#second century warlord meme
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first day as a 26th century sim trooper I accidentally kill our captain and I have my men strip him and give me his armor to make it look like nothing happened and we aren't a man down, but my voice is very different from our team leader's voice and the enemy can clearly tell that there's an entire naked corpse just sitting behind our base
second day as a 26th century sim trooper i bribe my men to start singing a chant i carefully crafted to spread misinformation and further my strategic ends but they change the lyrics to be about dicks and the enemy isn't misdirected at all
third day as a 26th century sim trooper i lure our enemies into our side of the box canyon and send a sniper to shoot them from the high ground but there was a tank on the trail up to the overlook and he couldn’t decide whether to try and shoot it or just go around and by the time the tank got up and left on her own the enemy had already passed safely below
fourth day as a 26th century sim trooper we attempt to have a battle against the red team but because of a teleporter mishap one of my team members had a really similar armor color to my ex girlfriend, so i got confused and attacked the wrong guy. so now i'm stuck trying to act like i meant to do that around this total loser of a second in command, because how the fuck do you explain that after a battle?
fifth day as a 26th century sim trooper and some sort of alien wanders into the canyon. I want to execute him for being an alien but my second in command convinces me to let the alien stay, because we want to do more alien tech based strategies and he's pretty sure having a team alien can help with that. after the welcome to the team quest the alien steals the magic spaceship at the end of it and impregnates my second in command and leaves
sixth day as a 26th century sim trooper my loser second in command calls me for reinforcements after the rookie loses our flag, but in the confusion of leaving i forgot to take the tank that would blow up the enemy base, so we have to wait behind a rock for like eight hours while the rookie walks back to get it. he blows me up
seventh day as a 26th century sim trooper and my ghost finally joins my loser second in command back at the blue base, turns out he's actually a pretty cool guy, and he isn't even that mad at me for letting the alien get him pregnant. i decide to shoot my shot but i'm really nervous and keep on stalling because what if i mess up our relationship and by extension make this whole thing awkward, and eventually he just says goodnight and goes back to his room, where my ex girlfriend is in the process of setting up to kick him in the balls
eighth day as a 26th century sim trooper and my loser second in command tells me i should call command, who we have not been talking to for a while bc they also talk to the red team, to find out if they were the ones that sent my ex girlfriend and why. but the whole time im sitting in their voicemail menu in their underground cavern i'm worried that this has something to do with the alien thing or how awkward i made it last night
ninth day as a 26th century sim trooper i try to tactfully ask command if they sent a freelancer to help our team and it turns out the idea of using freelancers in the canyon never occurred to them, but now that i've suggested it they're really into it. in order to save my loser second in command i volunteer to be the one to call my ex girlfriend
tenth day as a 26th century sim trooper on my way back to my base I'm stealing a robot body when i realize i won't be able to get my ex girlfriend out of my second in command's room until i get command to tell her to do something else. i go back to my second in command and ask him to find somewhere else to sleep for the time being, and he tells me that if there were anywhere else for him to sleep he already would have done that. that doesn't change the fact that my ex girlfriend is still here. i go back to my room to sulk. my ex girlfriend is there
eleventh day as a 26th century sim trooper i find a little ai chip in my second in command's bedding and deduce it belonged to my ex girlfriend. without asking permission or telling my loser second in command goodbye i go back to the underground cavern to ask command what's up. don't ask what i was doing in my loser second in command's room. it's not important
twelfth day as a 26th century sim trooper i disguise myself as a freelancer and enter the structure that command told me the ai chip was from. in the middle of messing with the computer that the chip came from i make eye contact with the guy guarding the structure. IT'S THE ALIEN THAT GOT MY LOSER SECOND IN COMMAND PREGNANT. after i get the info that i need to go to the project freelancer headquarters, i corner the alien and ask him what the fuck is going on, and he just says "blargh honk" and leaves. i don't know what to say to that so i just let him go
thirteenth day as a 26th century sim trooper i'm honestly so sick of not knowing what's going on, so i adjust my freelancer costume to passably disguise myself as my ex girlfriend and break into the project freelancer headquarters. Sure enough, the director is willing to talk to me directly now. I ask what he implanted my ex girlfriend with an ai chip and sent her to my base for, and he told me that command heard one of my men singing a chant, and it contained all of the military's top secret ai programs. command sent my ex girlfriend to intimidate him into silence before he figured out what it meant. he shares the first line with me but i get kicked out before he can share any more. he doesn't need to. through a bizarre coincidence of homophones, it's the dicks version of my misinformation chant
fourteenth day as a 26th century sim trooper i go back to my loser second in command and tell him everything, urging him to join forces with the red team to attack the freelancer headquarters because of the shit revealed in the misinformation dicks chant. he tells me frankly that he doesn't respect me as a leader anymore. i ask him to become team leader himself if that's really true, because i can understand not respecting me, but i can't do this alone. he agrees to help me attack project freelancer
fifteenth day as a 26th century sim trooper. due to the information in the dicks chant, and thanks to my loser second in command singing it over and over again while planning our battle strategy, our team carries the day. in all the chaos, my loser second in command gives birth and has a kid. the kid's ugly as shit. my ex girlfriend tells me that she actually likes sleeping in my bed now and she would like to kick me out of it for good and keep it for her own from now on if i don't mind. i do mind, especially now that neither the team i've grown to call my family nor the man i love have any use for me, but i don't tell her that
sixteenth day as a 26th century sim trooper i'm preparing to step down and leave to i don't know where, maybe to try to figure out what the fuck i'm supposed to do as an ai reincarnation of the director of project freelancer, when my loser second in command stops me and asks me where i'm going. he says he had hoped i would continue to be team leader. i was unaware he still considered me his leader in the first place. i agree, and he tells me he's really happy to have me sticking around with him. he has known i am the most bizarre and interesting man he has ever met, and that he wants to spemd the rest of his time in this canyon sitting around and bitching with me. he's known this ever since the day i asked him to strip a dead guy for me and leave him naked out in the sun, and he could not for the life of him figure out why
#rvb#red vs blue#leonard church#lavernius tucker#chucker#tucker rvb#church rvb#second century warlord meme#obv this is not how it happened it is a meme#long post
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[餘知傳] The 2nd Century Warlord (Part 1)
based on the story by @romanceyourdemons
art by @its-not-a-pen
first day as a second century warlord i have my men tie branches to their horses’ tails to stir up dust and make it look like there’s a lot of us but i forget it just rained so there isn’t any dust and the enemy can clearly see there’s like twenty of us all spread out in a line
second day as a second century warlord i bribe a bunch of kids to start singing a nursery rhyme i carefully crafted to spread misinformation and further my strategic ends but they change the lyrics to be about poop and the enemy isn’t misdirected at all
third day as a second century warlord i lure my enemy into a narrow valley and send a team of archers to shoot them from the high ground but there was a feral hog napping on the trail up to the overlook and they couldn’t decide whether to try and shoot it or just go around and by the time the hog woke up and left on its own the enemy had already passed safely below
fourth day as a second century warlord we attempt to join a battle on the side of the guy we want to ally with but he and the guy he’s fighting have really similar names and it’s finally dusty and i misread the standards and attack the wrong guy. so now we’re stuck with this total loser of a liege lord, because how the fuck do you explain that after a battle?
fifth day as a second century warlord and some sort of wizard wanders into camp, my loser liege lord wants to execute him for being a wizard but i convince him to let the wizard stay, because i want to do more weather-based strategies and i’m pretty sure having a camp wizard can help with that. after the welcome to the team banquet the wizard steals half the treasury and my liege lord’s wife and leaves
sixth day as a second century warlord my loser liege lord sends me to reinforce a city he’s taken, but in the confusion of leaving i forgot to take the token that would have gotten us into the city, so my men have to wait outside the city walls for like eight hours while i ride back to get it
seventh day as a second century warlord and my loser liege lord finally joins me in the city, it turns out he’s actually a pretty cool guy, and he isn’t even that mad at me for letting the wizard steal his wife. i decide to shoot my shot but i’m really nervous and keep on stalling because what if i mess up our relationship and by extension jeopardize the security of my men, and eventually he just says goodnight and goes back to his room, where an assassin is in the process of setting up to kill him
eighth day as a second century warlord and my loser liege lord tells me to fake defect to his rival warlord, the one i originally wanted to ally with, to find out if he was the one who sent the assassin and why. but my whole way over to the rival warlord i’m worried that this has something to do with the wizard thing or how awkward i made it last night
End of Part 1
This comic was made independently from the creator, I'm just a fan and these are my own interpretations.
Notes under the cut:
the title 餘知傳 [the Story of Yu Zhi], is the styled name of the Second Century Warlord. I translated 餘知 as [plentiful knowledge] since he's defined by a surplus of knowledge but a deficit in luck. It's also great for fish-based puns since it's a homophone. As a nice parallel, Loser Liege Lord's banner is a carp ;))). the art style was inspired by vintage Chinese comics.
The story is set during the Three Kingdoms period, (220 to 280 AD) natural disasters, infighting and civil unrest had dissolved the previous Han Dynasty, leading to a violent free-for-all. I based the clothes on the previous Eastern Han styles, mainly because there just weren't a lot of contemporary references from the 3K period (and it only lasted like, 60 years). I always strive for historical accuracy, however, the Han Dynasty was over 400 years long and some sources don't do a great job separating out the different fashions, so I apologise for any mistakes that occur.
2. there aren't a ton of drawings on what Han children looked like, but in general ancient kids hairstyles are pretty consistent. 9-15 yo boys had shaved heads with two little top knots, girls had natural hair in braids/buns.
3. the crossbow (back left) makes a cameo, it was associated with Zhuge Liang, famous real-life strategist from the 3K era.
4. the LLL and his wife thank the Warlord, (a noblewoman on a battlefield??? scandalous!). it shows the LLL enjoys the unconventional and the wife is not as timid as she appears. I thought it would be funny to make them look as Background Character (tm) as possible.
5. I based the wizard's design on sages from mythology. (Hey, he's not a total fraud, he invented gunpowder 800 years before the Tang dynasty!) Nice little character moment for the LLL who is shielding his wife.
