Grrl Power #989 – Invasion schminvasion
I’m not sure humans are actually bad a being subjugated. I think that’s western romanticism. Or, specifically American romanticism. We don’t of modern England of being remotely subjugatey, but they did have one of those top 5 empires at one point and a lot of early colonists came here to escape religious persecution. And for economic opportunities of course, but once they were here, they didn’t feel like paying taxes to the crown or being told how to manage our shit, war ensues – for freedom! But then we bought a bunch of slaves, war ensues – for freedom! Then 150 years of weapons-grade racism follows. Like, shit, I really like the name Redline for Ren, but some people pointed out that “redlining” is a thing in real estate where when a black family moves into a neighborhood, then all kind of shitty stuff goes on like raising rates on insurance and loans and canceling nearby construction like grocery stores. I would say it’s almost beyond belief, except for the fact that humans are the literal worst. If demons actually did invade and saw all the shit we get up to they’d be like “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
So I’m still going to call him Redline, because I like the name, and I have a feeling if I call him “Super Perfect Human Man” someone would still be able to find some tie to racism because America has been so racist for so long that nothing exists that isn’t tainted by racism.
What was I talking about? Oh, right. So even in America where we ostensibly worship anti-subjugation, there’s still a shitload of it, and huge sections of the world have a much worse track record than we do.
But Dabbler is too polite to point that out to Maxima in the middle of her “if you invade, I will personally decapitate your army” speech. (By decapitate she means slaughtering all the important officers, not literally beheading everyone down to the chefs. That would be tedious, especially when she can just blow them up.)
Tamer: Enhancer 2 – Progress Update:
About a third done with the editing. I actually didn’t play much of anything this weekend as I had to split my time between TE2 and working on the next vote incentive. I had trouble figuring out what to draw, so I actually spent half my pinup time working on the cover for TE2, so overall a productive weekend all things considered.
October’s vote incentive is up! This is a redraw of a comic I did in 2011 I think, but never published. I had originally pictured the comic going through an establishment phase, and then taking occasional breaks from the storylines for little one-off moments like these. Which I guess I could still do. I just got wrapped up in the story telling and forgot.
So Dabbler and Sydney are up late one evening on night watch but Dabbler has just discovered Cinemax…
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I see a lot of discussion and the truth is looking at human history, the patterns of the rise and fall of empires, regimes, and such there are a lot of patterns of bad habits in history that fall to the relation between the rulers and the ruled; and the perceptions of the different classes and to where they exactly fall between these. It varies considerably, but the general problems come from these.
1: The freedom fighters of today become the tyrants of tomorrow
(ideologies, intentions, power corrupts, being stuck in an extremist holding pattern where you have to keep scapegoating people and pushing them so they ignore all the other problems they have as a society)
-that last bit tends to be a social problem that appears in most countries and leads to genocide, slavery, and the subsequent uprisings and wars that result from such actions, including from outside nations who either regard you as a future threat, tyrants, or just as a PR excuse to their own subjects to raid you for land and resources,
2: Cognitive Dissidence leading to vast wealth differences,
-this can be reflected in those born into power, wealth, and privileges’ wanting to keep it that way and convincing themselves they deserve it and running a PR campaign to convince the average citizen that they do deserve it and feeding them unrealistic and unfounded as a majority cause of wealth ways they too can become super wealthy so they too better do everything they can to guard the privileges’ of the super wealthy because hey…you can be one too someday; even as these actually hurt these very citizens and instead leads to keeping them in poverty and has diminishing returns to the point of being very poor; but that mindset keeps so many of realizing it…this can come and go in a society depending on the scope and methods as one generation may realize their parents’ were tricked and move to do something about it.
The problem is these super wealthy genuinely believe they are “naturally” better than others and do everything they can to convince anyone that can even the odds of this. This is how you get things from the mandate of heaven, royalty is chosen by God, down to autobiographies and talk show appearances feeding a story of hard work and dedication contrary to their actual inheritance status as if they did what their grandparents did under a different economic system that they now in wealth and power have done everything they could to smother to prevent any other poor person from rising in wealth to compete with them.
-okay forget the numbers. A big part of people staying subjugated is convincing them they want to be subjugated. And rulers have a bad habit of falling short and fall too short they either get overthrown or cause their society to collapse. One of the four major causes for society collapse is political corruption. Hoarding wealth resulting in infrastructure collapse *often a slow and painful way for a society to die, sometimes slow enough that the society can actually be taken over and changed into a new one in such a way that its not noticeable at first and only in hindsight a few generations later you realize that your civilization isn’t the same one that your great great grandparents were part of, it is fundamentally different.
Some of these changes however, despite the politicians and other rulers trying to rile up the citizens, there are really only three groups that are usually affected by the average regime change.
1: The ruling/wealthy classes.
2: Those in or invested in the military
and
3: Any group being targeted by the new regime (scapegoating is a serious bad habit of human society used to convert the masses to their causes, dehumanizing and blaming specific religions, ethnicities, practices, ect…as the cause for their problems despite reality being vastly different and complex), basically a distraction and to rile up the masses to their cause.
This has been more a off the top of my head so yes I missed some things, but this post is getting long, there are entire social studies on the rise and fall of civilizations that point out these reoccurring themes, and seeing them repeat even in the modern day is very disturbing to watch. When you realize that some countries only stay now because of how big they are, how complicated their systems have become, and how little attention span some of its citizens really have.
these repeating patterns repeat because rulers either end up thinking of themselves likes gods (and conversely their subjects get this idea in mind…even if they don’t realize it.. seriously blaming a new president for gas prices a week after an election is idiotic.
or because the rulers don’t know how to rule so fall back on these tactics of divide and distract, the masses and hope the majority stay on heir side and that the problem(s) blow over or are solved by those closer to them. They either lack the means or the personal motivation to actually try and make life better for and help their society.
Few and far between are those who seek power for the sake of others.
sorry, ahem “cognitive dissonance”
blaming spell check for that one.
Pretend you meant cognitive dissidents, which is a pretty cool turn of phrase.
Agreed. Helps that “cognitive dissidents” has an obvious meaning – people who commit thoughtcrimes in the Orwellian sense. A handy neologism.
Don’t forget:
distribution of wealth if the wealthy go to war:
– If the wealthy start grabbing in each other’s funds and stuff they start distributing the source of their wealth and with that in the end their wealth for short time wealth(feudalic system, the rise of the chinese middle class(party members who backed the wrong great leader use the investment in the companies of the middle class to hide their funds from the state), rise of the asian tigers, rise of the cities and the reformation(kings rob the church of power by disputing their claims, but in the end lose their “appointed by god status” and get kicked out)..
Untimely death for rulers leading to revolution:
– The early dying of any ruler tends to lead to big changes. Take for example essentially every assassination of an American president the untimely .
The succession of conflict:
– wars and other big conflicts tend to destabilize countries in such a way that they stay unsafe and unstable to far beyond the initial war. Examples of this are the boom in drugs trade in the Netherlands after WOII(they held a bunch of american soldiers America didn’t want back who started buying lots of drugs), Germany before WOII(multiple attempts to overthrow the government, simple shootouts, etc.), the byzantine empire after the crusades and black death and the USA during the war of terror(shootouts, rotting infrastructure, militarized police).
Rallying behind a war:
– A war tends to be good way to unite a non-unified country behind a common cause(Germany’s war with France(which they won by the way) before the great war, the war on terror(America wasn’t really a unified or an internally celebrated country before it, now they at least have a common enemy a great turn up rate for the army, high level of nationalism and no Klu Klux raids), ancient Greece, the Netherlands and the farmer wars.
– The victory of the proletariat:
If the proletariat can’t get something legally that really need/want you get big crime cyndicates with uncomfortable amounts of power. Examples: Booze and drugs in the USA, Coffee in Europe and opium in China, living space in Australia, food in North Korea and wood trade in Indonesia.
Redlining….
I can’t say I’ve heard of it as a racist term, but it’s been a term for engineers and racers for a very long time.
You know how gauges and dials have a red line near the far end that represents the maximum “safe” value for whatever that indicator is for?
Well redlining is when you push it to the red line, or even beyond.
This goes all the way back to the age of steam.
That’s pretty much what “redline” meant in real estate, too; go beyond the red line and it wasn’t safe. Or at least, the Feds wouldn’t insure mortgages in that area.
https://www.npr.org/2017/05/03/526655831/a-forgotten-history-of-how-the-u-s-government-segregated-america
redlining the racist term
Redlining is a discriminatory practice that puts services (financial and otherwise) out of reach for residents of certain areas based on race or ethnicity. It can be seen in the systematic denial of mortgages, insurance, loans, and other financial services based on location (and that area’s default history) rather than on an individual’s qualifications and creditworthiness. Notably, the policy of redlining is felt the most by residents of minority neighborhoods.
Or more appropriately, it is a HIJACK of a previous word to make it racist.
Just like Nazi’s main iconography is causing all sorts of confusion in the East, simply because it is a tilted and in some cases mirrored religious symbol… Redline used to simply mean “too much (steam)”, and is hijacked to mean “too much risk (because too much black people)”…
I don’t think the term “redlining” regarding areas is a hijacking or extension of the term “redlining” regarding engines. The former simply refers to drawing a red line on a map, the latter to moving beyond a red line on a gauge. Different origins, same word.
Of course there are people who somehow are convinced that a word can only have a single meaning. Trying to convince everybody else to drop all other meanings could be considered “hijacking” a word …
G’day dexdrako :)
Take a shufti over to page 1, and have a dekko at my reponse to Terx on this matter.
At the risk of making a LOT of dumb white guys get huffy and defensive…
The comic already has a Black female superhero named “Jiggawatt.”
The time for worrying if the names are racially tone deaf has kind of passed.
People with different perspectives see different things. When I first saw her hero name “Jiggawatt” I chuckled and had the image of Dr. Emmett Brown running around yelling “Jiggawatt”. You saw something completely different.
And the line from BttF was where she got the name (or at least, DaveB did, and one or the other got confused about the proper spelling and pronunciation… )
Isn’t the racist term ‘jiggaboo’? I’ve never heard jiggawatt used in any context other than electricity, as a mispronunciation of ‘gigawatt’.
Maybe replace the ‘j’ with an ‘n’
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redlining#:~:text=In%20the%20United%20States%2C%20redlining,the%20selective%20raising%20of%20prices.
Out of curiosity what do these demons have to offer?
Earth has a lot of nations, some shopping around and a few well off civilizations can establish beach heads in various countries, uplift those nations, and show the rest of the planet what they could have to if they all agree to be subjects of the empire…I suspect Deus is playing this method himself honestly.
In the Ju-el playbook when facing a planet that can give enough resistance that it would be bad for PR…or would try to at least, there is the “bearing gifts” AKA “Free Sample” approach.
