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It reminds me of laughing at the stupid old Europeans starting a war because an Austrian numpty got himself shot in Serbia. Like, we almost sunk a Chinese ship

It reminds me of laughing at the stupid old Europeans starting a war because an Austrian numpty got himself shot in Serbia. Like, we almost sunk a Chinese ship because an AI thought the sour candies they were transporting were nukes is in the same category of shitheadedness. (I'm embellishing–we don't know what was on board.)

pipes 8d ago
That's a very limited view of why ww1 started.
- JumpCrisscross 8d ago
  > a very limited view of why ww1 started Proximate versus ultimate causes. If a war started because America boarded a Chinese vessel, it also-obviously–wouldn't solely be because of that.
  - jordanb 8d ago
    The basic problem is that they had built a domesday machine in Europe, which was the mobilization schedule. After the Franco Prussian war people realized that the next war would involve massive armies full of mobilized (conscripted) men and the country that could mobilize first would win. Countries spend decades planning for this by manufacturing enormous stockpiles of uniforms, giving their entire male population military training, etc. But the mobilization schedule for even the fastest country was still measured in weeks, but this was a process where days count. Basically once the decision was made to mobilize millions of people across an entire modern society would leap into action transforming itself into a marshal society. Millions of people getting called up, trains full of equipment going everywhere. Turning off a mobilization that was in progress was fairly difficult to conceive of, so once the decision was made the flywheel would take over, but decision to mobilize had to be made in a pressure cooker environment where hours mattered. The death of the duke wasn't the "cause" of WWI it was the starting gun for a race where the horses were all waiting impatiently at the starting line.
    - JumpCrisscross 8d ago
      Again, boarding a Chinese vessel similarly wouldn’t “cause” WWIII. But it would be a trigger and for non-pedantic usage of causation, proximate causes are also causes.
    - verdverm 8d ago
      As Indy Neidell says at the beginning of The Great War documentary ~"you can't say they slept walked into WW1 when they gave thousands of commands to move horses and men" https://www.youtube.com/@TheGreatWar https://www.youtube.com/@TheGreatWar
    - orwin 8d ago
      Not really. It took a full month for the austrian to send Serbia its ultimatum. If the ultimatum was given imediatly after the assassination, both France and Russia would have let Serbia go. Also, in France Caillaux, one of the most powerful pacifist in the government (he had the economy and was _good_ at it, which is rare enough to be noted), who was anti-war, had to be let go because his wife killed a journalist (not really a journalist, but adjascent enough so that the difference don't matter) around the same time, leaving Jaurès alone to push Viviani to let it go. Plus Viviani was with the Tsar in Russia when the ultimatum was given, which surely did not help _at all_. Especially since Rasputin was out of the capital at the time. Truly an unfortunate timing here. Plus the death of multiple diplomats involved in the prevention of WW1 at least once in 1911, who all decided to die around the same time (the last two in 1914, Pressensé and obviously Hartwig, whose death was truly, truly unfortunate). And here i'm only aware of French people who would have prevented the war (beside Hartwig and Rasputin, but everybody know about them), but i'm pretty sure even more people in Germany and in Austria could have done the same.
      - jordanb 8d ago
        Using the same logic (important diplomats dead or retired or disgraced) you could say that firing Bismark caused the war. If the top diplomats had managed to avert the Serbia crisis then the war would have been delayed until the next crisis. The fundamental problem is Europe had built itself a civilization-strattling war machine with no "abort" button and put the start button on a hair trigger (the interlocking treaty system).
kakacik 8d ago
Not sure what is there to laugh at when millions died in pretty horrible ways including americans, anyway that was classical war mongering where one of the parties got exactly what they wanted (prussians/germans). That they got more than they wanted and how it folded them is part of history. This case, its bullshit machine bullshitting randomly in between specs of stolen wisdom. Nobody asked for that, nobody is in control. We all humans lose in all cases. Quite different scenarios if you asked me.
- margalabargala 8d ago
  Dark/gallows humor is a thing, and also plenty of people use humor as a coping mechanism. It's fine not to share the same sense of humor, but if you truly lack an understanding of what someone else would find to laugh at that's an easy thing to learn to broaden your understanding of the world.
afavour 8d ago
That is a below high school level understanding of what caused WW1, for what it’s worth.
- genxy 8d ago
  You know nothing of high school students.
- JumpCrisscross 8d ago
  I mean yes, these were grade-school classes in Switzerland. And I suspect it covered more than most high school students in America learn.
  - Henchman21 7d ago
    School in the US is little more than daycare. Source: me, who was educated in that system, and had two parents who were teachers.
stefs 8d ago
the assassination of archduke franz ferdinand was just the trigger but not the reason. the war would have started anyway.
- mullingitover 8d ago
  Same goes for pre-WWII Germany and the rise of Hitler. He takes the blame but the German electorate was toxic, bloodthirsty and humiliated. They would’ve elevated the next monster in line if Hitler hadn’t been available.
  - JumpCrisscross 8d ago
    And now we’ve created global platforms incentivised to increase outrage. Now, being optimised by AI.
  - orwin 8d ago
    only 31-40% of the german electorate was that. And it was on the decline, which is why Von Papen convinced himself he would be easy to negociate cabinet postition with Hitler.
- cogman10 8d ago
  It's complicated. WW1 happened due to the crazy web of treaties between nations. It's not unlike nuclear holocaust and MAD doctrine. There could have been other triggers for WW1, but that's not really a guarantee. That is to say, definitely possible and maybe even likely but not inevitable.
  - jyounker 8d ago
    There's an argument to be made that WWI started because Wilhelm II was an incompetent statesman who disassembled his country's relationship with friendly states, and turned them into enemies.
    - conorcleary 8d ago
      Who do we know doing that?
pocksuppet 8d ago
We did sink many non-Chinese ships because a human thought the fish they were transporting were drugs.

pipes 8d ago

That's a very limited view of why ww1 started.

