Greco-Roman Peoples React To Modern World

[stevep]

Oct 4, 2021 1:24:54 GMT Zyobot said:

Another thing I've been wondering about is, considering its massive presence in the modern entertainment market, how Greco-Romans would react to the MCU? I know they're not the only ones with a multimedia franchise and crazy special effects, but they still stand tall in both categories. Ditto with how the universe(s) it depicts is intentionally fictional, as opposed to invoking god(s) that the creators literally believe to be real. Frankly, I'm not sure that many downtimers could stand to watch them (but especially violence-hating Greeks), given how terrifyingly real the special effects would look to them. What the various playwrights and actors of Antiquity might think is also worth discussing, I imagine.

Needless to say, I doubt they'll forget about scenes like the The Snap anytime soon; we can thank Thanos and Iron Man for making an impression there.

Avengers: Infinity War (2018) - "Snap Of Disintegration"| Movie Clip HD


Avengers: Endgame (2019) - "And I.. Am... Iron Man" | Movie Clip HD


I'm also curious as to what they'd think of What If...?, given that it's a whole series built around exploring hypothetical realities separate from the usual timeline. There have been ancient examples of people contemplating alternate-history scenarios, yes, but that's not the same as typical Greco-Roman audiences being able to wrap their heads around the idea.

  Just curious why you think the Greeks were anti-violence or are you thinking of particular groups?

[stevep]

Oct 4, 2021 4:52:16 GMT simon darkshade said:

Childish cartoony rubbish? That is how it is perceived by a large amount of people past a certain age who don’t view whatever is currently surfing the wave of youth oriented pop culture as the alpha and omega of film, life, the universe and everything.

I watched a little bit of Thor once and it was very silly indeed whilst also taking itself far more serious than the old comic book version, which is also the only Marvel
comic that I read as an 8 year old.

You seem to be projecting again, so I’d employ the same formula as when assessing the level of Greco-Roman engagement in AH forums: only a certain fraction of a transferred population would get into (particular niche activity).

Re: American production in WW2 and general historical literacy…there isn’t a lot of everyday reaction to the former because there is a distinct lack of the latter. We often take for granted knowledge of some things and interests because we have a reasonable education and interest in them…but the general talk at bars, sporting matches, shopping centres, parties and other areas of idle conversation doesn’t get into historical logistics or any history whatsoever. For the majority of people, it isn’t really taught at school and they don’t retain what they do get anymore than they do the minutiae of junior biology.

You are far more likely to get more interested in Marvel or other products of the opium of the masses than historical debate. Taking our postulated 300,000 Greco Romans, there would be perhaps 100,000 slaves (the majority of whom would not be literate) and of the remaining 200,000, there would be varying rates of literacy, particularly among women and those drawn from rural communities. This leaves 100,000, with a possibly different age profile than what we’re accustomed to.

How many of 100,000 people from the USA, Britain, Australia or Canada would have: the equivalent of a college level history education; cultivate millenial fascination with pop culture and movies; and post online, to combine our three most recent categories? Not an awful lot. There is data on history majors in the USA - 0.363%.

In conclusion, a lot of young people are interested in Marvel pictures at the moment, but that doesn’t necessarily translate across to the full range of adult society and may not jump the even more significant generation gap to the New Ancients. It is more likely than them having an opinion on various points of history and caring enough to post online about it.

I don’t want to seem like Dr. No all the time, but I think you might be assuming too fast an adjustment. Forums, Marvel and talking WW2 are all the characteristics of (English speaking) cultural natives, whereas these folk are going to have far more prosaic concerns for their first few years uptime.

Having said that, there is scope for an interesting experimental television show where passers by are stopped and commanded to give their opinion on the Thirty Years’ War.

  I think the most likely reaction would probably be some variant of "What" verging toward "Are you taking the P**s?" with the 2nd most common possibly being "That sounds like a long war".  I fear with modern education a lot of people in the modern Anglosphere would have limited knowledge of WWII - largely gained from films and hence of dubious accuracy, let alone a conflict from the 17thC.

  I do recall back in the 1990's IIRC I was talking with a friend at work who had a degree about the Roman empire and mentioning that in its last century or so it had been Christian dominated and he expressed surprise at that.  True his degree was in the sciences but it shows how thinly spread a lot of knowledge is in the modern world.

