Bay 12 Games Forum

Quote from: Descan on May 16, 2018, 02:19:50 pm

Quote from: Ispil on May 16, 2018, 08:36:13 am

Found this very insightful

I haven't finished reading it but "endless birthday party for people whose chief accomplishment in life was just showing up."

I mean. That's exactly what a birthday party is. "Hooray, you appeared exactly (x) years ago! Congrats!"

You could look at it the opposite way.  You survived (x) years.

I'd say that's still just showing up.

black male voters, leaving local ballot plantation owners worried about their crops.

hey look, racist statement implying black people have no autonomy and are merely 'crops' to be tended, AND an allusion to plantation slavery.

noice.rosen

was he a ...

...

...cat burglar?

the point about race wasn't "only white people can possibly do this to black people," but "when white people start gentrifying neighbourhoods, especially black ones, this happens." And "when this kind of thing happens, it's often because of a white person gentrifying in a black neighbourhood."

it doesn't mean that this is ONLY a racial thing (it's also a class thing) and it doesn't mean an upper-middle class black man couldn't do the same thing in a poor white neighbourhood (... I guess. I'm having trouble picturing that ending any way but good in America, though. especially Certain States...)

but thinking it's *only* a class thing and that race never enters into it is a knee-jerk 'anti-SJW' response and ignores a very important facet of the phenomenon

like, trends exist, guys. And a contra-trend event doesn't mean that the trend suddenly stops, so going "but it's not ALWAYS that way!" as if that is some sort of argument against it, is just sticking your head in the sand...

And Wall Street is freaking out over tariffs that, again, have not been implemented yet.

"He hasn't pulled the trigger YET, just waved the gun around and screamed a bunch. Why are you freaking out?"

Aaah. Those flash Creeper World.

He's still making those. Working on 4. 3 is on steam.

Quote from: scriver on March 24, 2018, 08:54:40 am

Quote from: ChairmanPoo on March 23, 2018, 01:26:11 pm

What I've hears is that the Golden Age of Islam was closely linked to taking over Hellenic cultural centers eg Alexandria

Or Persian. I can't remember off-hand but I think Baghdad was founded by the Abbadids though.

Yeah, the version of the story that I'd read was that the ancient Persians were the ones who collected and worked on most of the science and worldly observations, and when their old holdings and libraries were conquered by a Muslim lord, he ordered all the texts translated to Arabic so that he'd be able to tell which ones were heretical and needed to be burned.

Several hundred years later, when they were finally finished translating and copying it all, the conqueror was long since dead and forgotten and the Arabic world had turned into the bustling center of trade and information that eventually got sacked during the crusades. And now they had centuries of advanced thinking and knowledge collected during Persia's far-reaching affairs suddenly at their fingertips, allowing the more erudite members of the merchant and noble classes to educate themselves and build upon the principles they found therein. And then, thanks to the commercial and religious networks of the Holy Land, their findings got plenty of exposure and became renowned.

So, it's a combination. They didn't think it all up on their own from scratch, nor did they just steal or claim credit for something. They got a powerful groundwork handed to them, and then were able to build upon it significantly thanks to the economic and cultural situation of their geographical location.

As to whether or not that's the real story, I have no idea. That's just the take on it that I was exposed to, and it made enough sense to me at the time.

If you're curious, the terms you'd want to look up are "Islamic Golden Age" and "House of Wisdom," in Baghdad.

Sufficed to say, whoever told you that was... Quite wrong. Both in timescale (it took at most a generation to get a sizable library of Arab works, and the effect on Islamic society was quite strong within a century) sourcing (it was from "all corners of the world," not just the Persian libraries) and reasoning (nothing about heresy, simply accumulation of knowledge and information)