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I took 100mg of WEED tonight

OK @Jimmy McGill - I am not currently stoned, but I have a hell of a good history-based question to spark a later conversation. Start thinking about it now. This is from a New Yorker story looking at several books on World War I that all come to well-argued, but contradictory opinions:

All these historians find themselves contending with the issues of historical judgment: how much can you blame the people of the past for getting something wrong when they could not have known it was going to go so wrong? The question is what they knew, when they knew it, if there was any way for them to know more, given what anyone knew at the time, and how in God’s name we could ever know enough about our own time not to do the same thing all over again. Or, to put it another way, are there lessons in history, or just stories, mostly sad?
 
OK @Jimmy McGill - I am not currently stoned, but I have a hell of a good history-based question to spark a later conversation. Start thinking about it now. This is from a New Yorker story looking at several books on World War I that all come to well-argued, but contradictory opinions:

All these historians find themselves contending with the issues of historical judgment: how much can you blame the people of the past for getting something wrong when they could not have known it was going to go so wrong? The question is what they knew, when they knew it, if there was any way for them to know more, given what anyone knew at the time, and how in God’s name we could ever know enough about our own time not to do the same thing all over again. Or, to put it another way, are there lessons in history, or just stories, mostly sad?

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History can be a bitch or a blessing for leaders. They often get bad advice / bad information.....or they pick and choose what they want to believe is "truth".

War at it is basic level is stupid. WWI was beyond stupid. I challenge anyone to support the basis of war.
 
History can be a bitch or a blessing for leaders. They often get bad advice / bad information.....or they pick and choose what they want to believe is "truth".

War at it is basic level is stupid. WWI was beyond stupid. I challenge anyone to support the basis of war.
Just started a new documentary. A line that stood out to me was "ww3 will be fought with nukes, ww4 will be fought with sticks and stones".

Kinda crazy and likely true.
 
War at it is basic level is stupid. WWI was beyond stupid. I challenge anyone to support the basis of war.
Good commentary on that subject from the article I linked:

And this is, of course, to speak only in the grand, indifferent language of Hegelian mega-history. It may be that no one can write military history without the language of mandarin euphemism; when Shelby Foote writes of “hard fighting” on Stonewall Jackson’s flank, or Strachan of a “sanguinary engagement,” it requires a determined mental act to recall that what happened was not an entry on a tally sheet but the violent death of a human being, loved and cared for by a mother and father, and full of hope and possibility, torn apart by lead balls or shreds of sharp metal, his intestines hanging open, or his mouth coughing blood, in a last paroxysm of pain and fear. And then to recall that any justification for a war has to be a justification for this reality. Any other calculation about German militarism or the possible fate of French colonies has to incorporate this image into its nucleus and accept it as justified.
 
Actually, now that I remember. My wife's father/daughter dance at our wedding was "Radioactive" by Imagine Dragons. Which looking back, was a little strange.
 

Okay, finally was able to read the article without being interrupted. This could be a thread of it's own. IMHO there were no morale high grounds for anyone involved in WWI.

We all know the story, some schmuck in southeastern Europe gets assassinated and then everything escalates. I went to basic training planning on going to go to Afghanistan. When I graduated I found out I was likely going to Iraq.

People don't always make sane decisions in times of stress.
 
History can be a bitch or a blessing for leaders. They often get bad advice / bad information.....or they pick and choose what they want to believe is "truth".

War at it is basic level is stupid. WWI was beyond stupid. I challenge anyone to support the basis of war.
Population control?
 
Rebel Wilson said Pitch Perfect 4 is going to happen. I'll believe it when I see it.
 
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