Basically start with informing everyone on the planet what they could have as citizens of the empire, things like unlimited free energy, clean water, clean air, heating, cooling, free health and dental regardless of income, ect… as basics, pretty much a “never pay another utility bill again and never worry about these things again” also free shelter, for those who can[‘t affording housing, given jobs, ect…
any who, so after the pitch comes the Free Sample. This will seem random, but are strategically chosen for most gain with the least tech. The people are told the tech is very advanced and should not be tampered with, and on the above point of the smaller countries aspect, these gifts 3will be given to SOME countries, a handful, treated as if it were a regional or continental thing (playing dumb on local divisions), but when countries that could have used these things see how well they work they may ask “why not us?” which the Ju-el will answer, “you only needed to ask”, and give them one as well, the stipulation of getting more however is to agree to be part of the empire, the consent of the people is taken over their local government, so we end up with some small countries here and there becoming beach heads, uplifted, and other nations can see what they are missing…reminder using some sneaky methods they scan for the consent of the masses not the governments, so the take overs become a matter of change in management to the people not an invasion (a very patient method of acquiring the planet to be sure).
now on the gifts themselves, let’s say they decide to gift Flint Michigan with a 100% effective water filtration system, they plant this thing in the water ways, it spreads out, and boom pure drinking water.
Now of course at first the local governments will try for some negative PR trying to claim there might be some comic book supervillain BS like mind control nanites, sterilization chemicals, but this too is a reason for multiple gifts across multiple nations, the more the local government tries to lie and prevent its benefit from being used the more the local population will resent them.. especially if they do something like blow it up while the same device over seas is actually helping people.
On that, the free sample stuff is deliberatly designed to be more fragile than their actual main installations would be, and in fact are even outfitted with a self destruct, a sneaky one, that they don’t tell the people about, so if say some government types decide to tamper with the device, open it up, see how it works, the self destruct goes off…a safe self destruct normally such as self mineralization *molecular tech that causes the components to shift into inert minerals…basically it turns to stone and sand and such and collapses under its own weight…and the blame (oh you shouldn’t tamper with sensitive equipment, the people are now denied this gift because your primitive leaders and scientists basically did the equivalent of a chimp smashing a computer open with a rock.
So we get a method that breeds appreciation and want for what the empire has, jealousy for it from those that didn’t get it so will ask for it, and possible resentment from the people towards their own current leadership.
I don’t think it matters what the demons have to offer. A collective of concerned stakeholders would automatically piss off everybody except the globalists who everyone that isn’t paid by them already view as the Illuminati/great-satan/antichrist/corrupter/destroyer. Add in that they’re literally demons and well…pffhh
yeah unlike the humans from another timeline example I went with there, as demons they’d have a heck of a PR campaign they’d have to work on; which would need to be a just aliens from another dimension that superstitious humans viewed as evil…but being in a position of power and invading has the problem of not being able to play the victim card of demons being persecuted by those early humans…hard to claim your people were made to suffer by human hands who only had swords and arrows so to speak when you are now able to over power tanks and bombs.
Keep Hench Wench away from them! Can you imagine how powerful she could be if she signed up as a local contact?
Now I’m ‘shipping Dexon and Hench Wench.
https://forward.com/scribe/412627/globalism-anti-semitism/
The one problem I see is the Secret Masters (Illuminati or whatnot) pumping support to ultra right wing bible-thumpers, who proclaim to the masses that these unholy abominations are here to corrupt them with their demonic gifts, or whatnot. And then things escalate.
For better real world analogy, whenever there is a mass shooting, and people start talking about stricter gun control, the NRA and their supporters start yelling about how the government is going to take away their guns. Every time. The proposed legislation may not have anything to say about it, but the NRA starts yelling, their lobbyists work their magic, and the legislation gets denied. Outcry. Backroom dealings. Even the destroyed technology could be shown as an attempt to dominate by holding the technology as a ransom. “They can disable/detonate their so called gifts whenever they choose. If they were truly benevolent as they claim, they should give us the secrets so we can build them ourselves.” Talk about creating jobs. Etc. Etc.
And if they do somehow gain the knowledge, it would be kept secret, all the while government scientists try to figure out how to use it to kill people…
“We’ll tell you soon. Soon. “
Well that is one of the reasons the Free Sample/Gift tactic doesn’t rely on giving one device to one country, and observing the world, including the last few years, people can be riled up pretty easily and believe whatever so long as it feeds into their preconceptions and fears, and become even more convinced of it if experts say otherwise. The us vs them and backfire affects have to be taken into account.
there is a reason that is a step 2 or 3 tactic, the first one being the world wide announcement in every language of *we come in peace, we come to uplift your world* ect..with a list of pleasantries, bonuses, sprinkled with fears of the universe the empire can protect them from ect… step 2 is usually a “mild” show of force, basically a face to face meeting with world leaders that rubs world leaders the wrong way so “if” the world leaders make a move on them after what amounts to a flowery version of (surrender you have no choice, we wish to minimize the loss of life, you cannot defend against us, there is no point…with of course repeating the benefits like it is simply logical to obey their demands); well “if” the world leaders make a move the Ju-el have their excuse to show a mild show of force (sleep inducing beams, mico-space magnetic locks to jam weapons and controls, molecular phase shift inhibitors to render combustion engines worthless, and while these could be put inside tiny devices to just beamed from space; because humans are influenced by drama, the whole morality bit, use a fleet of ships blanketing the sky or giant robots, ect…so humans get that visual threat but using a low violence subduing method (for now).
then comes the other hand bearing gifts to many nations.
but for this comic, this is a tactic I think better suited to Deus or the Xevoarchy than for demons.
“Humans are famously bad at being subjugated,” boasted the citizen and soldier of a country built on centuries of subjugating humans.
Bah! Less than two and a half centuries!
Britain has a far more impressive record, in both countries under occupation and the number of centuries. Plus the USA has difficulty in even keeping it up for mere decades!
Britain does not really have a history of not being subjugated though. They just tended to be subjugated internally. Royalty, Nobility classes, etc. The majority of the UK’s history has had a majority of British citizens NOT as royalty or nobility, which does automatically limit their ability to rise in social or political rank beyond a certain level. It’s only fairly recently that this has changed for the UK – mostly since the royal family became mostly a figurehead. But even so, the Queen (or King) does have certain political rights which trump all of Parliament. Admittedly the UK were the ones to take the first real steps to limiting a ruler’s power in any western nation with the Magna Carta in 1215, but even then, it was only giving rights to the nobles and limiting the royalty. It didn’t really do much for the serfs and other commoners directly, other than get the ball rolling on the ‘concept’ that the royalty did not have unlimited power.
We-e-ellll, the Poms — or what counts as Poms — did actually get subjugated three times.
The first was the Roman invasion of the Celts, resulting in Hadrian’s Wall to keep the Picts (another Celtic race!) out; then after they left, and we’re looking at Arthur’s rule down around Cornwall now, there came the Angles and Saxons. These almost completely wiped out the remnants of Celtic culture and language, but came to be bothered by the Danes and other scandinavians who came a’viking, resulting in a colony in the East called the “Dane-Law” and some Ny-Norsk additions to the tongues in that region. Then Harold Godwinson decided to annoy the Duke of Normandy who had a really really watertight claim to the English throne, and decided to invest England in 1066.
After this last subjugation of England, William the Bastard (he actually was illegitimate!) decided after reading the Domesday Book that buying and selling humans without paying taxes to the King was lèse-majesté and not to be tolerated. So the practice of slavery in England was effectively ended by royal greed and popular resentment of unjust taxation.
The Spanish Crown did want to subjugate England in the early 1600’s, but failed utterly to study up the North Sea weather patterns and wound up contributing Spanish names and genetics to Northern England, Scotland and Ireland as their sailors washed up on beaches.
“We-e-ellll, the Poms — or what counts as Poms — did actually get subjugated three times”
1) Never heard the term Pom before, but I’m not surprised since I’m not from Australia so I don’t know Australian slang. :)
2) Two of your examples are from before the Magna Carta (one of which wasn’t really the ‘English’ – since it’s pre-Anglo), and the third was a failed attempt, which sort of confirms my point. :) Most of their subjugation of its citizenry is voluntarily from a history of having a royal family, which lasts until this day even with a Parilamentary system instead of a feudal system. :) When I say English, I’m mainly referring to Anglo-Saxon culture.
“Pom”, Aussie slang. We don’t know the origins of the word, but it is mildly derogatory, and MAY be a contraction of “Pomegranate”, but probably isn’t. A contraction of “Pomegranate”, that is.
The unfortunate part of historical study is that you don’t get to ignore the “irrelevant” bits, they’re all relevant, especially as they were the human foundations of the current “Britain”. While the Celtic tribes of what is now England are detectable only by historians and some place-names, the fact is they still live on in Wales, Scotland and Ireland… The “English” Celts cannot be left out of the equation: Boudica of the Iceni tribe is still taught as British history. So as we must accept the reality of the Roman subjugation, we must also accept the reality of the Angli and Saxon subjugations.
And the Magna Carta… BTW, which one are you referring to? 1215, 1216, 1217, 1225, or 1227? The Magna Carta at any time was no more than a Charter of Freedoms, very far from a nation-forming document like a Constitution.
Ummm. “… voluntarily from a history of having a royal family …”. Let’s accept the English do have a history steeped in somewhat more blood than Americans feel comfortable with. It is true that subjects of a kingdom usually have no meaningful say in the matter, any more than under any other type of -archy. HOWEVER, thanks to the outworkings of the Magna Carta in its various iterations, we (that’s both I and thee, Pander!) saw the evolution of Parliamentary rule, somewhat interrupted by the Protectorate, a republican commonwealth. Eventually, Great Britain evolved into a Monarchial Republic. The Queen — or King, there can only ever be one of them, despite an old-fashioned courtesy to the ladies — is a figurehead, a Head of State only with several privileges but no real power. She also happens to be a hereditary Bishop in the Anglican Communion, but we won’t go there just yet. The people of England have pretty well most of the “freedoms” enjoyed (?) by the USA, but little, if any, of the associated drama and expense.
:)
” BTW, which one are you referring to? 1215, 1216, 1217, 1225, or 1227? The Magna Carta at any time was no more than a Charter of Freedoms, very far from a nation-forming document like a Constitution.”
I’m talking about 1215 since that was the earliest example of limiting the power of the royalty, even if not a huge limitation. It was more than no limits.
“saw the evolution of Parliamentary rule, somewhat interrupted by the Protectorate, a republican commonwealth. Eventually, Great Britain evolved into a Monarchial Republic. ”
I don’t want you to think I’m ‘crapping’ on the Parliamentary system in Britain or Australia, because I’m not. I’m not even saying that the British are ‘easily subjugated.’ If nothing else, the election victories of Brexit over the Remainers showed that there’s a significant majority of British citizens who rail against the idea of a foreign government telling them what to do.