[Zyobot]

Oct 4, 2021 15:40:55 GMT stevep said:

Oct 4, 2021 1:24:54 GMT Zyobot said:

Another thing I've been wondering about is, considering its massive presence in the modern entertainment market, how Greco-Romans would react to the MCU? I know they're not the only ones with a multimedia franchise and crazy special effects, but they still stand tall in both categories. Ditto with how the universe(s) it depicts is intentionally fictional, as opposed to invoking god(s) that the creators literally believe to be real. Frankly, I'm not sure that many downtimers could stand to watch them (but especially violence-hating Greeks), given how terrifyingly real the special effects would look to them. What the various playwrights and actors of Antiquity might think is also worth discussing, I imagine.

Needless to say, I doubt they'll forget about scenes like the The Snap anytime soon; we can thank Thanos and Iron Man for making an impression there.

Avengers: Infinity War (2018) - "Snap Of Disintegration"| Movie Clip HD


Avengers: Endgame (2019) - "And I.. Am... Iron Man" | Movie Clip HD


I'm also curious as to what they'd think of What If...?, given that it's a whole series built around exploring hypothetical realities separate from the usual timeline. There have been ancient examples of people contemplating alternate-history scenarios, yes, but that's not the same as typical Greco-Roman audiences being able to wrap their heads around the idea.

  Just curious why you think the Greeks were anti-violence or are you thinking of particular groups?

I was referring to how violence was verboten on stage during plays, as well as how character death had to happen off-screen.

But in general? Yeah, no; they were way more accustomed to violence than we were (though whether there’d be shock value to the scale of violence that modern weaponry makes possible is an open question, I’d think).

[Zyobot]

It's obvious, but one thing Greco-Romans of all stripes ought to know is basic geography. Which is to say, the ability to look at a modern world map and memorize the seven continents (as well as where their islands and supervising uptimer nations, modern Greece and Italy respectively, are located). Perhaps also who the current crop of world powers are and where each of them is, chiefly the United States and China, but also Britain, France, and Russia, depending on who you count and how.

In theory, I don't think that's terribly lofty, though in practice, their reactions to what the world map actually looks like should prove "interesting" in of themselves. For instance, I recall hearing someone claim that the existence of the British Isles was debated in Caesar's time; pretty much impossible to deny they exist now. Never mind the fact the once-divided Slavic tribes amassed a dwarf-all landmass to the east, or how a distant country they barely knew of in their own time is currently shaping up to be the terror of East Asia and second most powerful nation in the world at large. Ditto with the United States, which is an offshoot of formerly British colonists who settled a continent hitherto unknown to the Greco-Romans.

[simon darkshade]

They’d be able to adjust to the general greater extent of the Old World, having a knowledge of Europe, Africa/Libya, Asia and India. There is a fair bit of evidence that they knew of China. Britain was more than a rumour by the time of Caesar and even Alexander.

The Americas will come as literally a whole new world.

We do have an example of when the Chinese first saw the world maps brought by the Jesuits and contemplating that the world was a lot larger and that they were not at the centre of it. That would be a moment to witness, similar to when the Old World and the New were reunited after millenia.

[Zyobot]

Oct 14, 2021 6:13:42 GMT simon darkshade said:

The Americas will come as literally a whole new world.

Yes, that's one of the points I've been trying to hammer home here. For that reason, I suspect more than a few would have an interest in the gist of who Christopher Columbus was and the Columbian Exchange that followed. Which I don't mean to imply they'd aggressively peruse through academic volumes like this, especially since the majority of them can't read or write simple things to begin with, never mind that. Literate and well-educated Greco-Romans, on the other hand, such as Julius Caesar and the Roman Emperors who came after him...

Oct 14, 2021 6:13:42 GMT simon darkshade said:

We do have an example of when the Chinese first saw the world maps brought by the Jesuits and contemplating that the world was a lot larger and that they were not at the centre of it. That would be a moment to witness, similar to when the Old World and the New were reunited after millenia.

Will certainly have to review what little I know about dynastic China, but thanks. I vaguely recall from last year's history class how Sino-centric the Chinese were, at least before globalization took hold and they were forced to "catch up" with the more technologically advanced West throughout the last century.

