Hardcore History Podcast with Dan Carlin

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

8 minutes ago, red snow said:

It's that kind of thinking that made him such a great general

I know the Khans eventually split into various groups but from what i remember I was surprised it never resulted in civil war after Genghis' death. Given all those leaders in their own rights in positions of power after Genghis' death.

It did eventually. Ogbedai was Genghis's son, but not his eldest. Genghis made sure that Obedai was "elected" much the same way that he was in order to prevent the sort of splintering you're referring to. I guess the guy who came after Ogbedai (can't remember his name) wasn't in as a comfortable position. There was another Khan who held up the Kurultai (the sort of election process the Mongols used to determine who got to be Khan) for many years by feigning illness and such. This seemed to drive a wedge between the various clans that never really healed. 

[Slurktan]

Basically Ogedei's wife and son fucked it up by doing a rushed election (while making deals with Ghengis's second son Jagatai's family) and tried to make it so only Ogedei's line could succeed. Batu (son of Joti Ghengis's disputed eldest son) was not a fan of this and so delayed the next election and such.  He later made allies with Tului ( Ghengis son #4)'s descendants to overthrow Ogedei's line.  Of course 3 of Tului's sons were among the greatest of the Mongols so that helped.

[Davrum]

Dan's been on Joe Rogan's podcast a number of times now too. I realize Rogan is an acquired taste for some, but if you have what it takes to deal with Rogan it's fun to hear Dan in a looser environment.

I believe the episodes are 328, 378, 413 and 847 although I'm probably missing a couple of others.

 

 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

13 hours ago, Davrum said:

Dan's been on Joe Rogan's podcast a number of times now too. I realize Rogan is an acquired taste for some, but if you have what it takes to deal with Rogan it's fun to hear Dan in a looser environment.

I believe the episodes are 328, 378, 413 and 847 although I'm probably missing a couple of others.

 

 

Yeah Carlin is all over the place. Seems like there's this pretty close knit group of podcasters who often cross-promote one another. I enjoyed his cross cast with Sam Harris as well...

 

 

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

13 hours ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Yeah Carlin is all over the place. Seems like there's this pretty close knit group of podcasters who often cross-promote one another. I enjoyed his cross cast with Sam Harris as well...

 

 

Its all a little too close knit for my liking. Carlin was also on the Rubin Report recently, which was really enjoyable but at the same time I get the feeling its often just a bunch of people agreeing with each other a little too often on these shows, even if they claim to be opposed to each other.

[Happy Ent]

I’m stuck in the same Harris–Rubin–Carlin bubble (with occasional Rogan). I enjoy those conversations immensely, but would be very happy for a pointer to something different.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

4 minutes ago, Happy Ent said:

I’m stuck in the same Harris–Rubin–Carlin bubble (with occasional Rogan). I enjoy those conversations immensely, but would be very happy for a pointer to something different.

Definitely. I'm in that bubble and though I initially viewed it as a breath of fresh air, now I see that it doesn't actually tolerate much in opposing ideas, particularly looking at Rubin here who just has people on who agree with his stance on free speech and regressive lefts. If there was an alternative I'd be interested in it.

[Happy Ent]

But do note that Rubin has actually changed his mind. On issues where his entire social capital was invested. That is more than most people can say. 

Rubin is good at letting other people talk. He isn’t very interesting in himself, he simply isn’t smart enough (like, say, Harris) or well enough read (like, say, Carlin) to be consistently interesting, in particular because of the high volume of guests.

And I think that’s fine, not everybody can be Christopher Hitchens or the Happy Ent.

[DunderMifflin]

Rubin claims he wants more people on that disagree with his regressive left and free speech stance but he can't find anyone that will agree to come on. 

Scott Adams doesn't really have a podcast but he livestreams on periscope and youtube routinely. I find him pretty interesting even though I hate the Dilbert comics, they always went way over my head.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

58 minutes ago, DunderMifflin said:

Rubin claims he wants more people on that disagree with his regressive left and free speech stance but he can't find anyone that will agree to come on. 

Scott Adams doesn't really have a podcast but he livestreams on periscope and youtube routinely. I find him pretty interesting even though I hate the Dilbert comics, they always went way over my head.

I'd really like someone to come on and do just that, from all I've seen so far mostly its people who might be right wing or very conservative, but essentially are agreeing with the main focus of his channel, or left wing and agree. The only real dissenting piece was on Cracked:

http://www.cracked.com/blog/cracked-destroys-meme-dave-rubins-anti-progressive-video/

But then Cracked is a horrendeously partizan left wing rag.

[James Arryn]

Manhole, dunno if you're aware, but since you've started watching you've begun using a few of the phrases he uses. Maybe you always did and I'm just noticing now, but for example yesterday in the Brady discussion you went with 'where the rubber meets the road'.  