I’m just mentioning that Americans have not had or accepted the rule of royalty since they became their own nation, and that leads to Americans less patience for our leaders mandating what we should do without us having a say in it, and especially don’t like the idea of an ‘outsider’ telling their government what to do. It’s just a cultural thing, even if today the royal family is ‘mostly’ a figurehead position. The concept of being ruled, rather than essentially ‘hiring’ your rulers for a limited time, still became part of the cultural zeitgeist for sovereign nations which had royalty or dictators, vs sovereign nations which never had that.
I’m arguing more cultural psychology I guess, than actual government, since that’s relates directly to what Maxima said in panel #2. To be fair though, America did get a LOT of its cultural psychology from England. :) Just a little more reined in to attempt to prevent tyranny of the population by their own government. The whole Jeffersonian “the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants” sort of mentality.
“… Americans have not had or accepted the rule of royalty since they became their own nation …”
Good reply :) And the fact that far too many “royal leader” populations suffer under regressive ruling policies… We include most authoritarian rulers here :(
I was very sad to see Trump trying desperately to pull a {insert dictator here} stunt to claim electoral victory. He did nobody any favours there.
Talking about Royalty, I’ve always felt that mandates a disgraceful amount of child abuse/cruelty for the benefits it confers. Yes, any given prospective heir/victim can of course refuse the offer, but all the same…
Pom = Prisoner of Mother England (most people tend to ‘forget’ the ‘e’)
Actually, the Magna Carta did fuck all in the way of ‘making things better’, it pretty much solidified the Status Quo
Most people tend to get caught out by the term ‘free men’, serfs were not ‘free men’, and if you were not royalty or landowner of some sort you were a serf who owed your allegiance to the owner of the land you were squatting on
Technically, the US only had slavery for 89 years(1776-1865)
Nonsense. You’re talking about the history of slavery as if it was every the sole means of subjugation in the United States. We have had a great many means and methods of subjugation throughout our history, ranging from indentured servitude (arguably predating the formation of the US, but then so does slavery) to corporate towns (where you work for the company who owns your workplace, your home, your grocer, etc. and you’re paid in corporate script that you then use to pay your rent and for your food), to sharecropping, to racial discrimination against every single immigrant group as they took their turn at the melting pot, to credit card debt, your health insurance being tied to your employer, payday loan sharks, and etc. The list very literally does go on and on, but I hope I’ve made my point with what I’ve already provided as it is getting long.
And now the US is in the final stages of runaway capitalism, where the very lawmakers who are supposed to moderate the rapacious nature of capitalism are instead owned by the corporations. The corporations set the legislative agenda, tell the lawmakers they have bought how to vote, and enjoy every greater profits at the expense of the workers who, just as in the corporate towns, have very little freedom to break out of the system the corporations have established.
Yes, subjugation is far more widespread and prevalent in the US than just a look at slavery would indicate. And it always has been.
I just realized that I horribly misread Yorp’s post in context of the OP. Hecwas talking anout how Britain has experience at subjugatING others far moreso than America, because they had a world spanning empire for centuries ever since the British fleet defeated the Spanish Armada.
You got there in the end.
*wags tail wryly*
It is interesting to see the directions the thread meandered.
Primarily my fault for reading your post wrong :)
Still good convo.
Hardly. You could PERHAPS make that argument about post cold war America, but prior to that we were the most liberty minded country in the world when compared to anyone else at the same time.
The comment wasn’t about how “liberty minded” America was. It pointed out that it was built upon human subjugation; which is true.
To be honest, if anything the ‘human subjugation portion of US history’ (ie, slavery) held the US back a LOT in the regions where it was implemented. It helped a very tiny percentage of landowners in the south, mainly the rich elites who owned the largest plantations, while being a financial drain on the US economy overall – especially for the South which didnt have many other industries built up because of an overreliance on cotton (and earlier on, sugar).
It removed incentives to modernize, it relied on a largely agrarian society (which held back the textile industry which was doing a lot better in the North), was a MASSIVE danger of uprising (which the slaveowners should definitely have realized given the colonies’ own history of resisting ‘taxation without representation’ if they werent so focused on short term local gains and a dehumanizing belief structure about slaves that was prevalent among the southern elite who were in the cotton industry), and it was wildly unpopular even in a lot of the South (95% of southerners did not own slaves). It caused prices of cotton in the US to be completely skewed (plus overrepresented for a very small portion of US trade), which put the US at a horrible disadvantage in trade vs British cotton from places like Liverpool. It basically was a DRAIN on the US economy, not a boon to it. Not to mention the OBVIOUS human rights being denied by the very practice of slavery itself, which had already been stopped in Great Britain (although not many of its colonies despite British attempts to stop it), and human slavery was in conflict with the basic tenets that the nation was founded upon.
In short, the South was a mess, both economically and societally BECAUSE of slavery, and it only wound up benefiting a small minority of southern plantation owners and elites as a result, who cared more about their own personal well-being than that of the south OR the greater United States. Whereas the North was far more financially secure and technologically advanced, not to mention had a lot more variety in trade goods.
There’s a reason why the Civil War was actually had the North in a much better advantage than the South. The only reason the war lasted as long as it did was because of certain terrible generals early on, like McClellan (who was very good at organizing as an engineer and executive but completely clueless at war). He was simply not capable compared to more military-minded generals on the Confederate side, like Jackson or Lee or Stuart or Hill. He’s keep complaining that he needed more men, even when he vastly outnumbered his opposition, he retreated CONSTANTLY when he had the advantage, he never made competent use of technology, and he never took advantage of the terrain (always making an ecuse about it not being a good time or season for a battle). He also never took advantage of the few victories he HAD (like Antietam), his strategies always cost a lot more lives than they needed to, and would just blame everyone else for his own utter incompetence. It wasnt until Lincoln started using more competent (and sometimes more ruthless) generals like Grant or Sherman that the war really turned solidly in the North’s favor.
I might have gone off on a tangent but the point is that the US was not built on subjugation – it was built DESPITE subjugation of some holding the nation back. Most of the Founding Fathers despised the practice (even some of the ones who actually owned slaves that were from inheritances), according to the Federalist Papers and just barely tolerated it in order to get the Constitution ratified. The US philosophy was still liberty-minded, even if it took a while (and a particularly bloody war) to live up to the tenets of liberty.
The southerners were also aware of the one country that had followed our example and freed itself of foreign domination. Haiti. The slave revolt there was extremely bloody, in particular for the slaveholders.
The South also had the problem that their top end generalship, not commanders of single armies like the Army of Northern Virginia, was completely incompetent. They had no plan for winning the war, and didn’t realize they needed one.
That will not be a problem here.
If the North had had a Max or a Sydney, sans superpowers, the war would have ended much sooner. Competent decisions were the key issue.
“If the North had had a Max or a Sydney, sans superpowers, the war would have ended much sooner. Competent decisions were the key issue.”
That’s pretty much what I was saying about McClellan vs more competent generals like Grant. Although I think Sydney would be a much more competent general than Maxima, if we’re talking about no superpowers. I think Maxima tends to rely entirely on her superpowers and rarely on strategy, except in hindsight, while Sydney is a full on strategy gamer. Except in FPS games apparently.
they actually did had a plan to win the war, it consistent on getting help from the british or the french by dangling the lost of cheap cotton over their heads, then lincoln changed the curse of the war from “to keep america as a single unified entity” towards “to end slavery” and at that point no country in the world would have helped the confederacy because that would basically mean telling to your population “we support slavery” which was already pretty unpopular in the 19 century
after that the war was aalready basically over, without external help the south was too undeveloped and weak to defeat the richer and more industrialized north
A major problem with that plan is by that point the Brits were already far more dependent upon Northern wheat than southern cotton. Cotton was readily available from many sources and any price increases or temporary shortages primarily inconvenienced the merchant class whose power was growing but still limited. But bread shortages could have triggered the mass uprising they’d been terrified of ever since the French revolution. And both the British and French Industrialists who weren’t involved in cotton were both very happy to profit from supplying both sides and happy that Northern industry had been diverted from competing with Britain. The emancipation proclamation may have been the final nail in King Cotton’s coffin but it was the other economic forces that kept Europe out of the war.
It has been remarked — and as usual I’m right now too lazy to check references — that IF the South had practiced the type of slavery used for some millenia in what is now the Middle East and was picked up to some extent by Greece and Rome, then there COULD be a Confederacy north of Mexico and a Union south of Canada… And WWII MAY have ended differently…
I don’t understand what you mean by most of this post.
The slavery practised in the South was based on total ownership of the human person. This system was severely deprecated as early as 2000BC, due simply to the expense of maintaining a herd of animals somewhat less useful than a flock of sheep.
Slavery as it evolved in those days ensured a level of personal dignity and a hope of freedom. In this age, compare “indentured service”. A slave could get married, have a family. The family (children) were the slave’s responsibility, but were never themselves slaves, they were free people. Slaves could earn money, and could — if they had the skills — be entrusted to manage the slave-owner’s affairs.
In the Torah, we learn that among the Hebrews (but it seems not restricted to them) in times of difficulty, like for example, droughts, a man could offer himself to a wealthier person for a period limited to 7 years of servitude. This would entail all the man’s family including children.
My point is, had the Southern States used this model of slavery, the Confederacy could probably have won the Civil War, or at least negotiated a separation from the Union. This could actually have impacted the American response to German aggression in WWI… Which could have led to Germany winning that war, which could have led to Germany not expriencing the Nazi Horror.
“My point is, had the Southern States used this model of slavery, the Confederacy could probably have won the Civil War, or at least negotiated a separation from the Union.”
I sincerely doubt that. The threat of an uprising and the moral problem with slavery were only two of several reasons that slavery was bad for the South. The moral problem was the biggest problem in my view, but as far as the Civil War was concerned, it was the economic problem of slavery that doomed the South to lose the Civil War. The South did not innovate NEARLY to the extent that the North did (and the North DID sometimes have what could be described as indentured servitude btw, but no racial component). The South was using an antiquated method of managing the plantations (both for cotton and, earlier, for sugar), and wasted their money on that instead of new ways to process their raw materials. Also remember that only about 5% of Southerners actually owned slaves in the first place, so it wasnt even like most Southerners were benefiting from it economically. It’s why many Southern soldiers were going into battle ill-equipped, compared to the Northern troops. They had a few innovations but the North had so many more, because they HAD to. Necessity forced the North to become more creative and productive. As technology progresses, things like slavery become a more idiotic concept logically, let alone ethically.
“This could actually have impacted the American response to German aggression in WWI… ”
I have no idea how it would have impacted the American response to WW1. WW1 had to do with a lot of things which America was not remotely involved in until Germany started engaging in submarine attacks on American passenger and merchant ships in 1917. I can’t see how anything with slavery would have changed Germany’s decision to do stuff that winds up getting the US into WW1.
