Broken_Erika
Play with me.
They and Andorra will carve Europe up like a roast, then their alliance will be unstoppable.
Which country will start WW3 and Why?
- Thread starter Aiken_Drumn
- Start date
Zardnaar
Deity
They and Andorra will carve Europe up like a roast, then their alliance will be unstoppable.
Rome was a city state once upon a time.
I realize that some of these posts are over a year old, but I'd like to reply anyway.
Decades later Takei wrote a play about this and if memory serves, it's being performed somewhere in the U.S.
A similar thing happened in Canada, except the internment camps were in some of the most inhospitable parts of Western Canada, including semi-arid regions of interior British Columbia. It took decades for the feds to get around to apologizing and doing something about reparations.
If they did that in Canada, I'm not sure what kind of a situation I'd be in. My mother's side immigrated from Ireland and my dad's side immigrated from Sweden. I'm the only female on my mother's side in at least two generations who is not a redhead. Both my dad and I were platinum blond as young children - we took after my great-grandfather (grandmother's father).
Whether it's probable depends on whether the politicians and corporations understand the concept of extinction. Far too many of them are science-illiterate and have never read the SF classics that deal with post-apocalypse situations.
Now to answer the OP...
Back in the fall of 1979 I was in Grade 12 and taking social studies and English as two of my courses that term. It was honestly the most depressing and scary school term ever.
Other than the Industrial Revolution, the social studies class was about war. WWI, WWII, and even WWIII. We had a unit on debates, and my partner and I were assigned to argue in the affirmative that Canada should boycott the Moscow Olympics in 1980 (reason was due to Russia invading Afghanistan). That was a controversial topic in a class consisting mostly of guys, most of whom were jocks. But we were the only debate to pull off a tie, so that was something.
We played Diplomacy in that class - divided into groups of 7, and the teacher told us that the winner of each group would receive 5% extra on their final report card mark. Well... I didn't win (had no clue how military strategy board games worked back then, but learned since and now I'm at least somewhat competent at them). Actually, if real history had followed what I did in that game, things would be completely different.
What country should a novice Diplomacy player never play?
Germany, of course. I got so frustrated that I finally took myself out of the game. When it came time to reveal our moves in the next round, Germany surrendered. I removed my armies and navies, and the people playing Britain and Austria-Hungary were NOT pleased. "You can't do that!"
Actually, there is nothing in the rules that prohibits surrender and letting the rest fight over your abandoned territory. What kind of world would we have had if that had really happened?
We had to write an essay on World War III. The teacher had been a university student during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and that had a profound influence on him. He wasn't exactly unbiased in how he taught that part of the course (I remember him referring to Ronald Reagan as "Ronnie Ray Gun"). It was his opinion that WWIII would start in the Middle East. He didn't specify which country, but he was sure that it would start somewhere in that region.
That's the thing about living during the Cold War. I'm old enough to remember "duck and cover" drills in school (totally useless in a real attack), and people didn't talk about "if" WWIII would happen. They talked about "when."
Which point brings me to my English class that year. The Shakespeare play we did was Hamlet (everybody dies). The reading list included several post-apocalyptic novels, one of which gave me a nightmare I have never forgotten even though it was 43 years ago. I actually woke up and had an anxiety attack bad enough that my cat had to bite me to get me to calm down. We did a group poetry interpretation exercise of the poem "The Horses." The other three in the group kept trying to make the meaning of the poem a religious one, in which the horses represented Jesus. I told them no, the horses were horses and the poem was about the aftermath of World War III.
They looked at me blankly and said, "But World War III hasn't happened yet."
We argued about it for a minute or so, and the teacher finally told them, "Listen to her. She's right."
The thing that always struck me about that exercise was the word "yet." WWIII was something we expected, but not yet.
I don't want society to go back to that mindset. It's godawful stressful and depressing, particularly when you're a science-literate dreamer who has a vision of the beauty of exploring everything this universe has to offer if our species can just get over the stupid, selfish part of itself.
It depends on how irrational and bigoted you (general you) are.
If you get a chance, you should read George Takei's autobiography. Part of it relates how his family was uprooted from their home and tossed into an internment camp during WWII (Takei was a young child then). They were citizens, and the government at that time gave not one smidgen of a damn.
Decades later Takei wrote a play about this and if memory serves, it's being performed somewhere in the U.S.
A similar thing happened in Canada, except the internment camps were in some of the most inhospitable parts of Western Canada, including semi-arid regions of interior British Columbia. It took decades for the feds to get around to apologizing and doing something about reparations.
Census records, tax records, immigration records going back however many decades or even centuries needed.
If they did that in Canada, I'm not sure what kind of a situation I'd be in. My mother's side immigrated from Ireland and my dad's side immigrated from Sweden. I'm the only female on my mother's side in at least two generations who is not a redhead. Both my dad and I were platinum blond as young children - we took after my great-grandfather (grandmother's father).
This kind?
Spoiler :
It's important to remember that some of the WWII internees are still alive, and some are still angry about what happened. This is one of history's atrocities that percolates down through the generations. It's going to take a long time for them to "get over it."
Of course it's possible.
Whether it's probable depends on whether the politicians and corporations understand the concept of extinction. Far too many of them are science-illiterate and have never read the SF classics that deal with post-apocalypse situations.
