It exacerbates everything else and it keeps growing. I think societies will only accept so much wealth concentration, and the inequities of being in the bottom third just keep getting worse and worse. We keep forcing an ever larger percentage of the population into economic conditions where they really don’t have anything to lose. That’s a super bad thing if you want social stability.
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Voted housing because housing discrimination is a sub-problem of our housing problems, and housing discrimination is arguably the most harmful manifestation of systemic racism today.
Like, here I am, moving to a whole new city (offer accepted, close a little before Thanksgiving, ack!) to a much cheaper area that’s still an obvious legacy of housing discrimination so that I can get my girls a decent public education. That just shouldn’t have to happen. Our public schools should be equal, but they won’t be as long as discriminatory housing practices are still on the books (and as long as totally-not-racist white liberals stridently vote against high density housing and whathaveyou in the name of wanting to keep their property values up).
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All of the above.
Poor education leads to ignorance of all the other issues.
CBS’ streaming service has an animated political satire “Tooning Out the News” which has been a lot of fun to follow on Twitter. They somehow got Joe Arpaio to do an interview a while back. “Now I don’t want to seem like a hokey idealist, but can we look forward to a day where people can take the biggest shits imaginable on your grave?”
Their debate coverage was great.
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Eh, I don’t think ignorance is really the issue with our dysfunction. There are studies that show that presenting people with facts that contradict their beliefs only strengthens their beliefs. Humans are strange and our psychology is complicated. I’m really doubtful more information through education is going to solve much. Maybe if we start educating children more about how their brains work and stuff like that so they can better understand their emotions and how they affect their perception and behavior.
Yeah I was more referring to this. Not thinking about adult education.
Gotta teach the value of learning and continuous education to children rather than school being the end of it.
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Yeah this is absolutely the best political comedy content available currently. The CBS All Access sub is worth it for their content alone.
I need a title for my chapter about Teotihuacan and Tenochtitlan - two ancient Mesoamerican cities that I saw parts of on the same day as part of a minivan tour. In the chapter I weave similarities between the two. Also I don’t reveal Tenochtitlan was the Aztecs until late in the chapter - for high drama. Yes I know a lot of people know that, but many don’t. IME most people remember Aztecs, Cortez and Montezuma, but they forget hard names like Tenochtitlan, especially when it’s easy to get confused with Teotihuacan.
Anyway - “A Tale of Two Cities” seems a little on the nose and boring. A Tour of Two Cities is a little more interesting maybe but still seems boring. A Tale of Two Ancient Cities is ok but kinda meh. Ideas?
The size and scope and quality of life of those cities compared to their contemporary European counterparts has always struck me. Like if you had to choose between being an average person in Tenochtitlan vs London in the year 1490, it’s hands down Tenochtitlan, right?
I’ll keep thinking on this. Could you share a little more insight on what you are writing about in the chapter?
Is the chapter solely about the cities prior to European contact? Or both?
I think your gut feeling that the Two Cities type titles are too on the nose is correct. Perhaps there’s a title that is more opaque, but makes sense once your big reveal takes place?
Yeah it’s mostly about before contact, I’m going to devote a separate section to the conquest. Teotihuacan burned in 650AD, but the ruins were nearby and used by the Aztecs as a ceremonial center. They came up with a mythology that their idols the Toltecs built it, and their gods lived there.
Both cities were150k-200k in their heyday, absolutely dwarfing any capital in Europe and only behind a few cities like Cairo and Beijing. It’s pretty easy to say you’d rather be a citizen of either than anywhere Europe - they were clean, celebrated the arts, had a vibrant middle class, tons of public works projects, great nutrition and health. Unless you got sacrificed, then maybe not so much. Mostly that happened to slaves and captives in battle. But sometimes the gods got really cranky and demanded children.
My buddy came up with using the Nahuatl word for city - A Tale of Two Altepeme. Going with the “your confusing chapter title makes me want to read more” approach. But then I have to awkwardly explain that means city and I haven’t found a way to fit that in yet.
I could go with Spanish - A Tale of Two Ciudads.
Another friend desperately wants me to work Titicaca in there somehow for obvious reasons. He doesn’t care that its in Peru.
You don’t have to explain what it means near the start of the chapter.
Some scholars are starting to speculate that the Incan knot-system was actually a rudimentary written language.
It’s absolutely true that we know very little about Teotihuacan, one of the wonders of the ancient world, due to no writing. Their public art had a lot of symbols but nothing close to a true writing system.
Eh don’t do this. The first nations people who existed right before the Columbian exchange were just people. They were good, bad, and everything in between. It’s important to remember that one of the kernels of truth in all the Spanish propaganda in the histories of the conquest of Mexico is that the Spanish got a shitload of help from local tribes who absolutely hated the Aztecs. Their reasons sound like they were pretty sound as well. It was an ancient empire with all of the violence and general bad behavior that comes with. Their big crime was human sacrifice at scale, although given what was happening in Europe in gods name in the early 1500’s it was pretty hypocritical to act as if they were worse than the Spanish.
Our species has been improving itself for a very long time. That’s the overall theme of history, and it pays to understand the context of where we find ourselves. That means telling all the stories, not just the ones we like. Everyone could benefit from knowing their own history and the history of the people around them. It makes being grateful for being alive in 2020 relatively easy. Yes we have problems, but if you go down and do a deep dive on almost any place at any point in history there were significant problems usually much bigger than now.
There are a few unprecedented X factors in play right now, but even those we’ve seen before. The internet isn’t the first technology revolution in communication. Neither was the television, the telephone, the radio, the telegraph or the printing press. Almost the only things that are happening right now that haven’t happened before are random consequences of new technologies that are new to the human experience that society is learning how to integrate. Other than that it’s all a rerun. This is like the ten thousandth mad king remake or something.
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Yeah I can try that.
It’s true though that the average Aztec was better fed, healthier, better educated, and had more opportunity (or similar) than the average European.
It’s also true they were a ruthless bloodthirsty society that dominated their neighbors and had a thing for human sacrifice. Mostly though they just demanded tribute from their conquered neighbors. If you gave up without a fight, the France strategy, you had to pay less. They didn’t have much interest in ruling other nations.
Native Americans (of all the Americas) were on the whole much healthier and better fed than Europeans - before contact of course. Early New England settlers described the natives as Adonis-es.
I think you’re reading too much into my Tenochtitlan > London preference.
It’s more to do with what suzzer mentioned about public health, nutrition, and well being.
Plus London weather sucks in comparison.
I don’t disagree with the rest of what you wrote.