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Going by historical trends it should have been Britain and France fighting yet again instead of ending up as allies.
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May 14, 2024 15:15
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Cessna posted:Yes, there is at least one stuffed Snoopy (with a WWI flying helmet) in amongst the Red Baron stuff. And here I thought it couldn't sound any cooler.
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May 14, 2024 15:16
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I think that Zachary Taylor might've been in a similar position of being able to prevent the Civil War if he hadn't died, because as president he wanted to prevent the expansion of slavery, and also wanted to beat down the southerners who had been threatening secession in order to maintain the power of slavery. The Compromise of 1850 right after he died was a lot more equitable to maintaining the balance than he had wanted. Either the southern slavocracy gets its expansion halted, or they try rising up in rebellion earlier and get shut down way faster without Buchanan's dithering. Although that brings back the old question of how long slavery sticks around without the issue getting forced so straightforwardly like it was in the Civil War. Taylor wasn't any kind of abolitionist even if he was against expanding slavery. Maybe in time the new free states force the balance against slavery along with other economic factors, but maybe slavery gets to limp on for a long while. Also no big defining incident to get the 14th or 15th amendment even if slavery would be doomed to dwindle.
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May 14, 2024 15:18
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I was listening to one of the Yale courses recently about the history of Ukraine and the lecture spent pretty much the entire first class impressing upon the students that nothing in history is inevitable: things that seem inevitable happen because people decided to do things. They could always have decided to do different things and if they had then everything would be different and we would think that was just as inevitable. This is not to say that people knew that what they were doing would lead to the outcomes that actually happened (human history is very much a complex system) but there is no inevitable grand sweep of history where all of the historical actors are somehow just along for the ride.
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May 14, 2024 15:22
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We're probably straying pretty far away from the original discussion topic at this point but my point was not that specific events are inevitable - individual actions of course matter in shaping the course of history. I just push back on the idea that individual counterfactuals lead to specific "better" outcomes - eg the F3 hypothetical and a generalized European war. Tevery Best posted:I said it before, but going by the big international factors that clearly mean war had to happen shows us that the trend was very much against it. Imperialism? Colonies were mostly bleeding money and nobody would go to war over a bit of dirt in Africa, as evidenced by Fashoda, Morocco, Aboukir and other such crises. Militarism? On the wane, even in Germany, where the naval arms race against Britain ended in 1912 after they realised they lost, and events like the Zabern affair showed that society was fed up with Prussians thinking the entire state should be their barracks. Alliance networks? Explicitly defensive. Nationalism? The French public in June of 1914 was aghast at the thought of going to war over Alsace-Lorraine, Russian Pan-Slavism was mostly an excuse to mess with the Ottomans, and in any event you can hardly say Austria-Hungary was motivated by nationalist fervour (except to tear itself apart). Your point is reasonably well taken but I'll certainly argue against the idea that Austria-Hungary was not motivated by nationalism. The dual monarchy was very much motivated to try to contain, suppress, and otherwise disrupt national movements that had implications for its own control, territory, and sovereignty. You could call it counter-nationalism if you want, but many of A-H's actions leading to war (and even the decision to go to war itself) were motivated by internal challenges with national movements.
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May 14, 2024 15:31
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What was the last war where armies basically foraged off the land rather than have any sort of mass industrial supply lines?
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May 14, 2024 17:30
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darfur, currently ongoing? although some of it is stealing aid supplies, which are pretty industrialized, i guess. weapons are provided by third parties, also industrially, but often that's not counted in foraging anyways if you need a more unquestionable instance, second congolese war probably counts better, they killed most of the congolese hippos during that war and afterwards bob dobbs is dead fucked around with this message at 17:43 on May 14, 2024 |
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May 14, 2024 17:36
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Cessna posted:I live a few blocks away from Richthofen Castle in Denver. The infamous Red Baron had an uncle who got into cattle and land speculation in the American West in the late 1880s. In order to keep in touch with his holdings he built a Prussian hunting manor (as one does) that still exists. The current owners also have the largest collection of Red Baron stuff in North America; every year on Halloween they open the grounds to the neighborhood kids and put on a party, it's pretty cool. God, put that thing smack in the middle of the Scottish highlands and I'd be in heaven.