Btw I think we’ve definitely gone off on a tangent :)
The south lost the war because they were behind Technologically. Not because of their manpower. They actually outnumbered the Union.
Prob is, the Union had Revolvers and OG Gatling guns, which could, you know, kinda fire faster, thus mitigating that number advantage by volume of bullets.
The South’s sole primary industry was cotton. The North’s was, you know, METALWORKING, which is kinda more important in a war.
You make some good points, but you don’t go far enough.
The South lost the Civil War the moment they seceded and declared war.
The North fought the Civil War with one hand tied behind their back, and were still inevitably going to be the victors.
The South fought the Civil War with every ounce of might that they could bring to bear, and they were doomed to lose from the star.
There is no imaginable scenario, if we stick with history and not speculative alternate histories, where the South emerged victorious.
Well, if we say that every decision, every fluke and every battle turned out the same way, then it is fairly assured that we would have the same result. However if we allow for some difference or other at key points, then other outcomes are possible.
Here I am thinking about the fleet of warships that the South had commissioned to be built in the U.K. For a variety of reasons they got impounded by the British authorities. Had they not been, then they were powerful enough that they could have wiped out the northern fleet and imposed a total blockade.
The lack of international trade for the North, whilst allowing the South free access to trade wherever they wished, certainly would have given scope for a different outcome (maybe not an outright victory, but they may have been able to negotiate to end the war with the Confederacy still intact, as an example). It would probably take some extensive wargaming to see how much of a difference it might have made, but it is an interesting historical possibility.
As to how it may have occurred, I think it is unlikely to have happened once the British public became aware of the construction, given the anti-slavery sentiment and protests that provoked historically. So a bunch of historical changes would be needed, which does push it more into speculative alternative history.
However if the guy in charge of the procurement had been a bit more insightful and anticipated this, and taken precautions, they may well have been able to get the fleet produced. And the means was actually demonstrated historically (but notably AFTER the press alerted the public, as opposed to doing it covertly from the outset).
One of the Middle Eastern countries had a ruler who had a genuine need for such warships. So the procurement guy made a secret deal for him to act as the front man and buy some warships, with the intent of then passing them on to the South. Which would have gotten them some of the warships they needed. Had the plot not been discovered by the British secret services and prevented.
So if this had been done initially (and carefully enough not to arouse the suspicion of the spooks), the South could have ended up with an overwhelmingly strong naval force. Provided, of course, that they resisted the urge to start fighting with them as soon as each came out of the shipyards.
As it was they did manage to sneak one (maybe two?) such ships out. But that was not enough in isolation to affect the tide of the war.
“… already been stopped in Great Britain (although not many of its colonies despite British attempts to stop it) …”
Missed this earlier :( It is sadly true that especially Australia was guilty of many terrible mistreatments of Aborigines and other black people. The huge problem was the 6 or 7 month time lag for even one-way communications, which naturally gives a 12-14 month response. Added to this is the incomprehensible difficulty of going to war against your own colonists.
I will say that even in the age of sail it would have been prohibitively expensive to keep a fleet of naval vessels leaving London one every month, returning from Sydney at the same rate, and stopping to chat with all the other ships in the train — assuming you could actually see them.
Oz no longer engages in Blackbirding thank goodness, but our response to Aboriginal suffering still lacks a certain je-ne-sais-quoi, we have far too many in detention and many employers will not take them. But our history still disturbs me, and I wasn’t born here.
You missed one: The biggest financial beneficiaries of the Slave trade were bankers in ‘no-slavery’ New England, who underwrote both the slave trade in the form of insurance for the ships, loans, and the Mortgage market which included slaves as part of the deed to the property-those banks made, well…. bank, on the trafficking in human misery and were a large part of why slaves were included in the assets of the real-estate. It’s kind of like other unethical business practices, such as credit default swaps, mortgage-backed securities fraud, currency manipulation…you know, all that stuff that makes Warren Buffett too big to fail and helped turn George Soros from a Nazi collaborator and SS member into a great humanitarian.
“We”? How old are you?
I’m uncertain whether this is deliberate, but the USA’s invasion of Iraq was basically decided by a Powerpoint presentation. Various generals (including Shinseki) went into great detail about what was required, what was going to happen in various cases, et cetera. Then that advice was completely ignored, and the people in charge went with a slideshow consisting of about twelve slides.
As much as I hate to admit it, that sounds exactly like what the modern American military/politicians/society would do.
Have experts come up with a plan, then ignore it because a few people want to shove their views onto everyone else. (Both sides of the aisle, and the moderates are ignored.)
It would not surpise me in the slightest.
My grandfather was a general in the US army and retired for the second time in 1982. He served in WWII, was decorated many times, wounded twice badly enough to be evacuated and then returned to duty both times. After the second time, he served on General Eisenhower’s staff. Later, he served then President Eisenhower as what is today called a ‘National Security Advisor’. He was a staunch Republican and he NEVER criticized the government where anyone could hear. He always said ‘We don’t have all the information and any opinions we make will be flawed as a result.’
When the US invaded Iraq in 2003, he did something unthinkable. He wrote a letter to the New York Times asking ‘Where is the Plan?’. In the letter, he was quiet, reflective and very deeply concerned about the direction the country was going since he had seen many other countries go wrong starting with ill-advised military expeditions. My grandfather stated that in 1942, just after the US entered WWII, General Marshall, the overall commander of the US Armed Forces, instituted planning stages for what happened AFTER the war. Rebuilding infrastructure, making sure people had food and water, etc. He was worried that no one in the government who were making the decisions at the time was thinking in terms of more than a few months planning. As has been shown abundantly, he was right.
The response from the US government at the time can basically be boiled down to ‘F— off!’. The military did pretty well, all things considered. The government? Not so much.
Um, the religious persecution of early european settlers of america is a myth propegated by those settlers: the puritans weren’t being prosecuted: they gained power in a violent coup and used it as religious fundementalists often do to impose extremist policy and punishments against the general population. Several years later, the coupers couped and for the violence they committed during their reign, they had their political power nuetered, similar to how the US restricts political power of felons.
The history’s actually fascinating when you look at what actually happened compared to the propagandist narative created by the puritans that left England, which wasn’t letting them be terrible to other Englanders, to be terrible to indigineous people instead.
Christians did, and still do, consider being prevented from oppressing and controlling others to be a form of religious persecution.
America as a whole has never been racist. However, those that are tend to be loud and obnoxious and there are plenty of politicians who will cry racism to stir up trouble and attempt to make themselves look better. There has also been dramatic modifications of “official” history by ideologues to the extent that anything short of extensive research into a topic is more than likely to only be partially truthful. It doesn’t help that our insistence on forming dramatic hierarchies in business and politics places a frankly absurd amount of power and responsibility on individuals who can easily be swayed by large amounts of money or self image.
“America as a whole has never been racist.”
Wow.
America as a whole is literally the second-most Racist country on Earth after South Africa, dude. Look up the Tulsa massacre. And start living in Reality.
> *Tourist from /pol/ enters the discussion*
America, as a country, was founded upon the bedrock principles of racism.
The fun thing about this statement is that I can convincingly argue both that it is right as that it’s opposite to the truth, yet I can not argue a middle ground.
The american constitution as it was originally written is in wording quite the opposite to what luis wu states here, but in practice the country was founded with a lot of racist principles(such as, but not exclusive to the tea party expressing that they’re being treated as natives not as a protection of the natives, but an attack on their own treatment and the constitution initially not being applied to slaves.
It is to laugh.
America was so racist that the slave owners used claims that abolitionists wanted to marry blacks as their propaganda against them, while the abolitionists used claims (justified in many cases) that the slave owners wanted to continue using their female slaves as sex toys as their propaganda against them.
Abolishing slavery didn’t at all mean equality for blacks. Oh, no! There were miscegeny laws on the books in many states for decades after slavery was abolished, and of course blacks couldn’t vote or even sit at the same table in a restaurant as a white for decades after slavery was abolished.
“fleeing religious oppression” yeah ‘cos everyone got sick of the fuckin puritans constantly trying to start shit.
Americans in particular ARE rather bad at being subjugated. It was pretty much the entire basis for the formation of the nation, taking precedence over (albeit not entirely supplanting) other normal reasons for forming a nation – wealth, power, acquisition of new lands and people, etc. But the primary basis was ‘we don’t like to have a ruler.’ It’s why the government was set up the way it was – three branches, none of which have supremacy, a system of checks and balances, the 9th and 10th amendments, negative fights (the idea that we have our rights come from merely existing, rather than being granted by government, and government is supposed to exist to protect those rights) being the primary view of rights, instead of positive rights (our rights come from the government, and without the government we have no rights), etc.
Admittedly over the last 200 years it’s been slowly veering away from the original goals of preventing a single ruler, single branch supremacy, or single party rule, with power grabs, usually by the executive branch (FDR, Nixon, Clinton, Obama, Trump, Biden, etc) due to the laziness (or duplicity) of the legislative branch, but also sometimes by the Judicial branch (Marbury vs Madison, the Warren Court, the Roberts Court) when the justices become too activistic. In both the executive and judicial power grab cases, it tends to be more the fault of the legislative branch putting their own desire to be re-elected above keeping to the importance of separation of powers. Not even from one particular party, mind you. Multiple parties have done this – the Democratic-Republicans (aka the Anti-Federalists), the Whig Party, the Democrats, AND the Republicans.
The point is, it’s usually not popular with a large portion of the population, and as we’ve gone more towards a ‘ruler’ class, social division has gotten worse because the basic American philosophy that the Constitution and Declaration of Independence and our system of government was founded on was ‘We want a say in what we do with our lives, you don’t rule us, we let you be in charge…. temporarily). The US is one of the few nations that, since it’s founding as a nation of its own, did not recognize any sort of royalty or lifetime emperor/dictator position. The closest we ever got to it were George Washington, who voluntarily turned down the offer to be Emperor OR President-for-Life of the US, and FDR (after which we passed an Amendment to not allow more than 2 terms as President – okay, technically 2 1/2).
TL;DR – It’s a core tenet of American philosophy (call it rugged individualism, libertarian philosophy, or simple stubbornness if you like, the basic result is similar) to resist being ruled or ordered on what to do without having the freedom of choice (or at least the illusion of freedom of choice). Largely due to never having had a royalty/dictator class in the nation’s design. Maybe that’s true with some other countries as well but I can only speak for what I know about US government.
Would be curious to hear your professional take on the current discussions about expanding the Supreme Court.
Which discussions? There are quite a few right now.
Well most recently I was reading some discussion on the findings of Biden’s commission, but generally speaking just adding more seats and/or term limits.
