PugJesus
History Major. Cripple. Vaguely Left-Wing. In pain and constantly irritable.
- 91 Posts
- 274 Comments
Mood tho, minus fortnite
What if I told you I still don’t know how to crosspost on Piefed 😭
I hate having to copy the link and title manually. Call me lazy. DX
Temporarily embarrassed capitalist!
3·5 days ago“Yes! We’re all individuals!”
Warhammer 40,000
Took me a moment
You in big poodoo now.
Same, but I also have only really discussed moon landing lunacy with other Americans. It may be that there’s a different demographic attracted to the conspiracy theory outside of the USA.
Yep, the article mentions as much. You’d have to trust public access to NASA telescopes, which no self-respecting conspiracy theorist would, of course.
Explanation: During the Cold War, the USA and USSR competed in many areas to ‘prove’ whose system was superior. One such area was the so-called “Space Race”, wherein both sides competed for prestigious ‘first achievements’ in space. The USSR put up the first satellites and people into space, but the USA was the first to land people on the moon.
… for some reason, an enduring minority in the US has continued to believe that it was a ‘hoax’ and ‘faked’, for gods only know what reason. The USSR, by contrast, was watching the whole affair very closely - once it was apparent that the mission was a success, genuine congratulations were extended, and samples of moon rocks were shared with USSR when the mission touched down. After all, the competition was about the prestige - science knows no borders*!
*unless it has some military application, at which point it becomes classified
Explanation: During the Cold War, the USA and USSR competed in many areas to ‘prove’ whose system was superior. One such area was the so-called “Space Race”, wherein both sides competed for prestigious ‘first achievements’ in space. The USSR put up the first satellites and people into space, but the USA was the first to land people on the moon.
… for some reason, an enduring minority in the US has continued to believe that it was a ‘hoax’ and ‘faked’, for gods only know what reason. The USSR, by contrast, was watching the whole affair very closely - once it was apparent that the mission was a success, genuine congratulations were extended, and samples of moon rocks were shared with USSR when the mission touched down. After all, the competition was about the prestige - science knows no borders*!
*unless it has some military application, at which point it becomes classified
Yep, first time!
I suspect it was Claudius just being proactive - “The longer you keep me alive, the richer you get. So keep not killing me, please.” A thinker and a planner, Claudius!
They were mostly quiet during Claudius’s reign, but later the Praetorians’d become real terrors of that sort, outright extorting Emperors at swordpoint. Of course, they also were pretty militarily ineffectual - in one incident in the 3rd century, they failed to install their chosen imperial candidate because the people of Rome, literal civilians rioting in the streets, overwhelmed them and installed their (and the Senate’s) candidate.
Explanation: The mad Roman Emperor Caligula pissed off the commander of the Praetorian Guard, whose job it was to guard the Emperor. He would regularly denigrate the commander by calling him gay and a cuck, and being the Emperor, and a loose-cannon Emperor at that, the commander had to sit there and take it
like the cuck he wasFor obvious reasons, pissing off your bodyguard is not a smart move; between the personal enmity and Caligula’s own senseless reign, the Praetorian commander organized a coup which assassinated Caligula.
Caligula’s uncle, Claudius, was a bookish man with a limp and a stutter who was largely kept around by Caligula and his court to torment with practical jokes. Once Claudius realized the Praetorians were butchering the Old Regime™, he suspected that being a victim of the regime wouldn’t matter nearly so much as his closeness to it. Claudius hid behind a curtain in the imperial palace, having no other way out and hoping that he could survive just long enough for their wrath to subside.
Instead, he was discovered by a low-ranking Praetorian, who opened the curtain and recognized him as Caligula’s uncle. Rather than killing him, however, this Praetorian saw an opportunity, whether ideological, practical, or… pecuniary. The Praetorian proclaimed Claudius Emperor, and rounded up some of his comrades to add their voices to the ‘vote’. One expects that Claudius did not feel he had much choice but to agree if he wanted to keep his head attached to his body. An ever-growing crowd of Praetorian troops whisked Claudius away to their encampment ‘for his safety’ and spread the word of the new Emperor, even as unknowing Praetorian officers were arguing with the Senate over what to do next.
Claudius, who had remained reasonably popular even through Caligula’s reign, was supported by the crowds, and so the Senate and Praetorian brass proclaimed him Emperor as well, seeing a fait accompli that would be hard to reverse. Claudius went on to rule as a reformer and deeply involved administrator who strengthened the Empire and the fairness of its legal systems.
… however, he never forgot what happened to his nephew. Not out of a sense of vengeance, as there was little love between the two, but out of… reasonable caution. So every year he paid the Praetorians a bonus multiplied by the number of years he was in power, as a celebration of the ‘longevity’ of his reign. The Praetorians remained loyal to him.
Money makes the world go 'round!
Explanation: The Roman Emperor Caligula once ordered his troops to ‘make war’ on Neptune, the Roman god of the sea, by stabbing the incoming tides and collecting seashells as booty. Interpretations of this act… vary. Some attribute it to Caligula’s supposed madness - others, to him having a bit of a lark by exercising how total his control as Emperor was (“I can make you lot do anything, no matter how stupid or humiliating” sort of thing, very popular amongst tyrants of all ages). Some say it was to humiliate the troops for refusing to go on a supposed campaign to Britannia, which was not yet conquered at that point.
This poor pupper is a prime recruit for Caligula’s next campaign against the brutality of Neptune!
Yeah, unfortunately, nuclear power should have been heavily invested in about… 50 years ago. The “The best time was yesterday, the second-best time is now” line doesn’t apply with advancements in other energy sources and the sheer time it takes to build and get a nuclear plant operational. The best time was yesterday - now is perhaps the worst time.
Still, it is always good to push back on anti-nuclear sentiment. Every nuclear plant kept running is a massive amount of fossil fuels removed from power generation. I remember when Merkel closed a ton of nuclear plants in Germany for dogshit PR reasons, handing power back to fossil fuel suppliers.