There's a TikTok trend right now of women asking their male partners (or others) "How often do you think of the Roman Empire?" and a significant amount of them responding "often" or "all the time".
Yuck, generally military history and military hardware interest are pretty major red flags to me. squints at news megathread that I regularly post on
It's one of those hobbies where everyone's a communist or a fash with very little in between
In many cases it is red flag.
I often think about the Roman Empire because their concrete had quicklime mixed with seawater, which resulted in a chemical reaction leaving patches of undissolved lime throughout the concrete. Therefore, when Roman concrete cracks, rainwater leaks in, hits the undissolved lime, which produces calcium carbonate crystals which fill in the gaps in the concrete as they form. It's literally self-healing concrete!
This is the reason why Roman concrete is so ridiculously resilient that it can last for thousands of years, compared to the few decades that concrete made with modern techniques tends to last. However, after the recipe for Roman concrete was lost to time, it took us about as long to reverse engineer it: it was literally only earlier this year when scientists discovered that the undissolved lime chunks in Roman concrete were not a mistake or a result of bad technique, but 100% the intentional and ingenious key to the concrete's longevity.
Cement production is currently a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, and this could be greatly reduced by creating longer-lasting concrete with the recently rediscovered Roman method, or a derivative thereof.
...But chances are that most people who spend any significant amount of time thinking about the Roman Empire are not thinking about concrete, nor gender variant history, city planning, bathhouses and latrines, how the misspellings of vulgar graffiti are used to reconstruct the history of the Romance languages, how Catullus 16 was basically the spiritual predecessor to "Ram Ranch", or all sorts of other genuinely interesting things about the wonders and woes of daily life thousands of years ago... But rather, most people will be thinking about sexy muscle men with spears and shields and racist fashy undertones.
Ancient people deserve better than that.
My SO found that TikTok and texted it to me and I texted back 200 words about the organization and composition of the Roman Republic's manipular armies
I just played a lot of Rome Total War in 2008 but it was pretty funny
Often, because when I feel hopeless and that there is no justice in the world, I try to remember God enacted justice upon the Romans by turning them into Italians.
Anybody that watches any news on tv cannot be saved. They will never understand anything that happens on this planet.
I was an avid news watcher. Glad I got over that phase
I’m surrounded by people who watch local news, which is 99% “a criminal did something bad…but then our plucky boys in blue CAUGHT HIM!” It’s not enough that every other movie or TV show is about cops (or superheroes or cowboys or people in the space navy, who are all also cops). CNN / MSNBC / Fox News would honestly be an upgrade for people who still consume local news.
Anything positive at all about any type of cop, anything negative at all about any homeless person.
One day in the near future, there will be a homeless cop and any time anyone says anything about them they will become a corncob instantly.
Just like black cops and woman cops, cop overrides all other factors.
When anyone says "these days you can't-" in regards to anything progressive
i just flip it immediately and stun them into silence
"I know, you can't even kill landlords anymore. Political correctness gone mad"
(as much as this sounds like a "and then everyone clapped and the lecturer was Albert Einstein" scenario, I said this out loud at a pub and got at least 5 reactions. At least some of my friends laughed)
Thinking crime has gotten worse, it's an absolute TV talking point that everyone repeats nowadays. If you try to bring up empirical evidence of crime decreasing every decade they just respond with some anecdotal bullshit they probably made up. It infuriates me and I wanna shout their face, "facts don't care about your feelings".
I always reply in agreement then follow up about how imperial plundering of the global south has been increasing with the turbocharging of neoliberalism and all the criminal leaders and functionaries of the the US and its allies should be put in prison while letting everyone else out
Anyone who not only doesn't consider ever taking public transportation, but is shocked that whoever they're speaking to would even suggest it.
My mom recently gasped when I told her I had taken a train once, years ago
I approach it the other way. Just assume most people have absolutely awful political opinions. Pray they don’t believe all homeless people should be thrown into internet camps and gassed. And then if I find out they don’t believe that I bring light into a somewhat correct political leaning and then try and crack it open. Often I use landlords as the go to bad people and see if they agree r if they seem confused why I hate landlords so much then I go into detail.
should be thrown into internet camps and gassed
Ah, the old game-and-gas routine
Just ask them about all the homeless you see around town. This is the American equivalent of asking a European about the Roma
Being afraid of Chicago is a pretty good (though not perfect) tell about where they're getting their news. A lot of right-wing sources will go full
take some ideological stand against tipping
I love when they pretend to take the side of the worker by pointing out that it's the restaurant who is screwing their servers by underpaying them and making them rely on tips, which is of course 100% true but you're still eating at the restaurant.
I don't like tipping culture either, so I just... don't eat at restaurants. I actually don't need food slaves to serve me.
reject pizza slavery
embrace BMF thought
A fash dude in person tried to get into a group I was organizing with. We went on a day there, day back roadtrip with him before we really knew him and by the end of it we cut him out completely.