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May 14, 2024 18:41
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zoux posted:There's a reason that films cast venerable old actors in leadership roles in movies because having the cast of iCarly lead the storming of the beaches of Normandy feels unrealistic, though it isn't. Wait this 50 year old captain and 26 year old private aren't representative?  I mean 26 isn't that old for a private during a total war I guess, but Fillion also looks waaay older than that I really want to see a war epic filmed with a shitload of 18 year old in it, even though I know the realities of Hollywood mean that it'll never happen. On the other hand Pen15 absolutely nailed junior high...
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May 14, 2024 20:11
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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It's not particularly relevant if an actor is 18 or 30, they are playing a role instead of being that person. Teen characters are often played by young adults for example. Worse, their lines are usually written by someone way older. But going back in time, what would be the typical age range in, say, Napoleonic era? The first public debates about child soldiers that I know of come from WW1, but were there any restrictions before that for recruiting some kid that had barely reached puberty? What's acceptable age for ancient Greek phalangist, or cavalryman?
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May 14, 2024 20:33
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I always thought the 1990 Memphis Belle movie did a good job of showing just how young some of those aircrew were. Modine was the oldest (30) as the captain, everyone else ran between 19 and 28 at the time of filming.
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May 14, 2024 20:35
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Nenonen posted:It's not particularly relevant if an actor is 18 or 30, they are playing a role instead of being that person. Teen characters are often played by young adults for example. It's relevant when the 30 year old looks like a 30 year old and not an 18 year old, and doubly so in a war film because it gives a radically different impression of who fights and dies in these wars. Also people make fun of teenagers in high school movies who look like they're 30 all the time.
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May 14, 2024 20:36
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Cyrano4747 posted:It's relevant when the 30 year old looks like a 30 year old and not an 18 year old, and doubly so in a war film because it gives a radically different impression of who fights and dies in these wars. Certain types will always find some inane detail to bitch about, why bother trying to cater to them? 
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May 14, 2024 20:39
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Here in our era, how old is your average major? How about full bird colonel
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May 14, 2024 20:40
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Nenonen posted:Certain types will always find some inane detail to bitch about, why bother trying to cater to them? I think that it's quite important for war movies to actually depict the people who are doing the fighting and the killing and the suffering and the dying as (traditionally) boys just out of high school. These aren't adults making adult decisions, these are a bunch of kids stoked up on testosterone and nationalism and a desire for adventure running head first in to a brick wall. zoux posted:Here in our era, how old is your average major? How about full bird colonel The important thing isn't era as much as it is expansion of the military. A peacetime military has a lot of old officers and noncoms. If you suddenly have to scale that thing like 2-10-100x and fight in a war, everyone bumps up a few ranks and you're trying desperately to make more noncoms and junior officers, because those guys die all the time.
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May 14, 2024 21:06
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Nenonen posted:It's not particularly relevant if an actor is 18 or 30, they are playing a role instead of being that person. Teen characters are often played by young adults for example. Worse, their lines are usually written by someone way older. I think it is, as it presents an impression of war that is wrong. Somehow seeing someone in their 30s get hurt or killed isn't as shocking as someone in their late teens, but guess who fights a lot of wars? Nenonen posted:But going back in time, what would be the typical age range in, say, Napoleonic era? The first public debates about child soldiers that I know of come from WW1, but were there any restrictions before that for recruiting some kid that had barely reached puberty? What's acceptable age for ancient Greek phalangist, or cavalryman? The youngest American to win the Medal of Honor was 11:  Now, yes, he was an oddity, but you find a surprising number of young kids in their mid teens in the ranks or serving in support roles (typically drummers) in big wars like the US Civil War. You also find a decent number of older recruits - the Union Army's cutoff was age 45, but somehow a guy (Curtis King) enlisted in the Iowa militia at age 80 and was in for almost a year before being given a medical discharge. Again, this is an extreme exception, but it's not uncommon to find records of guys in their late 40s in the ranks - especially in the Confederacy, which was even more desperate for people. zoux posted:Here in our era, how old is your average major? How about full bird colonel A Major is mid 30s, a Colonel is in their mid 40s.
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May 14, 2024 21:19
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Cessna posted:I think it is, as it presents an impression of war that is wrong. Somehow seeing someone in their 30s get hurt or killed isn't as shocking as someone in their late teens, but guess who fights a lot of wars? Sure, but this has nothing to do with the age of the actors. You can't possibly tell if a person is 18 or 36 just from their looks when they have make up. You are bothered by it only because you know their age.
