6 ms·

It was far worse in the past, for the reasons you mentioned about security in particular. This is when we see the rise of castles and fortresses and the feudal

It was far worse in the past, for the reasons you mentioned about security in particular. This is when we see the rise of castles and fortresses and the feudal system. The Nazi Reich was very short lived (12ish years) and after its collapse, Western Germany was in a better place. The collapse of the Soviet Union was a bigger deal, as people had lived a few generations under the communist system and had to adapt rather suddenly to market economics and new governance. No doubt there was a shock period, but by and large people's lives got better. This is largely because of how globalized we are in modern day. The Dark Ages lasted for hundreds of years and were a regression in quality of life for vast majority of western europe.

inglor_cz 1y ago
"Western Germany was in a better place." Due to a somewhat historically anomalous generosity of the winners, who (from a mixture of humanity and economic motives) decided to invest into its rebuilding. In earlier times, debellatio of an enemy state after a long, vicious existential war would end in a way similar to what the Romans did to Carthage.
- gregorygoc 1y ago
  WWI was a thing.
  - inglor_cz 1y ago
    Can you expand your comment? I am not sure what you mean by such a short reaction. Of course there was WWI, but ... ?
    - hermitcrab 1y ago
      The victorious allies imposed a punitive peace on German at the end of WWI. This caused huge resentment, that was at least partly responsible for the rise of Nazism and WWII. The Marshall plan was, I believe, an attempt to the stop the same cycle from happening again. Similarly for Japan. It was an act of incredible generosity by the USA, but I think history shows that it was also a very smart investment. I can't imagine such generosity and foresight being employed again any time soon.
      - inglor_cz 1y ago
        I think the Cold War played a role too. Germany was defeated, but its industry was still fairly operational. In contrast to housing, which was bombed into pieces, German heavy industry was remarkably operational until the very end and the British were surprised to find that German factories were, on average, equipped with more modern machines than British ones. And some 75 per cent of that industry was in Allied hands. It made strategic sense to rebuild the country in face of a Soviet threat and make it a factory for the Allies (notably, the German army was only reconstituted much later, in 1955) instead of destroying it.
        hermitcrab 1y ago
        >I think the Cold War played a role too. Yes, definitely. The USA wanted as many allies as it could get against the USSR, even former enemies. >German factories were, on average, equipped with more modern machines than British ones. Thankfully the Germans wasted amounts of resources on not very useful weapons, such as the V2 rocket (technologically brilliant, strategically pretty useless) and the King Tiger (unreliable and IIRC cost somewhere around 20 times as much to make as a typical allied tank).
hermitcrab 1y ago
I believe a lot of historians get rather upset about the use of the term 'dark ages'. The Romans used their professional army to destroy many of the cultures unfortunate enough to be within their reach (Dacia, Carthage etc). They then wrote the history to make themselves look good and the 'barbarians' look bad. Consequently the fall of the Roman empire is seen as a disaster. But the Romans were a brutal bunch. They used to watch people being mauled by wild animals and gladiators hacking each other to death as entertainment, after all. Many of the people that the Romans conquered must have been glad to see the back of them.
- inglor_cz 1y ago
  This is a very modern reading of a very ancient situation. By the time of Western Roman Empire collapsing, the realm was Christian for two centuries and gladiator games et al. were banned for so long that no one alive would remember them happening. Most of the local languages were also gone and the previously conquered people considered themselves Romans and spoke Latin. They didn't have any Wikipedia or nationalist schooling system to teach them that they were once Celts or Illyrs, 400 years ago. (Even in our modern world where history is taught and movies and books are abundant, few people have any idea of who conquered whom in 1620 AD and what were the consequences for their distant ancestors. This is a domain of history geeks. No modern German loses their sleep over whether his city was once plundered by the Palatinate forces or burnt to the ground by a Saxon army, and would not dismantle modern Germany just because such atrocities once took place.) Also, the Roman empire did not dissolve into a vacuum, with the previous provinces simply declaring their long desired independence. It was conquered from the outside, and the attackers would not necessarily treat the subdued population any better. They might, or they might not.
  - ProjectArcturis 1y ago
    >few people have any idea of who conquered whom in 1620 AD and what were the consequences for their distant ancestors I bet most people in the US could tell you in broad strokes who used to live in North America and who conquered them.