On an aside, Carlin's politics are still interesting to me. He makes a lot of conservative errors...for example, like many straight white males he seems to unconsciously think that that's the definition of what a 'normal' or 'average' American is, and like the residents of most expansionist/imperialist nations he seems to feel that being expansionist/imperialist or at least wanting to be is universal/normal. Those aside, for a military history geek he's actually pretty open to left wing concepts

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

3 minutes ago, James Arryn said:

Manhole, dunno if you're aware, but since you've started watching you've begun using a few of the phrases he uses. Maybe you always did and I'm just noticing now, but for example yesterday in the Brady discussion you went with 'where the rubber meets the road'.  

On an aside, Carlin's politics are still interesting to me. He makes a lot of conservative errors...for example, like many straight white males he seems to unconsciously think that that's the definition of what a 'normal' or 'average' American is, and like the residents of most expansionist/imperialist nations he seems to feel that being expansionist/imperialist or at least wanting to be is universal/normal. Those aside, for a military history geek he's actually pretty open to left wing concepts

I'm not doing that consciously, but I'm not surprised. Last weekend I went on a Hardcore History binge. I finished up Ghosts of the Ostfront and then proceeded to blow through all 5 episodes of Wrath of the Khans. So basically I listed to about 8-10 hours of Carlin from Friday night to Sunday night.

 He's a SoCal guy, born and bred, so I'm not surprised that conservative white guy is kind of his baseline as far as normal goes. Orange County is pretty much the bastion of the Conservative base in California. I disagree with your second point. He always rails against the term Isolationism or Isolationist as being a negative thing. I'm pretty sure that he believes that most Americans actually approve of an Isolationist policy, and believe that the U.S. should not be seen as the International Police as a general rule. He hates when guys like Krauthammer use the term Isolationist in a scornful way, suggesting that this belief in unAmerican or the like. 

[James Arryn]

9 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

I'm not doing that consciously, but I'm not surprised. Last weekend I went on a Hardcore History binge. I finished up Ghosts of the Ostfront and then proceeded to blow through all 5 episodes of Wrath of the Khans. So basically I listed to about 8-10 hours of Carlin from Friday night to Sunday night.

 He's a SoCal guy, born and bred, so I'm not surprised that conservative white guy is kind of his baseline as far as normal goes. Orange County is pretty much the bastion of the Conservative base in California. I disagree with your second point. He always rails against the term Isolationism or Isolationist as being a negative thing. I'm pretty sure that he believes that most Americans actually approve of an Isolationist policy, and believe that the U.S. should not be seen as the International Police as a general rule. He hates when guys like Krauthammer use the term Isolationist in a scornful way, suggesting that this belief in unAmerican or the like. 

On the second, I agree he absolutely opposes expansionism as an Amercan policy. But he does so as an appeal to reason over nature, or bang for bucks, if you get me. When citing imperialist actions/decisions he often describes it almost as a stage of cultural/social development. Like all nations go through this phase and then do or ought to grow out of it. He seems to have little awareness of nations who never really go there, or particularly want to. Listen to his description of Teddy Roosevelt, and the S.A.W/Phillipines. Even while describing Roosevelt's foreign policy temperament as a child's aggression, he still often takes time to point out how this is very normal. He thinks the US is abnormal in terms of needing/buying into the hypocrisy of seeing itself as anti-imperialist while acting as imperialist...which is great...but definitely fails to see that the latter is not itself a universal trait.

Iow, he says that the American conflict has to do with how it deals with being normal, rather than how it deals with being normal for an expansionist/militaristic/imperialistic state.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

1 minute ago, James Arryn said:

On the second, I agree he absolutely opposes expansionism as an Amercan policy. But he does so as an appeal to reason over nature, or bang for bucks, if you get me. When citing imperialist actions/decisions he often describes it almost as a stage of cultural/social development, if you get me. Like all nations go through this phase and then donor ought to grow out of it. He seems to have little awareness of nations who never really go there, or want to. Listen to his description of Teddy Roosevelt, and the S.A.W/Phillipines. Even while describing Roosevelt's foreign policy temperament as a child's aggression, he still often takes time to point out how this is very normal. He thinks the US is abnormal in terms of needing/buying into the hypocrisy of seeing itself as anti-imperialist while acting as imperialist, but definitely fails to see that the latter is not itself a universal trait. 

But isn't it a universal? What 1st World Superpower hasn't engaged in Imperialism? It's hard for me to say whether or not the general populace of most other countries hold a similar point of view, but it seems to me he is mostly right about our collective delusion surrounding this. I guess you can mitigate this somewhat by pointing out that much of our WW II expansionism came about as a direct result of interceding in a War that we didn't start, but the Spanish-American War example, or the Monroe Doctrine sort of stuff in Central and South America are pretty clear examples of naked American expansionism. Yet we still tend to view ourselves as the good guys. I have to imagine this is true of most folks though. You're never the villain in your own story, ya know?

