• Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        On Sep 7, 1944, a group of American pilots was tasked with bombing a radio tower at Chichijima Island in the Pacific theater. The Japanese resistance was strong, and many American planes were shot down. Eight pilots managed to parachute to the ground safely but were caught by the Japanese.

        The Japanese military tortured them and then brutally executed them, in at least one case forcing the prisoner to dig his own grave before killing him. After the prisoners were executed, the Japanese cannibalized them, not due to lack of rations but to show “fighting spirit”.

        A ninth pilot parachuted away that day. The Japanese sent small boats out to try to capture him, but American airplanes arrived to force the Japanese boats back. The pilot was swimming in the open ocean far from any nearby ships when an American submarine suddenly breached the water in front of him and rescued him.

        That pilot then went on to become the 41st President of the United States.

    • Tar_Alcaran@sh.itjust.works
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      5 days ago

      Good news: take up subsistence farming, no healthcare, no electricity, and make everything yourself, and you too can have half the year “off”.

        • Tar_Alcaran@sh.itjust.works
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          5 days ago

          I mean the reality was that the time “off” was spent farming their own land, taking care of animals, fixing the house and doing the insane number of household tasks that come with premodern living. Spend a few days just cooking in a medieval style, and you’ll quickly realize it’s a LOT of work.

          • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works
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            5 days ago

            Meh,

            • They had horrible healthcare they couldn’t afford and WE have horrible healthcare we can’t afford
            • They spent a lot of time at festivals and with their communities helping each other and WE spend a lot of time chatting on our phones, but mostly playing games.
            • They spent a lot of time outdoors doing a lot of work but keeping active, and we can sometimes go for hikes or walks, but we’re Americans, we as a whole, don’t.
            • They knew how an could fix things around the farm, we can watch youtube videos unless it’s electronic or DRM.
            • They had witch hunts and misinformation and WE have witch hunts and misinformation.
            • All of the food they grew was organic but they had to grow it themselves and we have to pay an arm and a leg for non-poisoned food.
            • They spent all day working for the king and we spend all day working for billionaires.
            • They have poor starving people during famines, we have a too big percentage of poor starving people (13% of US population was food insecure during 2023).
            • They had xenophobia and WE have xenophobia.
            • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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              5 days ago

              All of the food they grew was organic

              Without someone inspecting the water and the soil, how safe was it? ♪♫ Hello typhoid my old friend… ♫♪

              • pelespirit@sh.itjust.works
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                5 days ago

                Except for that, yeah. We still have listeria outbreaks, etc. that kill people. It’s not like we’ve moved on from that, and that’s with all of the poisoned food to make it “safer.”

            • FaceDeer@fedia.io
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              5 days ago

              When you delve into the details of what those bullet points actually entailed, they were all far far worse in medieval times.

            • Tar_Alcaran@sh.itjust.works
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              5 days ago

              And gathering your own firewood, and water, and making twice as much to prepare for winter, and the strongly reduced options.

              I mean yeah, it IS fun for a bit, I do medieval reenactment, obviously I enjoy it. But doing it every day absolutely sucks.

        • reversebananimals@lemmy.world
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          5 days ago

          Plenty of places you can do this. Put “homesteading” into a search engine of your choice and you’ll get more information on the topic than you can handle.

          You’ll also pretty quickly realize its a very hard, tedious life and we have it pretty good in many ways in the modern world.

      • Lavitz@lemmings.world
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        4 days ago

        So you think in order for people to not work their lives away we would have to take up subsistence farming? With all the tech and machines we have the only viable way to not be a company man is to give away all of the luxuries we currently have?

        How’s that Kool aid tasting?

        • Tar_Alcaran@sh.itjust.works
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          4 days ago

          That’s not remotely close to what I think the world SHOULD BE like.

          It is, unfortunately, what I think the world IS like.

          I’m also pointing out that if you want that aspect of the middle ages, you can have it right now by also taking all the crappy aspects of the middle ages…

      • otp@sh.itjust.works
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        5 days ago

        Depending on the state and one’s farming capabilities, some people could already be halfway there! At least part of the year

  • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works
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    5 days ago

    My non-joke answer is apprenticeship. Kids could actually learn how to do a valuable job rather than graduating from high school with almost no useful skills.

  • MuchPineapples@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    The stockade is something we desperately need. Some people need to learn how other people see them. Driving 50mph in a living area, stockade. Making a lot of noise at 6 in the morning, believe it or not, stockade. Being a racist cunt, straight to the stockade.

    • skyspydude1@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      This was one of the really interesting plot elements in World War Z, where towards the end of the war where they couldn’t really afford to be wasting resources on prisons, they brought back corporal and public punishment. They’d put people in stockades to let the entire community know they were caught doing something like stealing their neighbor’s firewood, or publicly lashing executives who were war-profiteering, and only imprisoning the absolute worst offenders who were incapable of integrating back into society.

      For a silly zombie novel, it honestly has a phenomenal amount of prettt interesting social commentary, and is absolutely worth a listen to the unabridged audiobook.

    • Liz@midwest.social
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      4 days ago

      I genuinely, honestly, 100% believe you should be able to option for physical punishment when being reprimanded for minor things. Pepper spray to the face, electric shock, mild caning, etc. Anything that would have little to no harm, even in the short term, but hurts like a bitch. I don’t think you should be able to sentence someone to pain, but that the person being sentenced should be able to choose pain instead.