Ghost of WWII: 1940's meticulously overlaid on modern day • Hacker News Board

Re: Ghost of WWII: 1940's meticulously overlaid on modern day

#61

Post by ugh » Tue, Aug 03, 2010, 1:55 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #36

Peryodo wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'What Europe can be quite proud of is how not only war was avoided during the last decades but also that war was made less likely over the decades.' Whaaaaaaatt??? Does sound any bell to you the names Yugoslavia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Croatia...?

Technically you are right, but most of Europe sees that as the des-integration of Yugoslavia, which would make it a civil war rather than a war between nation states. And I think you meant to write Serbia instead of Yugoslavia. The other countries getting involved was to stop worse from happening. From what I know about that war it was basically something that was bound to happen the moment Tito kicked the bucket. He…

It’s kind of astonishing, actually, that the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Warsaw Pact went as peaceful as it did in Europe. No bloody revolutions, no wars. Not a shot fired in Eastern Germany, Poland or Russia (and so on). Except for, you guessed it, Yugoslavia and Romania.

I don’t think anyone would have expected that.

Re: Ghost of WWII: 1940's meticulously overlaid on modern day

#62

Post by ugh » Tue, Aug 03, 2010, 2:01 PM UTC

helveticaman wrote: post #59

jacquesm wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, it's less likely. But idiots like Wilders are pushing the exact same buttons that a certain Austrian guy did and there is a real risk of him or someone like him rising to power. There are more and louder voices for the break-up of the EU in the last 3 years than I've ever heard in my lifetime.

Well, yeah, money's on the line.

Money’s on the line and that’s just the reason why the EU won’t suddenly disappear.

One of the nice things about a common market (even if it is only partially reality) is that it leads to economic interdependence. Companies can invest wherever they want, companies can sell stuff to wherever they want, people can work wherever they want. There is money to be made and the economic shock waves of making that impossible by leaving the EU would probably be way too much for any EU economy to take.

Maybe the Euro was a bad idea and won’t survive. (My prediction would be that it will.) That won’t, however, be the end of European integration.

Re: Ghost of WWII: 1940's meticulously overlaid on modern day

#63

Post by jacquesm » Tue, Aug 03, 2010, 2:02 PM UTC

ugh wrote: post #61

jacquesm wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically you are right, but most of Europe sees that as the des-integration of Yugoslavia, which would make it a civil war rather than a war between nation states. And I think you meant to write Serbia instead of Yugoslavia. The other countries getting involved was to stop worse from happening. From what I know about that war it was basically something that was bound to happen the moment Tito kicked the bucket. He…

It’s kind of astonishing, actually, that the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the Warsaw Pact went as peaceful as it did in Europe. No bloody revolutions, no wars. Not a shot fired in Eastern Germany, Poland or Russia (and so on). Except for, you guessed it, Yugoslavia and Romania. I don’t think anyone would have expected that.

And in Romania (I'm in Bucharest at the moment, coincidentially) it was very limited compared to what Yugoslavia went through.

Re: Ghost of WWII: 1940's meticulously overlaid on modern day

#64

Post by Vivtek » Tue, Aug 03, 2010, 2:13 PM UTC

NickPollard wrote: post #56

Vivtek wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very true, except for the statement that other countries' involvement stopped worse from happening - the Yugoslav arms industry was nonexistent, and while they most definitely would have kept on killing one another with rocks, I think they would have been less efficient. I agree with your larger point, though. The breakup of Yugoslavia was unfortunate - and inevitable - but it's kind of the exception that proves the…

Now that it has broken up though, it does seem more positive for most of the previous members. Slovenia in particular is flourishing, my father worked there for a couple of years as part of an EU consultancy program to help modernise their economy, and they're now (according to wikipedia) at a GDP pp of 91% of the EU average, equivalent to South Korea or New Zealand. I don't mean to gloss over that the balkans war wa…

Yeah, I just drove through Slovenia two months ago and was bowled over - my last time through had been in 1986; it's ... very, very different now.

Re: Ghost of WWII: 1940's meticulously overlaid on modern day

#65

Post by Hoff » Tue, Aug 03, 2010, 2:53 PM UTC

jonursenbach wrote: post #3

Kind of depressing that most of the US will never have something as cool as this due to this countries lack of appreciation for dated architecture.

