Banter/Off-topic Thread & Community Stoning Platform

[God's Strongest Dragoon]

It definitely dates to at the very least classical Greece, which had plays mocking the illiterate rural population, and where the Aetolian League (which had no major poleis and was derided for consisting entirely of rural hicks).

Although the Aetolian League kept winning until it finally got smacked down by the Romans (their erstwhile allies. Just... never trust a Roman).

Republican era Romans had a very high and idealised opinion of rural life, but well, that was the idealisation. In practice, they sucked resources out of the countryside to support the cities, and rural citizens seldomly got the opportunity to participate in the political process on account of Rome's political system effectively limiting it to residents of Rome. Not legally, and there were opportunities to get around the logistical difficulties for some, but in practice.

The term pagan originated as a term for, well, hillbilly. And because all those hillbillies couldn't understand the glory and truth of that newfangled Jewish God that the citydwellers were starting to worship, the meaning of pagan eventually transformed into what we use it as today.

This being said, specifically in the American context, it's a pretty new phenomenon. Thomas Jefferson practically idolised rural life, Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt benefitted immensely from their rural backgrounds/roleplaying as having one for a while.

American media still focussed heavily on rural life as archetypical and ideal throughout the 1950s and 1960s. It was in the late 1960s to early 1970s that this shifted decisively in favor of the city, simply as a consequence of the relatively growing percentage of the urban population (and its greater per capita income), making it a more attractive market to cater to.

Bit of a difference between states duking it out and resource conflicts within a state.

That aside, "Barbarian" successes were the exception, not the norm. And without exception, they succeeded due to their targets undergoing a severe crisis beforehand. When it was unified and not fighting itself, China routinely smashed the tribes to the north. It was only when China was divided or engaged in one of its hilarious civil wars that the tribes ever had a chance.

And in Rome's case, the problems started with the crisis of the 3rd century, which sharply reduced wealth generation, while the Germanic tribes along the Rhine and Danube got the opportunity to coalesce into proto states and the Sassanids formed into a credible threat exceeding the preceding Parthians.

The 4th century saw the rise of Christianity, the establishment of monastic orders, a return to piety. It also saw ever growing deurbanisation, with the rich citizenry fleeing the cities in favor of rural estates, and monetary interests interfering with the state's ability to collect taxes or to conscript soldiers.

Rome at its most urbanised and decadent was the Rome of the 1st century BC to the 1st century AD. This was the Rome of Lucullus and Crassus, of Caligula and Nero.

This Rome never stopped growing.

The Rome that fell was a Rome of bishops and monks, of rural estate holders desinterested in supporting the state over their own wealth, disincentivised from releasing their labor force for the army.

It was the least decadent Rome had been in six centuries.

And the richter, more urban, more decadent half of the empire?

That was the one to survive for another thousand years.

Funny thing is that this time around the urbanites have eagerly disarmed themselves while the rednecks have been arming for decades. It doesn't help that the majority of the military comes from the rural population and either are going to flip sides or act as a saboteurs when they're given the order to fight their own kind.

 

[Dispirited Helmet]

It definitely dates to at the very least classical Greece, which had plays mocking the illiterate rural population, and where the Aetolian League (which had no major poleis and was derided for consisting entirely of rural hicks).

Although the Aetolian League kept winning until it finally got smacked down by the Romans (their erstwhile allies. Just... never trust a Roman).

Republican era Romans had a very high and idealised opinion of rural life, but well, that was the idealisation. In practice, they sucked resources out of the countryside to support the cities, and rural citizens seldomly got the opportunity to participate in the political process on account of Rome's political system effectively limiting it to residents of Rome. Not legally, and there were opportunities to get around the logistical difficulties for some, but in practice.

The term pagan originated as a term for, well, hillbilly. And because all those hillbillies couldn't understand the glory and truth of that newfangled Jewish God that the citydwellers were starting to worship, the meaning of pagan eventually transformed into what we use it as today.

This being said, specifically in the American context, it's a pretty new phenomenon. Thomas Jefferson practically idolised rural life, Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt benefitted immensely from their rural backgrounds/roleplaying as having one for a while.