[stevep]

Oct 14, 2021 2:52:59 GMT Zyobot said:

It's obvious, but one thing Greco-Romans of all stripes ought to know is basic geography. Which is to say, the ability to look at a modern world map and memorize the seven continents (as well as where their islands and supervising uptimer nations, modern Greece and Italy respectively, are located). Perhaps also who the current crop of world powers are and where each of them is, chiefly the United States and China, but also Britain, France, and Russia, depending on who you count and how.

In theory, I don't think that's terribly lofty, though in practice, their reactions to what the world map actually looks like should prove "interesting" in of themselves. For instance, I recall hearing someone claim that the existence of the British Isles was debated in Caesar's time; pretty much impossible to deny they exist now. Never mind the fact the once-divided Slavic tribes amassed a dwarf-all landmass to the east, or how a distant country they barely knew of in their own time is currently shaping up to be the terror of East Asia and second most powerful nation in the world at large. Ditto with the United States, which is an offshoot of formerly British colonists who settled a continent hitherto unknown to the Greco-Romans.

  One thing IIRC that might surprise them is the connection between the Indian and other oceans.  Apparently according to some errors in calculation the Red Sea and Indian Ocean was thought to have a level several feet different - can't remember if it was higher or lower - from the Med and Atlantic.  As such a lot of maps of the time assumed that the Indian Ocean was a land-locked sea.

  I'm not sure when the Slavs 1st really emerged, at least as people the Romans knew about but think that they didn't become recognised as a people until after the fall of the western empire.  Similarly even for the later empire I suspect many would be surprised that known but fairly small Germanic tribes such as the Franks, Alemanni and Saxons - as well as the Angles they might not have known the existence of ended up forming the core [or supplying the name in the 2nd case] of the three great nations of NW Europe while tribes such as the Goths and Vandals have disappeared from history leaving no clear lasting states.  Probably even more shocking, and depressing for the Greek's especially, would be their loss of all their lands in Anatolia and points eastwards where they had some of their largest cities and much political power.

[Zyobot]

Oct 14, 2021 20:33:22 GMT stevep said:

Oct 14, 2021 2:52:59 GMT Zyobot said:

It's obvious, but one thing Greco-Romans of all stripes ought to know is basic geography. Which is to say, the ability to look at a modern world map and memorize the seven continents (as well as where their islands and supervising uptimer nations, modern Greece and Italy respectively, are located). Perhaps also who the current crop of world powers are and where each of them is, chiefly the United States and China, but also Britain, France, and Russia, depending on who you count and how.

In theory, I don't think that's terribly lofty, though in practice, their reactions to what the world map actually looks like should prove "interesting" in of themselves. For instance, I recall hearing someone claim that the existence of the British Isles was debated in Caesar's time; pretty much impossible to deny they exist now. Never mind the fact the once-divided Slavic tribes amassed a dwarf-all landmass to the east, or how a distant country they barely knew of in their own time is currently shaping up to be the terror of East Asia and second most powerful nation in the world at large. Ditto with the United States, which is an offshoot of formerly British colonists who settled a continent hitherto unknown to the Greco-Romans.

  One thing IIRC that might surprise them is the connection between the Indian and other oceans.  Apparently according to some errors in calculation the Red Sea and Indian Ocean was thought to have a level several feet different - can't remember if it was higher or lower - from the Med and Atlantic.  As such a lot of maps of the time assumed that the Indian Ocean was a land-locked sea.

  I'm not sure when the Slavs 1st really emerged, at least as people the Romans knew about but think that they didn't become recognised as a people until after the fall of the western empire.  Similarly even for the later empire I suspect many would be surprised that known but fairly small Germanic tribes such as the Franks, Alemanni and Saxons - as well as the Angles they might not have known the existence of ended up forming the core [or supplying the name in the 2nd case] of the three great nations of NW Europe while tribes such as the Goths and Vandals have disappeared from history leaving no clear lasting states.  Probably even more shocking, and depressing for the Greek's especially, would be their loss of all their lands in Anatolia and points eastwards where they had some of their largest cities and much political power.