Oh. Well I think adding more Justices for purely political reasons would be disastrous for the Supreme Court. Because when the Republicans are in power, they’ll just add more justices as well. It will wind up spiraling out of control and turn what is supposed to be an equal branch of government into just an extension of the executive branch.
FDR threatened to do this and he pulled back on it, and FDR is pretty much the closest we’ve ever had to an ’emperor’ or President-for-Life since this nation was founded. SCOTUS has only increased the amount of Justices once, and it was not for political reasons.
The point of SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States) is to interpret the laws in a way where they are independent from the other two branches. Not make laws. Not be an appointed lackey of the executive. Not be subject to the whims of the populace from day to day. That’s why it’s a lifetime appointment and why it’s an appointment instead of an election, like some lower courts have on a more regional situation for judges.
With term limits, if you mean term limits for Supreme Court Justices, I’m not for that because it would work against the independence of the court. But to be fair to counter-arguments, the lifetime appointment was at a time when the average human lifespan was significantly shorter, so I can understand people who want at least an age limit or year limit on SCOTUS Justices. I just think it goes against what’s specifically written in the Constitution, so you’d need to literally remove part of the main body of the Constitution to make it happen, which is almost impossible to accomplish short of a revolution. Which I would not be for.
If you’re talking about term limits for the legislative branch, I’m all for that. Again because I think that was the main philosophy of the government when the Founding Fathers created the Constitution. It’s essentially why George Washington turned down the idea of running for a third term, even though he would have easily won again (and also why he turned down the option of being President-for-Life. The idea for both the executive and legislative branch was supposed to be to NOT have a political ‘class’ like they had a royal class in the Old World. You were supposed to enter politics because of a civic duty to the nation, work for that duty, then after a set period of time was met, you were supposed to go back to civilian life to live under the laws which you helped to write (for Congress) or sign into law (for the President). IE, the political class was not supposed to be ‘better’ than the masses. No term limits in Congress prevents this from happening, or at the very least leads to more corruption in government when they think they don’t have to live by laws that they pass.
Btw, I think this thread has become a tangent since none of what I said has anything to do with the comic or the original post :) So I apologize for that.
Yes, and I’m shocked because every other discussion ever had here stays completely oriented on the comic itself. /s :D
Your points are completely in line with my understanding of how it’s *supposed* to work. I do see some truth in arguments that over the last few decades SCOTUS has acted as a lawmaker-in-fact by some of their interpretations. But I blame that at least as much on Congress for not enacting clear laws when major controversies arise.
In a word– bullshit. If the last five years are any example there’s plenty of Americans willing to subjugate anyone who doesn’t match their race and class-based “real American” delusions. Ironically many of them cite rugged individualism and libertarianism as excuses for their fundamentally authoritarian impulses.
“In a word– bullshit.”
That’s a marvelous counter-argument to my lengthy and well-crafted post.
“If the last five years are any example there’s plenty of Americans willing to subjugate anyone who doesn’t match their race and class-based “real American” delusions.”
I didnt say there arent Americans willing to subjugate others. I said Americans are bad at BEING subjugated. They tend to rebel, the more heavy handed a government or outside power becomes on infringing upon their rights, unless it’s done VERY slowly and not noticeably.
“Ironically many of them cite rugged individualism and libertarianism as excuses for their fundamentally authoritarian impulses.”
That’s because those people tend to be, not meaning to sound crass, stupid. Or at the very least ignorant of what certain words mean, like ‘libertarian’ or ‘individualism.’ They have no concept of what individualism or libertarianism means, and are instead using statist belief structures which are, as you correctly described, authoritarian.
I’m confused about how this goes against anything I’ve said though. Explain?
I am thinking this is a good time for Sydney to shine, her nerd knowledge is strong and i think she is going to help make a deal, not run poor Tom off, because Dave hinting that people are now watching earth and plotting.
When Sydney starts asking question on a serious subject it is time to be afraid, very afraid. The confusion factor she can cause should be considered a weapon of mass distraction, and the logic she uses may make string theory seem simple. And when she looks for problems? Well, with her mind she can think of things no sane being should ever think of.
I dunno. Sydney tends to ask really good questions actually.
Except when she’s been paralyzed by a spider-woman demon hunter and there’s a shirtless Hiro in the area.
It looks like he worked really hard on the slideshow I hope he gets to show it.
“Demonocracy and You”
{Sound of 16mm film projector}
{Sound flutters slightly}
“Since ancient times, Man has oppressed Man…..”
Our ancestors wanted to pay taxes to the crown, what they didn’t want was to pay excessive taxes and tariffs that destroyed their businesses because Parliament was looking for easy money. Furthermore, Parliament was destroying their ability to not live in anarchy. When a false accusation has the weight of 5 years or more in prison (voyage across the seas and back, plus waiting for trial), justice stops working. And that’s not all they had to put up with.
I know of no independence movement that is accredited to being influenced by the American Revolution that went through the pains they went through to avoid independence.
actually im sure our ancestors didnt liked paying taxes either, its just that it was mostly accepted as a compromise that it had to be taken to keep things going smoothly
kings and queens and emperors historically had less power than what fiction depicts them currently, they werent omnipotent kings usually they did had to play the politics game with a lot of players to the church, the army, the nobles and even the people because if the population revolts you are fucked (the french revolution wasnt the first time in history where the people decided that they were sick with their ruler)
someone in power has to balance this forces, people are willing to accept some limitations to their freedom but push things to far and you start seeing things falling apart at the seems
“Our ancestors wanted to pay taxes to the crown,”
No…. they pretty much hated paying taxes to the crown. But not having any representation while still paying taxes was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
“what they didn’t want was to pay excessive taxes and tariffs that destroyed their businesses because Parliament was looking for easy money.”
Also no, the Tea Tax, which pretty much was the last straw for the colonists (Boston Tea Party), was actually a very minor and inexpensive tax – basically about 3 pennies on every pound of tea. Barely a tax at all actually and more of a grant of a monopoly to the East India Company to make their tea less expensive than smuggled-in tea. The tax was not even meant to raise revenue in the American colonies – it was mainly designed to prop up the East India Company which was floundering at that point in history, because it had about 18 million pounds of unsold tea. Most of the colonists didnt even know about this aspect of the reason for the Tea Tax.
Does subjugation exist on Earth? Yes. Obviously.
Does subjugation exist in the US? Yes again, obviously. Including a lot of its history.
Is America built on subjugation? No. The basic philosophy of America is built on liberty, NOT subjugation, even if it has not always lived up to its ideals.
Do Americans take well to BEING subjugated? Definitely no, at least not the overwhelming majority of them. If you’re going to subjugate Americans, in general you have to do it slowly and subtly, without them realizing it until it’s already happened and they’re used to it.
It’s the whole ‘frog in the boiling pot’ analogy. It goes like this:
If you put a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will quickly jump out if it can.
If you put a frog in a pot of normal temperature water, and very slowly raise the temperature, it will not jump out and basically be boiled alive.
I’m not sure if that’s even true, but that’s the analogy that’s used to describe how to subjugate a people who do NOT want to be subjugated. Sort of like how we don’t generally like monopolies, but we NEED (or rather, we REALLY WANT TO USE) Amazon. Which is essentially a monopoly.
Or take the Ebay background color as an example.
Ebay’s background used to be BRIGHT yellow. People were used to the yellow background. One day, Ebay decided to change it to white.
Everyone, mostly in the US, hated it. They revolted against it. Emails about not using Ebay anymore. Cancellation of accounts over it. Threats about changing the color back because some people really have nothing better to do with their time.
So Ebay changed it back to bright yellow.
THEN…. over the following year, each day they lightened the color a little bit, day by day, until by the end of the year, the background was white.
No one complained. No one cared.
Consider liberty to be a bright yellow background, and subjugation to be a bland white background. People, at least in the US, will not tolerate it if they know it’s happening. People generally do not like to be subjugated, at least in the US, but I HAVE to assume in many other places as well. They only let themselves get subjugated if they don’t realize they’re BEING subjugated.
Btw here’s an article about the Ebay story.
https://theuxblog.com/blog/redesigning-user-experience
there is a huge diference between a background color and subjugation to the point that it is a false analogy falacy, they both look supercifially similar but that doesnt mean that they are the same
i could argue for example that the reason why no one did any noice is because at the end of the day no one really cares about the background color of a webpage, chances are 99.999% of the people that uses ebay didnt really care about the background color change but here enters the loud minority that are less than 0.0001% of total users but make as much noice as the other 99.999% if not more, the reason why no one said anything after they changed it slowly is probably because no one really cared and those who did didnt noticed the change, not because of the nature of subjugation
as a counter story for example just watch the fall of WoW, from the biggest MMO in the world to a shadow of its former self and all that was caused because of slow and small changes that over time completly shifted the focus of the game towards a more casual and accesible experience which unironically ended up pushing all the older player away from the game because it was too diferent
“there is a huge diference between a background color and subjugation to the point that it is a false analogy falacy, they both look supercifially similar but that doesnt mean that they are the same”
It’s all part of the same concept though – the ‘frog in a boiling pot’ concept. The basic idea, both for subjugation of a people without them realizing they’re being subjugated, and for changing the background of a popular website that people want to keep the same, is to do it VERY incrementally, so that people do not notice the small changes. It’s why lawmakers often will use the ‘slippery slope’ argument to prevent seemingly ‘harmless’ changes which could eventually result in a corruption of people’s constitutional rights or the original intent of a constitutional tenet of law.
“i could argue for example that the reason why no one did any noice is because at the end of the day no one really cares about the background color of a webpage,”
Except you’d be wrong. When Ebay originally changed the background, there was a LOT of pushback against it and angry emails about it, like I said before. People DID care, quite vehemently. They just didnt care when it was so incremental as for them to not realize it was changing. People notice big changes a lot quicker than small ones, in general.
“as a counter story for example just watch the fall of WoW, from the biggest MMO in the world to a shadow of its former self and all that was caused because of slow and small changes that over time”
Except again, you’re wrong there as well. WoW did not become a shadow of its former self because of slow and small incremental changes – it became a shadow of its former self because of major changes done repeatedly, and a refusal to give the player base things they actually wanted, including vanilla versions of WoW. Which sort of supports my point – people often will rebel against change to something they already love if they NOTICE it and/or it’s presented poorly. WoW also had other MMOs which were competing with it which took much of it’s player base over it’s long lifespan (especially for a video game that has no single player ability, as MMORPGs naturally do NOT have as part of it’s basic design).
“pushing all the older player away from the game because it was too diferent”
Think about what the changes were to WoW that bled its player base. Some were good, but when they started being stuff the player base did not enjoy, they did not listen to the players. Had they actually been changing things more slowly, instead of major changes like Cataclysm, Mists of Pandaria, Legion, etc. which changed the basic feel of the game, often jarringly so, it probably would not have lost players as quickly to its competition. Had they simply allowed vanilla play again, they probably would have retained a lot of players, then if they wanted they could have far more slowly started changing things again.