American media still focussed heavily on rural life as archetypical and ideal throughout the 1950s and 1960s. It was in the late 1960s to early 1970s that this shifted decisively in favor of the city, simply as a consequence of the relatively growing percentage of the urban population (and its greater per capita income), making it a more attractive market to cater to.

As far as American history goes, we're very close to being an exception in terms of rhetoric, but I'd argue that started to decline after Andrew Jackson's presidency and was snuffed out by the American Civil War. American Populists, for example, started out as a bunch of farmers trying to politically organize to limit price-gouging from bankers and railroad companies: they failed, most of them went bankrupt, and their political base was eventually subsumed by the notably urban Progressive party. Sure, Roosevelt pretended to be a country boy, but that doesn't mean he was one, or that he had their best interests at heart. Prohibition was also much more catastrophic for rural areas than urban ones. Realistically, American idealization of rural society has generally been similar to that of the Romans: in practice it just doesn't hold up. I do think your point about market forces driving the issue is pretty apt though. It would also explain why early America started out as an exception to the rule, because so much of the early American economy was tied up in the agrarian South.

 

[Faceless Waifu]

I just want to shoot tourists that wandered to my gated community, is that too much to ask for?

 

[IMissTheOldInternet]

Urbanites are the reason I argue in favour of countervalue doctrine and aggressive brinkmanship.

E: ESL

 

[PleaseCheckYourReceipts]

Pulling this to the red-headed stepchild of the general threads because it is VERY off-topic.

The "civilized urbanite vs uncivilized redneck" concept is 100% universal, as far as I am aware, and has been one of the most consistent sources of conflict in the modern era. I'm not as familiar with the pre-modern period, but from what I know of ancient history (Rome, Greece. Egypt, etc.) the idea may well be baked into our DNA. The rednecks almost always lose out compared to urban populations, too. For example:

The French Revolution's War in the Vendée, and the Reign of Terror it sparked? Killed shit-tons of random rural people in the name of Jacobin (so, Parisian urbanite) ideals. My personal favorite being the hyper-insanity that was the so-called "Temple of Reason" and the subsequent Cult of the Supreme Being. All of which served as convenient distractions from the fact that urban Parisians had looted rural areas and Catholic churches to pay for their newly enlightened lifestyles. Paris itself lost 1500ish people to the Terror's purges: meanwhile the Vendée lost at least a fifth of the region's population.

Same with the Russian Revolution. The Bolsheviks (who were almost entirely based in urban areas) took over the workings of the country, and started killing relatively wealthy peasants called Kulaks and confiscating their grain and property to fuel their own development. There was a whole system of rhetoric blaming the peasantry for capitalistic resource hoarding despite the fact that most Kulaks had very little money.

There are hundreds-if not thousands-of historical examples of bigotry against rural populations, and "redneck/hillbilly" is just the latest one in the anglosphere. I'm not sure if its because the population undercurrents you mentioned lead to cultural differences, or if its specifically something to do with the urban/rural divide, but you are very much onto something. It's a concept not openly discussed in a lot of academic circles (at least not in the US ones) either, because it has some very uncomfortable implications to it for the highly educated bigots out there.

I'm not sure I'd agree with that part. See the barbarian invasions of Rome, the Mongol conquests, the Almohads, etc.

There's quite a lot of examples of an uncivilized rural people conquering a decadent urbanite civilization.

The kicker is that those same rural people tend to adopt the ways of the ones they replace. Again, see the Franks adopting Latin, the Mongols converting to local religions like islam, all the different foreign Chinese dynasties eventually becoming more and more Chinese the longer they were in power.

The urbanites tend to have cultural power and that can help them last even after defeat.

It definitely dates to at the very least classical Greece, which had plays mocking the illiterate rural population, and where the Aetolian League (which had no major poleis and was derided for consisting entirely of rural hicks).

Although the Aetolian League kept winning until it finally got smacked down by the Romans (their erstwhile allies. Just... never trust a Roman).

Republican era Romans had a very high and idealised opinion of rural life, but well, that was the idealisation. In practice, they sucked resources out of the countryside to support the cities, and rural citizens seldomly got the opportunity to participate in the political process on account of Rome's political system effectively limiting it to residents of Rome. Not legally, and there were opportunities to get around the logistical difficulties for some, but in practice.

