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The Match Girls
- Thorentis 4y ago
- thriftwy 4y agoYour life actually has huge influence on your face (which is a "mirror of the soul"). They lived a miserable life and that's what you happen to see here.
- aqme28 4y agoYou're comparing what exactly? The photos in the article with the girls you see on Instagram? The photos in the article have way too much contrast and everyone's expression seems a bit surprised. I don't think enough generations have elapsed for any genetic differences. If anything, diet and lifestyle, but I think most likely it's fashion and makeup and comfort infront of a camera and cultural understandings of beauty.
- Thorentis 4y agoOf course not to Instagram, I despise social media. I think diet and lifestyle may have a large part to play, and I suppose as well all the dental and cosmetic treatments available to people nowadays.
- DC-3 4y agoGo to the slums of Dhaka or Lagos today and report back how many beautiful people you see.
- exolymph 4y agoNutrition is a big factor.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- fian 4y agoMany more people can now access dental/orthodontic treatments and minor cosmetic procedures. Getting your teeth straight makes a big difference to your appearance and make you more likely to smile in photographs.
- musicale 4y agoPhossy jaw, unfortunately. And of course they're stuck working 10 hour days for meager pay (even less for child workers) for cruel and (literally) poisonous match companies.
- p1esk 4y agoFrom what I can see on that old photograph they look completely normal, about the same level of attractiveness as what I expect to see in an average high school or college.
- eru 4y agoI understand your general point, but I don't think the specific pictures in the articles are good examples: the ladies look about average to me, especially if you remember that the people in the pictures were poor and not selected for beauty (if anything, someone beautiful enough would probably work a different job).
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- welder 4y agoOP must have watched the Enola Holmes 2 movie on Netflix... the case she solves is all about match girls. https://www.cbr.com/enola-holmes-2-sarah-chapman-true-story/ https://www.cbr.com/enola-holmes-2-sarah-chapman-true-story/
- Mikeb85 4y agoFunny timing, literally watching it right now.
- colechristensen 4y agoIt just came out I think so not much of a coincidence :)
- fsckboy 4y agonot to mention, what's an amazing coincidence for him is perhaps an unusually small number of people watching compared to the size of the audience here.
- Josh5 4y ago...based on this true story.
- chuckledog 4y agoJust saw it. Good movie and history lesson
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- tehchromic 4y agoUgly business is industrialization. I suppose it's seems to be the most noble application of technology to avoid the techno-horrors of the past in the future. But there are always newer, greater techno-horrors emergent. In fact, one might say that techno-horror is a fundamental emergent property of the universe.
- zwkrt 4y agoAny technology (physical, social, philosophical) we create has the ability to wreak havoc on equilibrium (natural, societal, or otherwise). We are fundamentally unequipped to restore equilibrium because that process takes the unwilling participation of all agents. So I think all technologies have a way of creating an existential threat, obviously some more than others. My own internal sci-fi version of the future involves us creating replicating but non-intelligent technology that outlasts us. Another free sci-fi premise while I’m on a roll is consciousness becoming such a good interpreter of reality (that sees everything so clearly) such that it evaporates. The map has become the territory. /confused rambling
- itsthecourier 4y agoYou mean, because by observing everything we affect it? Like Heisenberg's uncertainty
- notgoodrobot 4y agoInteresting ideas. Would you expand on your last point? We're you meaning an artificial consciousness becomes so good at interpreting the things around it that the consciousness itself evaporates?
- zwkrt 4y agoSure. So consciousness is maybe very loosely the ability for an entity to model and interact with its surroundings. On the low end we have a rock. It is the product of its surroundings and therefore you could say it has some kind of model, but no interaction. Then you have a worm, it can do some basic tasks and has a kind of plan. Humans are further along. But at some point if an entity has such a rich model of its surroundings and can control it so effectively, the line between it and its surroundings starts to blur. It’s able to effect more nuanced change at a greater and greater distance. It is less and less surprised by new events. And I guess in this way I imagine that it starts to merge with its surroundings. Thinking about entropy, a single drop of dye in a glass is very high entropy, but the drop is very confined to a particular place. This is like the rock. Then as it swirls around the complexity increases, even though entropy is decreasing. This high complexity is like us. But as the drop of dye becomes totally intermixed the entropy is at its lowest, but the dye is evenly mixed through the entire solution. It stops making sense to ask “where is the dye?” because it is everywhere.