I should mention I never actually played WoW myself (my brother did though which is why I know stuff about it, and I’m reiterating his opinion on why the game started to suck). I was more of an Asheron’s Call fangirl. :)
once again a false analogy, it superficially looks like its the same but it is not
some people complained, yeah maybe this is the internet people love to complain about everything now how can you be sure that it was really a huge upheaval and not just like 10 people making a huge noise over absolutely nothing (like it usually tents to happen) that is what we call the loud minority, a small group of people that make a lot of noise and end up over representing their cause, thats why i say that this is not a good example of small and incremental changes because the size of the population that would really care about the background color of a random webpage to the point that they would stop using it and go on to make a fuzz on twitter is really fucking small, but those groups tent to scream bloody murder and make more noise than their size should allow and as such they look bigger then they really are, that can be said by a lot of things that “the internet” hates btw
regardless the WoW example was also a false analogy since as you pointed put it doesnt fit either, in reality nothing can fir and you can get any analogy that you want to fit either of both camps depending on the narrative that you want to push which is an actual strategy that groups that want to shape the masses opinion use
“once again a false analogy, it superficially looks like its the same but it is not”
How is it a false analogy?
“some people complained,”
Don’t downplay it. It wasn’t ‘some people complained.’ So many people complained and started leaving Ebay over it that it was affecting Ebay’s profitability. That’s not just ‘some people complained.’ That’s actual effects.
And you’re sort of missing the point of the analogy. The point I’ve been making is that the ‘trick’ to convincing a mass of people, or even one person, of doing something that they don’t want is to not do it all at once – do it in imperceptible increments.
This applies equally to marketing a new color as it does to subjugating a people. The more blatant you are about it, the more resistance you will get to it. The more subtle it is, the more likely you’ll slip it under their radar and normalize it.
“regardless the WoW example was also a false analogy since as you pointed put it doesnt fit either, in reality nothing can fir and you can get any analogy that you want to fit either of both camps depending on the narrative that you want to push which is an actual strategy that groups that want to shape the masses opinion use”
I’ve read this sentence four times and I can’t understand what you’re saying here, sorry.
how it is a false analogy? once again prove that it was “many people” like for example maybe you can track webpage activity to the period of time when they made that change and see if you notice a dip on the number of users, usually such information is widely available to the public, if you see that in the months after that anouncement the number of users were reduces and you can prove that there is no other reason of that drop in userbase (like just random variations, usually a 2-5% drop or increase is just that, random variation) then yes you can say with certainty that “many” people were leaving ebay in enough quantities, not just a couple hundred or thousand but a sizable size of their userbase, otherwise it would prove to be once again just one of those situations where the noise made by the people that dislike the change is bigger than it really is and as such the situation is not connected in the slightless
a good comparison in this case compare it to tumblr after they banned porn, that is what a huge number of your userbase leaving all at once looks like, of course it doesnt need to be as extreme but even a 10% dip would demonstrate your point
the thing here is that you are the one making such claims so the burden of proof is on your side
and if you question why im asking this is simple, as i say because most people dont care about such a change so in reality either if they made it all at once or really slowly it wouldnt have affected anything, people would bitch and scream about any change anyways because once again people love to bitch and moan over anything, but as long as the vast mayority doesnt really care its nothing, now if you manage to anger a vast mayority of your audience all at once then thats when you have a problem
also you couldnt really understand that last part? its very simple im saying that the wow analogy that i used was also imperfect and that its imposible to draw real life conclusions based on such limited analogies since you can always draw flaws into them, it was an example on why such mathod of analysis is imperfect without more information
Before i respond, I think the reason I sometimes have trouble reading the posts is because of the run on sentences and a lack of capitalization. I’m not trying to insult you – it’s just difficult to respond if I’m not always sure of what you’re trying to argue. I’m assuming you might be writing from a smartphone? I know when I write from a smartphone I tend to make posts that are more difficult to parse as well. I’m not trying to be antagonistic with you, I promise.
—–
“how it is a false analogy? once again prove that it was “many people” like for example maybe you can track webpage activity to the period of time when they made that change and see if you notice a dip on the number of users,”
1) It’s a well known study in marketing, which has also been used by other companies as a study in consumer behavior. It’s easily googled, although I don’t think it’s necessary for me to give statistics on what is simple an analogy about how ‘human beings will go along with things if it’s done subtly and they don’t realize it’s happening, and rebel if it’s done abruptly and in their face.’ However, I did give you an article on it, and there are a bunch more articles, many of which do have statistics on Ebay’s projected business losses had they doubled down. Doing more feels like we’d be going off on a tangent, and I’ve done enough of that in this forum for this strip. :)
“a good comparison in this case compare it to tumblr after they banned porn, that is what a huge number of your userbase leaving all at once looks like, of course it doesnt need to be as extreme but even a 10% dip would demonstrate your point”
Um… no, that would not be a great analogy. I mean it would be a partial analogy, but it’s missing the ‘subtle change’ example, since Tumblr just did the ‘abrupt change’ part, and not follow up with a subtle change.
Had it gone like this, where Tumblr put porn back on their site, then SLOWLY started removing it, bit by bit, then it might be more analogous to what I’m saying though.
“the thing here is that you are the one making such claims so the burden of proof is on your side”
I think you’re focusing on the wrong thing. I’m just trying to explain the ‘frog in a boiling pot’ scenario and how it applies in real life examples, like Ebay’s background. Slow, extremely subtle changes go over better than abrupt in your face ones, whether it’s one abrupt massive change or many. It’s the SUBTLY that’s important. The more subtle, the less blowback.
“also you couldnt really understand that last part?”
Yes, I really couldn’t understand the last part. You tend to write in run-on sentences so it’s a bit confusing to follow. I’m not saying this as some sort of dig or insult. The better I can understand your posts, the easier it is for me to respond to them. I don’t know if it’s because you’re on a smartphone, or maybe English is a second language (in which case you’re doing better than I’d do in a foreign language), or maybe you’re using a voice recognition software, but it’s just sometimes difficult to understand what you’re trying to get across.
I’ll show you what I mean.
“its very simple im saying that the wow analogy that i used was also imperfect and that its imposible to draw real life conclusions based on such limited analogies since you can always draw flaws into them, it was an example on why such mathod of analysis is imperfect without more information”
That’s a single sentence that you wrote, but it’s really several sentences, and it takes a while for me to parse it.
Corrected paragraph:
“It’s very simple. I’m saying that the WoW analogy that i used was also imperfect – and that it’s impossible to draw real life conclusions based on such limited analogies, since you can always draw flaws into them. It was an example of why such methods of analysis is imperfect without more information.”
That’s more legible, but I’m still having a little trouble understanding your logic on it.
I think what you’re trying to say, and correct me if I’m wrong, is that you do not think it’s possible to draw real life analogies on invasion strategies from marketing strategies, or that marketing strategies have nothing to do with how governments can subjugate citizenry without them realizing they’re being subjugated (until it’s too late, or until enough of the population has been brainwashed to accept ‘the new normal’).
My point is that the analogy is about this – Subtly is more effective than abruptness in getting people to go along with ANYTHING – whether it’s a marketing strategy, social change, or an invasion.
I hope that explains things better.
The basic philosophy the US was built on was not “liberty” as an abstract concept: “people should be allowed to decide for themselves”. It was based on being in charge: “we should be able to decide for ourselves – and for other people, we have now decided”.
Um… no. That’s not what the Founding Father’s envisioned. If it was, Washington would have accepted the role as Emperor instead of an elected President, and he would not have voluntarily stepped down after 2 terms, which led to a precedent for all other Presidents (except for FDR, after which we had to have an Amendment to make sure no one else did what he did with the rather successful attempt at being a President-for-Life).
No other leader before Washington had voluntarily done something like what Washington did, voluntarily leaving power when he was EXTREMELY popular JUST so he could live under the laws that he had helped to put forth.
At the end of the Revolutionary War, many people in America and Europe thought Washington would retain the reins of power to become the leader of the new nation, or even king. When told by the American artist, Benjamin West, that Washington was going to resign, King George III of England said “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.”
I’m not sure how you could think that the US was not built upon the concept of liberty, when it’s pretty spelled out in both the Declaration of Independence AND the Constitution, not to mention throughout the Federalist Papers.
Declaration of Independence (I’ll capitalize some of it so you can see what I’m referring to):
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with CERTAIN UNALIENABLE RIGHTS, THAT AMONG THESE ARE LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.–That to SECURE THESE RIGHTS, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That WHENEVER ANY FORM OF GOVERNMENT BECOMES DESTRUCTIVE OF THESE ENDS, IT IS THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO ALTER OR TO ABOLISH IT, AND TO INSTITUTE NEW GOVERNMENT, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.”
It’s literally written right into the document that the basic philosophy ARE the abstract concepts of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness as inalienable rights – rights which we get not because the government GIVES them, but because we simply exist, and Government’s purpose is to make sure no one takes those rights AWAY.
It’s the comparison of negative rights (which is what inalienable rights are – rights by virtue of God or simply existing) and positive rights (rights you only have because the government has allowed it, which can be summarily taken away without cause).
The Preamble to the US Constitution:
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, AND SECURE THE BLESSINGS OF LIBERTY TO OURSELVES AND OUR POSTERITY, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
Again, this is the preamble to the Constitution, which says ‘everything we write after this is because we believe in THIS – justice, tranquility, defense, the general welfare of people, and most importantly – the blessings of LIBERTY to individuals.
This was even punctuated by the 9th and 10th amendments to the Constitution
9th Amendment:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of CERTAIN RIGHTS, SHALL NOT BE CONSTRUED TO DENY OR DISPARAGE OTHERS RETAINED BY THE PEOPLE.
The ninth amendment is all about securing INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS which as we already have seen, is based on a philosophy of LIBERTY.
10th Amendment:
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Again making sure to stress that most rights just belong to the individual, unless specifically retained in Articles I through VI of the Constitution for the branches of government (Article I – duties of the legislative branch, Article II – duties of the executive branch, Article III – duties of the judicial branch, Article IV – how the states are supposed to deal with each other, Article V – what you need to do if you want to amend this Constitution, Article VI – Oaths of office, prior debts, and how the federal government relates to the state governments, and Article VII – Ratification of the Constitution).
Sooooo…… yes, the basic philosophy that the US was built on was definitely LIBERTY. I’d quote from the Federalist Papers as well but I already write a lot, and quoting every time a person in the Federalist Papers talked about Liberty would have this post getting insanely long. Well… longer than it already is.
Oh, I agree it is *written* right there. “All men are created equal”, in a document founding a country with a flourishing slave trade.