The term pagan originated as a term for, well, hillbilly. And because all those hillbillies couldn't understand the glory and truth of that newfangled Jewish God that the citydwellers were starting to worship, the meaning of pagan eventually transformed into what we use it as today.

This being said, specifically in the American context, it's a pretty new phenomenon. Thomas Jefferson practically idolised rural life, Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt benefitted immensely from their rural backgrounds/roleplaying as having one for a while.

American media still focussed heavily on rural life as archetypical and ideal throughout the 1950s and 1960s. It was in the late 1960s to early 1970s that this shifted decisively in favor of the city, simply as a consequence of the relatively growing percentage of the urban population (and its greater per capita income), making it a more attractive market to cater to.

Bit of a difference between states duking it out and resource conflicts within a state.

That aside, "Barbarian" successes were the exception, not the norm. And without exception, they succeeded due to their targets undergoing a severe crisis beforehand. When it was unified and not fighting itself, China routinely smashed the tribes to the north. It was only when China was divided or engaged in one of its hilarious civil wars that the tribes ever had a chance.

And in Rome's case, the problems started with the crisis of the 3rd century, which sharply reduced wealth generation, while the Germanic tribes along the Rhine and Danube got the opportunity to coalesce into proto states and the Sassanids formed into a credible threat exceeding the preceding Parthians.

The 4th century saw the rise of Christianity, the establishment of monastic orders, a return to piety. It also saw ever growing deurbanisation, with the rich citizenry fleeing the cities in favor of rural estates, and monetary interests interfering with the state's ability to collect taxes or to conscript soldiers.

Rome at its most urbanised and decadent was the Rome of the 1st century BC to the 1st century AD. This was the Rome of Lucullus and Crassus, of Caligula and Nero.

This Rome never stopped growing.

The Rome that fell was a Rome of bishops and monks, of rural estate holders desinterested in supporting the state over their own wealth, disincentivised from releasing their labor force for the army.

It was the least decadent, least urbanised Rome had been in six centuries.

And the richer, more urban, more decadent half of the empire?

That was the one to survive for another thousand years.

Funny thing is that this time around the urbanites have eagerly disarmed themselves while the rednecks have been arming for decades. It doesn't help that the majority of the military comes from the rural population and either are going to flip sides or act as a saboteurs when they're given the order to fight their own kind.

A lot to try to cover here without writing a thesis, haha.

When it comes to direct conflicts, I think it's probably better to not look at the situations by the winner/losers and more about potential outcomes. I mostly take this view because it highlights better where conflicts turned (and who turned them) while trying to mostly account for the relative positions that drove the decision making all of parties. Nearly all of Roman history was dictated less by their general skill of their leadership and more just a simple reality of a system that could put so much men & material into the battlespace that they'd win by attrition. Which for as much as the outer parts of the Empire had become highly independent by the 3rd Century, it was really more a couple of plagues that rolled through that really did the heavy lifting for shattering it. Though wide spanning Empires will always be self-defeating because of both logistical realities and due to administration creating regional power bases.

There's kind of a funny bit when people want to do the "USA is the new Rome" discussion, because the USA actually had the "civil war leads to Empire" chunk before ever establishing an imperial throne system. So rather than becoming a new version of Classical Rome, the USA managed to recreate the Holy Roman Empire within living memory of the collapse of the HRE. And if you know much about the Holy Roman Empire, you also know it wasn't Holy, Roman or really much of an Empire.

As for the Central vs Outlands dynamic, it exists everywhere and pretty much since records started. There's always that dynamic of the Growing Lands and the more space efficient Cities. However, the only advantage the Cities ever has is coordination in open conflict. If the Outlands is able to coordinate, they'll roll the Cities. If the Cities are already defensible, they have a strong chance of winning the siege. It's those defensible city walls that truly matters. See: Constantinople. If you don't have walls, you better have waterways. The Resources required to bypass those defenses are what makes all of the difference.