6. What do soldiers do while they're waiting for 8 hours? (<-from the right) playing knucklebones with pebbles, whittling a little horse, feeding sparrows, gossiping with neighbour, drinking from his gourd, napping. A minor warlord can't afford to keep a professional army so they're most likely conscripted farmers who've had to buy their own weapons and armour, hence why they look so unimpressive.
7. LLL offers the Warlord a bitten peach. Inspired by the legend of Mizi Xia who bit into a delicious peach and gave it to the Emperor so he could taste it was well. "Bitten peach" was a byword for homosexuality in ancient China. I thought it would be SO funny if the LLL was actually smooth af and the Warlord was a like a teenaged girl crushing for the first time. He's desperate to taste that peach but is too timid to reach out >;))) man has zero game. negative game, even. truely the PS4 of homosexuals. RIP to the assassin in the back corner who was forced to watch the most awkward, cringe-fail attempt at flirting in the history of china play out.
8. this is what zero peach does to a mf. UnU
#ink drawing#comics#second century warlord#original art#ancient china#op if ur reading this im a huge fan and i love ur work#storytime#tumblr stories#history memes#romance of the three kingdoms
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first day as a early-third-century general and my lame loser of a liege lord has just suffered an overwhelming defeat at the hands of his rival warlord because he refused to abandon the refugees who were slowing him down.
this is our darkest hour. the coalition has been utterly crushed, my sworn-brother is presumed dead and our best general was last seen defecting to the enemy. it's up to me to cover our retreat. i scrape together twenty men and prepare to take a final stand. i am going to save the man i love--this stupid, loyal, big-hearted loser--or die trying.
i hide my men in the nearby woods and order them to tie branches to their horses tails to stir up dust to make it look like there's a lot of us, and then I ride out alone to face the Rival Warlord's army, screaming and raving like a lunatic.
my deranged, suicidal improvisation ends up being an OVERWHELMING SUCESS because the Rival Warlord is a neurotic over-thinker and he believes there's a huge force in the woods, waiting to ambush him. Rival Warlord calls for a retreat and i use this moment to change my pants.
suddenly, a man comes riding towards us with a baby strapped to his back. IT'S OUR BEST GENERAL!!! He hadn't betrayed us after all! he was behind enemy lines, rescuing the Loser Leige Lord's son and wife! we hug, kiss and shed manly tears. the wife gets a fist-bump. don't ask what happens to the baby later, it's not important.
my actions today have single-handedly changed the course of history. we have earned the undying love and support of the people and my Loser Liege Lord will live to fight another day. by the time Rival Warlord has figured out the ruse and orders a second attack, my sworn-brother has arrived with reinforcements and this time we ambush him for real.
as we make sail for the southern lands, i can't help but feel hopeful in spite of the lingering pain in my heart. although we have suffered unimaginable losses, i still have my sworn-brothers by my side. as long as the three of us are togather, there is nothing in the world i cannot endure. if anyone cares to remember my story after i am dead and gone, let it be known that i am but a coarse, common man with more flaws than strengths. if i have become a hero, then it was in spite of myself and all for the people that i loved.
#history meme#pour one out for my problematic fav zhang fei the guy who started the whole thing#in case u guys thought 2nd century warlord was wacky...no. chinese history is just Like That#romance of the three kingdoms#san guo yan yi#zhang fei#guan yu#cao cao#lui bei#zhao yun#battle of changban#second century warlord#i deadass cried a little writing this. zhang fei is like an f- historical figure but at a+ character. the events are book-inspired with so#some#real history sprinkled in#my writing
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In what parts of the world would it have been possible to have a liege lord and make a living as a warlord in the second century?
depends on the strictness of your definitions, but if you're sworn to provide tribute and soldiers to someone bigger than you, but otherwise govern your region unbothered (and rather violently), I'd say that counts for the purpose of the meme
so, a lot of places.
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god please can second century warlord become a big meme i really fucking love it
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friends rushing to explain the second century warlord meme and its iterations to me because somehow none of the posts crossed my dash between 7 and 9 PM mon-fri (The Blogging Shift)
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Whenever people bring up the Second Century Warlord post I'm like 'they (probably) don't even know it's about Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which inspired many deriviative works *coughs* fanfiction *coughs* such as the video games series Dynasty Warriors, both of which have been long term special interests of mine and have had a big impact on the person I ended up becoming, up to and including my studying Chinese history, language, and culture... They don't even know I have a whole side blog dedicated to that where I make stupid, extremely niche memes and research posts about it... They don't even know... *stares out the window wistfully as I wish I could info dump about it more and that it was more widely known about in the West*
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I checked and the second century warlord story is a couple of weeks old and it already feels eternal after being exposed to it once. tumblr memes cannot be beat
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Hi, I would love to hear if you have a take on wyb and being a part of anti-Taiwan propaganda? I know it’s probably not something he could have turned down, but with the tensions right now it disturbs me more than any of their other work. I really hope states all over the globe take a stand for Taiwanese independence. Or are they all John cena….
Hello Anon! My take is a simple one—for all citizens of mainland China, I assume they agree with the Chinese government's political stance unless there are clear evidence otherwise (which often becomes known, BTW, because their holders have been arrested or jailed). I assume that, when they echo the state's political messages, whether it's re-blogging a meme from People's Daily (人民日報, The State Newspaper of China) or starring in a patriotic TV production, that they're willing and happy to do so.
(Under the cut: a rambly stumble down the history lane ... about the background of Faith Makes Great, KMT, and Taiwan, and why it may not be the best idea to mix the three.)
Yes, that includes Gg and Dd. I never assume they take on the propaganda projects because they can’t turn them down, or they've been pressured to do so. I've explained, in this meta, why I believe Chinese citizens maintain the beliefs that they do, and I do not consider Gg and Dd as exceptions to the factors discussed. I assume that, in their eyes, they're performing their patriotic duty.
Now, some thoughts about this episode of Faith Makes Great (FMG, ���想照耀中國) and Taiwan.
First, about FMG. I haven’t watched the episode, and it’s likely that I won’t. However, after reviewing the biography of the protagonist, Jiang Xianyun (蔣先雲 1902-1927), here’re two thoughts that come to my mind, that I think, perhaps, I can explain a little:
1) The Nationalist (aka the Kuomintang, KMT 國民黨) party and government at the time wasn’t equivalent to the Taiwanese Government now, or even, the KMT Party in Taiwan now—despite using the same flags.
2) Likewise, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) then wasn’t equivalent to the CCP now.
Personally, therefore, I’d feel a little wary about connecting this episode, or the history depicted in this episode—regardless of the amount of propaganda it contains—with the politics of Taiwan in 2021.
Below is some relevant historical background for FMG. I apologise ahead for its roughness and possible inaccuracies. Busy RL cannot afford my researching this better, and being very, very bad at names, modern history has never been my forte. Many facts surrounding this piece of history have also remained murky, for reasons I will lay out in a bit—the why’s that are also related to Taiwanese history of the second half of the last century.
Very roughly, the 1920s, when Jiang Xianyun was in Whampoa Military Academy (黄埔軍校), was also known as the Warlord Era (軍閥時代)—basically, warlords and their militia were ruling the northern part of China. In order to remove these warlords, the Nationalist (KMT) government, which didn’t have sufficient military power to combat these warlords, employed the tactic of working with the Soviets and also permitting CCP members to join the ranks of the KMT (ie, allowing “dual party membership). This tactic, known as 聯俄容共, worked like this—the Soviets supplied the KMT with military know-how, finance and firearms, while the CCP helped with uniting farmers and other blue-collars for the cause, sometimes getting them to strike / cooperate such that the KMT forces could pass through the warlord’s lands with relative ease.
The CCP at the time wasn’t the same as the CCP today. While would be prominent members of the post-1949 CCP (such as Mao and Zhou Enlai 周恩來) were already serving the party, the CCP then was
i. closely associated with the Soviet-controlled Communist International, as much a branch of it as its own independent party given its very young age (founded in 1921) and,
ii. made up of a significant number of foreign-educated progressives of the time, who saw socialism / communism as a means of achieving class equality. Similar to, in 2021 and the US, the more educated, progressive liberal left wing is the most vocal about the need for socialist policies, such as healthcare for all. The Russian Soviet Republic and the Soviet Union (USSR) were also young at the time (founded in 1917, 1922); ie. no one had witnessed for long what communism looked like in practice.
The image of the CCP was therefore significant different in 1920s than it is in 2021. It was viewed as the idealistic, “woke” party with a focus on the working class and the poor, which made up the vast majority of China’s population. The party’s progressive image extended to its political ideology; in 1944, for example, Mao still told journalists that one of China’s shortcoming was its lack of democracy: “中國是有缺點，而且是很大的缺點，這種缺點，一言以蔽之，就是缺乏民主。” “China has a shortcoming, and it’s a big shortcoming. This shortcoming, simply said, is the lack of democracy.”—Mao Zedong, 1944/06/03, Jiefang Daily.).
Members of the CCP at the time therefore included many youths who truly wanted the best for their country, who saw “the Revolution” as China’s finally leaving its five thousand years of autocratic, monarchical and oppressive rule behind, and embracing the new, Western concepts of freedom and equality. They couldn’t have predicted then that, fast forward seventy-four years, Mao’s fourth successor as the leader of the CCP would abolished term limits in 2018, clearing the path for his not only being a dictator, but a dictator for life. They couldn’t have seen that class equality would remain as far from reality in their homeland as in other contemporary capitalist countries with its immense wealth gap, despite the 2021 CCP’s continuing self-proclamation as being socialist and communist.
In other words, people like Jiang Xianyun ... while today’s CCP may portray them in ways that emphasise them loyalty to the CCP, people like Jiang Xianyun may actually be the first to balk at today’s CCP if they were still alive today.
