Whenever I discuss history its shocking how much ignorance I encounter from even trained historians about the level of poverty in the past
Contrary to idiots and revisionists No. People in the past were horrifyingly impoverished
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Medieval buffs and scholars are the absolute worst for this.
Figures in the renaissance and enlightenment made bullshit up about how "Backwards" the Medievals were compared to themselves, or the ancients... and now every medieval scholar has a chip on their shoulder.
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Its true the Medieval period isn't some great outlier from the ancient world, renaissance, or early modern.
But that's because all of these eras were horrifyingly, unthinkably, impoverished by the standard of anyone living today.
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This is the most important graph in history.
World GDP per Capita from the ancient world to today
In WW2 UK gdp per capita was $10k per person (modern Dominican Republic), in 1870 it was 5k (El Salvador), and before 1800 it was below $2k (Haiti) before 1600 $500 (Somalia)
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The most horrifically crushing poverty you can imagine was the norm, Everywhere, for almost all of human history.
I've focused on the UK because it was the first to industrialize, so unless you're American (which got wealthy "Slightly" faster) assume your country was worse
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This leads me into the point I get vastly more pushback on.
How common prostitution was and how horrifically near ruin was for women.
If women screwed up their prospects, lost a husband or father, or were socially "Fallen" They were obscenely likely to become prostitutes.
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For some reason there are vast collections of history buffs and even historians who will try to contest when all the scholarship and primary sources scream this fact.
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Early modern writers from Shakespeare to Ford, to Wilmot, to Defoe, to Fielding, to Richardson are all clear about this.
They account the harrowing peril women would find themselves in and the life or death struggle to protect their reputations and marriage prospects
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Because once a woman became pregnant out of wedlock, or was known to have lost her chastity... to have "Fallen", that was most likely impossible for her to ever have financial security again unless she had a very generous family benefactor.
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the Lancet Medical Journal of 1887, estimated there were 80,000 prostitutes in London. 3% of the total population of 2,360,000. or 6% of all women.
11/ 700 years earlier there were 1000 prostitutes employed BY THE CATHOLIC CHURCH in London in the 1100s
The Church ran these "for the girl's protection". We have their records
The population of London was 20-40k in 1100
this was 10% of London women just in church run brothels
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Rampant prostitution as a matter of survival is just a fact of life in in horribly impoverished times and places like modern Haiti, or the entirety of human history before 1900, and every source we have on the matter agrees
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Throughout the 19th century sentimentalists and moral reformers like Charles Dickens, Leo Tolstoy, and Thomas Hardy tried to reframe the prevailing moral narratives around "Fallen Women" through their writing and Dickens and others set up the first women's shelters.
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But inspite of the incredible work of historians, the overwhelming economic consensus about how horrific the past was, the archeological evidence of terrifyingly low lifespans form ancient Rome to the victorians, and cut and dry records...
People deny this.
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Somehow people can look at the undeniable horrors of Victorian London, the wealthiest city that had ever existed, see again and again that every other era describes nothing different
And then choose to believe fairy tales about the 18th or 16th or 12th or 8th or 1st century
P.S.
Also checkout out my deep dive into Modern institutional decay and prison Gangs in my hit piece:
Before CG before aftereffects, this joint British Russian production recreated the entire battle in exact detail
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So how does one recreate a battle of 100s of thousands without CG?
Well that's why its so singular.
This joint English-Russian production somehow got 15'000 red army conscripts to spend months learning Napoleonic drill and donning period dress... to be extras.
In October it was announced 23 year old French citizen Shani De Corte died via assisted suicide, She had no medical issues but suffered from PTSD following a terrorist attack
healthy adults are being given assisted suicide in the west.
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Not a month goes by I don't hear an equivalent story: some depressive being granted assisted suicide, one with partial blindness, one with chronic pain
People with decades left to live activists will protest
But more horrifying:
People who could just do it themselves!!!
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suicide requires shockingly little: a pistol, access to an ice flow or great height, a car and a wall, under $200 of liquor
And yet of all the places on earth, healthy melancholic young people are choosing to die in hospitals surrounded by obese nurses & florescent lights
Sneering Illiterates brace yourselves... I'm just going to say it.
The great American novel has been written
and its ATLAS SHRUGGED.
Irrespective of her philosophy Ayn Rand might just be the greatest prose stylist America has ever produced
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What is ATLAS SHRUGGED? What is its genre?
Atlas Shrugged is a 1500 page screed against FDR, God, and non-BDSM sexual relationships, written as a cross between a very slow mystery (that's already spoiled), a long meeting on industrial purchasing, and a harlequin romance
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Seriously its a "Mary Sue fucks the male cast" story... Rand just didn't know she was born too soon and was supposed to write it as an erotic Harry Potter fan fic
There is no way whatsoever that this should work. It breaks every unspoken rule of not just writing, but decency
There's a lot of doomerism in the US and while some of this can verge really deranged, there are some really core insights you get from Rad Libertarians, Preppers, and geopolitics watchers, that most people simply have not internalized.
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Globally Every institution that makes up the modern world is about 80 years old
Every major government institution was set into place during or immediately after WW2.
Social security, education, health schemes, military policy...
And they've been impossible to change since
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The problem is every single one of these institutions assumes 1940s demographics where everyone has 3-4 kids and almost everyone dies of a heart attack at 65.
Medicare and Social security where minor budget items when they came out...
The American empire is receding, even if there's no crash or Trumpian withdrawal, America's economic and military dominance is turning into mere preeminence.
How will warfare look after empire? The answer may lie in video games.
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There's a concept you see a lot in video games, that exists almost nowhere else in fiction.
That of the Merc/Knight/Ace.
Whether its jets, tanks, mechs, subs, or spec ops, video games love to place you in the shoes of a picaresque sellsword out for fortune and glory.
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This obviously works well in a game.
Suddenly keeping accounts, navigating different loyalties, managing subordinates. purchasing gear... that all becomes the player's problem, and the game dev gets new ways to reward or punish good/bad play