Alternative History

Intended for constructive conversations. Exhibits of polarizing tribalism will be deleted.
enigmaT120
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Re: Alternative History

Post by enigmaT120 »

"I don't even think that race is a meaningful concept beyond inherent infantile xenophobic "Human that does not look like my Mommy" reactivity."

In the rest of the living world, the term "race" is pretty much synonymous with sub-species, which makes it even more weird that we refer to different races of modern humans (H. Sapiens sapiens, last I checked). I do with they would quit changing species names after I've learned them.

enigmaT120
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Re: Alternative History

Post by enigmaT120 »

Riggerjack wrote: "However, the systemic abuse of the poor (with associated overrepresentation of blacks) is just a natural consequence of our "justice" system. When you create black markets, you create criminals in your least franchised populations. Then you punish those populations to keep the middle class in line. That's just administration. No evil intent or racism required, just bureaucratic indifference."

I hope you're right, though what you describe is bad enough. The summary of that film describes a pretty awful narrative and one that doesn't look as though it will end any time soon.

Oh: I like this thread, thanks for starting it.

ThisDinosaur
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Re: Alternative History

Post by ThisDinosaur »

OTCW mentioned "alternative history" as a literary genre. Which reminded me about the fact that JFK was "not that interested in space."
(His own words on bottom of page 17)
https://history.nasa.gov/JFK-Webbconv/p ... script.pdf
There's a lot of alt-history fiction about if Kennedy had lived, we would have cities on Mars by now. In fact, the Apollo program was a stunt, and not evidence of mankind's inevitable expansion to the final frontier.

Myakka
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Re: Alternative History

Post by Myakka »

In my reading of history (and I read extensively the history of the Empires of Eurasia in times from the Roman Empire to modern times in
earlier years), the most important step in weeding through what to give credence to and what to look at with scepticism was to look directly at the point of view of the person doing the writing.

When I contemplate the presentation of history as the workings of a few remarkable men I perceive that as a logical extension of a nobleman or man
of the elite who tends to think that only guys like him matter and the rest of us are worthless scum. It is a viewpoint in line with
the books which list the notable men and women of a city and the stories commonly found in comics -- where some superhero required to save the day.

On the otherhand, the sandbox theory of history (which I am only now encountering in this thread), instead places the reasons for history unfolding
as it does entirely in the river of time -- where individuals are entirely unimportant and there are many individuals who could have fulfilled the
crucial roles which the men we hear about in our history courses are famed for.

It seems obvious to me that there is some truth in both of these. But I also think both are imbued with one of the recurrent and overarching
mythologies of our culture -- that ordinary and average people are powerless to influence history.

But it is not at all true that ordinary people are powerless. And to hear more about instances of how ordinary and average people have indeed been able to influence history, I recommend "A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn. (A book that many arch-conservative types
are happy to ban from libraries and keep people from knowing about.)

I don't know that it makes sense to entirely discount any of these three views on why history unfolds as it does. Obviously,
history is made out of the interaction of each of these three forces. Each is important to varying degrees over the course of time.

It is silly to reduce it down to just one of them, isn't it?

Dragline
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Re: Alternative History

Post by Dragline »

BRUTE wrote:brute thinks that humans in power readily abuse the ignorant humans' casual or overt xenophobia for their own purposes. for example, inciting black-hate and mexican-hate helped make marijuana and other drugs illegal, because "mexicans and blacks high on marijuana" were "raping white women". those crimes did not actually occur more often than rapes by white men, and marijuana doesn't make humans aggressive, but it was enough to push through the law. in this case, part of the reasoning was apparently economic, to prevent competition from hemp producers.
Reefer Madness! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbjHOBJzhb0

You can learn a lot about "the way things were" by watching and reading entertainment vehicles from a particular time period, like the cartoons they used to show in movie theaters prior to the advent of television. But what you are looking for is not really the content or story, but the background fixtures as to what was considered to be "normal" at the time. These had to be accurate to make the story seem credible to its audience.

Riggerjack
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Re: Alternative History

Post by Riggerjack »

I hope you're right, though what you describe is bad enough. The summary of that film describes a pretty awful narrative and one that doesn't look as though it will end any time soon.
Being poor sucks. There is no two ways about it.