Anyway, back to the 1920s. The breaking of this first alliance between the KMT and the CCP to combat the northern warlords was widely considered to begin in 1926, in an incident known as the Zhongshan Warship Incident (中山艦事件). By then, the KMT government had a left wing and a right wing—the left wing wanted to continue their alliance with the Soviets and the CCP, while the right wing had become wary of it as dual CCP/KMT members who had, by then, occupied the majority among the higher ranks of the KMT government, as well as the Whampoa Military Academy where its military personnels were trained. The right wingers feared that the Soviet-controlled Communist International, using CCP as local agents, was trying to take over the KMT via the dual membership route and eventually, seize the rulership of China, and among these right wingers was Chiang Kai-Shek (蔣介石), who would eventually lead the KMT’s retreat to Taiwan in 1949.
In 1926, Chiang was already the chief commander of the Nationalist Revolutionary Army (NRA), as well as the headmaster of the Whampoa Military Academy (Jiang Xianyun, like other students of the Academy, was described as Chiang’s student for this reason). The details of the Zhongshan Warship Incident 中山艦事件, also known as the Canton Coup (廣州政變), was complicated, and multiple versions exist depending on who’s telling the story. One version is this: several warships had been moved without Chiang’s order, and Chiang took it as a sign that the CCP members within the NRA’s rank were about to perform a military coup with the corporation of the Soviets. As a result, he arrested the navy officer in charge of the Zhongshan Warship (a dual KMT member), put the city of Guangzhou (= Canton), where the warship was parked, under martial law, and surrounded the Soviet / communist agencies there.
The other version: Chiang had actually given the order to move the warships, then pretended he didn’t such that he could accuse the CCP members of betrayal.
(I’m not specifying which version is told by whom—this is left as an exercise for the readers. :D )
Despite Chiang claiming his actions merely targeted specific people rather than the KMT-(Soviet+CCP) alliance (the navy officer was later on freed but fired), the two sides no longer trusted each other after this incident. The last straw leading to the dissolving of the alliance was the Nanking Incident 南京事件 (1927). After taking over the city of Nanjing (= Nanking) from a warlord, several battalions of the NRA—those consisting of many dual party members—stormed the British, American and Japanese consulates, looted foreign-owned businesses and homes, as well as churches, schools and hospitals. Six foreigners were killed.
This attack on “imperialist” foreigners on Chinese soil wasn’t an isolated incident. Previously, riots had already occurred in the concessions. What are concessions? Concessions (租界) were foreign-controlled enclaves within several cities in China during the late Qing dynasty and the Republican era. Most of these cities were treaty ports along the coast yielded to foreign control after the Chinese government had lost a war and was unable to pay the war reparations. Tax collected from these concessions then served as delayed payment to the foreign powers. Concessions often didn’t follow Chinese laws, and were home to many foreign traders who conducted business between China and their native countries, as well as missionaries who, while spreading their faith in China, also built many schools and hospitals for the locals who needed them.
With the concessions and the active trade in the region, foreign powers had had significant military presence off the coast of China. After their citizens and properties were attacked, their battleships sailed to Nanjing and exchanged fire with the NRA until a ceasefire was called.
In the aftermath, the NRA under Chiang Kai-Shek accused the warlord’s army for starting the attack on foreigners. There was insufficient evidence for that. More importantly, it blamed the CCP members within its ranks. This is where, again, history diverges according to who tells it: in one version, one warlord (not the defeated one) soon recovered large amount of documents in the Soviet Embassy in Beijing, which included instructions from the Soviet Communist International to CCP members to incite the Chinese masses to riot against the foreign (”imperialist”) powers, as well as evidences that the Soviets were infiltrating the KMT government via the CCP.
The other version, as one would expect, omitted the existence of these documents.
After the Nanking Incident, for which Chiang—again, commander of the army—issued an apology and compensated the foreign powers, he decided that the KMT and the Nationalist Government had to be purged of its CCP influence. The decision was also, likely, one of self interest: the Soviet + CPP had been interpreted as wanting to borrow the anger and might of these foreign powers to remove Chiang and the right wing KMT.
Chiang solicited the help from powerful mafia in Shanghai for the purge. A large number of CCP members were arrested and executed; communist associations were dissolved and the Soviet advisors removed. This incident was known as the “April 12th incident” (四一二事件) or “April 12th Anti-Revolutionary Coup D’etat” (四一二反革命政變)—again, depending on who’s naming it.
The purge briefly caused a split in the KMT between the left wing (who trusted the Soviets and CCP) and the right wing. The left wing, based in Wuhan, removed Chiang as the commander of the NRA and revoked his KMT membership. The right wing, which Chiang led, set up a new government in Nanjing on April 18th, 1927. This split (寧漢分裂) was short-lived; five months later, the two sides became one again (寧漢合流), and Chiang was re-installed as the chief commander of the NRA in 1928.
Okay, so here’s the historical background of FGM, to the best of my knowledge at the moment * takes a deep breath *. Where did Jiang Xianyun fit into this?
His story was pretty much unknown outside mainland China. He was recruited by Mao into the CCP in 1921, entered the Whampoa Military Academy with Mao’s recommendation. After graduation, he was a rising military star in the NRA; he also led several worker’s movements for the CCP. He picked the CCP side, gave up his KMT party membership and his NRA position after the Zhongshan Warship Incident. He organised an Anti-Chiang movement after the April 12th incident, and didn’t live to see the KMT recovering from its brief split, dying in May of 1927 at the age of 25.
He might have been a hero to the young CCP, but his deeds didn’t really make a significant impact to the larger Chinese history. He died too young.
The point of me writing up this background is not so much to offer a history lesson—my knowledge about this era is no where nearly enough to be qualified to do so—but rather, to point out that it's not always possible to assign a clear Good and Evil side in history. More importantly, who’s the good guy and who’s the villain can change significantly over time.
Who’s The Villain here? The CCP, which was trying to expand its influence in the KMT-led government (which political party doesn’t do that?)? Chiang and the right wing KMT, who broke a previously agreed upon political alliance with the help of the mafia? (when the Soviet infiltration could very well be real, and given that the NRA was filled with CCP members, outside and powerful help was necessary for the purge?) The Soviets? (Why couldn’t it want a piece of China too, when other countries had their concessions in China?) The “imperialist” foreign powers such as the UK, France, US, Japan, who sought reparations when the Nationalist government was almost too weak to stand on its feet? (when the NRA *did* attack their people and their properties, on land that was, by mutual agreement, under their control?)
Even more importantly, is it possible to make a call of who’s The Villain, when so many facts were under dispute?
Now, please allow me get to the KMT and Taiwan. Why I pointed out, about ... a century ago in this post, that it’s important to not equate the KMT in history to Taiwan now, or the KMT (Nationalist Party) in Taiwan now.
Facts surrounding China’s Republican era (1911-1949) are under dispute because, to put it simply, both sides—the CCP and the KMT—were not honest about them in the decades after.
It was not only the CCP who obscured facts for political purpose. After the KMT lost the Civil War in 1949 and retreated to Taiwan, it also established an authoritarian, single-party rulership. Political dissidents were arrested and jailed. Suspected spies from the Chinese Communist Party were executed. The island was under a 38-year long martial law between 1949 to 1987—second in length only to Syria’s 48 years (1963-2011). Those years of political suppression was known as the White Terror (白色恐怖), and the reason they were put in place could be traced to the 228 incident, which happened in 1947 February, in which the KMT government massacred 18,000-28,000 of Taiwanese residents in an anti-government uprising.
The cause of 228 was roughly this: prior to the end of WWII in 1945, Taiwan had been a Japanese colony for 50 years (1895-1945). The KMT government was far less able and far more corrupt than the previous government, and the people were very unhappy with it.
Then, on February 28th, 1947, the Tobacco Monopoly Bureau confiscated the illegal cigarettes and money of a cigarette vendor and beat her up with a pistol. A crowd formed in her defence, the agent opened fire and killed one, igniting a massive protest.
Propaganda and silencing of free speech tends to go hand in hand with political suppression. Discussions of the 228 Incident were forbidden in the years to come—hence the uncertainty, the wide estimated range of death count. Other pieces of KMT history were also filtered through the censorship apparatus when talked about, when taught in schools. Re: the history above, about the KMT government’s cooperation with the Soviets and the CCP against the warlords—this is a single data point, so please take this with a single grain of salt, but I consulted (a trusted) someone who was educated in Taiwan in the 1960s, and she said the Soviet involvement was entirely left out.
(One thing the CCP and KMT could agree upon: association with the Soviets was best left forgotten.)
That said, the Taiwanese government was still better—vastly better— to its people than the Chinese government over the same period, in that, after 228, it didn’t cause massive deaths to its populace again, whether from starvation due to failed economic policies (China’s example: Great Leap Forward; estimated death count: 20-45 million people, making it the biggest mass murder in history), or from inciting civil rest for to gain power (China’s example: Cultural Revolution; estimated death count: ~ 1 million, discounting the Red Guards, survivors who were disabled or driven insane; here’s an account of how teenagers were indoctrinated, incited to get involved in the tortures). The Taiwanese government of the time didn’t pretend disasters that caused the perishing of tens of thousands didn’t happen (China’s example: the 1976 Tangshan earthquake; estimated death count ~ 0.5 million), didn’t rolled tanks over its youth engaged in a peaceful protest (1989 Tiananmen Square Protests; estimated death count ~10,000). Its most infamous crackdown of pro-democracy demonstration post-228, the Kaohsiung Incident, aka the Formosa Incident 美麗島事件 of 1979, resulted in mass arrests but no deaths, although five people were suspected to have been murdered in its aftermath. Most Taiwanese political dissidents survived. One of the defence lawyers for the pro-democracy camp in the Kaohsiung Incident, Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), would become the second Taiwanese President, and the first non-KMT member to hold the position. One of the prisoners of the same incident, Annette Lu 呂秀蓮, would become his vice president.
But it remains true that the Taiwanese Government, from its beginning as the Nationalist Government of the Republican era (starting 1911) and until the late 1980s, was not exactly free or democratic. And this truth explains why the facts of the Republican Era are murky, and will likely remain so. Early records of the era, likely the most accurate ones if told honestly, were distorted on both sides of the Taiwan Strait (the narrow strip of sea separating Taiwan and China). Most people who have witnessed those events have passed away, and so the facts, the truths that are lost can no longer be re-filled.