JumpCrisscross 8d ago
> a very limited view of why ww1 started Proximate versus ultimate causes. If a war started because America boarded a Chinese vessel, it also-obviously–wouldn't solely be because of that.
- jordanb 8d ago
  The basic problem is that they had built a domesday machine in Europe, which was the mobilization schedule. After the Franco Prussian war people realized that the next war would involve massive armies full of mobilized (conscripted) men and the country that could mobilize first would win. Countries spend decades planning for this by manufacturing enormous stockpiles of uniforms, giving their entire male population military training, etc. But the mobilization schedule for even the fastest country was still measured in weeks, but this was a process where days count. Basically once the decision was made to mobilize millions of people across an entire modern society would leap into action transforming itself into a marshal society. Millions of people getting called up, trains full of equipment going everywhere. Turning off a mobilization that was in progress was fairly difficult to conceive of, so once the decision was made the flywheel would take over, but decision to mobilize had to be made in a pressure cooker environment where hours mattered. The death of the duke wasn't the "cause" of WWI it was the starting gun for a race where the horses were all waiting impatiently at the starting line.
  - JumpCrisscross 8d ago
    Again, boarding a Chinese vessel similarly wouldn’t “cause” WWIII. But it would be a trigger and for non-pedantic usage of causation, proximate causes are also causes.
  - verdverm 8d ago
    As Indy Neidell says at the beginning of The Great War documentary ~"you can't say they slept walked into WW1 when they gave thousands of commands to move horses and men" https://www.youtube.com/@TheGreatWar https://www.youtube.com/@TheGreatWar
  - orwin 8d ago
    Not really. It took a full month for the austrian to send Serbia its ultimatum. If the ultimatum was given imediatly after the assassination, both France and Russia would have let Serbia go. Also, in France Caillaux, one of the most powerful pacifist in the government (he had the economy and was _good_ at it, which is rare enough to be noted), who was anti-war, had to be let go because his wife killed a journalist (not really a journalist, but adjascent enough so that the difference don't matter) around the same time, leaving Jaurès alone to push Viviani to let it go. Plus Viviani was with the Tsar in Russia when the ultimatum was given, which surely did not help _at all_. Especially since Rasputin was out of the capital at the time. Truly an unfortunate timing here. Plus the death of multiple diplomats involved in the prevention of WW1 at least once in 1911, who all decided to die around the same time (the last two in 1914, Pressensé and obviously Hartwig, whose death was truly, truly unfortunate). And here i'm only aware of French people who would have prevented the war (beside Hartwig and Rasputin, but everybody know about them), but i'm pretty sure even more people in Germany and in Austria could have done the same.
    - jordanb 8d ago
      Using the same logic (important diplomats dead or retired or disgraced) you could say that firing Bismark caused the war. If the top diplomats had managed to avert the Serbia crisis then the war would have been delayed until the next crisis. The fundamental problem is Europe had built itself a civilization-strattling war machine with no "abort" button and put the start button on a hair trigger (the interlocking treaty system).

kakacik 8d ago

Not sure what is there to laugh at when millions died in pretty horrible ways including americans, anyway that was classical war mongering where one of the parties got exactly what they wanted (prussians/germans). That they got more than they wanted and how it folded them is part of history. This case, its bullshit machine bullshitting randomly in between specs of stolen wisdom. Nobody asked for that, nobody is in control. We all humans lose in all cases. Quite different scenarios if you asked me.

margalabargala 8d ago
Dark/gallows humor is a thing, and also plenty of people use humor as a coping mechanism. It's fine not to share the same sense of humor, but if you truly lack an understanding of what someone else would find to laugh at that's an easy thing to learn to broaden your understanding of the world.

afavour 8d ago

That is a below high school level understanding of what caused WW1, for what it’s worth.

genxy 8d ago
You know nothing of high school students.
JumpCrisscross 8d ago
I mean yes, these were grade-school classes in Switzerland. And I suspect it covered more than most high school students in America learn.
- Henchman21 7d ago
  School in the US is little more than daycare. Source: me, who was educated in that system, and had two parents who were teachers.

stefs 8d ago

the assassination of archduke franz ferdinand was just the trigger but not the reason. the war would have started anyway.

mullingitover 8d ago
Same goes for pre-WWII Germany and the rise of Hitler. He takes the blame but the German electorate was toxic, bloodthirsty and humiliated. They would’ve elevated the next monster in line if Hitler hadn’t been available.
- JumpCrisscross 8d ago
  And now we’ve created global platforms incentivised to increase outrage. Now, being optimised by AI.
- orwin 8d ago
  only 31-40% of the german electorate was that. And it was on the decline, which is why Von Papen convinced himself he would be easy to negociate cabinet postition with Hitler.
cogman10 8d ago
It's complicated. WW1 happened due to the crazy web of treaties between nations. It's not unlike nuclear holocaust and MAD doctrine. There could have been other triggers for WW1, but that's not really a guarantee. That is to say, definitely possible and maybe even likely but not inevitable.
- jyounker 8d ago
  There's an argument to be made that WWI started because Wilhelm II was an incompetent statesman who disassembled his country's relationship with friendly states, and turned them into enemies.
  - conorcleary 8d ago
    Who do we know doing that?

pocksuppet 8d ago

We did sink many non-Chinese ships because a human thought the fish they were transporting were drugs.