Deadlines? What Deadlines?

3 hours ago, polishgenius said:

Sure, and Stalin was consequential in many ways

but

He didn't open up the Eastern front: that was Hitler

Correct. He was not the one to break the non-aggression pact with Germany. That certainly diminishes him as a political animal; as it came as a total surprise. But I don’t see how that diminishes him as a historical figure.

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You'll never convince me that Stalin as a politician/speaker had the inspirational effect Churchill did in galvanising Russia's resistance

While I am amenable to education on this score, since I don't really know, I'm fairly sure he wasn't responsible for the tactics responsible for driving Germany back either. 

I’d imagine he was at least as involved as Churchill was in Britain and Roosevelt was in the USA.

Stalin definitely has a cult of personality vibe about him. I don’t know what kind of public speaker he was. Stalin didn’t need to speak. 
 

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Hell, even the industrial mobilisation- that would have happened whoever was leader. It was an inevitable response to the invasion.

Dead wrong. Remember that Stalin’s career starts long before ww2. In the wake of the revolution and the subsequent civil war, they were left with the wreckage of a country that was a basket case to begin with. A country that never really had their Industrial Revolution and was mostly illiterate potato and wheat farmers who were shitfaced for half the year. And they were isolated. They had no allies. The other great powers were hostile to them. They understood that they had to industrialize to survive. 

The means were horrifying and brutal, sure, but it’s not like they were the first nation to build wealth by turning people into livestock. Those people that got sent off to gulags and forced labor camps were the grist that made Soviet industrialization happen. 

The industrial policy of the 20’s and 30’s was deliberate and might not have happened under anyone else. If the whites actually win the civil war, not only does it not happen, but when ww2 happens, there’s a good chance they enter the war on the side of the axis, and the world today is a fascist hellscape. 

For example, in the 30’s when the rest of the world was dealing with the Great Depression, American architects and engineers were in the ussr building factories. It turns out that a factory for building tractors or construction equipment can easily be restructured to build tanks if it’s designed that way from the start. This would be important later. 

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Basically I think Stalin just happened to be in charge at the time and anyone else in the same position would have had the same effect. 

As I said, if it’s anyone else (eg Trotsky) history happens different. Stalin was not a passive figure. 

11 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

Sure. 

I just don't think you have to, or even can, hand any credit whatsoever to Stalin for that, and let's not forget that he did his own war criming on the way to liberate Europe from the Nazi war criming

Sure you can. It’s possible to be a monster and still be a consequential figure. And if one of those consequences is you preempt other monsters, just as well. 

Speaking of which, has Gengis Khan been mentioned? Throw in Alexander the Great as well. Those two should be at the top of the list actually. 

2 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Andre the Giant: Greatest drunk of all time. 

Also one of the nicest, thank god. 

8 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

 

 

 

Fine, Zhukov then. 

Regardless, the eastern front in ww2 wasn’t a sideshow. It was the show. The red scare and Cold War kind of papered over this.

If Soviet resistance to the Nazi invasion collapses any time before there’s a real second front in Europe, the world looks like a very different place today. 

1 hour ago, dog-days said:

Octavian shows up in two Shakespeare plays, surviving both and ending up as Top Roman; Caesar just gets one and dies halfway through it. 

Yeah, but the play is name after him.

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Octavian manages not just to entertain the history academics but also provides amusement to theologians as they ponder why on earth he'd declare a census that required everyone to return to their place of birth. 

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Finally, Octavian was played by BRIAN BLESSED in I Claudius and so has automatically won. At being the bestest Roman, but also at everything else. 

Yeah that’s kind of cool ngl. 

1 hour ago, polishgenius said:

Churchill was a shite politician. Almost all he really has on his track record is leading Britain through the war. He was voted out literally immediately afterwards because he ran a terrible campaign that let Attlee in, his second tenure a few years later was marked by him trying and failing to keep the British Empire together, and as others have mentioned, before the war his record was... not great. Some positives, but some absolutely ferocious failures and mistakes, including the aforementioned Galipolli and sending the Black and Tans into Ireland. Even 'being right about Hitler' is really a mixed bag as far as proving his worth as a politician goes, because he didn't convince the nation of that until far too late. I've seen it said that his reputation was bad to the point that him denouncing Hitler actually made opposing the Nazis less credible, because if Churchill felt that strongly about it he was probably wrong. 