Two biggest red flags were:
- He had a paranoid obsession with societal collapse, kept repeating stupid shit like "we're nine missed meals from murdering each other in the streets"
- Pretty much the first thing he asked was our ethnic background, and he had a bit too much of an "interest" in ethnic cultural differences and the like
It didn't take long for the full fash ideology to be on display and as soon as we dropped him off we blocked him on everything and never looked back.
"jesus was black"
"king tut was black"
"you need to embrace your divine femininity"
"I dont eat gmos, msg, or processed milk"
a ~~white~~ person who says "im not religious im spiritual" actually i know shitty black people who say that
if you hear this you are going to meet the most reactionary person i swear to god.
Particularly annoying since the entire 25th Dynasty of Egypt was actually black.
RIGHT??? THATS WHATS GET ME THE MOST!!!!there were black Egyptians but WE DONT TALK ABOUT THEM (partially because the Roman defaced their art)!!! its all Cleopatra, neffertiti,and king tut. no mention of all of the amazing black kings and queens who were SO COOL and sometimes bisexual that no one EVER cares about. I feel crazy. And i know it comes from a valid place of wanting to see yourself in history but real history will ALWAYS be more amazing and beautiful then what youre uncle is posting on Facebook.
"did you hear about News Event? It just seems a little suspicious"
Always turns into maybe a Chinese space laser did it
"So, you watch anime?"
Not an ironclad rule by any means, but enough to make me start paying attention.
Lest I look like a chud, I'll make sure that whenever I ask "So, you watch anime?" that I immediately follow it up with "Did you know that in that Little Witch Academia episode where the non-humans at the magical academy unionize and strike, that when Akko joins the non-humans (respect), that the kanji on her headband are based on a style of typography called gebaji? The word gebaji derives from gebaruto, from German Gewalt. In Japanese, gebaruto generally refers to violence perpetrated by leftist student activists in the '50s and '60s. Their protest signs used a distinctive style of bold, angular, 'common man' typography, and this typographic style is to this day associated with or used as shorthand for leftist particularly student activism. Gebaji is also known by other names, such as Zengakurenmoji — you might recognize the name 'Zengakuren' from their role in the famous riot at Sanrizuka in 1985. Anyways, here's a photo of a younger Hayao Miyazaki at some kind of labor action of the union for Studio Toei. You can see that he's wearing a headband just like the one Akko wore. You gotta love a union man, eh? By the way, have you seen the, like, anime music video created by the Japanese Communist Party? Heck, do you watch any donghua, for that matter?"
this hair and beard combo, seen on living people
Hitler youth haircut is 100% sus.
Insisting that there is nothing questionable about works of science fiction/fantasy that have inherently evil races that it's morally right to exterminate and saying you're just being a sensitive snowflake if you find the concept off-putting
Bonus points if they use the Thermian argument when you point out the similarities to colonialist and fascist ideology, as if the creator didn't make a conscious choice to write the story that way
The Iron Dream pointed out how gross this concept was way back in the 70s and that really should've been the end of it
"But I need enemies that the protagonists can kill without getting into messy moral quandaries" that's what fascists, imperialists, and slavers are for
This one is going to be US-centric, but if they're vocal about how they only care about college sports specifically and aren't a fan of pro sports there's a substantial chance they're a horrible reactionary and probably worse than your average chud.
I'm interested to see how the effects of things like the NIL in college sports (players are now legally getting paid through boosters of colleges as a short summary) will impact these people's fandom (if at all) in the future. This is interesting as their "defense" has always been about how it's been a more "pure" form of the game without players getting paid which I'm fairly certain is just thinly-veiled racism.
People who worship the royals, especially if they’re not brits. Every time I’ve met one it’s always been a matter of time before they go full mask off and say something racist/sexist/homophobic/transphobic
"nondenominational church"
Talks about "working families" instead of workers when complaining about government policy.
Dislikes both parties, but when pressed cites a dislike of people rather than policy or ideology.
Recently in Aus. Plans to vote no on the voice referendum at all, but especially if they say because "it will create apartheid". For who motherfucker!? (There are, admittedly, some leftists who don't want a voice because they want a treaty first but also this is dumb we need both and also to drive the coalition into the sea, specifically the part of it with the most box jellyfish)
Being too intensely interested in football.
Football is a popular working class pastime, a great way to get exercise and a great way to socialise as a player or as a fan. Literal billions enjoy football worldwide and there's nothing wrong about that.
But then there's the kind of guy who is so much into football that he makes it a defining part of his personality. These kind of guys are more likely than not to be aggressive and nasty chuds.
This is tangentially related but side shave means you're queer, sorry I don't make the rules
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