- themitigating 4y ago"With the support triggering public debate, the management were keen to play down the reports, claiming it was “twaddle” propagated by socialists like Mrs Besant" I thought this was a new technique
- basilgohar 4y agoThe playbook of the powerful has almost always been the same since the beginning. Divide and conquer, have the different parties your want to control blame each other for the problems that are ultimately your fault, make personal attacks against your enemies according to the values of the people you oppress, and ultimately, blame your opponents for the crimes you've committed, to take attention away from your own atrocities. I think a good summary of a lot of this is "lie enough until they believe you".
- ljf 4y agoWow, phossy jaw sounds horrendous https://bonesdontlie.wordpress.com/2016/02/10/new-morbid-terminology-phossy-jaw-the-occupational-disease-of-matchstick-makers/ https://bonesdontlie.wordpress.com/2016/02/10/new-morbid-ter... (cancer caused by working with white phosphorus for the matches)
- lob_it 4y agoIt sounds similar to a ceramics art teacher getting silicosis in Austrailia. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-27/ceramics-teacher-silicosis-better-workplace-protections/101095360 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-27/ceramics-teacher-sili... Technology natives do have to be concerned with carpal tunnel syndrome as a workplace hazard or ergonomic deficiency as well.
- croes 4y agoOr the radium girls https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium_Girls https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium_Girls
- 1letterunixname 4y agohttps://www.damninteresting.com/undark-and-the-radium-girls/ https://www.damninteresting.com/undark-and-the-radium-girls/
- musicale 4y agoI've always worried about phosphoric acid in colas and other soft drinks.
- eru 4y agoLuckily, that's different. Just like eating salt is different from taking sodium or chlorine straight up.
- notjoemama 4y ago
- zeristor 4y agoCo-incidentally a local historical society had a talk about the Match Girls: https://youtu.be/AnnnY7MnAK8 https://youtu.be/AnnnY7MnAK8 I remember my History teacher talking about the Match Girls were on strike until they struck a deal; although that lame joke seems out of place.
- tobylane 4y agoThe factory and strike recently gained a heritage blue plaque. https://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/2022/07/the-match-girls-blue-plaque.html https://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/2022/07/the-match-girls-b...
- robjwells 4y agoLouise Raw wrote a book about the Bryant and May matchwomen and their 1888 strike, Striking a Light, which I recommend: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/striking-a-light-9781441114266/ https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/striking-a-light-9781441114266...
- zokier 4y agoAnd few decades later across the pond: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium_Girls https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium_Girls The thing that is surprising to me is that people were so desperate for these horrible factory jobs for so long. I think I need to read up on history again to figure out what was going on in the agriculture side that made people flood into cities, making labor expendable for factories.
- maxerickson 4y agoMechanization.
- mc32 4y agoIt was more than that. It was opportunity for advancement from the previous millennium or more of stasis. You could save up and advance, even if it was small. On a farm each generation had less farmland to farm (let's say you have 100 acres, and you have 4 heirs each with now 25 and so on... but let's say two because death and also pursuit of something else, so 50, but keep on doing that every generation)
- eru 4y agoWhat millennium of stasis? See the 'Real Life' section on https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MedievalStasis https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MedievalStasis (of all things). However you are right that the Industrial Revolution sped up the pace of change.
- mc32 4y agoYes, it's overstated but never the less until then (ind revolution), life was very agricultural (that did not change appreciably) and thus centered around land (ownership and control). One cannot make more land. As the population grows there was less land per person to develop, maintain and extract sustenance and growth from, so to the factory it was. Most importantly, life on a farm did not improve much, metal instruments did replace more rudimentary farm implements. There were additional advances here and there such as rotating crops, better ploughs drawn by oxen --never the less, you'd follow the cows typically barefoot and you'd suffer from any adverse weather event, too early, too late, a frost, no lifting of the rains, etc. One's fortune was at the whims of the weather and the pace was unrelenting. In the Winter it was time for repairs and household chores that waited a year.
