Progress has a sense of humor. Awesome. Of course these guys would like to see every square foot of north american asphalt replaced with this stuff, but I think that they are smart enough to know that that isn't going to happen any time soon.

What could happen, however, is that we all gradually adopt the technology. First we start with with the densely wealthy liberal eco-conscious places that have a cultural incentive to swallow the initial economic hurdles and lower overall manufacturing costs to a point where it starts to make sense to the wealthy conservative gas guzzling folks, and then slowly expand from there.

The concept is sound. At some point the hardware might just become cheap enough to be viable - it's an option worth exploring, at the very least.

And if you think that making really long roadways out of relatively expensive tiles is impossible, try telling that to the ancient Romans.

I agree. Normal/medium sized two handers seem to pretty much all be designed to allow you greater control rather than to add power (an axe or mace is always going to be better for that).

Wieldyness is much more important for them than power. As Lindy himself mentions in another vid swords like the Katana and longsword are backups and personal protection weapons not primary weapons of war. Convenient to carry around, and handy for parrying blows & grappling but second fiddle to almost any dedicated battlefield weapon (Spears, Naginata, maces etc.).

The most notable exception that springs to mind is the Roman Gladius, but it could be described as a glorified short spear with bonus cutting abilities rather than what most people think of as a sword. Rapiers and scimitars could also be thought of as more like spears and axes respectively in this sense.

And then there's the huge specialised warswords like claymores and Zweihanders but as lindy suggests in yet another vid they are a specialised tool for berserker charges and maybe advancing through a pikewall. Certainly not something you'd want to have a duel with or carry around at your waist.

Longswords and Katanas are like modern pistols. Good side-arms, but almost never a primary weapon of war. (Hollywood fails again)


Also.....Longsword totally > Katana. A well made longsword can hold just as sharp an edge as a Katana, has quillons to hook and lever an opponent and a straight focused point that can puncture steel plate. Katanas can maybe dismember someone easier, but that's about it.(all IMHO obviously)

Well, Sevastopol as a base for a Russian Baltic Fleet was established at a time when my neck of the woods was still part of the Holy Roman Empire. And since we also fucked the Russians over time and time again over the last 15 years, I'm inclined to not unleash the zombie plague just now.

libertarians arguing against the state reminds me of a scene from monty python where the people's front members ask themselves: "what have the romans ever done for us?"
now write this a 100 times or i'll cut your head off

LOL @ roman candles

..."nearly forgotten"? "to half of the world"?

Yes, it's a well known fact that the ancient Roman culture that conquered half of the Mediterranean region has been completely forsaken.

People so emotionally attached to the regime (as @st0nedeye seems to be) are often either regime propagandists being handsomely compensated or serfs who feel so vulnerable and afraid (and maybe even inept themselves) that they can't think of how they would survive without the "rulers" to protect them. (Of course, the jokes on them since that protection, safety, and security, is mostly an illusion.)

If they are regime propagandists, then unless you pay them more to take on whatever views you want them to stick to in the hopes of cashing in on the cronyism.

If they are true believers or fanatics (due to fear, insecurity, envy, etc.), then they will try to tear up anyone who tries to give them information, even if that information will ultimately help them out, improve their lot (help, to be sure, that was not solicited by them, and they have a right not to be given).

These are the attitudes that made Edward Bernays and others rather loathe "the people," allowing them to rationalize the various forms of manipulation imposed in the 20th century. This propaganda was ostensibly for "the people's" "safety," but was more accurately for personal profit. It's a fate though that I can't totally disagree is not deserved.

Still, despite the crazy analysis, I commend @st0nedeye for bringing up the interesting topic of the situation in Europe after the "fall" of Rome (which happened gradually and parallels that of most empires, including this current one). It's worth considering that the collapse of the Soviet Union also, a collapse that even to this day many in Russia bemoan -- just like st0nedeye bemoans the collapse of Rome. Life under the Roman bureaucracy and plutocracy was not as glamorous as many people would have you believe (maybe if you were a one of the beneficiary plutocrats).

You seem to be relying on quite a few assumptions yourself, and this doesn't really deserve a reply (and you probably don't want one anyway), but nonethless -- I've a few minutes to kill:

None of what you say explains how you justify the stupid assumption that we need a monopoly of law enforcement in order to enforce the law.

Another assumption is in thinking that people are "evil" but somehow the politicians and the bureaucrats are somehow "good" and are what maintain law and order. (Maybe you think of yourself as evil. But in any case that is irrelevant.)

The "60's hippies" comment sounds like a Faux Noise pundit!

"What EXACTLY prevents me from taking everything someone has, by force? Private security? If you can afford it? If you can't?"