There’s also a digital age issue—whoever have the loudest, most populous voice control the narrative, whether their spoken words reflect the truth or not. In researching for this meta, I had to scroll through pages of pages on Google to find sources that weren’t published in the mainland. While I recognise that the non-mainland sources can also be flawed especially in this case, at least I could locate the consensus between the two, which are more likely to be factual. ( I always try to consult both mainland and non-mainland sources for the metas).
There are so much more people, so much more content providers in China than outside of it, even without considering the possibility that these historical accounts may be purposefully dumped on the internet to control the narrative of Chinese history. Content farms that replicate these posts are also rampant and Google is unable to filter them out. Meanwhile, the Wikipedia pages of many events mentioned—the go-to places for many people, including myself—are written in a mix of simplified Chinese (used in mainland China) and traditional Chinese (used in Taiwan and Hong Kong). While the form of Chinese used doesn’t always communicate the passage’s political stance—much of the overseas anti-CCP diaspora uses simplified Chinese, and pro-CCPers exist in significant numbers in Hong Kong and Taiwan—it does serve as a hint that different writers are competing to establish the dominant narrative of the events—the narrative that may or may not be factual.
(Just because a stance is anti-CCP doesn’t automatically make it factual.)
And this inability to locate the facts is only going to get worse, regarding all aspects of modern and ancient Chinese history, as Hong Kong is being silenced. The headquarters of the last non-mainland funded, CCP-critical newspaper in the city, Apple Daily, was raided by the police again two days ago (2021/06/17), its hard drives seized, its chief editor arrested—the newspaper’s founder and chairman was already arrested ten months ago. Apple Daily’s crime, according to the police: publishing articles asking for sanctions on Hong Kong and China, which, according to the National Security Law enacted on 2020/06/30, was already sufficient evidence of its “colluding with a foreign country or external elements to endanger national security”.
I try to not talk too much about the ongoing horrors in Hong Kong, given that they’re not Gg and Dd related. But over the past year, books have been banned in the city’s libraries, programmes that met journalistic standards but didn’t parrot the Chinese government’s stance have been deleted from online archives and prevented from airing. Hong Kongers who supported the 2019 protests have been scrambling to hide, erase, clean up their posts on their social media, as their pro-CCP colleagues have been using the content to report them to the higher ups, get them removed from their posts.
It’s dangerous for Hong Kongers to put up any political content that isn’t in line with the CCP’s political narrative now. For the CCP of 2021, historical content is political content. For the CCP of 2021, history and facts are servants to politics.
The only place left that shares common language and tradition with China, is close to the facts and can tell them is Taiwan. Taiwan, which is now being targeted by the Chinese government—literally, with warplanes of the PLA (People’s Liberation Army; Chinese army) breaching Taiwan’s airspace with horrifying frequency over the past months.
I said before, the Taiwanese government had not always been sunshine and flowers, but it was also the same government—and the same party behind the White Terror, the KMT, that finally allowed Taiwan to be the free and democratic place it is today. After ending the martial law in 1987, it held its first legislative elections in 1991, and its first presidential election in 1996. In 2000, it accomplished the first peaceful inter-party transfer of power in the executive office, from the KMT to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP 民進黨). In 1995, President Li Ting-Hui 李登輝 discussed, apologised publicly for the 228 incident on behalf of the Taiwanese government; on the 70th anniversary of the incident, the current Taiwanese president, Tsai Ing-Wen 蔡英文, de-classified all official documents pertaining to 228.
And this is why I said before, that the Good Guys and Villains are not set roles in history. That at each moment, each minute of each day, a government can, and is choosing what it wants to become.
Political parties have the same choice. Another reason I write this very, very long meta (sorry) is this—I hope to draw everyone’s attention that, in 2021, the KMT, the enemy of the CCP through the entire 20th century, who called the CCP the “communist bandits”, is now the pro-CCP party of Taiwan.
Yes, that isn’t the typo. And this is why, re: your ask, Anon, I’d personally choose not to bring in 1920s Republican Era Chinese politics into current China-Taiwan politics. Things have changed too much. Taiwan, as autonomous political entity, didn’t exist yet in the 1920s. The two parties that Jiang Xianyun, the protagonist of Faith Makes Great that Dd played, had to make such an effort to choose from are now ... friends.
I prefer to focus on 2021, on what Taiwan is now. On what Taiwan needs now.
And here’s my very humble opinion, my never having lived in Taiwan after all. Before Taiwan can decide on its own fate, what it needs are the conditions that allow them to realistically make that choice. The conditions are many, and they come in a certain order...
An analogy is this: I can only choose the kind of life I want to live if my choice will not lead to my instant death, if there’s no one 60x my size pointing a huge machine gun at me while I’m making that choice (China’s population: 1.4 billion; Taiwan’s: 23.5 million).
What if I cannot remove the giant and the gun? In that case, I can truly make my choice only if I know there’ll be friends who’ll come to my aid—friends who are brave enough to, at least, openly admit they’re friends with me. This bravery is necessary; after all, by choosing to stand with me, they’ll be standing in the shadow of the giant too, and the huge gun.
And even before that, I need to ... exist, in a way that is visible to my potential friends. To have a place at the table when they have their gatherings. It doesn’t matter if I don’t yet have a name. I need them to recognise me for who I am, as a fully functional being who has taken care of myself for 70+ years, made my own decisions, and contributed to the community.
This is what, I believe, Taiwan lacks and sorely needs right now—visibility. It has been invisible to most of the international community, and the Chinese government is only half-responsible of that. The other half of the responsibility falls squarely on the other countries—including every one that has touted its own respect for democracy and freedom—which has nonetheless severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan, and kept them severed because the Chinese government has screamed that it’s either ... it or it (One China Policy). Countries that have consistently chosen China over Taiwan regardless of what their choices mean to human lives, to human rights.
(Here’s a world map of Taiwan’s (lack of) diplomatic relationship with the world. Only the dark, navy blue countries have full diplomatic relations with Taiwan.)
(If you look at the map, squint and ask, wait... that’s it? Yes. That’s it.)
(Factoid: As the KMT-led government was the ruling party of all of China at the end of World War II 1945 (the CCP didn’t take over until 1949), it represented China in the founding of the United Nations and was one of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. In 1971, the government—by then only representing Taiwan—got kicked out by the UN, and the Chinese government took its spot. Here’s a map of the vote.)
Taiwan’s being an “invisible” nation has had dire consequences recently, consequences beyond politics. The island’s COVID prevention efforts have been exemplar, fending off the disease for most of 2020—it was virus free between April to December, 2020—until an outbreak a month ago (May, 2021). When Taiwanese scrambled to get vaccinated, vaccines were in very short supply. That came as a surprise; while vaccine shortage was everywhere, it wasn’t expected from the Taiwanese government, with its strong track record in preparing for the disease.
While not the sole reason, one reason turned out to be this: the Taiwanese government had trouble procuring vaccines directly from Germany’s BioNtech, which it claimed was due to interference from the Chinese government.
The Chinese government does have a legal basis for the interference: BioNtech (Gemany-based) and Pfizer (US-based) had signed off the distribution rights of their vaccines in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau to China’s Fosun Pharma. The Chinese government has since offered Taiwan its vaccines, which the Taiwanese government rejected—a decision the Chinese state propaganda has happily used to demonstrate the “evils” of the DPP-led Taiwanese government, of President Tsai (”it / she doesn’t care about the people”). The vaccine shortage has only been partially ameliorated by the US and Japan donating their vaccines to Taiwan.
It’s easy to imagine the Chinese government as The Villain here. However ... what about BioNTech-Pfizer signing off the rights to distribute vaccines to Taiwan to a Chinese company? Taiwan has had a longstanding policy of not importing Chinese-made pharmaceutical products for national security and quality control reasons. Vaccines are not only life-saving; they’re also critical for national security, being potential tools for political blackmail, and the Chinese government’s attempt to use COVID for political gains, for its propaganda efforts has already been well documented.
In signing off its Taiwan distribution rights to a company in China, BioNTech-Pfizer, like many other companies (and countries) that have signed similar deals, or have allowed such deals to happen, or have been silent about them and/or yielded to the demands of the Chinese government without questioning their logic or legitimacy, have all indirectly applied (immense) pressure to Taiwan to be subservient to China. By omitting Taiwan’s political situation, by ignoring, bypassing the Taiwanese government when the negotiations of such a deal took place, they are treating Taiwan as if its populace doesn’t really exist, doesn’t really need the life-saving needles.
They are treating Taiwan as if it is invisible.
How can Taiwanese decide their own fate like this? Will the US or Japan come to their aid next time? Will they have the means to help? They cannot possibly have, in excess, what Taiwan needs at every moment. Also, while the countries have been close allies, neither have established formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan. They’re the friends who haven’t publicly admitted their friendship; “American Institute in Taiwan” is the name of US not-embassy embassies on the island. It’s only with the Taiwan Travel Act of 2018 that President Tsai was able to finally travel freely within the US. Previously, Taiwanese presidents could only use the US as a layover. It was also only through this Act that the State Department removed its longstanding, self-imposed ban of its higher officials traveling to Taiwan to meet with the high officials of the Taiwanese government.
(Regardless of one’s opinion of it, the Trump administration deserves recognition for its contributions towards making Taiwan more visible.)
And hence ... my humble opinion that what Taiwan needs the most now is for the world to *truly* see it—far more so than to get Chinese propaganda productions to accurately present the century-old history of its government. Taiwan needs the world to *truly* understand its existence, its current predicament as an “invisible” nation that is sovereign is every way except by name, and that, despite it being a nation that has been kind to its people and the world, has been shunned by the international community, that has trouble procuring its own life-saving vaccines. It needs the world to follow its news (while being beware of pro-CCP news sources, such as China Times 中時新聞), news such as ... this one: in 2018, the Chinese government made yet another move to make Taiwan even more invisible, threatened 44 international airlines to drop the name “Taiwan” from the destination “Taipei, Taiwan” with sanctions ... and the airlines complied without a fight, including the Big 3 of the United States (United, Delta, American). It needs people to know what it means when legislators around the world ask for a status quo in the Taiwan Strait, and what such a status quo means to Taiwan.
