soon as the mission is completed.

You have access to all weapons available to humankind in the present day, but you can only take what you can carry.

You also have access to technology that will make you look ethnically German complete with Nazi uniforms, and a perfectly functioning universal translator.

How this thread will work

I will try to come up with a negative outcome for every answer in jackass genie style. Others are welcome to do the same!

I didn't know tildes has trending topics.

I'd either pick the rise of the bolsheviks in Russia (You can replace them with the mensheviks, who wanted to abide by democracy.), The division of the HRE (A united germany in 900CE would be very consequential.) And the rise of the hapsburgs in what would be Austria-Hungary, since it meshed a dozen linguistic groups together.

I see no reason why the gunpowder treason Should ever be forgot.

Today is Bonfire Night or Guy Fawkes night, where we commemorate the 1605 plot by Guy Fawkes and a group of English Catholics who planned on blowing up Parliament and King James I to set off a popular revolt and putting a Catholic Monarch on the throne.. We do that by burning an effigy of Guy Fawkes on a bonfire, eating black peas, treacle and parkin and terrorising pets everywhere by setting off fireworks.

Unfortunately because of its proximity to Halloween and silly things like "safety" many of the traditional celebrations are dying out. Kids used to essentially beg for money by stuffing clothing and asking for "a penny for the Guy" which they'd use for sweets or fireworks. Locally made bonfires are also becoming rarer with most these days done by professional and regulated firework companies and organised by the council so it feels more like watching a show and less like getting together with your neighbours and family.

Are you going to any events, hosting one, do you have any stories or questions about Bonfire night, do you have any traditions. Thoughts on fire works etc.

Just a general Bonfire Night thread.

Today's political climate has all sorts of terms being thrown around with varying meanings and history behind them. There are Liberals (political ideology for FREEDUM), and Liberals (foreign policy), and Liberals (economic policy), and Liberals ("conservatives"), and Liberals ("centrist, anti-absolute monarchists"), and Liberals ("democrats"), and Liberals (some other field that annoys the shit out of me). There are Progressives, and Conservatives, Nationalists, Socialists, Social Democrats, unreconstructed Monarchists, Reconstructed Monarchists, Anarchists, and I'm sure some other political identity that I've missed.

So, given the rather long list of ways to identify politically, and the just about as long history for those ways to identify politically, I thought we should have a discussion focused exclusively on the political history of the terms we used.

So, the questions:

1. What terms do you commonly use to describe yourself and others in your political environment? 
2. What is the relevant history that informs the way you use common political terms to describe yourself and others?
3. Got any links, movies, books, etc., that delve into that history?

This has the potential to get hairy because of how broad it is, so I'm going to try to remind people of some best practices that I use when engaging in meaningful discussion:

• Understand before criticizing. - Be able to frame someone's view in a way that they can agree with themselves before critiquing their view. Questions are your friend, but make sure the questions are focused on better understanding someone's view, not on biasing reactions to a view.
• Assume good faith. - Calling people "trolls" makes me very angry. Don't do it. For any reason. To anyone. If your case is so bulletproof that you'd be willing to call someone out for it here, take it to @Deimos instead. I don't want to read it here.
• I Could Be Wrong - There is nothing wrong with having confidence in your view, but there should be some part of you that recognizes you can be wrong about whatever claim you make. Nothing is 100%. Absolutely Only Sith Deal In Absolutes, etc.

I've been consuming a ton of media about the world wars lately. There seems to be an inexhaustible supply of historical fiction, records, memoires, and documentaries. But so far, very few things have come close to painting a cohesive picture.

Most of it focuses on hot spots like Verdun, Pearl Harbor, Dunkirk, Normandy, the haulocaust, the atomic bomb, enigma, u-boats, the luftwaffe, Stalingrad... And I can see why. Even on a microcosm level, the conditions of the stories are unimaginable.

The issue I'm having is that I feel like our cultural memory of these events his been eroded over time. We have these impressions of what we think it was like, but not an overarching understanding of the complex series of events throughout the 20th century. We have an overabundance of records, photographs, film, and documentation in general, but maybe it's the overabundance that makes the digestion such an insurmountable undertaking.

What are your experiences with studying this time period? How do you feel about the quality of your understanding? And finally, do you have any recommendations for myself and others?