[streetfighter64]

You're comparing something that happened 100 years ago with something that happened 2400 years ago (also, what does "during the pottery (ostraca)" refer to?) and some science fiction scenario? Does Sweden not include WWII in the history education anymore, or are students just not recommended to try to insert themselves in the stories at all?

> the environment my great-granfather lived in is quite literally unknowable to me

Okay, not many things seem to be knowable to you then.

[dijit]

Yeah, I am literally telling you that I am aware of my ignorance.

That you are not aware of yours reflects poorly on one of us, certainly.

[streetfighter64]

Why not just admit that last week is unknowable to you? Then it'd reflect poorly on me dishonestly claiming that I could recall last week, surely.

[dijit]

I can’t recall things my ancestors experienced. Even when they tell me: just like I will have a difficult time conveying how it felt to live during COVID (the uncertainty, the different countries behaving the way they thought best, why Sweden didn’t lock down and Italy did- the death of it) and why anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers are a thing.

Just like explaining how nobody could see the 2008 financial crisis, just like explaining to my children (or great grandchildren, remember that its many generations removed for me and you)- how it felt to fly by air before 9/11.

How can you explain it, you would reach for lossy comparisons like coach travel (will coaches even be a thing? not like they are today, not like they were in 1980 already)

This intellectual dishonesty is maddeningly stupid or an expertly crafted troll, neither are making me think you are engaging seriously.

[streetfighter64]

> This intellectual dishonesty is maddeningly stupid or an expertly crafted troll, neither are making me think you are engaging seriously.

Well, I could say the same about refusing to even imagine what life was like 100 years ago. It seems simply absurd to me to not be capable of imagining a simple hypothetical scenario. Most people are capable of answering hypotheticals such as "if you got a million dollars, what would you do?" or "if you lived in the USA, would you vote for Trump?"

[dijit]

How can you know? Its quite literally impossible, psychologists believe you can hold approximately 8 competing facts in your head at once, and we are mentally scarred with spoilers, every decision is known and has been talked about to death.

My great grandfather was 17, had to flee Poland (never to return), fought for a brigade in exile in Scotland against the Nazis.

He was also the most racist man I know, prejudiced against people from the next town over in his adoptive home.

He eventually forgot his own native language some time after marrying a woman born in scotland to a predominantly irish migrant family.

So, clearly not a nazi, clearly in support of some kind of migration- but his whole thing is that he made painful efforts to be a great guest in his home, but he never put down his prejudicial mindset. How can this be?

I don’t really know what thats like, even the simple warmth of being able to Video call my mum at a moments notice gives such a significant respite to the crippling loneliness you experience living in another country, its enough salve to keep you going. I can call anyone on earth, summon practically any facet of known human history in seconds, calculate complex mathematics and I have barely felt hunger, scarcity, famine or displacement in my life.

I have his perspective, as barely digestible as it is, and his is one perspective among millions- people who never saw a car until they were already on the other side of a continent- people for whom a job was a lifelong affair, who had tiny close-knit and isolated communities that were forced open by famine or war.

Man, I understand the details, but I can’t put myself in his shoes, theres too many variables and too many perspectives.

And, even though this man fought Nazi’s and assuredly killed people: he did so not knowing about the atrocities being committed- this fact came out very late into the war by his word.

It matters a lot because we can judge easily in hindsight, and because we won.

I’m not a nazi, I don’t agree with their philosophy in hindsight, but lets take the Bolsheviks- who slaughtered people too, who’s values I sort of still believe in.

Would I have been part of the coup in Russia during that time? Would you? How could you fucking know?!?

[streetfighter64]

> Would I have been part of the coup in Russia during that time?

Well, let's just think logically. Do I today have the time, energy and inclination to be a part of a group of radicals plotting a coup? No. If I lived in Russia in the early 1900s would I have had that? No.

Sure, it's possible to say that if "I" lived then I would have had an entirely different childhood, but that's not how hypothetical scenarios work. What would the concept of "I" even mean? Would I have to account for different genes as well? Would I have to account for "me" being an entirely different person? You quickly get into a meaningless philosophical conundrum where nothing means anything and the only thing you can know is "cogito ergo sum" .