There can only be a status quo if one side isn’t already moving aggressively forward.
As I mentioned, Taiwan’s current situation is the combined responsibility of the Chinese government and every other government that has blinded itself about it. We cannot change the Chinese government—even the people in China can hardly change the Chinese government—but we can change our own country’s, especially for those of us who live in places that are (relatively) obliged to listen to its people. Get the attention of our own lawmakers, make them talk about Taiwan. Taiwan will remain invisible for a long time still—the Chinese government will not let go of it easily, and if it does, it’s only because it has already pocketed Taiwan—and one way to make Taiwan visible before things change is to link hands with it, to make it visible by proxy. Get Taiwan to sit on our country’s lap if it gets barred from having a seat in the world community (such as the World Health Assembly, when diseases know no international boundaries), especially if our country is politically hefty. Refuse to let lawmakers sidestep sensitive issues regarding China-Taiwan relations; let companies know, when they participate in make-Taiwan-invisible efforts, that they get to choose between their Chinese customers and us.
Only when Taiwan exists in everyone’s minds can it afford to exercise self-determination.
The world kicked Taiwan out. It’s up to it to bring Taiwan back in.
To end this monotonous post with something colourful, below is a picture of Taipei Pride, 2020. Taipei usually celebrates Pride in October, but when it learned that last year, the 50th anniversary of the first Pride March that had been held a day after the 1st anniversary of the Stonewall Riot in New York, couldn’t take place off-line in New York (and most places in the world) due to COVID, it stepped up on short notice. The celebration was attended by 130,000.
(Cr: New York Times.)
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1460th day as the prime minister of han and you are the enemy general at my mercy. since your absolute loser of a liege lord is MIA you agree to work for me until he returns and in exchange i agree not to raze your city to the ground and put every rebel to the sword. i hope this magnanimous gesture will convince you of my good intentions.
1461st day as the prime minister of han in order to knock you down a few pegs i try to sabotage your integrity by making you share a room with your loser liege lord's two wives but you just stand outside the door all night with a candle and aren't tempted at all. (i am honestly baffled, as far as i'm concerned other people's wives are utterly irresistible.)
1462nd day as the prime minister of han, my advisor tells me it's easier to catch flies with honey so i begin plying you gifts and pretty serving girls but you keep sending them to your loser liege lord's wives. instead of passing the evening with me engaged in gentlemanly conversation, you spend long hours drying their tears and reassuring them their loser husband is safe. i can't say i'm not annoyed by the snub but your filial piety is commendable
1463rd day as the prime minister of han and even with my considerable intellect, i cannot understand why a man of your skills would chose to serve such an unworthy master. that sanctimonious sandal-weaver has lost nearly every battle he's fought (most of them against me), yet heroes still flock to his cause and peasants aid him at every turn. how does he inspire such loyalty?
1464th day as the prime minister of han, i definitely will not be throwing you an extravagant banquet every day because that's just desperate! i'm only throwing them every fifth day and small ones every third day. do you not like the silk-and-gold robes i've been sending you? you can speak plainly, general, i wont be offended. do they not fit? i must see for myself, please disrobe--
1465th day as the prime minister of han and you finally join me for a drink. i've forgotten how nice this is, in between fighting bandits, quashing rebellions and running 1/3 of a country i've not had much time to myself. the wine loosens your tongue and you talk about brotherhood, sacrifise and sacred oaths in a peach garden, things i've heard about but never seen, like the qilin and other such fantastical beasts but you're so sincere i can't even bring myself to scoff at you. i've lived my entire life looking over my shoulder; better to betray than be betrayed, that's my motto. i've never known anything else.
1466th day as the prime minister of han and i give you a silk bag to protect your long, handsome beard after you made an offhand comment about the whiskers getting brittle in winter. the emperor himself remarked upon it and even though you were humble and self-effacing as always, i preened. it pleases me that you look so well under my patronage, yet your eyes are so troubled. i must not be doing enough, time to consult my advisor again...
1467th day as the prime minister of han i noticed your green battle-coat was threadbare so I fashioned a replacement made of the rarest brocade but you only ever wear it under the old coat loser liege lord gave you because having a piece of him around eases your heart. i don't even have a clever quip for that. although in hindsight i should have expected this turn of events given your utter indifference to that loser's wives and my pretty serving girls.
1468th day as the prime minister of han, i give you the fastest horse in the world and to my surprise you're elated, bowing and thanking me profusely. then you go and ruin the moment by telling me how grateful you are because it means you will be able to travel quickly to your loser liege lord when you discover his location and now i wish i'd turned that damn beast into glue. this is the first time i've ever seen you smile.
1469th day as the prime minister of han, a verse came to me during our walk through the woods; "the magpie flies south and circles the tree three times. where shall he rest?" i want you to stay. i want you to be mine. lead my armies and help me bring order to the realm, i'll raise you monuments and immortalise your name. alas, the bitter irony is not lost on me, i want you for your loyalty but your loyalty is the reason you cannot stay. if you could have been persuaded i would have lost my respect for you.
1470th day as the prime minister of han and news arrives that your loser liege lord is alive. my advisor tells me that you won't leave until you've repaid my kindness. i guess i better keep you away from the action and hope the next few months are boring and uneventful. in the meantime why don't you try on this new robe! no, i don't mind you undressing here--
1471th day as the prime minister of han and my city is under attack. you single-handedly break the siege and bring me the enemy leader's head. hospitality repaid, you ride off without a backwards glance and i watched the horizon long after you have disappeared.
4391th day as the prime minister of han. I trust you've been well, general, since we last met. I often dreamed that you would return to me, we'd sit under the trees and drink a toast for old times sake. As far as reunions go, the middle of an ambush is not very auspicious. Our roles are reversed, I am the bleeding hart and you are the faithful hound. by rights you should have delivered me straight to your master but instead you let me limp away. why did you do it my beautiful, foolish, loyal general? you know i will only cause you grief. this war will not end as long as i draw breath. this country cannot have three kingdoms any more than a single mountain can have three tigers.
-epilogue-
last year as the king of wei and i trust you've been well, general, since we last met...
notes under the cut:
It's a truth universally acknowledged that any funny joke on tumblr.com will be run into the ground.
this is a spoof of the 2nd Century Warlord by @romanceyourdemons
1/ Events are based on the historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, supplemented by historical events.
2/ In 196 AD, Warlord Cao Cao moves the capital of China to his territory of Xu City with the Emperor as his puppet. His offical title is the General-in-Chief (大將軍) although I've gone with the more recognisable "Prime Minister". In 200 AD, Cao Cao captured General Guan Yu, who was serving under Liu Bei.
3/Book!Cao Cao is portrayed as a villain and his name is literally synonymous with the devil in Chinese culture. IRL Cao Cao was considered to be a wise and capable ruler. I've decided to bridge the gap a little.
4/ Cao Cao (and sons) were very influential poets, the line "the magpie flies south" is a passage from the Unnamed Magpie Poem, after consolidating power, Cao Cao encourages all the best and brightest in his kingdom to flock to his court.
5/ "I dreamt of you, general" monologue taken verbatim from the 2010 tv show. People in the han dynasty were battling demons and that demon is bisexuality.
6/ Book!Cao Cao does not actually think Liu Bei is a loser, he considers him to be "one of the only two heroes in the world". but my god, you can pry that alliteration out of my cold, dead hands.
#chinese history#ancient china#romance of the three kingdoms#san guo yan yi#history meme#cao cao#liu bei#guan yu#second century warlord adjacent i guess#i realise it's an incredibly bold move to spoof a popular post when the op is literally ur mutual#do you like stories that are 7/10 history and 3/10 conjecture and 10/10 batshit crazy? read romance of the three kingdoms!#the moss translation none of the other ones
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Covering Your Ears to Steal a Bell update and wild speculation re: Gan Ning
So in the latest chapter of my (dark fic!! history is dark!! warnings!! read them!!) fic Covering Your Ears to Steal a Bell, I weave a blend of Dynasty Warriors tropes, popularly accepted history (the Sanguozhi), and the 14th century novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguo Yanyi) to form my own fic. When you consider that ROTK is basically historical RPF and that the late Qing reform era Anti-Romance of the Three Kingdoms (Fan Sanguo Yanyi) was historical RPF fix-it fic where the author’s OC got to marry his favourite character (whose OC I have borrowed for my own fic), I am truly standing on the shoulders of giants when I wildly speculate on what a) actually happened b) would never have happened but is fun to imagine.
Now there’s a reason why my doc file for this Gan Ning centric story is “nice pirates are still not that nice”, and that attitude is basically how I approach this character who was, after all, a pirate living in decline of the Han dynasty China. Now, note, I’m not saying “everybody has to like Gan Ning, it’s compulsory”; but I am explaining why I like him and am not ashamed of it, even knowing all I know. Gan Ning gets the longest original section in volume 55 of the Sanguozhi, and the most later annotations, so you know what, people have liked talking about this guy for a long time. Was he their problematic fave too? Probably.
Gan Ning: Chinese pirate, my problematic fave
For people who aren’t aware, but for some reason want to try and follow along at home, the background: Gan Ning was a Chinese pirate active in the southeast-ish part of China around the year 200AD as the Han dynasty was falling apart. As regional warlords jockeyed for power, he joined up first with one (Huang Zu) and then with another who was going to beat the first (Sun Quan). The second one turned out to be pretty good at consolidating power, and carved out a kingdom called Wu in southeast China that became actually the longest lasting kingdom among the titular Three Kingdoms era of China.
They make him look something like this in the game series Dynasty Warriors. The bells and the feathers were actually his Marketing Trademark, and people remember them 1800 years later which goes to show how important it is to market yourself.
So when people are like “OMG did you know Gan Ning LIKED to KILL PEOPLE???” I’m like:
"Yeah but you don’t understand he liked to kill people for NO REASON!”
