Hitler lost WW2, the south lost the American civil war, and we haven’t all nuked each other (yet)
the south lost the American civil war,
They’ve been trying to play the long game
No, it is genuinely a good point. The fact that its use so far has been entirely limited to the two that ended WW2 was certainly not a given. Some US military leaders wanted to use nuclear weapons in Korea.
The Korean War was so soon after WW2 that the strong taboo against the use of nuclear weapons hadn’t yet taken hold, and the USSR had a miniscule stockpile, so the US could genuinely have done it with limited risk to themselves. The fact that they didn’t use them is a really important turning point that helped build in the taboo against their use that has so far held to this day.
They killed Lincoln but they couldn’t kill the abolitionist movement. Congress ratified three of the most progressive laws written in a century and the Freedman’s Bureau took to the job of enfranchising and rehabilitating millions of black ex-slaves in the subsequent decade.
Pick up a copy of W.E.B DuBois’s “The Souls of Black Folk”. What he describes is, at it’s heart, a revolution in how our country treated men and women of African descent. It set the foundation for the next century of civil rights and paved the way for a modern era in which the core racist underpinning of the country are totally upended.
That kind of fundamental change would not have been possible under a Breckinridge administration, nor would it have been possible if the Union had been crippled into submission at Gettysburg or Antitem.
Lincoln was the tip of the abolitionist spear and critical to what came after. But he was not alone. And he was by no means the most radical voice within his party. His martyrdom became the bloody shirt that Republicans rallied under long after the war had ended.
Wait, when you say Republicans, do you mean the organisation that Americans currently call the Grand Old Party, the GOP, the modern Republican Party? If so, I find it ironic that the party standing for freedom has evolved into the party that shields and encourages racists and criminals.
Hitler learned about Eugenics from America. We were forcibly sterilizing people for being “inferior” which you can imagine who that meant. America built their own concentration camps for Japanese citizens and our forced labor in our current prison system is just tge more pletable version of labor camps.
The American civil war was about slavery, but tge north was not full of abolitionist people like you might assume. Tge rich in the North and South were against ending slavery, but their hands were forced by the larger population. The only reason we have not had nukes go off is only because they are old and not maintained well. We’ve dropped a few nukes on accident that just didn’t go off. At least two of those were over America.
Kinda terrible examples tho…
Sure “Hitler lost”. Cause he killed himself and stuff. But the Nazis won. The US saved most officers and gave them jobs in NATO and the nascent west German government. Then used them to hunt and undermine communists all over the world. The Nazis themselves kinda won. The Cold War was basically a Nazi war, which they won.
The south “lost”. But after they lost the US became the most racially segregated country in the world and became the chief inspiration to the Nazis.
Then the US literally bombed Japan TWICE for no fucking reason other than spooking Stalin.
You have 3 wrong examples, that actually show we are living in the timeline where the Empire won.
I try to be a “silver lining” type of guy whenever possible, and a recent example that I’ve been using is mRNA vaccines. They were advancing achingly slowly before CoVID-19 basically turned the whole world into an mRNA lab. Now, thanks to that, there are vaccine trials underway for seasonal influenza, Epstein–Barr virus, HIV, RSV and several types of cancer. There’s even talk of a bona fide cure for the common cold.
THE COMMON COLD
(well… just the coronavirus variants that cause it about 50% of the time, no word yet on a norovirus vaccine - https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/moderna-sets-sights-common-cold-triple-attack-against-respiratory-diseases)
Near-infinite access to pretty much any information you can possibly dream of, content, questions, etc, on a little device in your pocket
ive said to my kids "you have the sum total of all human knowledge available at your fingertips 24/7 and youre bored? "
Wait so now I’m in trouble for not being on my phone? Make up your mind! /s
Give them welbutrin and there mind will be on overload. Worked wonders for me. no sarcasm.
The problem with that is it has led to ignorant people believing they’re smart — all because they can find any random site that backs up any nonsense they assert. Critical thinking and credible research are endangered concepts now.
Oh, of course. There are negatives to everything for sure. But I think as a whole it’s made life better in a lot of different ways.
I mean, we’re communicating over the Internet right now, which is pretty cool. Right?
On Lemmy. For now. Things will change. But for now it’s pretty cool. Um.
Hi. :waves:
Hi!
I’m OK, mostly.
Had some good Chinese takeaway tonight, which was a treat. Ate that while watching my countrymen descend into some kind of froth for dystopic, authoritarian autocracy. That’s kind of a bummer.
I abide. Trying to, anyway
For now.
Do you ever worry that somebody could just forcefully grab you, unzip your pants and forcefully stuff hundreds of angry snakes into your pants? Or that you’re going to pull back your shower curtain one day, and there’s going to be a bear in your shower? Or that one day all the countries will just nuke each other for funsies?
I often worry about things that don’t makes sense. Like the one time my ex girlfriend was eating ice cream, and I wondered if one day she might give birth to a moose.
Or that you’re going to pull back your shower curtain one day, and there’s going to be a bear in your shower?
Ha! Joke’s on you. I don’t have a shower curtain!
Kids seem more aware of toxic behaviours and seem to clock their mental health better than I ever did. Even 10 years ago, talking about mental health was considered a taboo.