Thanks, man. As we agreed earlier, all the changes that have occurred since their time would show how fortunes can fluctuate, ranging from those northwestern barbarians forming some of the greatest colonial powers in history to the Roman Empire not lasting forever as they had hoped. Granted, it'd be some comfort to know the Classics weren't totally forgotten and had actually become one of the key "ingredients" of the modern West, though it's more a mishmash of Greco-Roman, tribal European, and Christian elements they're used to turning up their noses at (downtimers who lived from Constantine's reign on may not mind the latter as much).

Ditto with the Anglo-American language and cultural sphere being the most universal in history, a fire first lit by British empire-building and a torch then passed to the United States. True, learning the fates of Greece and Rome before being introduced to their modern counterparts may be their first priority (perhaps also the state of Europe in general), but the international presence and historical importance of the US and Great Britain is too much to ignore for anyone who'd like to come out from under their rock anytime soon. Never mind be a productive, twenty-first century citizen who has enough common knowledge to hold an actual conversation and survive on the street (though, in fairness, many downtimers may be too set in their ways to help for excusable, clear-as-day reasons).

[Zyobot]

They're much more used to routine epidemics than we are, but given its unprecedented scale, I wonder what Greco-Romans who study the history of what happened after 476 AD would make of the Black Death? Considering how somewhere between just under and even over half of Europe's populated died, as well as how it took a century and a half for population levels to rebound, I think it's safe to say that it was more than just another outbreak. More like Papa Nurgle himself coming to bear gifts and dropping by from time to time in subsequent centuries.

Ditto since 1347 to 1352 wasn't the only time he had an extended stay, either: just ask the pour souls who lived through the Justinian Plague and Spanish Flu (though actually bringing them along for the ride would've been problematic, to say the least).

[stevep]

Oct 17, 2021 2:05:49 GMT Zyobot said:

They're much more used to routine epidemics than we are, but given its unprecedented scale, I wonder what Greco-Romans who study the history of what happened after 476 AD would make of the Black Death? Considering how somewhere between just under and even over half of Europe's populated died, as well as how it took a century and a half for population levels to rebound, I think it's safe to say that it was more than just another outbreak. More like Papa Nurgle himself coming to bear gifts and dropping by from time to time in subsequent centuries.

Ditto since 1347 to 1352 wasn't the only time he had an extended stay, either: just ask the pour souls who lived through the Justinian Plague and Spanish Flu (though actually bringing them along for the ride would've been problematic, to say the least).

  It would be interesting what they have to say about a serious 'plague' outbreak that seems to have come from Parthian territory with the returning Roman army after an invasion of Mesopotamia , see Antonine_Plague, which may have been smallpox or measles.  Might confirm some of the details we believe about it although how much even the people who were alive at the time would know is unclear.

[Zyobot]

Oct 17, 2021 10:38:45 GMT stevep said:

Oct 17, 2021 2:05:49 GMT Zyobot said:

They're much more used to routine epidemics than we are, but given its unprecedented scale, I wonder what Greco-Romans who study the history of what happened after 476 AD would make of the Black Death? Considering how somewhere between just under and even over half of Europe's populated died, as well as how it took a century and a half for population levels to rebound, I think it's safe to say that it was more than just another outbreak. More like Papa Nurgle himself coming to bear gifts and dropping by from time to time in subsequent centuries.

Ditto since 1347 to 1352 wasn't the only time he had an extended stay, either: just ask the pour souls who lived through the Justinian Plague and Spanish Flu (though actually bringing them along for the ride would've been problematic, to say the least).

  It would be interesting what they have to say about a serious 'plague' outbreak that seems to have come from Parthian territory with the returning Roman army after an invasion of Mesopotamia , see Antonine_Plague, which may have been smallpox or measles.  Might confirm some of the details we believe about it although how much even the people who were alive at the time would know is unclear.

Thanks for the link. Was writing a reply, but my browser crashed and deleted what I wrote so far; here's to trying again and hoping it sticks this time.

Anyhow, I'd say that Antonine Plague witnesses' testimony would have mixed value, with what they actually observe around them (e.g. the outward symptoms of the sick) being more valuable than their analysis or interpretation. Mainly because they'd attribute it to divine wrath rather than germ theory (which will come across as a surprise in of itself, as I mentioned before). Hopefully, the revelation that all those outbreaks were caused by spreading those little buggers around will at least encourage them to adopt modern sanitation and medical knowledge, with regular hand-washing and mass-discrediting of the "Four Humors" notion being the most obvious everyday changes I can think of right now.

