HH60 - The Celtic Holocaust

[katarn]

Somebody on twitter claimed he had 20 million on the last show and Dan responded, but didn't deny the number. I imagine only Dan knows how many downloads he gets.

It would be prudent also to remember that several outlets Dan uses don't require downloading- his own website can be used over wi-fi, for example, so even an unknown number of downloads isn't representative of listeners.

[TheReal_ND]

Twenty million isn't equal to the number of listeners. Each click counts as a download so everyone listening over and over to a show racks up the download count.

[Speaker to Animals]

On the whole, I think I agree with you. How about we narrow the question though: Gibbon's Rome under the Antonines or medieval England?

Historians tend to reject Gibbons' entire project, though. His thesis doesn't even match historical reality. For example, his attack on Christianity doesn't stand to reason given that the eastern half of the Roman civilization became the most Christianized part of the world and carried the torch of classical civilization on for another thousand years before they were wiped out by the medieval equivalent of ISIS. I think he had chip on his shoulder that distorted his view of history. He saw only the best in pagan Rome and only the worst in Christian Rome.

But even if you want to look at classical civilization during the Nerva–Antonine dynasty, life wasn't all that great for most people. Life was not fun for the average person in those times, and even under the model emperor of that dynasty, Aurelius, life was fairly brutal if you were a Christian and you ended up sacrificed in the arena.

Contrary to popular myth, people weren't tortured all the time in medieval England like they were in antiquity. There were no arenas where people were fed to wild animals. Most of the garbage people think they know about the period, especially with respect to inquisitions, crusades, and general welfare and education of the people, are totally and deliberately false. These myths derive from old propaganda that began with the Protestant revolt and was later picked up by Enlightenment-era atheists. It's not reality at all. In fact, there exists an entire sub-discipline in medieval history that just studies the origins of these myths about the period.

Let me reform the quesion, because I was only referencing Gibbon for his famous thing about the Antonines being the best time and place, up until almost his own, for a person to live. Where do you stand on the original question?

Separately, on the torture issue, Rothenburg's crime & torture museum reveals that, while not as prominent as many Americans think, some degree of torture was a fairly common occurence, be it the rack or thumbscrews or something lighter.

Medieval England is just fine. Maybe 13th century. It's much better than any part of antiquity.

As far as when is a better time to live.. maybe 1950s rural America would be my number one choice.

What I find interesting in my own life is how things have degraded. I think people are deluding themselves to think our present moment is demonstrably better than the 1990s, for example. We are on a decline here..

But with respect to the original discussion, the idea that medieval Europe was some "dark age" is demonstrably false. Medieval Europe was actually not nearly as bad as some later times.

[Fife]

Taleb's piece from this morning seems to fit along with HH60:

https://medium.com/@nntaleb/the-insidio ... 6b768b4575

The diversity discourse appears to serve an insidious form of racism and Northern Euro supremacist agenda (with a redefinition of the Western world and a reframing of the classics). Please stop classifying people according to race, and stop creating racial stereotypes and divisions in the name of “diversity”, while doing some smug virtue signaling. Look up “framing” in a decision theory textbook and you can see what I mean. This is no different with the error of funding Al Qaeda headcutters, women-enslavers in Syria in the name of “democracy”.

[Ex-California]

Somebody on twitter claimed he had 20 million on the last show and Dan responded, but didn't deny the number. I imagine only Dan knows how many downloads he gets.

It would be prudent also to remember that several outlets Dan uses don't require downloading- his own website can be used over wi-fi, for example, so even an unknown number of downloads isn't representative of listeners.

I've never "downloaded" a single episode, even the archives
I purchased. I stream via Apple Podcasts

[doc_loliday]

I would assume those streams count as downloads.

[Ex-California]

"We still speak the Irish back home"

[Hastur]

Finished listening. A couple of random thoughts in no particular order:

• Second show now that comes 96kb/s instead of 128kb/s as usual. Probably because it's so long. Can't really hear any difference on my setup.
• A subject with very few sources. Pretty much a retelling of Caesar's narrative with some of Dan's personal thoughts injected. Same idea as the KoK series.
• Inspired me to relisten to HH04 - Romancing the Tribes where Dan managed to convey the same message plus some more in just 30min.
• I'm realizing I'm not part of the target audience any more.
• I'm starting to to view Dan as a podcast version of a glossy Popular History Magazine. Each issue featuring a special on Rome, Hitler, Vikings, Nukes or some other well known piece of history.

[Alexander PhiAlipson]

Yeah.
I read the book, but not the new translation in which the words migrants and refugees seem to appear somewhat frequently.
The comparisons to America are inept and Danny's nanny story is plain bullshit.

[Speaker to Animals]

So my concern was not unfounded and this is an attempt to push the pro-"refugee" garbage?