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I recall a story, which I'm not sure of the truthful nature of, involving a number of casualties during the First World War that resulted from a mere coffee break. Namely, that the water they collected to boil came from a submerged crater, and that same crater had more than one body in it. Or in...

Does that mean that 283 stunts went right, or that 17 went wrong?  ???

I don't really get the issue here. So the Secret Service and the Schutzstaffel have the same initials. Their origins are entirely different, so it's just a quirk of language. That being said, Trump would have been wiser to have never gotten a twitter account in the first place, as with pretty...

Probably not unsurprising, because it would make sense to use it as a starting point. The edits just have not been made yet.!  :rofl:

I described such dynamics in terms which involved trying to put a toddler to bed. Unfortunately, it seems you are saying I am very, very accurate with that observation?

I certainly think that escalation to violence is often genuinely wanted by elements on both (or more) sides of a conflict, dragging everyone else along off the cliff. One might be tempted to respond to these protests the same way one might deal with an obstinate toddler. When my brother and his...

I see too many parallels to parts of the French Revolution. You folk see the news of what is going on in Seattle?

Pretty sure that by the end of the month, there will be dozens more Pride celebrations where they are no longer welcome. Gotta feel for the police that are members of that particular community.

Yes. I wrote the following short story last year, and as I look on the events that are going on in the world right now, I have to smile at the brutally effective point that I didn't realize I was making with it: Do No Harm There are some things that are, for lack of a better way of putting it...

Indeed, I do hesitate when it comes to biased history getting published, but I mean that such biased history writings would still need to be published under the same standards by which all other publications are produced. I view allowing bad history (and other bad scholarship) to get published...

Even without the Victors putting down their version of events, there are ways to interpret blank pages - because the page exists, and surrounding details can give clues as to why a particular page exists. My problem is with the fact that altering written history, or even just changing how...

Exactly! Hence why I like the term "Clue-by-four." It's just as harsh a blow as an SEE.

You do not understand. The point is, because the records written by "victors" get challenged as time progresses, one really cannot say that it is an unshakable truth. By all means let biased history be published, the historical record is not the written histories, it is the entire body of...

I despise the whole "History is written by the Victors" idea, because it is so easy to misunderstand. I'm one of the rare sorts of historians who study not only the historical record, but the history *of* the historical record. One of the most valuable artifacts ever recovered from the earliest...

One of my mentors (whom was a major reference in my DEO application) just had his 70th birthday. One of the most interesting things he told me was something that he happened to witness. While serving in a field hospital during his time in the USAF, he was witness to a racist's epiphany. This...

Civilization is always, unfortunately, going to be little more than a polite fiction, or, if you're feeling optimistic, a species-wide mutual delusion. There's a quote that I love from Star Trek DS9: There are reasons why certain social, political, and yes, religious groups and ideologies...

Altering the historical record to better match modern sensibilities is probably even more dangerous than altering one's own memories to better match one's current beliefs. While I greatly enjoy the wit in the statement that there are no problems that cannot be solved by the proper use of high...

Tens of thousands. Co-operation across groups, without adverse triggers, is what I consider the most notable feature of our species. The fact that we are able to compete at the same time we co-operate is something I would love to explain to extraterrestrial xenographers.

Perhaps the thing that most troubles me about this subject is the tendancy to dismiss the expert when what that expert has to say challenges the dominant narrative. The focus of one of my major anthropology research projects deals with a period of prehistory in which there was no such thing as...

I know! They build with, rather than in spite of natural features and geography, especially in their oldest cities.