inglor_cz 1y ago

"Western Germany was in a better place." Due to a somewhat historically anomalous generosity of the winners, who (from a mixture of humanity and economic motives) decided to invest into its rebuilding. In earlier times, debellatio of an enemy state after a long, vicious existential war would end in a way similar to what the Romans did to Carthage.

gregorygoc 1y ago
WWI was a thing.
- inglor_cz 1y ago
  Can you expand your comment? I am not sure what you mean by such a short reaction. Of course there was WWI, but ... ?
  - hermitcrab 1y ago
    The victorious allies imposed a punitive peace on German at the end of WWI. This caused huge resentment, that was at least partly responsible for the rise of Nazism and WWII. The Marshall plan was, I believe, an attempt to the stop the same cycle from happening again. Similarly for Japan. It was an act of incredible generosity by the USA, but I think history shows that it was also a very smart investment. I can't imagine such generosity and foresight being employed again any time soon.
    - inglor_cz 1y ago
      I think the Cold War played a role too. Germany was defeated, but its industry was still fairly operational. In contrast to housing, which was bombed into pieces, German heavy industry was remarkably operational until the very end and the British were surprised to find that German factories were, on average, equipped with more modern machines than British ones. And some 75 per cent of that industry was in Allied hands. It made strategic sense to rebuild the country in face of a Soviet threat and make it a factory for the Allies (notably, the German army was only reconstituted much later, in 1955) instead of destroying it.
      - hermitcrab 1y ago
        >I think the Cold War played a role too. Yes, definitely. The USA wanted as many allies as it could get against the USSR, even former enemies. >German factories were, on average, equipped with more modern machines than British ones. Thankfully the Germans wasted amounts of resources on not very useful weapons, such as the V2 rocket (technologically brilliant, strategically pretty useless) and the King Tiger (unreliable and IIRC cost somewhere around 20 times as much to make as a typical allied tank).

hermitcrab 1y ago

I believe a lot of historians get rather upset about the use of the term 'dark ages'. The Romans used their professional army to destroy many of the cultures unfortunate enough to be within their reach (Dacia, Carthage etc). They then wrote the history to make themselves look good and the 'barbarians' look bad. Consequently the fall of the Roman empire is seen as a disaster. But the Romans were a brutal bunch. They used to watch people being mauled by wild animals and gladiators hacking each other to death as entertainment, after all. Many of the people that the Romans conquered must have been glad to see the back of them.

inglor_cz 1y ago
This is a very modern reading of a very ancient situation. By the time of Western Roman Empire collapsing, the realm was Christian for two centuries and gladiator games et al. were banned for so long that no one alive would remember them happening. Most of the local languages were also gone and the previously conquered people considered themselves Romans and spoke Latin. They didn't have any Wikipedia or nationalist schooling system to teach them that they were once Celts or Illyrs, 400 years ago. (Even in our modern world where history is taught and movies and books are abundant, few people have any idea of who conquered whom in 1620 AD and what were the consequences for their distant ancestors. This is a domain of history geeks. No modern German loses their sleep over whether his city was once plundered by the Palatinate forces or burnt to the ground by a Saxon army, and would not dismantle modern Germany just because such atrocities once took place.) Also, the Roman empire did not dissolve into a vacuum, with the previous provinces simply declaring their long desired independence. It was conquered from the outside, and the attackers would not necessarily treat the subdued population any better. They might, or they might not.
- ProjectArcturis 1y ago
  >few people have any idea of who conquered whom in 1620 AD and what were the consequences for their distant ancestors I bet most people in the US could tell you in broad strokes who used to live in North America and who conquered them.