• @[email protected]
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    1001 month ago

    I’m reading a book from the 30s and it has phrases like: “in the time after the war”. It’s written in 1937 and hits differently in hindsight.

    • partial_accumen
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      1071 month ago

      They called WWI “the war to end all wars”. Then humanity developed its interest in sequels.

      • @[email protected]
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        291 month ago

        Yes, the “second war to end all wars” and the “cold war that only gets hot in the periphery”

      • @[email protected]
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        201 month ago

        Nukes are about the only reason we haven’t made it a trilogy.

        It’ll be the last one in the franchise if they do.

        • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet
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          21 month ago

          It is possible to engage in global warfare without deploying the nukes. Don’t undersell their creativity.

      • @[email protected]
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        71 month ago

        Typical holywood and their sequels. Just pray they don’t remember to retrofit a prequel in there.

      • @[email protected]
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        61 month ago

        WWII wasn’t even really a sequel - it’s more of a classic reboot. It’s almost exactly the same story as the first one, just with a few twists like Japan and the atomic bomb ending thrown in.

        • partial_accumen
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          11 month ago

          I think you’re underplaying the sequel aspects. Russia was one of the antagonists in the first installment, began as an antagonist in the second, but flipped to protagonist ally in the first act. Also in the first installment the Ottoman Empire was an antagonist ally, where Turkey was neutral through all of WWII. Finally, China was an ally in WWII and huge victim of the Japanese , but underwent a revolution joining with Russia to become the primary antagonists in the third installment “Cold War”.

    • The Picard Maneuver
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      171 month ago

      Wow, that truly is my favorite part of reading/watching old media. I love learning how people thought back then.

      • IndiBrony
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        311 month ago

        People in November 2019: “Next year is my year!”

        Little did we know.

        • @[email protected]
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          121 month ago

          Eventually they’ll be a bigger pandemic and all this post pandemic talk will be seen in the same light

        • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet
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          21 month ago

          No joke, my wife and I had legitimate plans to finally do some traveling abroad in 2020, after talking about it for a decade and a half. FML.

      • @[email protected]
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        1 month ago

        He also talks about unemployment rates in Britain and “unless a war is coming soon” many people will stay underfed. Maybe the British proletariat is behind WWII?

        Edit: Since I’m downvoted: the last sentence was a joke, obviously

  • @[email protected]
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    541 month ago

    Pro tip for time travelers, ask what year it is instead. So much easier. It’s weird to ask, or be asked, but it’s less weird tham giving spoilers.

    • @[email protected]
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      271 month ago

      They did still have trenches and other fortifications in WW2. That said…

      1. Do you see any tanks traveling faster than 15mph? Any planes with less than four wings?
      • WW2
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      • WW1
      1. Folks with gas masks on their belts are definitely a tell.
    • @[email protected]
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      41 month ago

      Ground so dangerous you couldn’t walk offinto the fields. So many shells fired it turn the soil into quick sand. Stick to the boards. If you slip and fall your compatriots dare not try and save you or their fate will be sealed as well.

      • @[email protected]
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        31 month ago

        So many shells fired it turn the soil into quick sand.

        An interesting stat is that the major combatants fired approximately 300 artillery shells for every soldier that was killed - and 75mm shells (the most common caliber) are not trivial industrial products to produce. It’s hard to even conceive of an industrial society devoting that much productive capacity to the task of killing somebody.

  • @[email protected]
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    151 month ago

    I think I saw on QI that WWI was already being called that before the war had ended.

    People at the time knew there would probably be another one someday.

    Which isn’t that odd, really. We use the Term WWIII at times. It’s not that we know it will definitely happen but it’s not something that’s unfathomable either.

      • @[email protected]
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        71 month ago

        You heard correct. I have never heard any contemporary account from the time call it “WW1” - they did call it “the war to end all wars,” though.

        • @[email protected]
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          11 month ago

          I found this citation referring to a book published in 1920, though I couldn’t find the text of the book itself online.

          What I find more interesting is the use of the phrase “millenial folk”.

    • @[email protected]
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      41 month ago

      Good point. Of course, with the number of nuclear war-heads we’ve built, I would feel pretty confident referring to it as “World War Final”.

      I actually usually just refer to it as “our extinction event”. But I’ll acknowledge I’m going out on a limb - there’s plenty of other ways we could finish ourselves off.

  • Toes♀
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    121 month ago

    “It sure isn’t ww3, I don’t see any drones”

      • @dumbass
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        21 month ago

        There’s a lot of eerie coincidences between WW1 and WW4 that it makes you wonder if somone really is behind it all.

  • @dumbass
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    61 month ago

    That image of Kurt Angle will never stop being hilarious to me. God I love that man.

      • @dumbass
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        1 month ago

        I love how that went from an attack on him, to a sign of respect for him. I can’t hear that song without singing YOU SUCK! Same with Cenas, can’t not hear “John Cena Sucks!” When that horn hits.