I missed the memo. I am just generally anti war and don’t like reading about them. War is all because of dickhead leaders that can’t act decent, treat others right, or talk things out without being little insecure manbabies. And when manchildren in power have their big boi pp insulted they make the less powerful fight for them instead of doing anything respectful. Some rebellions which lead to wars are justified. Gotta stick it back to the empowered manchildren sometimes. But it all comes down to a shitty leader.
It can be very valuable and interesting to study the surrounding context of a war. Military history with battles and kill counts and discussions of tactics is something I find boring af, but there are endless discussions to be had about how the causes of the American Civil War can be traced back to before even the Revolution and tracing the repercussions of the war all the way up through to current politics.
Think about how the Taiping Rebellion, which killed more than 20 million people, would have affected day to day life in 19th century China - which weakened China and rendered it more vulnerable to European powers. Think the Opium Wars. Think about how Hong Kong was just returned to China in 1999 - and all of the complexities that entailed.
Or how the World Wars depopulated Russia. You had a generation dead or traumatized. Russian alcoholism is usually treated as a joke - trauma can have intergenerational changes in genetic expression.
Wars also make excellent chronological signposts. I’ garbage at dates, but usually wars segment significant social/economic/cultural/blah/blah/blah changes that they help me keep events organized in my head.
I understood the joke just fine. I started my comment off with “I missed the memo” implying I never took any interest in wars or never got assigned a war to obsess over.
I decided to focus on wars of leftest and/or peasant uprisings. Often heart breaking, but man if you’ve ever enjoyed cheering for the underdog, they are definitely that. Plus, you’re automatically learning about the Class War at the same time :D
I missed the memo. I am just generally anti war and don’t like reading about them. War is all because of dickhead leaders that can’t act decent, treat others right, or talk things out without being little insecure manbabies. And when manchildren in power have their big boi pp insulted they make the less powerful fight for them instead of doing anything respectful. Some rebellions which lead to wars are justified. Gotta stick it back to the empowered manchildren sometimes. But it all comes down to a shitty leader.
It can be very valuable and interesting to study the surrounding context of a war. Military history with battles and kill counts and discussions of tactics is something I find boring af, but there are endless discussions to be had about how the causes of the American Civil War can be traced back to before even the Revolution and tracing the repercussions of the war all the way up through to current politics.
Think about how the Taiping Rebellion, which killed more than 20 million people, would have affected day to day life in 19th century China - which weakened China and rendered it more vulnerable to European powers. Think the Opium Wars. Think about how Hong Kong was just returned to China in 1999 - and all of the complexities that entailed.
Or how the World Wars depopulated Russia. You had a generation dead or traumatized. Russian alcoholism is usually treated as a joke - trauma can have intergenerational changes in genetic expression.
Wars also make excellent chronological signposts. I’ garbage at dates, but usually wars segment significant social/economic/cultural/blah/blah/blah changes that they help me keep events organized in my head.
I think you missed the joke, it’s not making a point about all wars being bad it’s about middle aged dudes being obsessed with wars
I understood the joke just fine. I started my comment off with “I missed the memo” implying I never took any interest in wars or never got assigned a war to obsess over.
I decided to focus on wars of leftest and/or peasant uprisings. Often heart breaking, but man if you’ve ever enjoyed cheering for the underdog, they are definitely that. Plus, you’re automatically learning about the Class War at the same time :D
May I recommend Summer of Blood: The Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 by Dan Jones?
This looks fucking amazing, thank you for the recommendation!