Recent comments in /f/history

TXGuns79 t1_jaoqgo1 wrote

Reply to Sea creatures in Greek manuscript and Norse mythology may have been whales with mouths agape — Fish instinctively swim toward apparent shelter of creature’s mouth, a phenomenon depicted in ancient texts as early as 2,000 years ago by marketrent

What I think is crazy, is everything says baleen whales eat plankton and only plankton. But, here, a baleen whale is eating fish, and not just fry or the occasional fish accendentally.

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I-Make-Maps91 t1_jaoolb1 wrote

Reply to comment by Kilmire in Sea creatures in Greek manuscript and Norse mythology may have been whales with mouths agape — Fish instinctively swim toward apparent shelter of creature’s mouth, a phenomenon depicted in ancient texts as early as 2,000 years ago by marketrent

How many stories do we tell kids where the fish gets bigger and bigger every time, or the bear scarier and scarier. I doubt that's new behavior, and story telling was probably a lot more common before we had radios and TV.

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Xirdus t1_jaol3gy wrote

Reply to comment by Kilmire in Sea creatures in Greek manuscript and Norse mythology may have been whales with mouths agape — Fish instinctively swim toward apparent shelter of creature’s mouth, a phenomenon depicted in ancient texts as early as 2,000 years ago by marketrent

> desire to burn society down

> steal the wealth and sleep on resulting pile of stolen gold

> flying

> fire breathing

> dinosaur

A crow is the closest we have to a real life dragon. It's all of the above except breathing fire.

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Kilmire t1_jaojiz6 wrote

Reply to comment by bradaltf4 in Sea creatures in Greek manuscript and Norse mythology may have been whales with mouths agape — Fish instinctively swim toward apparent shelter of creature’s mouth, a phenomenon depicted in ancient texts as early as 2,000 years ago by marketrent

It's less because we're idiots but more the fact they aren't real beasts or whatever doesn't matter at all for the stories they help tell and that make them so gripping. Like who literally believes in monsters these days anyways? I'd say it'd be far dumber to forget them outright because they tell important metaphorical stories.

Dragons are real, in that desire to burn society down, steal the wealth and sleep on resulting pile of stolen gold can be seen lots in people throughout history. Doesn't matter if they're actually a flying, fire breathing dinosaur or not if that's what they're acting like.

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dropbear123 t1_jaog2si wrote

Reply to comment by No-Strength-6805 in Bookclub and Sources Wednesday! by AutoModerator

I think at the the time of writing the review I just felt like I didn't have much to say about it, plus it feels like there is more to say about big picture books than books that focus on a general and his strategy.

Now that it's been a couple of days I can offer more thoughts -

When it comes to technology the author argues against the view that Haig was old-fashioned and didn't understand new technology. Instead he says the opposite, that if anything Haig was way too optimistic about how effective new weapons like gas and tanks would be.

For Haig's continued planning on a breakthrough Sheffield also defends this quite a bit. For a start it was politically difficult to do otherwise, the French wouldn't have accepted the British doing only small scale attacks and that the British public wouldn't have accepted neverending yet still costly bite and hold battles - hope of a eventual breakthrough the German lines was needed for morale. Additionally it would have been irresponsible of Haig to not have a plan if an offensive did have major success.

There is a lot of focus on the background and adminstrative stuff which led the British forces to be highly effective by the end of the war.

There is a also a lot on Haig's relationship with his subordinates. In these bits the author is quite critical of some of his Haig's commmanders like Gough and Rawlinson but also criticises Haig for not getting a strong grip on these men and making it clear what his intentions were.

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