Today I Learned #3: There's a wiki for everything!

[Ferocitus]

TIL that "Diseases of Despair" is still a thing. I thought it was just an old phrase from Durkheim and that
age of anthropology/sociology.

Why Americans Are Dying from Despair
The unfairness of our economy, two economists argue, can be measured not only in dollars but in deaths.
...
When it comes to people whose lives aren’t going well, American culture is a harsh judge: if you can’t
find enough work, if your wages are too low, if you can’t be counted on to support a family, if you
don’t have a promising future, then there must be something wrong with you. When people discover that
they can numb negative feelings with alcohol or drugs, only to find that addiction has made them even
more powerless, it seems to confirm that they are to blame. We Americans are reluctant to acknowledge
that our economy serves the educated classes and penalizes the rest. But that’s exactly the situation,
and “Deaths of Despair” shows how the immiseration of the less educated has resulted in the loss of
hundreds of thousands of lives, even as the economy has thrived and the stock market has soared. To
adapt the old Bill Clinton campaign motto, it’s the unfair economy, stupid.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/03/23/why-americans-are-dying-from-despair
March 16, 2020.

 

[Samson]

TIL that "Diseases of Despair" is still a thing. I thought it was just an old phrase from Durkheim and that
age of anthropology/sociology.

Why Americans Are Dying from Despair
The unfairness of our economy, two economists argue, can be measured not only in dollars but in deaths.
...
When it comes to people whose lives aren’t going well, American culture is a harsh judge: if you can’t
find enough work, if your wages are too low, if you can’t be counted on to support a family, if you
don’t have a promising future, then there must be something wrong with you. When people discover that
they can numb negative feelings with alcohol or drugs, only to find that addiction has made them even
more powerless, it seems to confirm that they are to blame. We Americans are reluctant to acknowledge
that our economy serves the educated classes and penalizes the rest. But that’s exactly the situation,
and “Deaths of Despair” shows how the immiseration of the less educated has resulted in the loss of
hundreds of thousands of lives, even as the economy has thrived and the stock market has soared. To
adapt the old Bill Clinton campaign motto, it’s the unfair economy, stupid.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/03/23/why-americans-are-dying-from-despair
March 16, 2020.

Yeah, it is recognised by doctors.

 

[Ferocitus]

Yeah, it is recognised by doctors.

I know that now.
The last episode of Dopesick should be released in the next day or two(?).
I think it will end well before Fentanyl becomes a problem.

 

[Berzerker]

That is a subject of much debate among actual historians

Personally I think the Trojan Horse was not as much a device to get into the city but to get into the citadel of the city, that is the last fortified place where the defenders withdraw to once the outer walls have fallen.

the docu i saw showed reconstructions and there was a fort within the city that looked rather imposing

illium? i think thats one of the names

 

[Ferocitus]

TIL that an Australian physicist used a diamond-based, quantum microscope to look inside a pigeon's lughole.
https://theconversation.com/how-do-...d-based-quantum-microscope-to-find-out-171738

 

[Birdjaguar]

A siege tower is usually hollow yes, rolled up to the wall, soldiers climb up inside protected from projectiles and deploy some mechanic to reach the defenders.

Presumably they mean something like this, with some imagination you could see a 'horse' there...

It is important to keep in mind that the Trojan War is thought to have happened about 1200 BCE and from ~1100-800 BCE Greece was in a Dark Age with loss of any writing and documented history. That is a 400 year period where any records were lost or not kept. 400 years is a long time. (1776-2176) And lots can happen during such a span. Homer's oral tradition made it through and has been "corroborated" with other non Greek sources make the war likely. Beyond that Homer's story is not likely to hold much accuracy. Homer was a story teller whose job was to entertain and perhaps get paid. I would suggest that he developed and told a story without any regard as to whether or not it was believed as true and accurate.

 

[Snowygerry]

Interesting - would that also have been true for the Romans example ?

I mean it is a "dark age" for us, but the ancients presumably had a better understanding of their own history ?