Yeah, but I’ll give Churchill this: regarding ww2, absolutely the right guy at the right time. 

Stalin doesn’t get enough credit for winning ww2. 

6 minutes ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

He was a short lived politician who grabbed power after a civil war to became a power hungry dictator which immediately resulted in his assassination and chaos…I’d argue that Winston Churchill is an example of a great politician, and he did so while operating within an actual functioning democracy as well. Agree with the general part though.There have been plenty of politicians like Caesar in Africa and South America in the last 100 years causing coups and chaos, without Octavians genius the Roman Empire would’ve never been established. 

He was Dictator for 5 years, but he was a significant player in Roman politics for decades. In a system as competitive and dysfunctional as the late republic, that's saying something. He was a brilliant politician and an extremely successful military leader. He was also an author who's writings are still read today.  He has a month named after him.

There is some speculation that he was aware of the assassination plot and let it play out due to his declining health. 

Churchill, when he was First Sea Lord of the Admiralty, was one of the architects of Galipoli, which was a disater. In the years before ww2, he favored building more ships whereas Chamberlain directed investment into spitfires and radar, which would come in handy during the battle of britain. 

Chamberlain is an interesting subject for this topic. 

Cleopatra.

Probably overrated, but definitely famous, definitely consequential in a world-historical sense, likely far more politically savvy than he had any business being.

40 minutes ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

The thread isn’t about competency or whether they were actual inventors, it’s about fame and name recall so while I agree some of them are just businessmen and shit explorers, their fame lives on today unlike most of their competitors 

“…Ahead of the rest of their field…”

I thought it was common knowledge that Columbus was kind of a fuck up and Edison was more of a ruthless business man than a clever inventor. He electrocuted an elephant once in a pissing contest over alternating current. 

19 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

… F1…

Well, as I interpret the thread topic, “ahead of the rest of their field”, guys like Schumacher, Senna, Hamilton, etc don’t really qualify. Super talented, sure. But just doing it a bit better than their competitors. You could throw Prost into that list as well.

As far as innovators, my money would be on Jackie Stewart and Niki Lauda. The way they approached their driving was fundamentally different and really the template for everyone who came after. 

Batman: because he’s Batman

8 minutes ago, A True Kaniggit said:

See? These names mean nothing to me. The field should absolutely be included before the name.

Of course now I have to look these two up for myself.

 

O’Sullivan: Snooker

Amundsen: exploration. The first man to successfully navigate the NW passage and reach the South Pole. All his men came back alive from both expeditions. 

5 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Kim Jong-Il: Best golfer. 

He’s amazing. 

Donald Trump: the best at weighing 215lbs. 

Ronnie O’Sullivan

Roald Amundsen

6 minutes ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

Thomas Edison (electricity), Walt Disney(Western Animation),Henry Ford(Cars),Edmund Hillary(Mountaineering),Bill Gates(PC),Warren Buffet(Investment),Adolf Hitler(Dictator/Fascist), Christopher Columbus(Explorer),Da Vinci(Renaissance),michael schumacher(F1) and Christopher Reeves(The one and only Superman)

Some of the guys you describe were better business men than innovators in their field. 

Columbus was a shit explorer btw. 

6 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

Leo in WOWS is the best acting performance of this century. 

I was thinking the same thing when he had the candle up his ass. 

14 hours ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

It’s because of fanboy attitudes like this that Disney has been able to get away making hot garbage and still making money cause people like Mormont will still consume it all , thereby providing them with no incentives for improving their SW content. Vote with your wallets people ! 

My standard for what makes a good (worthwhile) movie or series is, first, how likely am I to want to rewatch it. Second, How likely am I to want to own a copy (back when people still purchased physical media).