[James Arryn]

Just now, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

But isn't it a universal? What 1st World Superpower hasn't engaged in Imperialism?It's hard for me to say whether or not the general populace of most other countries hold a similar point of view, but it seems to me he is mostly right about our collective delusion surrounding this. I guess you can mitigate this somewhat by pointing out that much of our WW II expansionism came about as a direct result of interceding in a War that we didn't start, but the Spanish-American War example, or the Monroe Doctrine sort of stuff in Central and South America are pretty clear examples of naked American expansionism. Yet we still tend to view ourselves as the good guys. I have to imagine this is true of most folks though. You're never the villain in your own story, ya know?

The bold is where you don't get the distinction I'm trying to make. We otherwise agree, but it's important to realize that states become 'superpowers' as a direct reflection of being unusually imperialistic/expansionistic. Obviously there are other factors too, but without this element it doesn't happen, and it is a cultural mindset which is certainly not true of all other nations. 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

12 minutes ago, James Arryn said:

The bold is where you don't get the distinction I'm trying to make. We otherwise agree, but it's important to realize that states become 'superpowers' as a direct reflection of being unusually imperialistic/expansionistic. Obviously there are other factors too, but without this element it doesn't happen, and it is a cultural mindset which is certainly not true of all other nations. 

Don't you think this is a bit of a self-fulfilling sort of a deal though? Like if a nation has the economic/military pull to do this, they most likely will? I guess you could point to some of the Scandinavian countries as examples of states that have resisted that pull to some degree, but even they tried it at some point, right? I don't know. I'm struggling to think of an example of a state that I would truly consider to be altruistic in this regard. 

[James Arryn]

4 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Don't you think this is a bit of a self-fulfilling sort of a deal though? Like if a nation has the economic/military pull to do this, they most likely will? I guess you could point to some of the Scandinavian countries as examples of states that have resisted that pull to some degree, but even they tried it at some point, right? I don't know. I'm struggling to think of an example of a state that I would truly consider to be altruistic in this regard. 

No, that's the point, and the assumption residents of expansionist/imperialist states make.

As a quick off the top of my head example, Canada. Do you realize that Canada had a much higher military and economic participation rate for much longer in both World Wars than the US? More to the point, at the conclusion of each WW it had one of the largest militaries on the planet, particularly the arm most essential to imperialism, ie at sea.

But, contrary to what you seem to assume to be true of states/people in general, as soon as they were done with those wars they immediately disassembled to basically pre-war levels, and no thought was ever given to using said militaries to seek to expand Canadian power or wealth. Really never even became a discussion. In fact, since achieving nationhood, Canada has actually surrendered political authority over more territory than it has acquired, or tried to acquire.

Because the equation that imperialist states innately accept, that X number of people being killed 'over there' to get us more of what we want is not an equation every state can buy into. 

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

1 minute ago, James Arryn said:

No, that's the point, and the assumption residents of expansionist/imperialist states make.

As a quick off the top of my head example, Canada. Do you realize that Canada had a much higher military and economic participation rate for much longer in both World Wars than the US? More to the point, at the conclusion of each WW it had one of the largest militaries on the planet, particularly the arm most essential to imperialism, ie at sea.

But, contrary to what you seem to assume to be true of states/people in general, as soon as they were done with those wars they immediately disassembled to basically pre-war levels, and no thought was ever given to using said militaries to seek to expand Canadian power or wealth. Really never even became a discussion. In fact, since achieving nationhood, Canada has actually surrendered political authority over more territory than it has acquired, or tried to acquire.

Because the equation that imperialist states innately accept, that X number of people being killed 'over there' to get us more of what we want is not an equation every state can buy into. 

Yeah, good example with Canada. I hadn't thought of it from that angle. The only retort I can really think of in regards to that is that you guys were initially founded due to Imperialism, right? And were kind of attached to/divided by 2 Imperialist countries. Maybe that has something to do with it? You guys seem to be rather singular. I suppose you could point to Australia and New Zealand as having a similar dynamic.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

 And even Canada did attempt to expand into the U.S. at one point. Perhaps at the behest of their Imperialist masters, I suppose. But yeah, point taken. What do you think accounts for the lack of Imperial/Expansionist ambition in regards to Canada?

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

Surely all countries are essentially imperialistic given the chance, in that people are always looking to grow their wealth, assets etc. Usually the only thing stopping them doing that is their neighbours. The point is that if one country / nation has an enormous advantage then it will usually make full use of it. The USA has had a huge advantage since WW2 and its control of the seas, which it took over from Britain, enabling it to show force across the globe at will. European imperialism came from huge technological advantages, which they really used against basically everybody

I can't think of many nations that have had the opportunity to become imperial super players and have decided against it. I don't know enough about Canada to say much about it but I'd assume the US was keeping it in check. Maybe China has been relatively isolationist and could have expanded further, but surely it was so big that might have been impractical at points. 

In the current world climate its almost impossible for any country to expand its borders, unless you are of course Russia.