The city/Battle of Troy is an important part of the founding myths of the city of Rome itself after all...

the docu i saw showed reconstructions and there was a fort within the city that looked rather imposing

illium? i think thats one of the names

That's a Latin name.

llium could be easily translated as the "city of IIiad" or the "land of the IIiad"

We know the Romans visited historical battlefields, and discussed military history much like we do now, no doubt the "city of Aeneas" was an important tourist attraction for them no ?

 

[Birdjaguar]

Interesting - would that also been true for the Romans example ?

I mean it is a "dark age" for us, but the ancients presumably had a better understanding of their own history ?

The city/Battle of Troy is an important part of the founding myths of the city of Rome itself after all...

The Greek Dark Age happened after the Mycenean period and before the rise of Archaic Greece. This period of "darkness" (war, confusion, loss of central culture etc.) was not limited to Greece. The whole of the Eastern Med succumbed excepting Egypt and Assyria. Scholars still do not agree on exactly what happened. Myceneans wrote in Linear B but that art was lost after their collapse. The writing though seems to be confined to administrative tasks as opposed to more general use. For 400 years Greek "civilization" simply disappeared.

As a side note, In about 750 BCE Solon went to Egypt and learned a bit of pre Dark Age Greek history from the priests at Sais whose records of the past were intact: In that period Greece had gone to war against a powerful enemy and conquered them then that enemy was destroyed. Soon after so were the Greeks. And the story of Atlantis was born.

 

[Kyriakos]

Interesting - would that also have been true for the Romans example ?

I mean it is a "dark age" for us, but the ancients presumably had a better understanding of their own history ?

The city/Battle of Troy is an important part of the founding myths of the city of Rome itself after all...



That's a Latin name.

llium could be easily translated as the "city of IIiad" or the "land of the IIiad"

We know the Romans visited historical battlefields, and discussed military history much like we do now, no doubt the "city of Aeneas" was an important tourist attraction for them no ?

It is called the Iliad because it is about the city of Ilion. Ilium is just a barely altered term, with a roman ending. Ilios was a character in greek mythology, founder of that city, and son of someone called Troas - so the city is referred to in both ways. They are descendants of Dardanos.
According to one legend, the area where Troy was founded was uninhabited although part of a kingdom of Phrygia, and supposedly it was where Atis fell after being thrown out of Olympus by Zeus. Atis (Ate) was a daughter of Zeus, according to Homer, and responsible for making both mortals and gods act in foolish ways.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Well, we do know that a city existed there. Heinrich Schliemann found ruins and looted them. I've seen documentaries about this, and it's doubtful that he found the actual Troy of the myths, but that site did have several cities that had existed over a period of centuries.

 

[Takhisis]

Also if you go by the metrics you realise that the letter waw (looks like an F, still used as a numeral) was in use by then, or would have been if any pieces survived. The city's name was ‘Wilusa’ in Anatolian languages which help corroborate the existence of it. The ‘w’ sound was lost long before the Classical era of Greece.

Of course, Virgil acted as an organic intellectual for Mediaset Augustus and created his Æneid which was, not least, a propaganda pamphlet meant to enhance the prestige of the sitting monarch-in-all-but-name who claimed, as a Julian, descent from Iulus, king of Alba Longa and son of the titular Æneas, son of Venus, and thus, divine descent.

 

[r16]

once again it is a made up story , as much as Wehrmacht was the bestest -despite the thing that it somehow was actually- to enable "current day" political needs . Supposedly some volcano thing creates global nuclear winter stuff , Greeks set out to occupy the Middle East , like because Greeks do not have much fields to tend to anyhow ; becoming comparatively stronger as other states starve . ı wouldn't be surprised to see one Asian elephant turning to something else on the other side . And like disaster ...

Spoiler :

 

[Snowygerry]

Well, we do know that a city existed there. Heinrich Schliemann found ruins and looted them. I've seen documentaries about this, and it's doubtful that he found the actual Troy of the myths, but that site did have several cities that had existed over a period of centuries.

