• wjrii@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Woman: So when you’re not swiping, what do you do?

    Men 1-7: It sounds weird, but I’m really into WAR! … Christoph Waltz was sooo creepy as Hans Landa! You have to see it! … so each week both uncredentialled “historians” talk about their favorite times when thousands of men stabbed or shot each other! … and then the good guy took his gun-knife and started prying teeth and slicing ears off the dead guys… literally an entire generation of men was decimated or psychologically damaged… But [Game of Thrones/The Walking Dead/Band of Brothers] is my go-to. What do you watch?

    Woman: Mostly cartoons.

    More seriously, I’d guess that many, maybe even most people have some level of morbid fascination with the type of violent, high stakes scenarios that people they identify with have been subject to. It’s just kind of weird not to acknowledge that a lot of basically well-adjusted men (I flatter myself that I’m in that group) are into stuff that’s objectively terrifying.

    • SomeAmateur@sh.itjust.works
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      8 months ago

      I think people are interested with the extremes of the human experience in general because that’s where the toughest choices and emotions come to light

      • RealFknNito@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        I’m only interested in the Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius because of his meditations. The things he wrote down for just himself to see are some of the most humbling passages I’ve ever come across. The exception to the rule that absolute power corrupts absolutely. A god to his people who paid a peasant to whisper in his ear to remind him he was just a man. Rome experienced a time of peace and prosperity under his rule without needless wars of conquest.

        He was a good man and I aspire to be more like him.

      • Purplexingg@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        I’m pretty sad Rome got co opted to be like a weird right ideology. I read the Percy Jackson books growing up so I’ve always been fascinated with ancient Greece and Rome.

    • duffman@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      My interest in war is that there is nothing higher stakes, it can be a fight for the survival of not just yourself but your family, community, or nation, or even our species if we are talking fiction (or global warming).

      So if we were to stereotype the genders, men are typically more interested in death/violence at a humanitary level and women at a personal level.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      uncredentialled “historians”

      Point of order. What credentials do you need to talk about history? Is there, like, a history license I don’t know about? Or are you just talking about a particular degree?