- simonbw 4y agoSomewhat related: my favorite Disney short is called The Little Matchgirl. It’s set to a Borodin string quartet, which I think is an excellent choice. If you haven’t seen it, I think it’s worth 6 minutes of your time. https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7ybb3s https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7ybb3s
- erk__ 4y agoThe original fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen is also worth a read. In my opinion one of his best short stories. https://andersen.sdu.dk/vaerk/hersholt/TheLittleMatchGirl_e.html https://andersen.sdu.dk/vaerk/hersholt/TheLittleMatchGirl_e....
- tamaharbor 4y agoIt always made me cry.
- pianoben 4y agoI was not ready to cry today :(
- kazinator 4y ago... starring Mulan. Or, no, Pocahontas?
- wheelerof4te 4y agoThose women were not much better off than slaves. How the hell was this different or even better than communism? It's slave labor.
- thowland 4y agoWhen they went on strike, the government didn't murder them. Try starting a trade union in Cuba.
- 1312throwaway 4y agoThis is a gross misrepresentation of the history of capitalism. In the western world, calling on the army to stop a workers uprising was a common feat up to WWII and some variation of that still occurs frequently in France via the gendarmerie (admittedly with "less-lethal" weaponry). The most famous example of that in the USA is certainly the battle of Blair Mountain. [0] The Chicago haymarket affair, while not about soldiers shooting workers, did result in innocent men condemned to death sentence. [1] There's likely more but i wouldn't know. I'm from France, and there's a lot of it over here too. The democratic Paris Commune was overthrown by the military, killing tens of thousands of civilians. [2] The strikes of Fourmies [3] and Draveil [4] were also literally shot down. We could also name the Vital Michalon or Rémi Fraisse killed by law enforcement (specifically grenades) for their political activities, or the revolutionaries sitting in jail long after their sentences ended (Action Directe, George Abdallah). And of course the countless "ordinary" murders by law enforcement in popular districts, and the incredible massacres perpetuated both by police/military and fascist militias in the context of colonization/decolonization such as the Setif massacre [5] where the Algerians celebrating the end of WWII and the defeat of nazism were shot and many thousands were killed. Of course, to be fair, such massacres are a common feature of repressive regimes all around the world... and leninist regimes as well, such as during the Kronstadt Commune [6] or the Makhnovshchina in Ukraine. [7] But as any clearheaded thinker will tell you, most so-called "communist" regimes had nothing to do with communism and everything to do with State capitalism [8], which explains the many similarities. Still, despite my criticism of their regime, you could be surprised to see how trade unions fare in Cuba, what the working conditions are like there, and that they have one of the best healthcare systems around the planet. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_affair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_affair [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Commune https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Commune [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusillade_de_Fourmies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusillade_de_Fourmies [4] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gr%C3%A8ve_de_Draveil-Villeneuve-Saint-Georges https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gr%C3%A8ve_de_Draveil-Villeneu... [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A9tif_and_Guelma_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A9tif_and_Guelma_massacre [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kronstadt_rebellion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kronstadt_rebellion [7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makhnovshchina https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makhnovshchina [8] https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emma-goldman-there-is-no-communism-in-russia https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emma-goldman-there-i...
- jackjackk0 4y agoCurious timing of this article, possibly related to the plot of Enola Holmes 2, recently released on Netflix.
- jp0d 4y agoWOW, what a read! I remember reading about Annie Besant in school. Historical events like these have a lot to teach us even today. With so many countries still running sweat shops with inhuman labour conditions it's increasingly important to be aware of the origin of a product. I recently had a training from my company about "Modern Slavery" and it was quite eye opening. We deal with it every day without even realising it. What surprised me is the lack of any of it in the WikiPedia page of "Bryant and May". I'd have thought this was an important piece of information about their history. I've never edited anything on WikiPedia but will do my best add a section about it.
- hackrnusr 4y agoWere these young girls better off or worse off than their similarly aged counterparts who laid around naked at Mr. Epstein's pool parties down on Pedophile Isle waiting for a rich businessman or high-profile politician to service?