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Though certain generations may have grown up trained to take cover under their classroom desks in the case of a nuclear showdown between the United States and the Soviet Union, few of us today can believe that we’d stand much chance if we found ourselves anywhere near a detonated missile. Still, the probable effects of […]
a week ago

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More from Open Culture

Who Really Built the Egyptian Pyramids—And How Did They Do It?

Although it’s certainly more plausible than hypotheses like ancient aliens or lizard people, the idea that slaves built the Egyptian pyramids is no more true. It derives from creative readings of Old Testament stories and technicolor Cecil B. Demille spectacles, and was a classic whataboutism used by slavery apologists. The notion has “plagued Egyptian scholars […]

9 hours ago 1 votes
How Italy Became the Most Divided Country in Europe: Understanding the Great Divide Between North & South

Prada, Alfa Romeo, Pellegrino, Ferrari, Illy, Lamborghini, Gucci: these are a few Italian corporations we all know, though we don’t necessarily know that they’re all from the north of Italy. The same is true, in fact, of most Italian brands that now enjoy global recognition, and according to the analysis presented in the RealLifeLore video […]

2 days ago 4 votes
The Steps a President Would Take to Destroy His Nation, According to Grok

Just out of curiosity, and apropos of nothing, we asked Grok (the AI chatbot created by Elon Musk) the following question: If a president of a superpower wanted to destroy his own country, what steps would he take? Here’s what Grok had to say: If a president of a superpower aimed to deliberately undermine their […]

3 days ago 4 votes
Why the Romans Stopped Reading Books

Nobody reads books anymore. Whether or not that notion strikes you as true, you’ve probably heard it expressed fairly often in recent decades — just as you might have had you lived in the Roman Empire of late antiquity. During that time, as ancient-history YouTuber Garrett Ryan explains in the new Told in Stone video […]

3 days ago 5 votes
Watch Jazz ‘Hot’, the Rare 1938 Short Film With Jazz Legend Django Reinhardt

Here’s a remarkable short film of the great jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, violinist Stéphane Grappelli and their band the Quintette du Hot Club de France performing on a movie set in 1938. The film was hastily organized by the band’s British agent Lew Grade as a way to introduce the band’s unique style of guitar- […]

3 days ago 4 votes

More in history

Unleash Capitalism

Capitalism today is in chains, allowed to perform many social functions, but held back from realizing its full potential.

23 hours ago 2 votes
Terrible Visions of Death And Evil on Alfred Kubin’s Journey Back To The Womb

“I definitely prefer the four-horned cow to the one having only two horns” – Alfred Kubin (10 April 1877 – 20 August 1959), 1911   In Alfred Kubin’s bizarre and horrific illustrations, humans appear as skeletal, ghost-like creatures or hideously deformed things. They share surreal and hellish landscapes with monsters, vermin and peculiar animals. His … Continue reading "Terrible Visions of Death And Evil on Alfred Kubin’s Journey Back To The Womb" The post Terrible Visions of Death And Evil on Alfred Kubin’s Journey Back To The Womb appeared first on Flashbak.

15 hours ago 2 votes
Who Really Built the Egyptian Pyramids—And How Did They Do It?

Although it’s certainly more plausible than hypotheses like ancient aliens or lizard people, the idea that slaves built the Egyptian pyramids is no more true. It derives from creative readings of Old Testament stories and technicolor Cecil B. Demille spectacles, and was a classic whataboutism used by slavery apologists. The notion has “plagued Egyptian scholars […]

9 hours ago 1 votes
Seek What Outcomes Via Futarchy?

There’s an off chance that futarchy might solve cultural drift, if we could show that it works, then get some big place to adopt it, and also get them to set an outcome metric in conflict with civ collapse.

5 hours ago 1 votes
What Were the Economic Effects of the Iran-Iraq War?

In September 1980, fearful of the fiery Islamic revolution in neighboring Iran and taking advantage of the resulting chaos (including Western sanctions), Iraq invaded. At the time, Iraq was flush with cash thanks to high oil prices resulting from the 1973 OPEC oil embargo. Taking Iran’s oil fields would drastically increase Iraq’s oil export […]

2 days ago 2 votes