Let's talk about capitalism and inequality.
Do they come hand in hand? Is inequality bad or is it necessary? Is it unavoidable? If capitalism is about the big fish eating the smaller fish, is there a certain point where this mechanism starts getting detrimental to the majority of the society? Should governments be concerned about not allowing inequality to reach a certain extent? Is the middle class shrinking a warning sign that capitalism has taken a self-destructive path that leads to a totalitarian leftist system?
If anyone is familiar with Piketty's work, I would appreciate some summing up of his ideas too.
Inequality existed before capitalism.
>>1406946
that's debatable
some kind of barter probably always existed
>>1406950
Some kind of barter isn't capitalism. The same as some kind of sharing isn't literally communism.
what caused such a variety in asian languages and lettering systems? in europe we see that most languages have very similar structures and pronunciation, even when crossing language families, most even use the latin alphabet with minor additions and accents (with the obvious exception of slavic languages.)
but in asia, china, japan, korea, thailand, and vietnam all have hugely varied and different languages, with each having a completely different writing system (with the exception of Japanese and Chinese, who share a ideographic system.) So why did this happen?
thai script is brahmic in origin, viet script got PORTUGAL'D, korean script was reformed in the middle ages
>>1406936
>viet script got PORTUGAL'D
French'd
Rome. There used to be a bunch of other alphabets descended from Greek, Runic, Gothic, continental Celtic, Ogham, many Italic scripts, Etruscan, Glagolitic, Iberian... But those fell into disuse through the Empire's and later the Church's influence. With the printing press the Latin alphabet was even further standarised. But outside western Europe you still have Cyrillic, Greek, Armenian, Coptic, hell Georgian has three alphabets all to itself.
As for Asia, the situation isn't all that different. The Islamic regions almost invariably use Arabic, Cyrillic or Latin. India and Indochina have distinct alphabet for different languages, but like with the older European scripts they all have a common root. Hangul and Kana developped because Chinese character are horrible for writing anything that isn't Chinese, and through the influence of other scripts. Mongolia is an interesting case, since they have a bunch of native scripts (also sometimes used for neighbouring languages) which descend from Sogdian and are a branch of alphabets which don't survive otherwise; in any case Mongolian is often written in Cyrillic too.
As for linguistic variation, most languages in Europe are descended from Indo-European, so it isn't a surprise they're similar to a degree; Indo-Iranian languages also share a genetic origin with them. Most of the Middle East (North Africa included) speaks Arabic. Central and Northern Asia are Turkic languages or minority languages being displaced by Russian, save for (again) Mongolian. Maritime SEA is all Austronesian, which is one big family extending from Madagascar to Polynesia; continential SEA is either Austroasiatic (Vietnam, Cambodia) or Tai-Kadai (Laos, Thailand). Again Japan and Korea have their own languages thanks to isolation; China is mostly Sino-Tibetan languages being dominated by Chienese. In South India you have the Dravidian family. The Caucasus is a huge clusterfuck.
cont.
Why was everybody so afraid to tell him that people were starving and dying?
>>1406451
Same reason no one told Stalin "Hey maybe killing the kulaks isn't the best idea"
They didn't want to die
Because nobody wanted to be blamed for it
>>1406451
They were well aware people were starving and dying. What to do about that was a different problem.
Anyone recommend a good overview?
nukes
>>1406109
Hop, hop, hop
Big boom.
That's all there was to it.
Im reading Retribution by Max Hastings.
Alot of insight regarding the leadership on military leaders. Like, how the army and navy pursued two different courses and very rarely worked together, which caused massive clusterfucks in logistics and planning.
Today I had a discussion with a co-worker about an ancient Greek who lived in both Athens, Sparta, and several other cities. I remember him being featured in a history channel documentary a few years ago, however I cannot remember his name other than he was described by one historian as the "Greek Chameleon." He apparently was very adept at adopting the customs of his adopted cities, being described as being "More Spartan than the Spartans" during his time there by one historian. He was eventually ousted from both cities for one reason or another and I believe he ended up in Asia Minor (could be wrong on this). Any idea who this figure might be? Its been nagging at me all day.
>>1406031
Alcibiades.
>>1406049
That's him. Thanks anon
>>1406049
Yeah, he was an absolute mad man.