It seems that both the Persian king Xerxes (519 v.Chr. – 465 v.Chr.) Alexander (356 v.Chr. – 323 v.Chr.) undertook documented "city trips" to what they must have believed to be Troy.

It was the disneyland of ancient times apparently

Article in Dutch, but the pictures should do for all and confirm your post there :

http://www.geschiedenisbeleven.nl/troje-stad-van-homerus-of-van-archeologen/

 

[Valka D'Ur]

There was a 6-part documentary series by Michael Wood called In Search of the Trojan War. It was out in 1985, and I might still have my VHS copy of it. But thankfully it's been uploaded to YT. I just rewatched Part 1, and it's still fascinating:

In Search of the Trojan War Part 1: The Age of Heroes

In Search of the Trojan War Part 2: The Legend Under Siege

In Search of the Trojan War Part 3: The Singer of Tales

In Search of the Trojan War Part 4: The Women of Troy

In Search of the Trojan War Part 5: Empire of the Hittites

In Search of the Trojan War Part 6: Fall of Troy

Presumably the Trojan Horse is covered in Part 6.


Fun personal fact: Back when I did a lot of needlework items for craft fairs, I'd often stick a documentary series in the VCR to listen to. Sometimes it was about astronomy, sometimes the King's Singers' series on madrigals, sometimes the 9-part Story of English. But In Search of the Trojan War was also one of them.

 

[Zardnaar]

It seems that both the Persian king Xerxes (519 v.Chr. – 465 v.Chr.) Alexander (356 v.Chr. – 323 v.Chr.) undertook documented "city trips" to what they must have believed to be Troy.

It was the disneyland of ancient times apparently

Article in Dutch, but the pictures should do for all and confirm your post there :

http://www.geschiedenisbeleven.nl/troje-stad-van-homerus-of-van-archeologen/

That's Troy as we and the Romans/Greeks understood it.

It may not be THE Troy but that Troy may not exist.

Our Troy is also bigger than they thought. They excavated the citadel.

With discoveries in Hittite records and border carvings found I'm reasonably sure our "Troy" is the Troy of the Iliad which may not be that accurate.

 

[Zardnaar]

There was a 6-part documentary series by Michael Wood called In Search of the Trojan War. It was out in 1985, and I might still have my VHS copy of it. But thankfully it's been uploaded to YT. I just rewatched Part 1, and it's still fascinating:

In Search of the Trojan War Part 1: The Age of Heroes

In Search of the Trojan War Part 2: The Legend Under Siege

In Search of the Trojan War Part 3: The Singer of Tales

In Search of the Trojan War Part 4: The Women of Troy

In Search of the Trojan War Part 5: Empire of the Hittites

In Search of the Trojan War Part 6: Fall of Troy

Presumably the Trojan Horse is covered in Part 6.


Fun personal fact: Back when I did a lot of needlework items for craft fairs, I'd often stick a documentary series in the VCR to listen to. Sometimes it was about astronomy, sometimes the King's Singers' series on madrigals, sometimes the 9-part Story of English. But In Search of the Trojan War was also one of them.

Watch parts of that at university. There's been new finds since then but may have to rewatch.

Change of plans. Been incapussitated. Watching pt 1 now.

 

[r16]

whatever Troy existed has got nothing to do with the Anglosaxon world . Which lays far behind Adolf's flying saucers and the Holy Grail as far as conpiracies go anyhow .

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Watch parts of that at university. There's been new finds since then but may have to rewatch.

Change of plans. Been incapussitated. Watching pt 1 now.

What did you think of it?

 

[Zardnaar]

What did you think of it?

Enjoyed it. Watched 3 episodes. I've seen a lot of it before long time ago.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Enjoyed it. Watched 3 episodes. I've seen a lot of it before long time ago.

There's a companion book to go along with it. I'm not sure if I have it, though I do have one or two other Michael Wood books.