Yeah I’m still sitting here not terribly shocked. Even assuming the worst stories about him in his pre-Wu days were true—that he deliberately waited in houses where the occupants were away, just so that he would get to kill the people who lived there, instead of simply looting the houses and moving on—and not embellished to make him sound like more of a terror.... well, the end result is that he sounds like a terror, which, if you are trying to make your living as a pirate, is exactly the reputation you want? Or, to come at it with the same result but reversed, a person who is that eager to kill by nature is exactly the kind of person who would rise to significant power as a pirate in a chaotic era. So look at Captain Kirk there again for my reaction.
And again, it’s the era. What’s the difference between small-scale freelance murder and theft, aka piracy, and large-scale wholesale slaughter and theft, aka invading and conquering? In the latter case, often somebody to retroactively declare that you were emperor all along. In such an environment, I am even less eager to pass judgment.
And then there’s of course, the id. “Aren’t you tired of being nice? Don’t you want to just go apeshitt” as the meme says. Well, actually, I’m fine with being nice in my real life, but as Lin-Manuel Miranda says, some part of you wants to experience everything. And stories—and historical stories are still stories—are a way to do that.
So that basically takes care of “he was a killer!!” as an objection to liking him, in my books.
So in this particular chapter of my story, I deal with the other reason people usually bring up for hating Gan Ning, which is a story from the Sanguozhi (and therefore probably at least somewhat true) that involves a kind of controversy about child death (I’m on the side of arguing: probably not a child), but even without the age controversy, definitely involves murder; so not everybody wants to read it, so it’s under a cut. It’s a really fascinating story on a lot of levels so if you can handle stuff like “what happened to the princes in the tower” and similar historical horrors then you should be able to handle this.
Alright so here’s the relevant section from the Sanguozhi, the more-or-less intending to be accurate historical record from the Jin dynasty, written by a man named Chen Shou who, to be clear, was not even born yet by the time that Gan Ning died. So “what REALLY happened???” can never be fully known in all details, particularly the little anecdotes that would naturally grow in the telling. But that just means that “so why did they write down THIS and in THIS WAY?” becomes its own interesting question.
Everyone who comes at this history seems to say “Chen Shou was biased in this and that way and what the truth must actually be is this, which coincidentally is my bias” so I might as well do that too.
So here’s the incident in question in the original Chinese in the Sanguozhi:
寧厨下兒曾有過，走投呂蒙。蒙恐寧殺之，故不即還。後寧齎禮禮蒙母，臨當與升堂，乃出厨下兒還寧。寧許蒙不殺。斯須還船，縛置桑樹，自挽弓射殺之。畢，勑船人更增舸纜，解衣卧船中。蒙大怒，擊鼓會兵，欲就船攻寧。寧聞之，故卧不起。蒙母徒跣出諫蒙曰：「至尊待汝如骨肉，屬汝以大事，何有以私怒而欲攻殺甘寧？寧死之日，縱至尊不問，汝是爲臣下非法。」蒙素至孝，聞母言，即豁然意釋，自至寧舩，笑呼之曰：「興霸，老母待卿食，急上！」寧涕泣歔欷曰：「負卿。」與蒙俱還見母，歡宴竟日。
I took only two semesters of classical Chinese but I never like anybody else’s translation of classical Chinese anyway so here goes (I also consulted a modern Chinese gloss). I am bolding stuff I am going to talk about.
[Gan] Ning’s kitchen boy [more on this in a minute] committed a fault, and ran to throw himself on Lü Meng’s mercy. [Lü] Meng was afraid [Gan] Ning would kill him, therefore he would not return him. Later [Gan] Ning brought many gifts to [Lü] Meng’s mother, going up to the house in person, so that the kitchen boy would be returned to [Gan] Ning. [Gan] Ning promised [Lü] Meng that he wouldn’t kill him. On the way back to the boat, [Gan Ning] tied [the servant] to a mulberry tree, and he himself drew the bow to shoot him dead. That accomplished, he ordered his boatmen to lengthen the mooring rope, and laid down in the boat with his clothes loosened. [Lü] Meng was enraged. He hit the drum to summon soldiers, and immediately went to the boat to attack [Gan] Ning. When [Gan] Ning heard it, he didn’t get up. [Lü] Meng’s mother ran out barefoot and scolded [Lü] Meng saying: “Our lord has treated you as his flesh and blood, giving you dominion over great things, so how can you kill Gan Ning out of your own personal anger? If [Gan] Ning dies today, even if our lord ignores it, you will have broken the law.” [Lü] Meng was always extremely filial. He listened to his mother’s words, and in a flash he comprehended their meaning. He went personally to [Gan] Ning’s boat, and called out to him laughing: “Xingba [Gan Ning’s style name, used between peers; here shows affection or comradery], my mom’s got food ready, hurry up!” [Gan] Ning shed tears, snorted, and sobbed, saying, “I let you down.” Then he went back together with [Lü] Meng to see his mother, and they feasted all day.
Okay so the first thing is this critical phrase 厨下兒 which has been glossed into some English translations as “kitchen boy” and similar and which English speakers have then looked at and then gone “oh my God Gan Ning killed a child, a literal child, a tiny baby boy”. Ok, Hold on. Please.
So modern Chinese gloss I consulted translates this as “廚房的僕人” which just means “kitchen servant”. Yes “兒“ means child but it has so many other meanings especially in a compound like this; and this “child” is not specifically the “under a certain age” form of child.
Moreover, even in English, when we talk about English phrases like “kitchen boy” or (more prominently) “cabin boy” we are not talking about a five year old or even necessarily a ten year old. A 13-16 year old could easily be covered under that phrase in English. So please understand how a Chinese phrase like this could also cover such an age range, and remember also, that in this era, Ling Tong was on the front lines of the battlefield at age ~15 with his father when he died. So the idea of when a kid is fair game to be killed as an enemy is not our own.
So I’m even willing to go with the phrase “kitchen boy” because I feel the original conveys the sense of a minor servant. I’m certainly not going to rule out that the servant was, by modern standards, a child. Gan Ning is doing something really bad here. He knows himself it’s bad, and that’s where it gets the most interesting.
The second point I want to bring up is what it put across in the phrases “On the way back to the boat,” “he hit the drum”, and “ran out barefoot”, which is everything happens so fast. Gan Ning doesn’t even wait to get the servant home; instead, he kills him between Lü Meng’s house and his boat (which presumably was how he traveled to visit Lü Meng). And he does it by tying him to a tree! Not exactly subtle! And then he goes to his boat and just starts chillaxing! When he tells his sailors to lengthen the mooring rope, he’s doing the opposite of trying to run away. If you wanted to get away quickly, you would untie the mooring rope, or at least have it ready to untie fast. But Gan Ning deliberately makes it difficult to escape. And then the story mentions that Gan Ning loosens his clothing, or could even be interpreted as undressing, and that he lies down. Again, is that what you do when you expect to want to get away?
And then we’re back to everything happening so fast: Lü Meng, it seems finds out that the servant is dead very quickly, immediately hits a drum to summon soldiers and just runs out. And when Gan Ning hears this, he doesn’t get up. Now some people interpret this as cowardly, that Gan Ning was hiding from Lü Meng in not getting up to meet him. But if Lü Meng’s mother hadn’t caught him in time, would Lü Meng not have known where he was? No, Lü Meng knew exactly where he was. His boat was still tied to the dock by the mooring rope, and all of Gan Ning’s sailors, remember, would strictly speaking have been under Lü Meng too.
So then Lü Meng gets scolded by his mommy and realizes that he has to let Gan Ning off the hook. And he goes and the way he speaks to Gan Ning, in the original, is so casual and affectionate, which is why I translated it as “my mom’s got food ready”. Now within Chinese culture, as in many cultures, this invitation to food is in itself a mark of affection.
And then we come to the most interesting part of all: the original uses four characters to describe Gan Ning’s crying. Now, Chinese is terse, and classical Chinese is ULTRA terse. These people are not using any more characters than they have to. Yet Chen Shou spend four whole characters to describe that Gan Ning was not only “shedding tears” but “snorting” and “sobbing”. Holy shit. Believe me, if you read a lot of classical Chinese, this rings like a klaxon. The person writing this down thought this was important.
Gan Ning’s motivations throughout all of this are just so opaque. Impulsivity? But it involved a certain amount of planning. Did he want to be punished? Did he have even a death wish? Why was he so fixated on this escaped servant? (The silence of the original text as to what the servant did wrong exacerbates this. It could be almost anything.) Why did he, in some ways, play it so coolly and so arrogantly (the tying to a tree, the lying down half-dressed on a drifting boat), but then suddenly flip to abject, sobbing apology? Was the latter apology as much of a lie as his original promise not to kill the servant was? Or was Gan Ning truly stricken with remorse?
And what do we learn from the story? Utility to the state as a way to escape consequences? Crime and punishment are difficult to separate from personal considerations of revenge and anger? Efficacy of shame based on personal connection over physical attack? Chinese mothers are always right? (It’s that last one, isn’t it.)
So that’s why I had to write my own version. And yes, it’s a version that, while not condoning Gan Ning’s many horrible actions, does portray him as a person sympathetically.
#gan ning#chinese history#pirates#chinese pirates#sanguozhi#my translation#classical chinese#historical revisionism#romance of the three kingdoms#three kingdoms#dynasty warriors#my fanfic
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CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT MEME
FULL NAME: sofia valeria delgato ------ she’s regal as shit & she will let you know it . fia is a reserved nickname from herself & childer ( even then , they’re pretty limited on when she’s in the mood to be referred to as fia . she likes for her childer to respect her a decent amount . )
GENDER & SEXUALITY: pussy power : she’s a boss bitch who leans more towards women when entering any kind of serious , emotional , relationship , but she likes men too .
ETHNICITY & SPECIES: she is mexican / hispanic & she was born in nuevo laredo --- the same place she was reborn as a lasombra vampire .
BIRTHPLACE & BIRTHDATE: NUEVO LAREDO , TAMAULIPAS , MEXICO : april 12th .