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May 14, 2024 21:28
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Nenonen posted:Sure, but this has nothing to do with the age of the actors. You can't possibly tell if a person is 18 or 36 just from their looks when they have make up. You are bothered by it only because you know their age. 
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May 14, 2024 21:30
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May 14, 2024 21:34
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I can, uh, easily distinguish between an 18 year old and someone twice their age.
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May 14, 2024 21:37
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Nenonen posted:You can't possibly tell if a person is 18 or 36 just from their looks when they have make up. Even if this is the case, which I'm not entirely prepared to accept, war movies don't bother to make their actors look young. You get a 36-year-old actor in there, they may have makeup on, but it'll be stuff to make their expressions easier to read, or make them dirty, or make them look pretty, not make them look young specifically.
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May 14, 2024 21:37
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Cessna posted:"Keep on firing" ("going cyclic") is a problem even purpose built macnhieguns can have if they get hot enough or worn out. It's - exciting. You just keep it pointed downrange and lat it run out of rounds. That last bit is pretty important. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feIdbNsbYww Nenonen posted:Sure, but this has nothing to do with the age of the actors. You can't possibly tell if a person is 18 or 36 just from their looks when they have make up. You are bothered by it only because you know their age. 
Phanatic fucked around with this message at 22:21 on May 14, 2024 |
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May 14, 2024 21:38
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Nenonen posted:Sure, but this has nothing to do with the age of the actors. You can't possibly tell if a person is 18 or 36 just from their looks when they have make up. You are bothered by it only because you know their age. Drake you need to get back in the studio if you don't want people taking this whole beef as a w for Kdot.
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May 14, 2024 21:40
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Nenonen posted:You can't possibly tell if a person is 18 or 36 just from their looks when they have make up. 
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May 14, 2024 21:40
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Gaius Marius posted:Drake you need to get back in the studio if you don't want people taking this whole beef as a w for Kdot.  these posts back to back
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May 14, 2024 21:44
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:
Something I've been curious about recently is the potential addition of Croatia to the Double Monarchy. I hadn't realized there was strong enough support for that, that even the fail-emperor Charles I was considered pretty in favor of it. Hungary in particular seemed jealous of guarding their privileges.
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May 14, 2024 22:04
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Nenonen posted:It's not particularly relevant if an actor is 18 or 30, they are playing a role instead of being that person. Teen characters are often played by young adults for example. Worse, their lines are usually written by someone way older. Ancient Greek soldiers would have been older than most people think. Greek hoplites were a militia force explicitly made up of the citizen body, so you'd see guys aged from about 20 to their 50s or 60s. I know some poleis didn't "graduate" young men into military service until their 20s but I'd have to look up specifics. After the Peloponnesian War, through the 4th Century, and into the rise of Macedon/the Hellenistic era, there's a transition to using more mercenaries and professional troops who tend to be younger, 20s and 30s. Still, the Greeks placed a huge value on age and experience, and a recurring theme of the Wars of the Diadochi are the successors trying to win and maintain the favor of various groups of veterans who marched with Alexander. Those dudes were still marching around in their 50s, and Antigonus Monophthalmus died on the battlefield at 80 or 81. Part of this is that the number one asset to being in the phalanx isn't your strength or speed or even your skill, it's the ability to stay in line and hold your ground. Young athletic guys make good peltasts, running around peppering the enemy with javelins and such, but you want experienced, solid dudes in your phalanx.
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May 14, 2024 22:07
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Movies are art and it’s incredibly silly to say what they should be like via fiat. Some good-hearted ribbing of unrealistic elements can be fun, and more importantly educational, but realism isn’t inherently “better”. I totally agree that having soldiers played by age-appropriate actors can be compelling, but saying they all must be is incredibly dumb. It’s misunderstanding what fiction is from the most basic level. If you seriously want to play this game, no movie will survive me because none of the speech is natural at all. Or is realism only important for actors’ ages and how many bolts various kinds of tanks have? This is TV tropes poo poo, come on.