In any case, I think it’d really depress ~165 to 180 AD downtimers how—uptimer attempts to quarantine and treat them having considerably more success notwithstanding—theirs was later overshadowed by larger pandemics that changed the course of history in far more profound ways. The Black Death is the one just about everyone can name, but Spanish Flu strikes me as something that’d especially demoralize them, since a) it happened in a time of modernism and scientific triumph that previous plague-saddled generations didn’t have and still managed to kill ~50 million people and b) was the after-effect to a global war that killed, wounded, and traumatized on an unprecedented scale. Which would come across as a nasty shock all its own, though now I’m meandering into another tangent that deserves its own separate reply (or series of them, depending on how the discussion goes).

[Zyobot]

A bit silly, but as a follow-up to my most on history memes, I can also imagine Countryball memes making a comeback online, with Roman Empireball and Ancient Greeceball suddenly becoming the most popular characters in the franchise (probably also Persiaball, too, not to mention Egyptian and tribal European countryballs making occasional appearances, since some of their number would also be sent along for the ride).

There will certainly be lots of new and original ones popping up, but here's one that decently approximates what I imagine will circulate on the Web:


Will most downtimers know or care about a niche internet subculture anytime soon? No, but Countryball memes will definitely make rounds among AH enthusiasts (and maybe even "normies" from time to time).

(Truth be told, I think we should discuss uptimer reactions a great deal more, since Greco-Romans aren't the only ones facing the shock of their lives right now.)

[Zyobot]

One subject I think has been neglected here is what they’d think of the social sciences? It’s one thing to accept that laws of nature can be observed, analyzed, and tested from controlled experiments and data-gathering you can personally devise and monitor. It’s another to apply scientific thinking to how whole masses of people behave and interact, with experiments that happen in lab settings posing a rather “sanitized” environment where people are likely to change their behavior somewhat (due to the fact they’re closely watched).

They do, presumably, have a pre-existing notion of history and historians who’ve made it into its own academic discipline, though the more clinical and interdisciplinary way modern professionals do it—facts and figures, a more technical writing style, the search for down-to-earth explanations that stem from people’s observable behavior and the surroundings they’re placed in—would be quite new. A reaction reinforced by the seamless integration of other “adjacent” fields, such as archeology and anthropology (both of them being recently emerged fields, I believe). I know less about psychology and linguistics, but can certainly guess that economics as its own discipline would no doubt interest them, both given a) how it—to use Mark Watney's words—“sciences the shit” out of production, distribution, and consumption on both the micro and macro-level and b) the various schools of thought—Austrian, Neoclassical, Keynesian, Marxist—that have emerged as an after-effect of Modernity’s many, many ideological experiments. (Game theory would be especially perplexing for Greco-Roman university students and leadership to wrap their heads around, I think. Assuming my own game-theory class is a suitable benchmark for it, anyway).

[stevep]

   Just came across slavery in ancient Rome which gives a brief background to slavery inside the Roman empire, with some links to other related articles.  Might be of interest.

[Zyobot]

Oct 21, 2021 15:46:40 GMT stevep said:

   Just came across slavery in ancient Rome which gives a brief background to slavery inside the Roman empire, with some links to other related articles.  Might be of interest.

Thanks, again. Certainly demonstrates how much more brutal everyday life was in Classical Times, as even free citizens with the wherewithal and status to travel far and wide could be enslaved. History-acquainted people today like to say how contemporary racial slavery would befuddle Greco-Roman learners, but “balancing out” the racial disparity by enslaving everyone you came across instead of specific “categories” is a shit alternative.

Since slaves did so much “essential work” that most people refused to do and were seen everywhere, I imagine that the modern world’s abolitionist attitude would be a striking difference that further reinforces Modernity's outlier status. Mixed success of appealing to downtimers’ humanity aside, part of me wonders if they’d reply that technology making labor-intensive work easier—agriculture, construction, mining, and so on—is why we can so easily bemoan the practice. They might also say we should've "regulated" slavery rather than abolish it (since the racial component would be weird, even if they find the sheer scale of the Triangular Trade impressive), though no serious uptimer will take such wrong-headed suggestions seriously.