111–120 of 262 posts
One aspect of this that fascinated me is Nazi Germany's "physics denialism" (?) — the reactionary response to the modern physics revolutions of the early 20th century. (I.e. the twin revolutions of quantum physics and of relativity). It was a much weirder response than simply an attack on physicists who happened to be Jewish humans. Fields of physics were conspiratorially labelled as having a "Jewish" character, and…
[flagged]
One aspect of this that fascinated me is Nazi Germany's "physics denialism" (?) — the reactionary response to the modern physics revolutions of the early 20th century. (I.e. the twin revolutions of quantum physics and of relativity). It was a much weirder response than simply an attack on physicists who happened to be Jewish humans. Fields of physics were conspiratorially labelled as having a "Jewish" character, and…
[flagged]
One aspect of this that fascinated me is Nazi Germany's "physics denialism" (?) — the reactionary response to the modern physics revolutions of the early 20th century. (I.e. the twin revolutions of quantum physics and of relativity). It was a much weirder response than simply an attack on physicists who happened to be Jewish humans. Fields of physics were conspiratorially labelled as having a "Jewish" character, and…
[flagged]
Common estimates are that WWII killed 50 million to 100 million people. So, wanted to get some understanding of how it happened, how to avoid such, and looked at many descriptions of that history. I'm just a US citizen, not a professional historian, and here have only rough explanations, maybe not 100% wrong. A really short description: Hitler became a dictator and then went nuts. For a little more: (1) Foundation. T…
If Hitler had been Franco or Mussolini, then maybe. But racism and especially anti-semitism were integral parts of Nazi ideology. It wasn't principally about wealth or strategic objectives as we might recognise them. They really believed that the races of the earth were in a big struggle for resources and that if the "Aryan race" didn't exterminate or subjugate the others, it would risk extinction.
Your analysis seems to rest on the idea that Hitler was some brilliant politician that went nuts because he had too much power, but he was "nuts" way before he ever came into power.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The vaccines didn't protect people from getting covid What do you mean by this? The vaccines absolutely decreased the likelihood of getting and the severity of Covid.
[flagged]
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or did the wars actually lead to progress? A challenging question. Strife breeds strength, but stability breeds prosperity.
I wish could answer that. On one hand, the fact that a lot of smart people are trying to kill you is a great motivation for rapid technological advance and reduction of red tape. On the other hand, many of the young men in uniform who were torn apart by shells and mines could have been new Einsteins.
The problem of geniuses dead in wars pales in comparison to the number languishing in poverty or ignorance. These may number in the billions right now.
How many potential Einsteins are miserably toiling away in dead end jobs? How many Ramanujans are eking out lives in villages in India? So on and so forth.
And another issue: if 100 million die in war or 1 billion aren't born due to fertility collapse, which is worse for progress?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ironically, this is how popular beliefs are supported, but I don't think anti-vax is one of them. The news tells people what they want to hear to keep them engaged to make money from advertising to them. That's why news organizations are split into partisan groups, they have to do that to serve their own markets. Anyone being neutral would alienate most of their audience by making them uncomfortable. Remember when th…
> Turned out to be a big conspiracy and false. Did it now? Lableak truther loses $100,000 in his own debate https://www.protagonist-science.com/p/lableak-truther-loses-... Even with money on the line and an arsenal of medical expertise and documents that's not a case that can be conclusively made.
One aspect of this that fascinated me is Nazi Germany's "physics denialism" (?) — the reactionary response to the modern physics revolutions of the early 20th century. (I.e. the twin revolutions of quantum physics and of relativity). It was a much weirder response than simply an attack on physicists who happened to be Jewish humans. Fields of physics were conspiratorially labelled as having a "Jewish" character, and…
[flagged]
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you mean like jetpacks and robots, it would probably look the same as our current timeline, given that "nowadays" is 70 years later plus the global diffusion of technological progress. Perhaps the real question is how much incrementally-better everywhere would be without old wars.
Or did the wars actually lead to progress? A challenging question. Strife breeds strength, but stability breeds prosperity.
Think about it: You have a top 0.5% intelligent person. You can influence his carreer choice. You can either pay him a good wage to become a detective, or he can become scientist. If he becomes the former, a few good papers on horse fly entomology won't be written. If he becomes the latter, a dumb detective will cause an injustice that will escalate into an assassination, and a world war.
You got your cars, you got your airplanes, but you got a society in a state of disorder, that lead to the sciences getting taken over by morons as well, and made further progress impossible, with the east asian countries competing over technological superiority.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Anti-semitism wasn't a major factor in European history until the (second-ish part) of the 19th century, for the simple reason that the European Jewish population wasn't that big of a presence for hundreds of years. Once the Enlightenment and French Revolution happened and once the Jewish population started to get some rights (which gets us into the 19th century) then things changed. Yes, I do know about the very unf…
Jews not "being a thing" in Europe from the 1200s until the 1800s is so preposterously wrong it's hard to know where to start. The Spanish expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, with the subsequent very famous Spanish Inquisition, might be a decent place to start reading. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_Jews_from_Spain Spain is about as West as you can go and still be in Europe... And where do you think…