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May 14, 2024 22:25
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Xiahou Dun posted:Movies are art and it’s incredibly silly to say what they should be like via fiat. Some good-hearted ribbing of unrealistic elements can be fun, and more importantly educational, but realism isn’t inherently “better”. I don't think anyone is making an argument from the stance of "but it wouldn't actually be like that, this is ruining my immersion". It's more "you know when we engage in war we're basically sending children to fight for us, right?" Showing older adults getting killed is easier for most people to stomach, for whatever reason, and glosses over a certain unpleasantness. And to be sure, war movies also gloss over a lot of other unpleasantness, and often try to make war look awesome instead of horrible. We just happen to be talking about the age thing right now.
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May 14, 2024 22:33
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Another important caveat is that acting is a skill, a craft, and a profession, and finding good 18 year old actors is really loving hard. There's a raw talent component to acting, but the technique and work that is way more important takes years to master. If you are looking to cast a big group of 18 year olds able to embody the emotional toll that war takes on a man, you are actually looking for 26 year olds that kinda look like 18 under the right lighting. FishFood fucked around with this message at 22:37 on May 14, 2024 |
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May 14, 2024 22:34
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Xiahou Dun posted:I totally agree that having soldiers played by age-appropriate actors can be compelling, but saying they all must be is incredibly dumb. It’s misunderstanding what fiction is from the most basic level. In my movie biography of the 11 year old drummer boy he will be played by John Lithgow. TooMuchAbstraction posted:I don't think anyone is making an argument from the stance of "but it wouldn't actually be like that, this is ruining my immersion". It's more "you know when we engage in war we're basically sending children to fight for us, right?" Showing older adults getting killed is easier for most people to stomach, for whatever reason, and glosses over a certain unpleasantness. Very much this.
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May 14, 2024 22:42
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:I don't think anyone is making an argument from the stance of "but it wouldn't actually be like that, this is ruining my immersion". It's more "you know when we engage in war we're basically sending children to fight for us, right?" Showing older adults getting killed is easier for most people to stomach, for whatever reason, and glosses over a certain unpleasantness. I’m cutting to the end because it’s an argument for realism and they all have the same end point : is my perfectly accurate diary of the bullshit I do on the reg more artistically valid than the works of Haruki Murakami? No and you’d sound really stupid if you tried go argue it. The age thing matters to you*, and emphasizing how young soldiers are is/can be important, but it is not inherently more important than any other part. There are some good reasons to have a bunch of soldiers played by octogenarians, they’re just not related to realism. Seriously, this is TV Tropes poo poo. It’s. Not. Real. That’s what fiction means. *indefinite, plural, “you, the reader”, not specifically TooMuch Abstraction
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May 14, 2024 22:44
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Xiahou Dun posted:I’m cutting to the end because it’s an argument for realism and they all have the same end point : is my perfectly accurate diary of the bullshit I do on the reg more artistically valid than the works of Haruki Murakami? No and you’d sound really stupid if you tried go argue it. You're doing a great job of arguing against things no one is saying.
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May 14, 2024 22:48
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Crows gonna be eating good with all those straw men destroyed
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May 14, 2024 22:49
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Xiahou Dun posted:I’m cutting to the end because it’s an argument for realism and they all have the same end point : is my perfectly accurate diary of the bullshit I do on the reg more artistically valid than the works of Haruki Murakami? No and you’d sound really stupid if you tried go argue it. The really funny part is that it is NOT an argument for realism. In fact, it's an argument for artistic integrity. How many war stories revolve around the theme of "how horrible it is that we send the young to die?" Quite a few, which makes it off when a movie that is all about that theme casts a person who is almost thirty in the role of that young person. I can name plenty of examples if you like, let me know.
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May 14, 2024 23:04
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Feel free to restate your point if I’m misunderstanding how this isn’t an argument for realism.
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May 14, 2024 23:05
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Xiahou Dun posted:Feel free to restate your point if I’m misunderstanding how this isn’t an argument for realism. I did, above.
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May 14, 2024 23:06
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Cessna posted:I did, above. Which films have the youth of the soldiers dying as a main theme but cast old actors? It’s hardly a clear statement to nebulously handwave that a bunch exist.
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May 14, 2024 23:19
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Xiahou Dun posted:Which films have the youth of the soldiers dying as a main theme but cast old actors? It’s hardly a clear statement to nebulously handwave that a bunch exist. Fury.
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May 14, 2024 23:22
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Haven’t seen it, looked bad, no comment. Although interesting you had to bring up a film that hadn’t been mentioned yet. Was I supposed to know that was the topic despite people specifically mentioning other movies?
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May 14, 2024 23:27
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