There can be a big difference between what people say they believe and what their actions show they believe.
“Oh, I agree it is *written* right there. “All men are created equal”, in a document founding a country with a flourishing slave trade.”
It wasnt a ‘flourishing’ slave trade. But yes, there were slaves. That does not mean that they did not make the country with liberty in mind.
Most of the Founding Fathers wanted to abolish slavery outright from the get-go (including several Founding Fathers that OWNED slaves (through inheritance, not from buying them), but they realized they would never be able to get several of the states to ratify the Constitution then. So instead they set things up so that they would eventually be able to get rid of slavery through legislative action, or so the plan was supposed to go. They did realize eventually it might result in a civil war, though.
More people should read the Federalist Papers to get an insight into the actual thoughts of the Founding Fathers and their debates on subjects like this. Many of the Founding Fathers were outright and outspoken abolitionists, like Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, Thomas Paine, and John Jay. Many others, who did own slaves, blamed the British for its institution in the colonies (like Thomas Jefferson, who DID own slaves). Jefferson actually did advocate for gradual emancipation of the slaves. The plan was in an earlier draft of the Constitution. First, the transatlantic slave trade would be abolished. Second would be to ‘ameliorate’ living conditions of slaves by law and eliminating or moderating physical punishment. Third, all born into slavery after a certain date would be declared free. Then fourth, total abolition of slavery. Jefferson did free two of his slaves during his lifetime, and the other five in his will, mostly as a way to prevent creditors from claiming them (Jefferson died deeply in debt).
There’s a quote by Thomas Jefferson about slavery and how it was incompatible with the notions of liberty, from the Thomas Jefferson Papers, Special Collections in the University of Virginia Library (Jefferson to John Holmes, April 22, 1820):
“Slavery is like holding a wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let go.”
He was quite sure that slavery would lead to the destruction of the new nation. He felt that emancipating slaves on American soil would result in a large scale race war similar to what happened in Haiti’s slave revolt in 1791. But he also felt that keeping slaves when more than half of the colonies were pro-abolitionist, would definitely result in a civil war, and he wanted a way to abolish slavery gradually, in steps, rather than abruptly to cause a civil war.
“There can be a big difference between what people say they believe and what their actions show they believe.”
You should usually not judge people in the past by the morals of today. It’s sort of like comparing apples and oranges. Slavery was still a thing through most of the world, although some nations like England HAD abolished it from their soil (but not from their colonies, although they did TRY and spent a quarter of England’s wealth in an effort to do so).
The actions of the Founding Fathers were based on a longer term plan on how to live up to their ideals, and they did so by putting it in writing so that later generations would be able to live up to what they wrote as their core philosophy.
Abraham Lincoln had a lot to say about the Founders and slavery, and how The Founders put slavery on the path to ultimate extinction.
Here’s the exact speech:
https://www.nps.gov/liho/learn/historyculture/peoriaspeech.htm
“This same generation of men, and mostly the same individuals of the generation, who declared this principle—who declared independence—who fought the war of the revolution through—who afterwards made the constitution under which we still live—these same men passed the ordinance of ’87, declaring that slavery should never go to the north-west territory.”
“I object to it because it assumes that there CAN be MORAL RIGHT in the enslaving of one man by another. I object to it as a dangerous dalliance for a few [free?] people—a sad evidence that, feeling prosperity we forget right—that liberty, as a principle, we have ceased to revere. I object to it because the fathers of the republic eschewed, and rejected it. The argument of “Necessity” was the only argument they ever admitted in favor of slavery; and so far, and so far only as it carried them, did they ever go. They found the institution existing among us, which they could not help; and they cast blame upon the British King for having permitted its introduction. BEFORE the constitution, they prohibited its introduction into the north-western Territory—the only country we owned, then free from it. AT the framing and adoption of the constitution, they forbore to so much as mention the word “slave” or “slavery” in the whole instrument. In the provision for the recovery of fugitives, the slave is spoken of as a “PERSON HELD TO SERVICE OR LABOR.” In that prohibiting the abolition of the African slave trade for twenty years, that trade is spoken of as “The migration or importation of such persons as any of the States NOW EXISTING, shall think proper to admit,” &c. These are the only provisions alluding to slavery. Thus, the thing is hid away, in the constitution, just as an afflicted man hides away a wen or a cancer, which he dares not cut out at once, lest he bleed to death; with the promise, nevertheless, that the cutting may begin at the end of a given time. Less than this our fathers COULD not do; and NOW [MORE?] they WOULD not do. Necessity drove them so far, and farther, they would not go. But this is not all. The earliest Congress, under the constitution, took the same view of slavery. They hedged and hemmed it in to the narrowest limits of necessity.”
Is reality found in the minds of the few, or the actions of the many?
You left out the minds of the many. You also left out the actions of the few. Sooooo incorrect comparison.
Oh? Are you saying it’s one of those instead?
I’m saying that the question should either be:
1) “Is reality found in the minds of the few, or the actions of the few?”
OR
2) “Is reality found in the minds of the many, or the actions of the many?”
However, there’s a bigger problem with your question. It’s factually incorrect that you consider the people who were against slavery ‘the few’ – it was actually ‘the many’ who were against slavery, but they needed unanimity in order to have a nation in the first place, in order to set forth a way to get rid of slavery in the future. Even BEFORE the Constitution was ratified, the Founding Father’s said that there would not be any slavery in the new territories. That’s because it was already IN some of the colonies, because of pre-existing british laws before Britain started trying to abolish slavery and the slave trade.
Please read what I wrote about Abraham Lincoln’s speech referencing the Founding Fathers, as well as Thomas Jefferson’s views on slavery from the Thomas Jefferson Papers (as well as his earlier draft of the Constitution, where he tried to make a gradual abolition of slavery in a way that would not have resulted in a civil war (or so he hoped).
In addition, the reality we’re talking about is the intentions of the Founding Fathers. And in that case, the reality of the many indicates the reality. We can also argue that the actions of the many indicated the reality as well, since the majority of the Founding Fathers took many actions which showed that they did NOT want slavery to persist, both before and during the Constitution’s ratification.
They had to choose:
1) Put the abolition of slavery on the back burner where it’s already existing, while abolishing it in any new areas of the New World, and get all of the colonies to stand united as a single, unified nation; or
2) Fight a civil war right away, when the individual colonies are still weak and having just finished a LENGTHY war against England 4 years earlier which only succeeded because the colonies had been united against England – then have England or another nation come in to defeat them while they’re weak and bloodied; or
3) Form two different nations right away, one of which were pro-slavery, one of which were wanting to abolish slavery, which again would be too weak for a second round with aggressor nations, not to mention the North and South competing with each other for resources as they both expanded west. Which would likely have led to war anyway.
What they did was the best way they could think of to both end slavery eventually (or so they had hoped), as well as not collapse as a nation quickly after they had finally won their independence from England.
In this particular example, the Founding Fathers are the few, and the citizens are the many. Do you think the average citizen had a strong opinion on the philosophical angle of slavery? On any of the ideals on which the country was founded? Is reality what the law says it is, or what people actually do in practice?
It does not matter what philosophy people espouse if their actions do not follow.
“Do you think the average citizen had a strong opinion on the philosophical angle of slavery?”
Actually yes, it was wildly unpopular among the majority of the average citizenry. In particular for religious reasons, but also because slaves were held by a VERY small percentage of the population of the colonies (5% of the South, which is closer to 2.5-3% of all the colonies together). It was unpopular both by people who had been loyal TO England, and people who helped rebel AGAINST England. At worst, citizenry had been indifferent, but the pro-slavery population was definitely in the minority.
“On any of the ideals on which the country was founded?”
Yes, the Founding Fathers (aka, were rather supported by the majority of the colonists (aka, the Patriots). Those who were not, the Loyalists (aka “King’s Men”) were considered “persons inimical to the liberties of America.” Loyalists tended to be more numerous in the Southern colonies, as well as New York and Pennsylvania, but they always constituted a DISTINCT minority in every colony. There was not a single colony where the Loyalists were in the majority or anywhere remotely close.
“Is reality what the law says it is, or what people actually do in practice?”
I just gave you the reality. Most of the colonists, the Patriots, put their lives on the line to back a group of colonist leaders who, if they had lost the Revolutionary War, would have been hung as traitors. I think that’s a pretty good example of actions.
But did they do so for philosophical reasons, or practical, self-serving, economic reasons?
It’s not enough for people to do the right thing when it’s convenient for them.
“But did they do so for philosophical reasons, or practical, self-serving, economic reasons?”
According to their personal letters, for philosophical and religious reasons. The only thing stopping some from demanding it immediately was the fact that if they did, there would not have been any nation and united front against outward threats like England, and having two competing countries in the same region vying for the same natural resources.
So if anything, NOT immediately abolishing slavery in the places it already existed was the practical reasoning. Wanting to abolish it was a purely philosophical and religious rationale for why slavery needed to go away, by the letters of most Abolitionists and abolitionist-supporting colonies.
“It’s not enough for people to do the right thing when it’s convenient for them.”
Torabi you literally have it backwards. They did a lot of things which were NOT convenient in order to lay a path to eventually have slavery abolished, and they knew it would eventually lead to a civil war, which is why they were trying to get it done gradually. Do you think the 3/5th compromise was convenient? No – it was in order to prevent the Southern States from counting the slaves towards their POPULATION number in Congress while simultaneously NOT counting them for any representation. Which would have made the Southern states a lot more powerful in Congress. Which is something the majority of the Founding Fathers did NOT want to see happen, because that would be another roadblock to abolishing slavery.
in the end it led to a civil war anyway.
First, a typo: “We don’t of modern England of being remotely subjugatey” – I think something like accuse or consider belongs in place of that first ‘of’.
Second, a historical fact: England wasn’t just in the top 5… they were #1 with a bullet (by far the largest in history). At it’s height, England ruled more than 26% of all land on the planet. Gengis (#2, at less than 18%) was a piker by comparison – though he did do it it quicker…
As an American: Yeah, probably NOT a good place to successfully invade Earth. We are, historically, a bit touchy about that… It is, in fact, what broke us out of isolationism (twice) and got us into both World Wars.
Some of you may be going: “That’s NOT what my history book says.” Well, I’m likely a bit older, and the books I learned history from were written only about 20 years after WWII; some revisions HAVE been made in the interim.
“A collective of concerned stakeholders”?
AHEM.
VVVV
>>>>> DEUS <<<<<
^^^
AHEM.
It's not even treason when you're your own nation.
Please.
Deus has standards.
Put them in a room with him, and 15 minutes later, he will *Rule in Hell.*
idk what her question is, but the guy but in the effort to make a pre invasion slide show, we can at least give him the courtesy of viewing it
looking at the bottom left panel, there is a good reason demons and other boss monsters with designs like this are rarely if ever shown in profile LoL.