GUILTY PLEASURES: diablerie .
PHOBIAS: mirrors ------ oddly enough . sofia often likes to go out of her way to avoid them : they give her a strange body dysmorphia , as she quite literally cannot see herself in them . she will never let anyone know that , though , as it’s childish .
WHAT THEY WOULD BE INFAMOUS FOR: likely her political role . despite having such high ranks in both clan & sect ( friends of the night candidate / cardinal of southern north america ) , she enjoys taking control from the battlefield . she has ashed numerous high - ranking lasombra traitors , overthrown multiple camarilla clan leaders , & destroyed prolific inquisition spots : as is the job description .
WHAT HAVE THEY/WOULD THEY HAVE GOTTEN ARRESTED FOR: haha , nothing . despite murder & the usual if able to be caught , she just wouldn’t get arrested . . . laws aren’t her thing .
CHARACTER YOU SHIP THEM WITH: besides her ex ( almost ? pretend ? ) wife , no one really --- sofia is not a character that can connect naturally with others anymore . unfortunately , her continuous & gluttonous use of obtenebration has left her a hollow shell of what she used to be in kine life over 800 years ago . . . both emotionally & literally . the affects of the abyss has left her giving off horrible , unnatural vibes towards cainites , kine , & animals alike : her husks of eyes don’t help either .
CHARACTER MOST LIKELY TO MURDER THEM: her own clan . for V5 timeline , the amici noctis / lasombra seeking entry within the camarilla for the gehenna crusade have decided to torch cardinals as a show of good faith ------ CLAN over SECT loyalty & sofia has only just barely made it through by her high ranking position within the clan as well as within the sbabbat ( both of which she loves dearly ) , but if they had not decided to pardon her , then she would have been burned or on the run for an eternity .
FAVOURITE BOOK GENRE: sofia can’t read in the middle of a war , she has a clan to lead .
LEAST FAVOURITE BOOK CLICHÉ: probably anything about vampires : though she doesn’t / has never read vampire novels .
TALENTS OR POWERS: besides all of the lasombra clan disciplines , sofia is highly skilled in necromancy , thanks to liliana ( adoptive giovanni childe . ) preforming many trusted rites & sanctions for her clan : she has even been able to directly communicate & interact in the shadowlands .
WHY SOMEONE MIGHT LOVE THEM: besides the wealth & connections aspect that people may enjoy to use ------ sofia is ultimately understanding & calm . rarely becoming angry or above - the - top malicious ; sofia enjoys relaxation . good blood , good entertainment , & good fun . . . underneath her work for the lasombra she is a simple creature to please .
WHY SOMEONE MIGHT HATE THEM: despite centuries of dedication to the sabbat & aiding her people in both the original anarch revolt & the gehenna crusade in the east ? she is a master manipulator , a reckless warlord , & a bleak , unforgiving bitch . never does she mince her words & never does she show mercy . people tend to avoid her for those reasons alone , but even worse , the diablerie is usually enough to keep calmer cainites away .
HOW THEY CHANGE: it is too late for complete , overwhelming change at this stage in her unlife , but with the gehenna crusade & most of the sabbat leaving north america to instead head into war zones across the globe , sofia has had to adjust her priorities heavily . she was undeniably forced to abandon all of her hard work with the sabbat & stay in america to help the lasombra with the second inquisition in exchange for not being burned to death . despite wanting to go fight , to be with her true passion , she knows what she has to do to survive & she’s ashamed of herself for that . now is the first & only time she’s sacrificed her beliefs for her eternity & it’s almost insulting .
WHY YOU LOVE THEM: she’s an incredibly strong woman & a remarkable leader : able to convince anyone to walk through a thousand flames for her cause . she takes the respect she deserves & makes you leave your shit at the door . we love a STRONG FEMALE CHARACTER .
Tagged by: @thefanggang
Tagging: @meanestmachine | @paxde | @vaelours | @ anyone who wants to !
#✞┊❛ for the lasombra are refined monsters ❜ ( isms )#✞┊❛ the headcanons ❜ ( metas )#I LOVE FIA CAN U TELL ;-;
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Post-IW MCU Rewatch: Black Panther
Time for an Afrofuturistic paradise!
Ohhhh, the meteor hit before humans came along. That makes so much more sense. Here I was misremembering that it landed in the backyards of these five tribes, and I was really confused that a meteor with a seemingly infinite supply of vibranium didn’t destroy everything for hundreds of miles. This makes much more sense.
The black sand hologram things are so much cooler than regular floating image holograms.
Hahahaha, okay, T’Challa freezing is adorable.
There are some great sibling and mom moments in this movie. Ramonda only had to see T’Challa’s face to know Shuri was flipping him off behind her back. Bahaha.
They did an amazing job on Wakanda. It’s Incredible to look at. From the city to the landscapes to the waterfall to the traditions of the different tribes. This whole movie has such an incredible atmosphere to it. This is the level of personality and culture I wish they’d given Asgard.
So I’ve seen critiques that question the wisdom of having a ritual combat to determine rule in such an advanced country. I think those critiques are missing the point. Wakanda’s flaw, aside from having a policy of isolationism at all costs, is clinging too hard to ceremony and tradition. It’s probably been many generations since they actually viewed the ritual combat as more than a token of respect to past tradition, but they didn’t actually delegitimize it in law, which is how Killmonger is able to take advantage of the situation.
The ancestral plane is beautiful.
“It’s hard for a good man to be king.” I desperately need Thor and T’Challa to interact. Have drinks and talk about the struggles of being king and having fathers who hid horrible truths.
So will T’Challa marry Nakia now that he’s come to agree with her politics?
Wakabi is kind of unreasonable. To turn on T’Challa for failing to bring Klaue back on his first attempt? Come on. T’Chaka failed to retrieve him for three decades, and you expect T’Challa to do it in one day? You are a bad friend.
Please let Peter and Shuri interact! They both love memes and “old” movies!
The whole suit fitting into the necklace strains credulity a bit. As does Tony’s bleeding edge armor. But I guess conservation of mass went out the window when Steve easy-baked from a sickly 90-pound kid to a 240-pound muscle-bound hunk, so it’s a bit late to start complaining.
*innocently* “For research purposes.”
Tolkien white guys!
Heck yes Okoye fight scene! Check out this gorgeous one-er!
Ohhhh it’s a vibranium car. So it breaks apart differently than a normal car would. I can accept the way Okoye and Nakia survive that crash better now. That was an important detail.
I, having two brothers, have never called either of them “Brother” to their faces in my life, nor have I ever heard anyone do this in real life, and yet I love when siblings do this in fiction. Brodinsons and royal house of Wakanda, please never change.
Klaue is so obnoxious.
Oh wow, I never noticed that they stuck those comms devices behind their ears.
Killmonger’s armor with the chestplate thing looks like some of the armor in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Awesome.
I keep imagining an AU in which Asgard and Wakanda do regular trade and have embassies. Wakanda has vibranium and millennia of experience working with it, Asgard has magic and other types of advancements. It’d be an amazing alliance, and they could’ve had it for centuries without telling anyone else on Earth.
Seriously Wakabi, you’re being a jerk.
So basically, Killmonger is Hamlet. More on that later, but he just killed Ophelia. Also, the reveal that he’s the main villain, not Klaue, is the midpoint/turning point of this movie. It’s getting to the point where I don’t have to check the progress to recognize these moments. The MCU gets criticism for being formulaic, but if the formula is simply following the 3-act structure, it still leaves plenty of room for variety, so I fail to see the problem.
N’Jobu is a scary extremist. Nakia is the one with the right philosophy. But T’Chaka did not need to use lethal force. He had super strength and a vibranium suit. He could’ve subdued his brother and brought him in. Instead, he killed him and left his nephew to find the body. T’Chaka is a lot like Odin. I do think both became better men than they were in the early days of thei rrule, but they did nothing to correct some of their biggest mistakes. Instead, they buried them. How exactly did they expect their sons to do better jobs ruling without all the facts?
I really like that Killmonger and T’Challa both held their father’s bodies the same way and cried over them. Super important parallelism.
Hmm, vibranium is vulnerable to sonic weaponry. That’s really good to know. This stuff is a bit too versatile and powerful; it needs a weakness.
It’s super weird that Killmonger’s (American) name is Eric Stephens. There was an Eric Stephens in my grad program, and he sat in the cubicle next to me.
There’s some interesting stuff about group identity in this movie. Tribe identity (the five tribes in Wakanda), national identity, racial identity, and humanity at large. Nakia wants to help humanity at large. The Jabari are the most tribal. The other four tribes are about their identity as Wakandans over their tribes. N’Jakada, who grew up in the US, surrounded by gang violence and police brutality, with a father who wanted to militarize the entire African Diaspora and was killed for that, effectively making him a martyr and proving him right in the eyes of his son, is about racial identity to a fascist degree. N’Jakada has legitimate concerns, and his backstory is tragic and unjust, but his solutions are evil. Getting what he wants (assuming enough people outside Wakanda, where loyalty to the throne is somewhat mandated, would even go along with his world conquest plan) would come at the expense of the soul of the people he claims he’s fighting for.
The upside-down shot of N’Jakada taking the throne is chilling and excellent.
Conquerors or conquered are not the only two options here, Wakabi. But that attitude is self-fulfilling prophecy.
M’Baku is awesome.
T’Challa’s second trip to the ancestral plane is when he really figures out what his priorities are and what he’s fighting for. He realizes what he wants Wakanda to be under his rule. He’s been fairly passive and lacking in his own ideology up until now. Now his heart is really in it. He’s become the Black Panther and a king, so now he just has to fight to reclaim those actual titles from a mad warlord.
“All that challenge shit is over. I’m the king now.” Yeah, N’Jakada has no respect for their traditions, he only exploited them.
“Your heart is so full of hatred! You are not fit to be a king!” Yesss! Choose what Wakanda stands for, don’t just hand your loyalty to a man who doesn’t deserve it. It’s pretty notable, though, that Okoye only withdraws loyalty to N’Jakada when she sees that T’Challa is alive. Because the challenge is ongoing, she is free to choose the king she wants. She never broke her oath.