Without intending to make any comparisons with other events and locations, nor to imply any "coolness" might be involved with the death and destruction, some of the US events that could serve as fodder for photographic and historical retrospectives from the US and territories from the 20th century onward include:

There are other examples.

Re: Ghost of WWII: 1940's meticulously overlaid on modern day

#66

Post by anamax » Tue, Aug 03, 2010, 3:01 PM UTC

ugh wrote: post #20

jacquesm wrote: post #18

The Euro-centric view is that Europe is the battlefield of the world, and that Poland is the battlefield of Europe, and during World War II that was more true than ever before or since. The cities of Rotterdam ('the city without a heart') and Dresden still tell a pretty grim tale today if your eyes are open to it, and Warsaw and Poznan have plenty of places where the repair still hasn't caught up with the damage. The…

What Europe can be quite proud of is how not only war was avoided during the last decades but also that war was made less likely over the decades. Suggesting that there could be war between Germany and France would be crazy today but certainly wasn’t always. That’s not just some flimsy anti-war sentiment which can change as new generations take over, that actually has something to do with lasting change initiated by…

> What Europe can be quite proud of is how not only war was avoided during the last decades but also that war was made less likely over the decades.

Umm, the credit goes to US occupation of Germany and tension with the USSR.

Europe has yet to handle a reasonable problem on its own.

Re: Ghost of WWII: 1940's meticulously overlaid on modern day

#67

Post by anamax » Tue, Aug 03, 2010, 3:07 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #17

brc wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything in the world has a U-shaped value curve. Most valuable when it is new, at some point it loses value, may even become worthless. Down the track, it will become priceless and irreplaceable. Note 'value' here isn't strictly monetary, it can be cultural as well. Dropping buildings in the midst of the U never gives things the chance to recover and move past fashion. Most buildings discarded are due to the desig…

Much of the Northeast has this flavor. I dunno if you've ever been to the Boston area, but many of the buildings have this same sense of history to them. In the leather district, you've got former tanning factories which became porn studios which became software offices and yuppie lofts. In Maynard, you have old textile mills from the industrial revolution, which became DEC in the 50s and 60s, which became Monster.co…

> That's one of the things I miss most about New England, having moved out to California. Here, everything is cookie-cutter suburbia, built in a hurry during the 70s and 80s.

San Jose was founded in 1776. The houses in my neighborhood were built in 190x, mine in 1902.

All of the "mission" cities date from about that time. They're all full of old buildings. (Yes, there are Victorians in Monterey.) Heck, the Sacramento and Central Valley are full of towns that date from the 1850s.

Don't confuse Palo Alto with California.

Re: Ghost of WWII: 1940's meticulously overlaid on modern day

#68

Post by jancona » Tue, Aug 03, 2010, 3:09 PM UTC

ido wrote: post #28

nostrademons wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much of the Northeast has this flavor. I dunno if you've ever been to the Boston area, but many of the buildings have this same sense of history to them. In the leather district, you've got former tanning factories which became porn studios which became software offices and yuppie lofts. In Maynard, you have old textile mills from the industrial revolution, which became DEC in the 50s and 60s, which became Monster.co…

Philadelphia & Boston are probably the most "old-world" looking major cities in the US. Montreal in Canada is also worth taking a look at.

Quebec City is also quite "old world".

Re: Ghost of WWII: 1940's meticulously overlaid on modern day

#69

Post by eru » Tue, Aug 03, 2010, 4:14 PM UTC

JacobAldridge wrote: post #4

jonursenbach wrote: post #3

Kind of depressing that most of the US will never have something as cool as this due to this countries lack of appreciation for dated architecture.

That, and the fact that the last war to be fought on US soil pre-dates the invention of film. (US Civil War ended in 1865; film was invented by George Eastman in 1884) Lamenting the lack of architectural appreciation remains worthwhile.

There was enough inner-city decay and gentrification going on in the US, to make a comparison interesting even without a war.

Re: Ghost of WWII: 1940's meticulously overlaid on modern day

#70

Post by ahlatimer » Tue, Aug 03, 2010, 4:15 PM UTC

Here is another set with a similar idea: http://www.flickr.com/photos/edrabbit/galleries/721576231031...