>born Athenian, student of socrates
>Gets athens to attack Syracuse who is allied with sparta
>gets charged with impiety because of some vandals
>leaves syracusan expedition to avoid charges
>goes to sparta, lives as a spartan
>fucks the wife of the spartan king
>goes to persia,helps satrap in Asia minor
>convinces Athenian aristocrats to overthrow the democracy
>convinces the army/navy to overthrow the aristocrats and reinstate a democracy.
What was this guy's problem? What was he going on about?
I remember reading an excerpt of something from him and nodding with agreement at every sentence, it was like our thoughts just flowed together in the same direction. I don't consider myself /pol/ but I don't know.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhGEGIBGLu8
>>1406043
>Oh don't you see what I mean
What did he mean by this?
How should one go about in trying to judge or guess the intentions of historical figures?
Every single one was interested solely in expanding their own power.
Pragmatism vs. idealism: Did the leader do what they did because it was expedient, or did they do it because it appealed to their innate virtue system?
Note: These categories rarely overlap, because what is expedient is rarely what is virtuous.
>>1405893
By attempting to immerse ourselves in their situation as deeply as possible.
30 subjects, good quality university and public!
History isn't like STEM where your degree defines your job, you can do basically anything you want that requires critical thinking.
Also use the phrase "critical thinking" in every job interview you will ever have.
There are plenty of lower end of white collar jobs that will hire you with a Bachelor's degree in anything. Quit buying into the myth that your degree is a guaranteed career pattern.
>>1405753
>Also use the phrase "critical thinking" in every job interview you will ever have.
No, no, there are some places where you don't. Are you applying to do back end clerical work? To do manual labor? Then don't use the word "critical thinking" unless it's a service project designed to lead into a career.
How does one become a god?
By killing themselves of course
>>1405669
Well, you can't. What you can do is trick a bunch of people. Experience shows that desert people are some of the best targets for this kind of thing.
>>1405669
Well we would need to define what a god is
I think achieving a form of physical immortality would at the very least get your name added to an encyclopedic entry listing gods
>yfw the wright brother flew the first airplane. Based as fuck.
>>1405597
must have been scary to ride something that was not on a stable surface...
>>1405597
yeah but did they really fly the first airplane?
>>1405865
I think that people in Germany were the first to fly what would be considered an airplane.
What's the point of philosophy? Makes people cynical and depressed most of the time.
it's a human thing, just like singing and doing math and drawing stuff and dojng lesser things too
>>1405414
When trying to understand things makes people cynical and depressed... Says alot about the human condition.
>>1405509
Says a lot about philosophers' condition, though.
In most historical outlooks, societies were formerly gained and changed through meritocracies of blood. This ranged from fighting the strongest of a tribe, to overthrowing an entire embodiment of government. If most modernized societies were to suddenly overturn their elections and political debates - would a meritocracy of blood replace the political scheme of most modernized nations, or would there be differences in ruling, compared to that of our ancestors?
Meritocracy is frankly a meme, it never existed in practice.
>>1405236
Yes most likely, but maybe not.
>>1405236
>I want losers to die
Sounds terrible. Meritocracy as you know and use it is a meme though
It's WE DA REAL JEWS mixed with the stupider parts of 19th century racialism mixed with a second-grade tier reading of the Bible.
Every time I read about it I'm left in absolute awe.
We still have the flat earth society.
We have /his/.
> Is there anything more retarded than Christian Identity?
Yes, actual Zionism / Judaism. Bunch of Ashkenazi Eastern Europeans speaking a German dialect going full WE WUZ HEBROOZ AND SHIET, demanding """their""" country and eventually getting it.
Is Poland the Christ of Nations?
Is it true that Poland was always the victim and never did anything wrong?
Yes. Poland is literally 19th century America-tier on the list of benevolent nations.
Poland would be fine if it wasn't for all those poles living in there
Poland hasn't done anything but bitch and lose since the 18th century and they try to pass it off as a virtue.
Can we get an /imperialchina/ general going?
>favorite dynasty and why
>favorite emperor
>most benevolent emparuh
>coolest invention
>implying Song wasn't the best and most comfy dynasty except for executing the generals
>>1403513
Mingboo here
Are there no true SONS OF HEAVEN on this board?
>>1403513
>favorite dynasty
Qinboo reporting in.
>why
Based Legalism.
>Dat centralization
>Dat lack of corruption
>Dat meritocracy
>Dat infrastructure expansion
It pains me that such a perfect system was all but abandoned and demonised after the Qin.