Heck yeah, warrior princess!
Oh hey, her gauntlets totally do the same thing to N’Jakada’s suit that the rails on the trains do.
Aaaah the truth comes out. “You want to see us become just like the people you hate so much. You will destroy the world, Wakanda included.” “The world took everything away from me! I’m gonna make sure we’re even!” N’Jakada pretty much just admitted he’s the villain.
And the Jabari claim their identity as Wakandans. Woohoo!
Hehe, the rhino loves his mama.
The civil war in Wakanda is what the Asgard storyline in Ragnarok was missing. Hela just slaughtering everyone and generally being ludicrously OP is not interesting, but if a significant portion of the people had sided with her and there was a battle for the soul of Asgard? That would’ve been amazing, and I wouldn’t have just been impatient to get back to trash planet shenanigans.
It’s a shame N’Jakada dies. He’s a Loki caliber villain, and they could’ve given him a redemption arc or something.
Okay, weirdly, one of the details I like the most about the capital of Wakanda is that the ground doesn’t appear to be paved anywhere.
So if Bucky is White Wolf, does that mean he’s going to be in future Black Panther movies? Yes please?
Black Panther is very good, but I don’t think it makes it into my top five MCU movies. T’Challa needs more development. He’s too passive for too much of the movie. Shuri and Okoye are much more interesting characters and have much more personality than him, and the same goes for M’Baku and N’Jakada. Hopefully they’ll do more with T’Challa in future installments. A big part of what makes the Marvel movies so great in general is their compelling leads, but this movie didn’t make me as invested in T’Challa as a person as it made me invested in his country and the people around him. I want to be as invested in T’Challa as I am in characters like Thor, Peter Parker, Tony, Steve, the Guardians, Scott, and Stephen, characters like Frank, Matt, Luke, and Jessica. I think what would have gone a long way towards solving this problem would have been if he’d actually been a staunch defender of the traditional isolationist view, only to learn over the course of the movie that Nakia is right. Isolationism breeds xenophobia and over-inflates national pride, creating people like N’Jakada. Much better to embrace other countries and cultures and help each other grow. As it is, it seems like T’Challa goes along with the isolationist thing because that’s how they’ve always done it, but he doesn’t seem remotely passionate about it, and that’s to the detriment of his character.
Now, the Hamlet thing. It occurred to me the first time I saw this in theaters that N’Jakada is essentially Hamlet. His father was killed by his uncle, who is on the throne, and his quest for vengeance gets everyone around him including his lover and friends killed, and ultimately he dies too. Then a benevolent king takes the throne, having learned from this conflict.
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How Silicon Valley Utopianism Brought You the Dystopian Trump Presidency
Two years ago, journalist Anand Giridharadas took the stage at the TED Conference and told the attendant techno-solutionists that they were, in fact, part of the problem. Literally, thats what he said. Here, Ill quote him directly:
“If you live near a Whole Foods, if no one in your family serves in the military, if you’re paid by the year, not the hour, if most people you know finished college, if no one you know uses meth, if you married once and remain married, if you’re not one of 65 million Americans with a criminal record — if any or all of these things describe you, then accept the possibility that actually, you may not know what’s going on and you may be part of the problem.”
Seen from today, as Donald Trump is sworn in as the 45th president, Giridharadas message joins Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the U.S. as one of the great unheeded warnings of the 21st century. That socioeconomic despair was profitably channeled to elect a president who—beyond his politics—represents a threat to most of the values the technocracy holds dear: transparency; multiculturalism; expertise; social progress. And, in the greatest of ironies, he used the tools and language of the technocracy to do it.
At least since the 1960s, the computer—and, beyond that, the Internet–has been a symbol and tool of personal liberation. Stewart Brand called the computer revolution the real legacy of the sixties–an outgrowth of the countercultures scorn for centralized authority. The ideology was codified by WIRED alum Steven Levy in his 1984 book Hackers, in which he summarized the Hacker Ethic:
Access to computers should be unlimited and total.
All information should be free.
Mistrust authoritypromote decentralization.
You can create art and beauty on a computer.
Computers can change your life for the better.
These precepts inspired a worldview that saw institutions and middlemen as malign forces that mostly constrained human potential, and that placed unlimited faith in unshackled individuals to improve the world and their own lives. For much of the past three decades, that philosophy has borne out. It has become an unspoken truism of corporate and civic life.
But Trumps inauguration provides a damning counterargument, an example of how each of those ideas can be exploited to advance the very values they were created to oppose. Universal access to computers created a greater audience for Trumps culture-jamming Twitter feed. An outpouring of free information sowed confusion and created cover for half- and untruths. Trump used anti-authoritarian rhetoric to sow mistrust of the very institutions that might have provided a firewall against his own authoritarian tendencies. Democratizing the tools of creative production created not just ennobling art but a million shitposts and Pepe memes.
In the wake of the election, some despairing technologists have wondered how to improve the products and systems that led to this result. There are things we were optimizing for that had unintended consequences, says Justin Kan, a venture capitalist at Y Combinator and co-founder of Twitch. In designing to maximize engagement, social networks inadvertently created hives of bias-confirmation and tribalism.
There are things we were optimizing for that had unintended consequences.Justin Kan, Y Combinator
Or consider the effect innovation in computing has had on employment. Thirty or 40 years ago, you could have a good, steady paying job without a college education, says Ben Parr, cofounder of Octane AI and author of Captivology: The Science of Capturing Peoples Attention. There arent as many of those jobs any more, and a large part of that is because tech has changed the world over the last 40 years, and Silicon Valley played a big part in that.
No doubt. But it might be time to ask even bigger questions. Questions like: Is technology always an ennobling force? Questions like: Does allowing humanity untrammeled access to one another always result in a better world? Questions like: Are individuals capable of processing all the information that they once relied on institutions to process for them? Questions like: After people free themselves from their social and cultural shackles, then what?
If its any consolation, Trump-era Americans will not be the first to ask themselves these questions. During the Second World War, psychologist Erich Fromm asked in Escape From Freedom why, despite an overarching trend toward greater personal freedom, large chunks of the western world had embraced authoritarianism. It was tempting, he argued, to consider this an aberration, the fault of a few madmen who gained power over the vast apparatus of the state through nothing but cunning and trickery, and who rendered their constituents the will-less object of betrayal and terror. But Fromm argued against this attempt to shift blame. There was something inherent in humanity that feared true freedom, that preferred to be dominated. In other words, Fromm thought this was a feature of human nature, not a bug.
Thirty or 40 years ago, you could have a good, steady paying job without a college education. There arent as many of those jobs any more, and Silicon Valley played a big part in that.Ben Parr, author and venture capitalist
To explain this tendency, Fromm distinguished between two kinds of freedom: negative freedom, casting off the shackles of social, political, and cultural restrictions; and positive freedom, finding a truer expression of self and identity. When the former occurs without the latter, he wrote, the newly won freedom appears as a curse; [mankind] is free from the sweet bondage of paradise, but he is not free to govern himself, to realize his individuality.
This distinction might sound familiar to students of the Iraq War and the Arab Spring—when dictators, toppled in the name of freedom, gave way to chaos, power vacuums and warlordism. It also might help explain Trumps ascendance. In casting off many of the middlemen, sclerotic corporations, and bureaucracies that throttled human accomplishment, people have achieved negative freedom. But without the tools or power to forge a more meaningful society—a positive freedom—some have plunged back into the comforts of authoritarianism and domination.
This is the world the tech industry now faces, a world—at least in part—of its own creation. The machinery and language of personal liberation have been colonized and subverted by the very forces they were intended to topple. By all accounts, governmental doublespeak, authoritarian intrusion, and state-sponsored surveillance promise to define the coming era. Americans may be able to resist these trends—maybe by reclaiming the technological forces that have carried the country this far. But Americans also now know thats not enough. The tech industry has achieved negative freedom. The question now is: What do people do now?
Read more: http://ift.tt/2jIQuTK
from How Silicon Valley Utopianism Brought You the Dystopian Trump Presidency
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first day as a small-town sherif and you discover that some of the convicts you're transporting managed to escape in the night and since the penalty for letting prisoners escape is death, and the penalty for being late because you were looking for escaped prisoners is also death, you decide to free ALL of them and go hide out in the wilderness for a bit, except the convicts are super grateful so they make you their leader and it turns out they're decent guys who were exploited by a tyrannical government, so long story short you're crowd-sourcing for a peasant uprising and would anyone like to chip in?
3650th day and due to a series of unforeseen events you are now the emperor and founder of the han dynasty.
#ok this is the LAST time i exploit this format i swear#liu bang#Emperor Gaozu of Han#history meme#ancient china#second century failson -> sherif -> warlord -> emperor pipeline#epilogue: first year as the founder of the Han Dynasty.#you spend most of your time cussing people out and sleeping with your bf.#you are a huge improvement from the last guy so the country enters 400 years of peace and prosperity.#in case anyone was thinking “haha 2nd cent warlord is so wacky” chinese history is literally just Like That#second century warlord
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First day as an early-3rd-century warlord and I am fighting in the bloodiest civil war of my country’s history. Very few records were kept during this time and even fewer have survived, but I am one of the only people of my era to have an accurate, physical description that was verified by multiple sources. Was it because of my meteoric rise from sandal-weaver to king? My heroic exploits? My compassion for the downtrodden? No. it was because my contemporaries would NOT stop roasting me about my extremely big, stupid-looking ears.
#liu bei#san guo yan yi#second century warlord#romance of the three kingdoms#last last time i exploit this format i swear.#pour one out for lu bu. mans about to be executed and goes down absolutely SWINGING.#FUCK YOU YOU TWO-FACED BIG-EARED BASTARD#i love this genre of Random Fact that Accidentally Makes History like “hegelochus sees a weasel”#ok. ok guys. yknow when cao chong was weighing his dad's elephant?#what if he was like “look 爹爹 uncle liu came to visit!” cao cao would make him heir on the spot i think.#for more san guo memes check out my sideblog @grand-theft-carbohydrates
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