And Ren should be named . . . . Ren?
Think about it, his power is AdRENaline. I thought Dave was giving him the nickname Ren as they tried to figure out a name that suited him as a joke.
I think they don’t want to give names that telegraph strategies to the enemy for dealing with them. Redline is nebulous enough that an opponent might not know the intricacies of his powerset, while still ‘making sense’ for his powers. Sort of like how Anvil isnt called ‘Kinetic.’
Wasn’t because guys kept hitting on her?
Best response ever.
+1 internet for you.
And as we all know, internet points make a ‘dit‘ sound, so clearly Pander is now rewarding pun dits.
Ninja hit squad enroute to your home, brichins.
If to mint something is to make it, does that mean this is punish mint?
Pander, why hit the ninjas? They did nothing wrong.
Doubling the amount of ninja hit squads to you, Corruption.
Resist subjugation? Not so much. But humans do have a talent for merciless industrialized world-spanning violence.
The megadeaths at the hands of the two great Utopian Socialist Death Cults of the 20th Century, is the real warning the Aliens should heed. One Socialist Death cult promised utopia by means of exterminating an enemy economic-class of people. The other Socialist Death cult promised utopia by means of exterminating an enemy racial-class of people.
And the chefs would probably ask her if they can learn some new cuisine
Let me guess, she’s going to ask some Genre Savvy questions that will either make this end before it starts or escalate to full scale war.
All empires/governments/trade federations rule with the consent of the governed. Sometimes reluctant consent, but consent nevertheless.
Look at how the “Arab Spring” blew up for an example of what happens when that relationship gets too strained. Or the French Revolution for a somewhat more violent example.
Yes, sometimes the formerly governed want revenge for real or imagined slights and execute or destroy people and institutions with no thought about what will replace them. And so it goes.
Max: Now you’re pitching Treason!?
Tom: We have studied your history, ‘Colonel’. The founding of your country is a story of treason. Of a small group of traitors using every means at their disposal with the stated goal of presenting a better form of governance to those around them.
Never mind the more recent stuff in the Middle East which was literally Tom’s pitch, but not as nice.
Given the only people we know have ever been subjugated are humans, and the only people to have subjected anyone are also humans, it’s impossibly for humans to be famously bad at being subjugated…
…I’m not sure that Maxima would take the idea that America was FOUNDED on Treason well. Now there’s the question about when rising up against a government is the moral thing to do but then, that could also apply to anyone who sides with the demons.
Like, obviously I’m not a fan of being invaded but so far I can’t see the demons implying anything worse than what Maxima has herself been involved in, as part of the American Military in Afghanistan. Which makes this come across more as ‘Maxima is defensive about being part of the superpower’ than ‘Actual moral outrage’.
“A toast – to high treason.”
As something sort of said once,
a history book that only shares the perspective of one side of a war or nation’s rise is little more than a story book for children and those just as gullible.
Heh. I’ve always thought it funny that the American colonists made it a point that if you feel oppressed by your government, you have the right to raise against that government. Then they wrote a constitution that basically meant that once you were part of the US of A there was no legal way to ever leave. As the South found out to their (well-deserved) sorrow.
Spoken like a pessimistic autocrat, sir.
Anyone who has such a dim view of humanity has no business writing superhero fiction.
The best superhero comics were written by people who saw a society in need of change, and imagined a character that could make things better both in power and as a symbol for people to rally behind to do better.
you basically just said Superman, Captain America, Wonder Woman, Batman, Spider-man, and the most the classics had no business being made in the first place.
You’re right. The major difference between those creators and who I’m talking about is that those people thought change for the better was actually possible.
I have seen no indication that Dave Barrack shares this belief, given the author commentary.
“Humanity is the literal worst.”
That’s an awful sentiment.
I think you are reading too much into it.
Given the Comments section of Spinnerette is a Clique you’re part of, Lex, you really don’t have a moral high ground to stand on.
How did people get housing misconduct against black people from “Redlining”? The red line of a pressure gauge is the warning of “If the needle is here, shit is going to explode”
To quote:
“The term “redlining” was coined by sociologist John McKnight in the 1960s and derives from how the federal government and lenders would literally draw a red line on a map around the neighborhoods they would not invest in based on demographics alone. In the 1930s the federal government began redlining real estate, marking “risky” neighborhoods for federal mortgage loans on the basis of race.”
That’s where the second (and much newer) meaning comes from.
The other, original “caution, do not exceed this limit” meaning doesn’t just cover pressure gauges, it also applies to instruments like automobile RPM indicators, electrical gauges, etc. Probably started with steam engines, but I can’t swear to it.
a possible list of questions Sydney might have.
1: Is the demon army part of the Xevoarchy?
2: If not can the demons protect Earth from the Xevoarchy?
3: Can the demons protect Earth from mecha squids that commited ecocide… on the Alari homeworld if they attacked.
4: How and what does he eat seeing as his lower jaw is floating in the air and there doesn’t appear to be a hole there.
5: How can he see? Eye see by light being reflected off of objects and into them, while he has a pair of strobe lights in his face.
Also, way to make Max seem like someone worthy of the moral authority that we trust superheroes with, outright stating she’s willing to kill lots of people, demonic or otherwise.
Statistically speaking, humans as a generality are very good at being subjugated. With an adequate adjustment period of course. I mean it is already common for people to blindly follow what they are told without doing an ounce of research.
Citation needed. :)
Exactly. By this logic, it’s just as common for people to refuse to do as they’re told because of distrust in authority and simple contrariness.
As for the subjugation trend, there’s an interesting case to be made that treating endurance and determination as cultural virtues makes it easier for the powers that be to impose oppression.
Suffering builds character, stiff upper lip, and many other sentiments.
qAnon says “hi”.
Citations?
(cracks knuckles) Ever hear of a guy named Josef Stalin? or a failed painter from Austria, ran for office in Germany, did such a good job they made him Chancellor. How about a neat little academic fellow named Mao Tse Tung, or another idealist name of Pol Pot?
any of these names ring a bell? and it gets better/more extensive too. Look up a fellow by the name of Tokugawa Ieasu (spelling?) right around the 16th century CE, or how about this Lad’s Lad Gaius Julius Ceasar, or check out the king lists of Egypt and their Pharoahs, or the sighing sycophancy heaped on this Macedonian fellow named Alexander…
I know, I missed a few. (*Okay, missed quite a LOT of them.) With no exception, all of these people made their bones demonstrating how EASY it is to Subjugate Human Beings. Some, by more subtle means than others, but pretty much they all collectively were in the same business.
It… bothers me, that Thothogoth doesn’t appear to have any functional biology. He’s just a mass of muscle with bones and armor slapped on. No mouth, just a decorative mask that could be carved from slate.
Maybe he’s cousins with Lord Zedd.
I’m VERY distracted by how tiny Sydney’s pinky finger is. I feel like it really should be a little longer.
Thinking it’s extended forward instead of in the same plane with the rest of her hand, but it threw me off initially as well.
I know but I keep seeing it as her finger being almost… cutoff with a nail put on the middle of the finger instead, because there’s no … I don’t know… shading or finger joint/bend to imply that it’s extended forward compared to the other fingers.
I’m not an artist or anything. It just looks off and a little disturbing to me. If DaveB’s art was not usually so good (including when he’s drawing hands, which is supposed to be EXTREMELY difficult), it probably wouldnt be as distracting to me.
Dabbler Knows. This guy’s going to convert to being an Earthling after She’s done with him. If only to make her stop. She has a legit rebreather now twice over, so running out of air is no longer a option.
Not sure that huge parts of the world have worse track records – several parts yes, but “huge” might be overselling it – chattel slavery was really bad. That, and the US didn’t actually stop doing bad things when it started invad- erm, colonis- err, “having an advisory military presence to defend its interests abroad” and “making sure everyone else plays nice”. There are few modern day problems, at the population level, that cannot be traced back to US as a cause, at least partial, and I’m talking about westboro baptist-backed european hate groups, rebirth of child torture in the name of curing them of difference, US military training and funding that started terrorist organisations and launched them in functionality… Hell, even random shit like the wannacry ransomware, that targeted hospitals and caused deaths, happened because US security agencies found the weakness and exploited it without reporting it until they were 100% sure it was leaked
I know but I keep seeing it as her finger being almost… cutoff with a nail put on the middle of the finger instead, because there’s no … I don’t know… shading or finger joint/bend to imply that it’s extended forward compared to the other fingers.
I’m not an artist or anything. It just looks off and a little disturbing to me. If DaveB’s art was not usually so good (including when he’s drawing hands, which is supposed to be EXTREMELY difficult), it probably wouldnt be as distracting to me.
Sorry ignore this – it was a response to Brichins.
America is not “anti-subjugation” in the slightest. As a concept, it is 100% behind subjugation. It just wants to be the one doing it.
There is one question I think everyone is overlooking:
Where did Dabbler get that sweatshirt?
Now we see the violence inherent in the system!
– Dennis
As a Polish woman, I can just say, we would make it extremely difficult to subjugators, mostly by being… well ourselves… Tenaciously… But there are definitely parts of the world that you dont try to subjugate without overwhelming force, and even then it can get dicey (Vietnam, Afghanistan, Finland to name but a few, with many other examples.) Ok they have demon legions and powerpoint presentations, and corpo tricks. We have superheroes and our sheer stubborn assholishnes (is that a word? it should be, Im making it a word, its official now, suck it.)
Honestly the biggest problem the demons have is that they are demons; a cultural stigma will undercut anything they have to sell (a factor that has caused push back towards relief efforts in some countries because of who sent the relief as well),
a lot of aliens simply by virtue of being “unknowns” could have the blank slate advantage and pull off a (We are the owners of your planet, the surrounding planet, and it is only because of that and continued cooperation that your world stays safe from outside aggressors even trying anything; but as the times are changing we will have to from this point on take a more direct role in the governing of the planet or else these hostile alien forces may try to legally claim we don’t own this planet)…
this along with all the good points stuff *will stop myself from going into scenarios to get to the point here*, the best way to rule a people is not to take them over by force but convince them they want you to rule them.
(there will always be outliers, but that happens).
Ah, yes, the Poles. Everyone thinks you guys just got rolled in WW2, no one ever remembers that your entire country basically went underground, becoming the largest insurgency in history, and it got to the point a Nazi Officer couldn’t poke his head out of a barracks for fear of getting it perforated from any number of windows.
And then you did the same thing to the Soviets for years too.
Re Religious persecution of the founding fathers. Actually the Puritans were the ones that wanted to persecute and King James said no, they got annoyed and left for the Americas. They thought that Catholics were being treated too kindly by the Church.
I basically came here to say this because literally every time I hear “we were fleeing religious persecution” and then “here’s the persecution we did” I hear “left because they couldn’t be dicks”