This is why the likelihood of victory for the Outlanders really depends on the state of warfare at the time. If warfare is about big, massed battles, that means the power structures are designed around putting those into action. The logistics involved are thus very sensitive to when there's any issues and resistance will be noticed early and countermanded. However, the more disconnected the warfare, the much more advantaged the Outlanders will be. It's hard to take into account technological & strategic differences in every situation, but the entirety of conflict in the Americas from 1492 onward has been based around small group tactical fighting because application of immense resources is logistically incredibly difficult. The places that hasn't worked, France during the Revolution, is due to being able to out coordinate with a far better logistically infrastructure (built up over the last 2000 years) from the centrality of Paris against the Growing Regions.

There's also, when it comes to City vs Outlands conflict, a massive issue of the Objectives of the Leadership. If the Outlanders accept annihilation of the Cities as an acceptable outcome, the Cities will have a very hard time even forcing a stalemate. This topic is really important because any time the Progressives in the States are doing the "we should start another civil war" song & dance, you have to really pound it into their heads that any domestic conflict in the USA will lead to the utter destruction of any major cities. 10 teams of 10 can make a majority city uninhabitable without any chance of repairing infrastructure in time to avoid complete system collapse. This is why the internal security is so super sensitive to any groups trying to organize for basically any reason. It's also why the FBI has to invent more to keep their budget, as that type of organization is fairly cyclical.

A last point is that part of the "rural idealism" stuff has always been around. It's beyond just the pull of "being out in Nature" or religious effects of it. Centralized Power is nothing but jockeying, positioning, compromise and moral decay for everyone involved. It's why psychopaths & sociopaths rise to the top. It's not a space fit for a human that wants to maintain their soul. No one ever wants to say it because it's a sign of weakness, but that's really what is going on. It's one thing to be vigilant on a defensive wall, it's another thing to always have to be looking behind you as well.

 

[Aquatic Novellite]

There is itself a streak of romanticism here. The romanticised ideal of the hard, down to earth, rural men fighting a glorious fight against urban degeneracy encroaching on them, trying to corrupt or annihilate them.

This is a fantasy engaged in by cracked people online, not reality, and I can only strongly encourage anyone who even remotely starts to take this kind of thing seriously to stop hatereading on social media and touch grass.

 

[agility_]

When are you warhawks going to wake up. You do not win a nuclear war, because there isn't such a thing. It's deterrence, then breaking point. Everything after those birds fly is just pure survival and learning to live in a poluted devastated wasteland.
You are literally praying each night that some pajeet or chinaman invents a magical glass dome that can shield your utopian gated community from the destruction.

 

[Nenélove]

Truth is that any disruption to the trade complex we have built for food distribution will make billions starve in a week, specially the chinks. Though knowing them they will find some other shit off the ground to eat and just reproduce even faster than they can starve to death as they have always done.

 

[God's Strongest Dragoon]

Truth is that any disruption to the trade complex we have built for food distribution will make billions starve in a week, specially the chinks.

Nah, they'll go back to literally eating each other.

 

[Brosnan Pierce Brosnan]

You are what you eat - The Chinese (probably) (highly likely)

 

[RestlessRain]

Pride month is over, all you fags can go back into the closet for another eleven months.

 

[Superduper Samurai]

Pride month is over, all you fags can go back into the closet for another eleven months.

they were in the closet???

 

[Abomination]

Happy end-of Pride month. Made it through another one. Always remember:



Amen.

 

[Hff201]

@superduper How are you this far behind? She graduated at the end of May.

I thought the promiscuous yellow women would have stuck together, but I guess not.

 

[superduper]

@superduper How are you this far behind? She graduated at the end of May.

I thought the promiscuous yellow women would have stuck together, but I guess not.

I've been slacking and my computer has been a piece of shit for a while now so I got lazy.

 

[ChangqingEnjoyer]

So this thread moved to politicsfagging when the homosexuals are gone huh.

 

[Hff201]

So this thread moved to politicsfagging when the homosexuals are gone huh.

More of the same then.

 

[God's Strongest Mozumite]

So this thread moved to politicsfagging when the homosexuals are gone huh.

And now that you're back, things should return to normal

 

[ChangqingEnjoyer]

And now that you're back, things should return to normal

Just popping by. I don't have the same time that I used too.

More of the same then.

Who will be the next niganon I'm this perpetual circle...

 

[Hff201]

Who will be the next niganon I'm this perpetual circle...

You seem nice, but you're not my type, sorry. I hope you can find a new niganon you'll be happy with.