I remember my mom doing 30 days for fees tacked onto a parking ticket when I was a kid. Single mom on welfare isn't going to be able to pay hardly anything, let alone the fees on fees schedule our civic justice system uses for enforcement.

So, she did her 30 days, lost her job at the call center she hated. The local tax base paid to house her for the 30 days. Things were a bit more awkward and scattered for a few months. Evicted, again.

How did society benefit? My mom served as an example to scare those who could pay. And the mill wheel of civic justice grinds along.

Now, I'm not complaining. I'm explaining. The system isn't set up to be cruel. The system is set up to enforce the will of the people as represented by elected officials and their flunkies. The more flunkies (bureaucrats) the more rules, the more difficult compliance gets, the more we need examples.

The goal is to herd people thru an increasingly difficult maze. marking the dead ends with visible marks of failure is just the easiest way to direct the herd.

It sucks to be poor, as you are less able to recover from a mistake. But that isn't factored in when you are just another human who took a wrong turn in the maze. The bureaucrat in charge of that intersection knows that the more spectacular your failure us, the less he has to work to push the masses the other way.

It sucks to be poor in modern America. But these are not American problems. Every society in all of history has had to deal with this problem. When you look at historical solutions. Things here and now are F'ing great.

Riggerjack
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Re: Alternative History

Post by Riggerjack »

OK, re-reading the last post, maybe I wasn't so clear.

So the town is Bellingham, a small working port town. In the fifties, they added parking meters in the downtown. Starting around the courthouses. This is mainly a hassle for lawyers and clerks, the regular folks with interactions with local government.

If you have meters, you need enforcement. Otherwise, they are donation boxes.

Now you have parking tickets, and you need an incentive to get people to pay. There will be additional fees for those who don't pay on time. Perhaps separately, there will be policies for jailing people for being X days late, or Y dollars owed X days. The details are unimportant. Sometimes it is just a judge's personal guidelines.

Entirely separate from this is welfare programs. They started small, so they were located in spare space in the local government buildings. Eventually, they grew big enough to warrant a building of their own. But their primary mission is shuffling paperwork, so it is easiest to keep the new building close to the rest.

All of this is just BAU. No racism or evil intent involved.

And this is just metered parking. Expand this to every form of civic justice.

However, it is easy to tell the same story from the other side. The welfare office is located in an area where all parking is metered. The lines in the office are longer than the meters will run. So the number of parking tickets/welfare recipient is higher than any other group. The number of welfare recipients with late fees and other punishments is higher than any other group. Looking at the jail population and those on community service is mostly small civic infractions, etc, etc.

Now, the demographics of Bellingham won't support the black oppression storyline, as most poor are white or American Indian there. But transpose these same circumstances to Alabama, and it is clearly just instituted bigotry, right?

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fiby41
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Re: Alternative History

Post by fiby41 »

Aryan Invasion Hypothesis

Riggerjack
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Re: Alternative History

Post by Riggerjack »


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fiby41
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Re: Alternative History

Post by fiby41 »

Yes

Riggerjack
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Re: Alternative History

Post by Riggerjack »

And to hear more about instances of how ordinary and average people have indeed been able to influence history, I recommend "A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn. (A book that many arch-conservative types
are happy to ban from libraries and keep people from knowing about.)
I imagine, if I were still a progressive, I may have enjoyed this book. I'm not. This was a prime example of the kind of "history" I object to. The need to make history into a storyline. The natural progression of the evolution of mankind to its natural peak, the present. This isn't a study of the past, so much as a justification of the present.

If I were looking for a documentary on early 20thcentury Russian Jews, this would be "fiddler on the roof". Same subject, in theory.

Not to short change Zinn. It's a good book, with a well defined axe to grind. He was well suited to do the grinding. It was odd that he focused on SNCC, of all the black rights groups. But at least he didn't give the Kennedy's a complete pass. He even pointed out RK jr's deal to stop the freedom riders.

And I did like his take on native fishing rights, and Frank's landing. Again, no attempt at accurately portaying the situation, instead unashamedly advocating for one side. But native Americans could use more advocates, so no complaints.

I thought it was more of a history of selected progressive demonstrations, than anything. I was hoping for more.

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