I've re-watched a lot of SW. I even own some dvd's. But post 2012, the most recent thing I rewatched was the series finale of Clone Wars. Before that it was Solo, TLJ and Rogue One, and is been a while. Buying a Blu Ray never occurred to me.

4 hours ago, Zorral said:

Perhaps not as anesthetized to people's assholery and being proud of it back then?

You might be on to something there. The pandemic didn’t exactly do wonders for my faith in humanity. 

Watching this film I kept thinking “fall of the Roman Empire”. 

7 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Beetlejizz, Beetlejizz, Beetlejizz.

I know you all wanted to make that joke.

That would make her man slightly quicker than me. 

Poor girl. 

5 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

In her defense it’s not really cheating imo if they’re in the midst of going through a divorce.

Yeah, if you’re one of those immoral fornicators who believe in divorce. 

3 hours ago, Gaston de Foix said:

Although the claim that she was giving a handjob doesn't appear to be substantiated (yet).  She might have been on her way...

God damn. During Beetlejuice?!?

1 hour ago, polishgenius said:

TWOW is meh, but at least it's not as boring as Goodfellas.

Your face. 

4 hours ago, Kalnak the Magnificent said:

Gods, this is beyond the pale

I mean, okay, sure, they tried to justify an illegitimate takeover of the government using violence, they locked kids in cages, they repeatedly said that the vaccines didn't work which resulted in hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths - but consensual fondling of a boob in public IS JUST TOO MUCH

I'm just impressed that, along with getting herself ejected from a stage play for behaving like an ass, a sitting member of the house of representatives would be dumb enough to gleefully allow herself to get felt up in public. And she's still married to another guy; nice. 

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

 And Margot Robbie.... one of the few times I felt like my jaw hit the floor the first time I saw an actress. I'm glad her star has blown up so much because she absolutely deserves it. 

Jonah Hill's character had a similar reaction.

Jon Bernthal is underappreciated. Note the scene where Belfort wakes up after his bachelor party. 

And Matthew McConaughey. My god. I imagine a lot of the dialogue in that film is just r-rated improv. 
 

No fucking way. During Beetlejuice?!?

I’m rewatching The Wolf of Wall Street.

Maybe there was something wrong with me the first time, but I’m enjoying it so much more this time around. How did I not realize how insanely funny this this movie is? 

Also, less than five minutes in and Leonardo DiCaprio is blowing cocaine into a prostitute’s rectum with a straw? Scorsese is fearless. 

1 minute ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

How did Seldon build a pocket dimension that no one but he knew about?

He’s Harry Seldon  

I’m not totally up to date on this thread. Is this a question that was being asked before the last episode?

Gene Roddenberry was once asked a question about the Enterprise’s transporters, “How do the Heisenberg compensators work?”

“Quite well, thank you.” 

10 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

No.  They didn’t.  It was this big mysterious object found when the Foundation arrived (by slow boat) on Terminus.  We didn’t know it had anything to fo with Seldon until the last episode.  

How it got there/how it was built is never explained.

You literally see it being launched and being built.

It travelled faster than the slow boat did. Like, literally 1 km/h faster. It got there 5 minutes before the foundation did. 

8 minutes ago, Ran said:

It was Foundation technology in the first place.

It also required touch. It transported one person. 

The castle-er had the device. The person being castled didn’t have to touch shit. 

38 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Yes.  Hence my question.  The Vault was there when the Foundation arrived on Terminus.  How did Sheldon get the Vault there before the Foundation.

They showed that. In season 1.

2 hours ago, Ran said:

Like, if the Vault was in space and it sucked all the imperial fleet into its infinite pocket universe instead, would that, too, have been okay by you? Would you really not think it's kind of lame that this heretofor unknown capability was not revealed just to create a false drama?

Moot. Because that didn’t happen.

I think it would be extremely weird for the Seldon avatar to boast about having superior technology, in a move that was obviously designed to provoke a response,  and then not be prepared for that response.

I think it would be extremely weird for an itinerant con man to have superior technology to the Foundation.