You should know who that claim comes from and why it is complete bullshit. I hate seeing it repeated so much

I have an unreasonable dislike for sir Glubb. His conclusion is just wrong and based on horrible data. It bothers me that his opinion has lasted this long in the public consciousness

I mean look at this shit bruh

I’d be embarassed to have made this. What made him choose these dates? Wdym the Ottoman empire only lasted 250 years??? Yes, the Roman empire totally ended in 180 A.D. nothing happened after that don’t worry about it haha. Don’t even look at China, doesn’t matter, nothing is going on there. Like??? I hate him

America is coming to its end as an empire but it’s not because it reached some arbitrary date set by a Brit trying to rationalize the fall of his empire in a way that absolves its people of any fault.

The death of the last competent emporer is not the death of the empire itself. I personally wouldn’t put a hard date on the end of the western roman empire as I don’t think of myself a competent Roman historian but I refuse to consider it earlier than 395.

America hasn’t competent leadership for a while but its empire is still very much alive.

Edit: not sure I understood what you meant by the last part of your comment so I apologize if I misinterpreted something and my response feels out of place

Made this comment on the hexbear post but I will put it here too because of my hatred for Sir Glubb

I have an unreasonable dislike for sir Glubb. His conclusion is just wrong and based on horrible data. It bothers me that his opinion has lasted this long in the public consciousness

I mean look at this shit bruh

I’d be embarassed to have made this. What made him choose these dates? Wdym the Ottoman empire only lasted 250 years??? Yes, the Roman empire totally ended in 180 A.D. nothing happened after that don’t worry about it haha. Don’t even look at China, doesn’t matter, nothing is going on there. Like??? I hate him

America is coming to its end as an empire but it’s not because it reached some arbitrary date set by a Brit trying to rationalize the fall of his empire in a way that absolves its people of any fault.

22% of the worlds incarcerated people are held in the US iirc

Hot

You never specified a duration. The suffering here could be minimal relative to the immense pleasure of the human species shortly before death

Granted. The driving force for human advancement ceases and technological progress grinds to a halt. Hedonism grips the population and the long term rewarding efforts such as art are abandoned in favor of revelry. There is endless pleasure yes, but no satisfaction.

He’s sad he isn’t allowed to have slaves like his ancestors 😔

Truly a tragedy. How will he survive without cohorts of children to groom?

Made pesto again

Used more olive oil relative to water and used my pasta water instead of normal water. I also added some sun dried tomato to the pesto and found it tp be pretty tasty.

So scary that Ringo Starr has the elf stones. What will he, the known wielder of the elf stones, do with them?

Yeah of course, that’s part of the process of developing a consistant political perspective. You’re gonna fuck up and violate your own internal moral code or develop one that contradicts itself in some ways. That’s okay as long as you learn from it no?

There’s got to be some structural reason these things keep happening…

Do I need to say more than “Russia is evil”?

Yes lol, you do need to say more than that.

Anyway it seems like we just have different standards for how clearly our meanings should be articulated. Especially on topics such as these. This is likely because I come from a country where Islamophobia is so endemic. Statements like the original commenter made are something I often hear said sarcastly from people I know to be bigots. In my experience it has been people like this who supported our brutal invasions and/or sanctions of Iraq, Iran, Syria, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Often times they are also the type to be sympathetic to Israel (or at least were at one point). They use their supposed disgust with the bigotry of the foreigner to mask their own bigotry and support for imperialist plunder. So perhaps I overanalyzed that persons statement but perhaps my experiences let me see things you might miss.

Finally, I wasn’t suggesting we discuss the revolution in Bedouin society caused by Islam I just think it is cool and interesting and something you should read about when you get the chance.

When determining if an action is moral you should include the reason for the action into your analysis rather than stopping at “action bad” because bad guy did it before.

As long as you are also taking other actions to further the goal of revolution. I am not the type to take issue with electoralism if electoralism isn’t what you spend all of your energy on. I would also encourage you to keep your expectations (but not your demands) for these candidates low as to avoid falling into doomerism.

Criticizing a religion is no more a criticism of the individual believers than calling a national government (like the Russian one maybe) evil is equivalent to claiming all who share that nationality are evil.

If one is to this then they must make it clear which the original commentor did not. They did not say “the religious hierarchy within islam is oppressive in order to preserve existing structures of power”, they just clearly implied Islam is intolerant without any addition of context. I believe my interpretation was reasonable within those bounds.

I also encourage you to look into how Bedouins treated women before Islam. Or anyone for that matter, it was often unpleasant to be a part of their society and Islam made their lives better.

To say Islam is intolerant is to generally claim that Muslims are intolerant. I don’t think you can seperate the claim from its implications.

I think it is worth noting that Islam was a liberatory movement in the age of its emergence and continued to be so for long after in many cases. Especially for women. It only became oppressive as it became part of the state. This was furthered by European imperialism in West Asia and North Africa. The Islam you see today can be dramatically different from the Islam of 1850.

Religion is superstructural. It is not the source of misogyny nor is it the source of oppression generally. It can be used to justify these things sure but it is not why they exist. I won’t pretend to fully understand the social relations within West Asia and their origin but it is certain that there are material rather than idealist reasons for their current state. Removing the religion would not remove the impetus for misogyny and oppression it would only remove its current justification.

These people must overcome these cultural struggles on their own terms and in their own time while we work on our own as well. The reason I worry about the original commenters perception of Islam is because such perspectives are utilized by our governments to justify imperialist aggression against Muslim majority countries. This imperialist aggression is wrapped in the language of helping their oppressed groups but never does anything of the sort. Cultures do not grow under imperial boots.