Go ahead, try it. And I can afford it. If you can't, then you should maybe look into that and your own finances instead of ranting about libertarians. Seems like a better strategy.

Do you actually think police services now currently "free?" Even if you happen to be a nonproductive tax consumer, you are still paying for it in other ways.

Competing private security or insurance would be cheaper and more efficient than the police force, since it would not be the monopoly we have now. And there are also those willing and able to defend themselves on top of that.

"All of Europe was effectively ungoverned when Rome fell."

Learn your history; there was never a time where all of Europe was "effectively ungoverned" when Rome fell.

"3. The appropriate information will be available to make rational decisions."

Obviously you're making the erroneous assumption that individuals don't have the info needed to make their own decisions and yet government/central planners somehow do. This is, in fact, the opposite of what Hayek demonstrated (not to mention what common sense indicates). (Maybe you feel incompetent, but that's another issue.)

Bemoaning the end of the Roman empire is like bemoaning the end of the Nazi regime; with its constant wars, the destruction of the 2nd Jewish Temple (an earlier holocaust), its intolerances, etc. Any problems with the "dark ages" (a label that historians are increasingly abandoning as it is glaringly inaccurate) reveal what happens when a poorly run state collapses due to war and bad economics. A lesson on where we are heading, whatever you might think. Good luck to you.

Edit: "You really act as though government is the root of all evil."
Which of my actions do you mean? Posting my thoughts? Are you the thought police?

Sweet Jesus, you and your ilk are out of your fucking minds. You really act as though government is the root of all evil. As though if the mean ole' government will just get out of the way the world will be a happy fun-time place.

FUCK THAT.

I can easily say that without government regulations our industrial complexes would have poisoned us all to death years ago. Take a polluted shithole like Beijing, multiply that by every city in the world, multiply that by how much worse it would be without someone to say "you can't do that"

All your nonsensical libertarian blathering relies on many assumptions:

1. People are rational
2. People aren't evil.
3. The appropriate information will be available to make rational decisions.
4. People that are on the short end of the economic stick won't kill you for food, steal your women for fun, and riot because they can.
5. Industries will compete with one another.
6. Etc.

I really have one question though. In your utopian fantasy. What EXACTLY prevents me from taking everything someone has, by force? Private security? If you can afford it? If you can't?

You know, there was a period of institutional anarchy following the collapse of the Roman Government. All of Europe was effectively ungoverned when Rome fell. You know what that time was called? The fucking DARK AGES.

Since the ancient Romans had an artificial sweetener you'd have to say that Saccharin is the first modern artificial sweetener rather than the first.

What's that item on the dashboard? Looks like a Roman-Orthodox power fist with an iron cross on top of it...

The Reddit comments are interesting for how it changes regionally.

The "politically incorrect" version starts with Black.

No mention that the whole thing is politically incorrect.

Unfortunately, I just read a book on memory. The first texts on helping to remember go back thousands of years -- the Greeks or the Romans, one of those ancient cultures. From the very beginning, it has been taught that using sexually charged and completely crude images will help you remember.

And.

That sucks.

@enoch I didn't mention the Egyptian empire, for exactly the reason you mention. I was referring to the specific difference between the Western Roman empire (~30-ish something BC - 470-something AD), and the Eastern Roman empire (roughly 2000 years in length).

Past experience has lead me to expect less dickish replies from you. Considering that you and I most probably share the same ideals especially.

Regardless, you can't claim your film doesn't practice fear-mongering when it begins with several minutes of that kind of footage, with that kind of music. This is the same kind of production Fox news would create, it just happens to be from the angle that we agree with. As enlightened, open-minded individuals, we can do better than this. And we have to if we want to change anything.

My legitimacy-test for any video of this type is to look at it from the 'other sides' perspective. If it's possible from another viewpoint to see this as propaganda, then it fails at what it (purportedly) sets out to achieve.

Ultimately this is one more video, in a long line of videos, that I would otherwise wholeheartedly agree with, but by them not citing nearly any of their sources for information (6 stages of empirical collapse?), having some information factually and historically wrong (stating typical lifetime of empire equal to about 250 years, and constant comparison to Roman empires collapse while Roman Empire lasted 500 years in the shortest example, and almost 2000 years in the longest), and generally using the same tactics of manipulation for communicating with the audience that the "negative" media uses (dramatic music, dramatic directing, footage, colors and stark, "this is how things are" narrative) makes this easy for me to dismiss.

You're right - but the same could be said of every historical social collapse. The English aristocracy had a hundred years warning before the kings head came off. The Romans had it made till they started choosing leaders by who their daddy was. Greed is not a philosophy and it's not a plan.
'Capitalism contains the seed of its own destruction'.