The Middle East
MentalExercise
IndefenestrableRegistered User regular
IndefenestrableRegistered User regular
I've decided Europe is a total lost cause.
Think about it, these people have been going to war and killing each other off practically constantly for thousands of years. The Romans came in and did their whole conquering thing, killing off and enslaving willy-nilly. Seriously salting the earth at Carthage? That's some real genocide type shit right there. Then there's invasions of Great Britain, France, Spain, Sicily, Africa, Palastine. Hell, they didn't collapse until they ran out of people to go to war against.
Things certainly didn't improve after the fall of the western empire, if it ever really fell at all. You've got the Franks coming in and doing their conquest thing, then Charlemagne tromping all the way into Italy to crown himself emperor. The Italian renaissance was an absolute mess of warring city states, and they didn't hold a candle to the rivalry that the French and the British would drum up shortly thereafter. They moved things off continent for a little while, but it wasn't long till France had a meltdown and then Napoleon did a couple of tours of his own empire thing, which gets us to the nineteenth century. Bismarck put a bit of a seal on things for a little while but that just up and started the First World War! And the last world encompassing, millions murdering debacle was what, sixty years ago?
Seriously, these people are never going to stop killing each other off over whatever crap comes up.
Wait, what was I going to talk about again?
Think about it, these people have been going to war and killing each other off practically constantly for thousands of years. The Romans came in and did their whole conquering thing, killing off and enslaving willy-nilly. Seriously salting the earth at Carthage? That's some real genocide type shit right there. Then there's invasions of Great Britain, France, Spain, Sicily, Africa, Palastine. Hell, they didn't collapse until they ran out of people to go to war against.
Things certainly didn't improve after the fall of the western empire, if it ever really fell at all. You've got the Franks coming in and doing their conquest thing, then Charlemagne tromping all the way into Italy to crown himself emperor. The Italian renaissance was an absolute mess of warring city states, and they didn't hold a candle to the rivalry that the French and the British would drum up shortly thereafter. They moved things off continent for a little while, but it wasn't long till France had a meltdown and then Napoleon did a couple of tours of his own empire thing, which gets us to the nineteenth century. Bismarck put a bit of a seal on things for a little while but that just up and started the First World War! And the last world encompassing, millions murdering debacle was what, sixty years ago?
Seriously, these people are never going to stop killing each other off over whatever crap comes up.
Wait, what was I going to talk about again?
"More fish for Kunta!"
--LeVar Burton
--LeVar Burton
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You should know the answer to this question before posting the thread.
In this case the analogy works pretty well.
To be honest. I didnt get that at all. If that was his intention, than kudos. It went right above my head.
Ill go on record that anyone who suggests the use of nuclear arms for anything but boogety boogety cold war politics, is an asshole.
Yep.
And people on here have said the fighting will never, ever end.
I dont think people will ever stop fighting. The reasons, locations, races, politics, and people involved will all change.
But i think conflict is just something that is going to happen.
I like to think that someday conflict will simply be fought in the mind. Like telepathically. And then we can all get back to our space decks, flying on our lazers, across the galaxy.
Think back to all of the centuries before the last one.
It is satire. Not the greatest, but that's what the point is regarding people who claim fighting in the ME will never stop.
Of course, Europe isn't the backwards, misogynistic, morally and economically bankrupt shithole that most of the Middle East is quite proud of being. So they have that going for them.
So you're saying Mel Gibson was right?
I would say that 70 years of peace doesn't put a moratorium on further conflict, but that the material conditions most likely do (wealthy liberal democracies with significant economic integration don't, as far as I know, tend to fight). And, as you say, there are no such material conditions in the mid-East. Of course, all of this might change--the future is crazy in that regard--but the current comparison between the two is bleak. Much as the then-current outlook on Europe during the wars of Religion was not so hot: let's not forget that it took centuries to climb out of that hole.
Yeah, it's sad to think that something like widespread Nazism would be a turn for the better in the Middle East. At least political conflicts are negotiable.
Well, I'm not so sure about that.
But I think that the original post, taken as a satire of pessimistic views on the mid-East, isn't particularly compelling. Although hey, satire rarely is, given that it almost definitionally involves strawmen.
Political movements, even shitty ones like Nazism, have definable goals.
Fundamentalist Islam, like any religion, doesn't really have a way to be politically defeated.
70 years of what? I remember going to the bomb shelters like 15 years ago.
Oh, you mean western Europe.
Confined to a tiny spit of sand, unable to escape,
But tonight, it's heavy stuff.
So yeah, just nuke everywhere not here, as those other people will fight for the rest of eternity.
(Western) Europe was also tightly connected, socially, economically, religiously, and politically for several hundred years in the high middle ages. That integration didn't prevent several hundred years of civil wars starting in the 15th century.
You should have the luck of the Irish...
Edit - damnit, TOTP...