Random Rants LXVI: NO, **YOUR** THREAD TITLES SUCK!!

[Kyriakos]

No one is willing to engage me on my thread about Trump's path to power

It was all about #FREEDOM

 

[choxorn]

I thought it was about MAKING (White, Christian) AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, or something.

 

[Takhisis]

No one is willing to engage me on my thread about Trump's path to power

Because we're freakin' shot of that man hogging the press throughout half the world? He was on my TV, my radio, my computer, he was everywhere. His election was, to put it simply and bluntly, a great defeat for democracy. Of course he won't be impeached for sexual misbehaviour, so you lot have ensure we're all stuck with him for the next four years. End of story. Now I can get back to solving much more immediate problems and, in my free time, enter the series of tubes and read about non-Drumpf stuff.

 

[The_J]

Got pretty drunk both Friday and Saturday.
Which is not the rant. The rant is that I still didn't manage anything with any of the girls.

 

[Arakhor]

You were drunk: it was probably for the best.

 

[Kyriakos]

Got pretty drunk both Friday and Saturday.
Which is not the rant. The rant is that I still didn't manage anything with any of the girls.

They are all still alive, though. Right?

(excuse my morbid humour, obviously said as a joke )

 

[gay_Aleks]

So after taking a brief break from OT, following the forum's...metamorphosis, I decided to go back.

Mistake.

 

[Kyriakos]

^Welcome back to the show that never ends.

 

[gay_Aleks]

No, I'm only here to say "Hey, this place has somehow became worse! Now I'll be smug about avoiding it for 2 months and do nothing to try and fix it!"

 

[Kyriakos]

^Aren't you a teen? This place is *mostly* for old peoples

 

[gay_Aleks]

I turned 18, so de facto I'm a "young adult". Not to mention that, well, the so-so called "old peoples" tend to post some...contentious things, to put it kindly. So as to speak.

Besides, IOT's my new home. Gone are the days when spamming Ukraine threads was exciting. Now it just sounds draining.

 

[The_J]

You were drunk: it was probably for the best.

Na, at least then I sometimes have the guts.

They are all still alive, though. Right?

(excuse my morbid humour, obviously said as a joke )

Yes, I am, and didn't even feel close to dying .

 

[Arakhor]

Drinking a lot tends to affect your ability to 'perform'. At least this way you can try again, rather than having them sneering at your impotence..

 

[Tee Kay]

Been getting into discussions on Guns, Germs and Steel a lot on the internet lately. Just... sigh.

It's crushing getting to know or admire people intellectually or creatively, then it turns out they think Guns, Germs and Steel is a good history book.

 

[Traitorfish]

It's not a bad history book, for all the flak it gets here and elsewhere, it's just that it's a big with one big idea that it smacks the reader around the head with and leaves them for dead. There are some genuine insights, it's just that Diamond only considers history at a super-macro level, and history is deeper than that. Unfortunately, people are attracted to big simple ideas that seem to cut the Gordian knot of history (or even big complicated ideas that can be creatively misinterpreted as big simple ideas; look at what happened to poor Marx), and Diamond's offer of a one-sentence solution to all the puzzles of world history couldn't have been better-designed to meet that desire.

 

[Lexicus]

It's not a bad history book, for all the flak it gets here and elsewhere, it's just that it's a big with one big idea that it smacks the reader around the head with and leaves them for dead. There are some genuine insights, it's just that Diamond only considers history at a super-macro level, and history is deeper than that. Unfortunately, people are attracted to big simple ideas that seem to cut the Gordian knot of history (or even big complicated ideas that can be creatively misinterpreted as big simple ideas; look at what happened to poor Marx), and Diamond's offer of a one-sentence solution to all the puzzles of world history couldn't have been better-designed to meet that desire.

Indeed, I read the book a while ago and didn't think it was all that bad, but my opinion of it has fallen each time some non-history-specializing person has brought it up as though it held the key to understanding humanity.

 

[MagisterCultuum]

Whenever Guns, Germs and Steel is mentioned I feel compelled to point out that 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus is a superior book in every way.

 

[Cutlass]

Been getting into discussions on Guns, Germs and Steel a lot on the internet lately. Just... sigh.

It's crushing getting to know or admire people intellectually or creatively, then it turns out they think Guns, Germs and Steel is a good history book.

You should see the reaction it receives among some economists.

 

[Takhisis]

So it's good that I've never read it, then?

 

[Cutlass]

No. GG&S is an odd duck. It's not good economics or good history. But if you know that, and follow up on what is good economics and good history, then GG&S tells a good story which lays out a problem to be understood. Now in the end GG&S does not present a correct resolution to that problem. But it does lay out a foundation of what they problem is. And then you have to go on to get better ideas of the resolution to that problem. Understood within it's limitations, I think it's worthwhile. 1491 is certainly the next step in understanding the history. Why Nations Fail is the next step in understanding the economics.