This is a major reason why I want bases on the Moon, orbital habitats, and desperately hope it would be possible to have bases on Mars without wrecking whatever ecosystems may exist there.
Now to answer the OP...
Back in the fall of 1979 I was in Grade 12 and taking social studies and English as two of my courses that term. It was honestly the most depressing and scary school term ever.
Other than the Industrial Revolution, the social studies class was about war. WWI, WWII, and even WWIII. We had a unit on debates, and my partner and I were assigned to argue in the affirmative that Canada should boycott the Moscow Olympics in 1980 (reason was due to Russia invading Afghanistan). That was a controversial topic in a class consisting mostly of guys, most of whom were jocks. But we were the only debate to pull off a tie, so that was something.
We played Diplomacy in that class - divided into groups of 7, and the teacher told us that the winner of each group would receive 5% extra on their final report card mark. Well... I didn't win (had no clue how military strategy board games worked back then, but learned since and now I'm at least somewhat competent at them). Actually, if real history had followed what I did in that game, things would be completely different.
What country should a novice Diplomacy player never play?
Germany, of course. I got so frustrated that I finally took myself out of the game. When it came time to reveal our moves in the next round, Germany surrendered. I removed my armies and navies, and the people playing Britain and Austria-Hungary were NOT pleased. "You can't do that!"
Actually, there is nothing in the rules that prohibits surrender and letting the rest fight over your abandoned territory. What kind of world would we have had if that had really happened?
We had to write an essay on World War III. The teacher had been a university student during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and that had a profound influence on him. He wasn't exactly unbiased in how he taught that part of the course (I remember him referring to Ronald Reagan as "Ronnie Ray Gun"). It was his opinion that WWIII would start in the Middle East. He didn't specify which country, but he was sure that it would start somewhere in that region.
That's the thing about living during the Cold War. I'm old enough to remember "duck and cover" drills in school (totally useless in a real attack), and people didn't talk about "if" WWIII would happen. They talked about "when."
Which point brings me to my English class that year. The Shakespeare play we did was Hamlet (everybody dies). The reading list included several post-apocalyptic novels, one of which gave me a nightmare I have never forgotten even though it was 43 years ago. I actually woke up and had an anxiety attack bad enough that my cat had to bite me to get me to calm down. We did a group poetry interpretation exercise of the poem "The Horses." The other three in the group kept trying to make the meaning of the poem a religious one, in which the horses represented Jesus. I told them no, the horses were horses and the poem was about the aftermath of World War III.
They looked at me blankly and said, "But World War III hasn't happened yet."
We argued about it for a minute or so, and the teacher finally told them, "Listen to her. She's right."
The thing that always struck me about that exercise was the word "yet." WWIII was something we expected, but not yet.
I don't want society to go back to that mindset. It's godawful stressful and depressing, particularly when you're a science-literate dreamer who has a vision of the beauty of exploring everything this universe has to offer if our species can just get over the stupid, selfish part of itself.
EnglishEdward
Deity
It is an interesting poem:
The Horses – a poem by Edwin Muir
One of the first times I heard of Orkney was when I read Edwin Muir’s poetry. It was so strong, so vivid and so compassionate that I can still feel the thrill of reading my favourites, The Co…
www.thehallofeinar.com
I only knew of Muir (the Muirs, to be exact) from their translation of Kafka's novels to English. It was the first, afaik.It is an interesting poem:
The Horses – a poem by Edwin Muir
One of the first times I heard of Orkney was when I read Edwin Muir’s poetry. It was so strong, so vivid and so compassionate that I can still feel the thrill of reading my favourites, The Co…www.thehallofeinar.com
I was 16 at the time of that English class ('79-'80 was the year I graduated high school). To this day I can't read this poem without feeling teary and a bit sad.
I have no idea wtf those teachers were thinking, loading us up with constantly-depressing things. Yes, it was partly a curriculum thing, but not all teachers chose the exact same specific reading materials or assignments. My English teacher put an essay question about M*A*S*H on a test, myopically assuming everyone watched it. I'd never actually seen a full episode of it at that point, and had to BS my way through the question based on articles I'd read in TV Guide. Of course it wasn't a good essay, and I remember adding a note to the teacher that I didn't think it was a fair question, in that it assumed everyone watched that show. She wrote a note back, saying I should have said so, as she would have allowed me to write about Star Trek instead. Gee, thanks for that too-late suggestion to ask the teacher to change a test question (I'd have been subjected to a barrage of criticism from my classmates thisfast for being a "teacher's pet").
I have no idea wtf those teachers were thinking, loading us up with constantly-depressing things. Yes, it was partly a curriculum thing, but not all teachers chose the exact same specific reading materials or assignments. My English teacher put an essay question about M*A*S*H on a test, myopically assuming everyone watched it. I'd never actually seen a full episode of it at that point, and had to BS my way through the question based on articles I'd read in TV Guide. Of course it wasn't a good essay, and I remember adding a note to the teacher that I didn't think it was a fair question, in that it assumed everyone watched that show. She wrote a note back, saying I should have said so, as she would have allowed me to write about Star Trek instead. Gee, thanks for that too-late suggestion to ask the teacher to change a test question (I'd have been subjected to a barrage of criticism from my classmates thisfast for being a "teacher's pet").
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