The Roman Empire wasn't colonialism. You could move around freely, trade with whoever you wanted and under the right circumstances you could even become Emperor (Ever heard of Philip the Arab? No? Well he was a Roman Emperor. Who was an Arab.) Colonialism is kind of a different thing than conquest. You might even speculate that the whole mixing people and cultures thing is what made ancient empires great.

Colonialism was the wrong word to use. Mercantilism is closer. But it seems there hasn't been a lot of research or discussion about this differences in the movement of people and goods in the two kinds of empires.

I did manage to confirm that in addition to maximum control of trade with and between colonies, there was generally very little migration to Europe from their colonies until after World War II, when Europe had labor shortages and were also trying to hold onto their colonies by being nicer. Immigration to European countries tended to come from other European countries, which were completely outside of their empires. This is the opposite of how ancient empires worked.

Rome was not a particularly generous conqueror, but the capital was filled with immigrants from around the empire and their descendants. Trade between provinces was taxed, but it flourished. As did trade with foreign nations.

Ancient empires were not the EU. Definitely not. But in some critical ways they were more like it than they were the European colonial empires of 16th-20th centuries.

Need y’all to know that in the 1970’s a letter to the editor was published in Daily Telegraph where the author offhandedly used the phrase “Tolkien-like gloom” to describe an area with barren trees and JRRT himself wrote back an incensed rebuttal at the use of his name in a context that suggested anything negative about trees.

“I feel that it is unfair to use my name as an adjective qualifying ‘gloom’, especially in a context dealing with trees. In all my works I take the part of trees as against all their enemies”

He was like how dare you sir I am the biggest tree fan out there

Current Status

If you see prominent right wing figures "suddenly making sense" when they talk about Israel or Palestine - don't be tempted to think you have common ground with them.

It's not "wow, even this evil person sees how bad these people are."

It's "this right wing propagandist found a tool to push their views into the mainstream."

They're using the cause to make you listen to them. They're trying to get you used to their conspiracies and their talking points. Anyone who has a platform full of antisemitism or Islamophobia shouldn't be listened to, even if you think their words right now make sense.

That's intentional. It's a recruitment tactic. It's a way to normalize their views. Watch who you're listening to.

“Mom…Dad…I’m…” “Gay? We know sweetheart. And we still love yo—-“ “No I’m—“ “Trans too? Oh don’t worry dear we always kind of knew…” “No for the love of god I’ve been turned into a vampire!!”

Dad's warm smile freezes in place, his eyes steady in their welcoming trajectory. "Just a minute," he mumbles as he turns to exit. "I need to look something up."

To his good fortune, "how to respond when your child comes out as a vampire" yielded a surprising number of search results.

The Recipe.

And more recipes.

The recipe probably left out some crucial piece of information the writer took for granted, like that the flour you buy will be made from soft wheat instead of the hard wheat flour that's sold where you live, which is why I am no longer accepting advice from neurotypical people.

Sometimes when people on the Internet are like "ADULTS CAN NEVER INTERACT WITH MINORS IT'S CREEPY" I remember how, at 12, back in 1997, I was on the Witchvox forums with people ranging from me to people in at least their 50s, and no one there was ever a creep to me, no one ever made me feel uncomfortable or asked for my personal info, and when I finally broke down after a particularly brutal day of bullying at school and posted about it they were the first adults I'd ever met in my entire life who told me the bullies were the problem and it was okay to be angry about it.

Kids need to interact with adults who will listen to them.

Also people act like autistic people would have been, like, left in the woods to die or something as kids for most of history, but as i said i'm researching islamic saints and in both islam and christianity there's an awful lot of just, like, "Yeah that guy decided to go live in a cave by himself and wore one (1) article of clothing and sometimes he would walk around and scream randomly, it meant he was closer to god than everybody else"

I'd have to research this, but I kinda feel that, what with how much the eugenics movement pervaded everything for a huge chunk of recent history, our narrative of how disability was for much of history has gotten a little warped.

I feel like I always heard "yeah they assumed people were possessed by demons Back Then" but actually researching religious history? I've found a lot more of people seeing a person showing signs of (what we would call) neurodivergence or mental illness and being like "hm. yea that's god."

It's also definitely like...in the US anyway fundamentalism has absolutely decimated a lot of AWARENESS of what Christianity specifically can look like.

american evangelicalism is based a lot on Belief in your religion as axiomatic Fact and at the same time a very buddy-buddy view of god where Jesus is like, your cool dad. Both of which are not very good for allowing the numinous and divine "mystery" to exist

So I think we assume people throughout history would default to "things I don't understand are of the devil." when very often they would instead be "things I don't understand are of God."

and they would see someone speak in strange sounds or move his body strangely or respond differently to the world and see something divine in it, and there are instances of this across many religions

@invisibleoctopus There's this fascinating book about the cultural aspects of how mental illness presents called Crazy Like Us by Ethan Watters that is not without its flaws, but that (among other things) discusses how schizophrenic people do significantly better in cultures where there's a precedent/religious or spiritual explanation for people 'hearing voices' and such, because for one thing, they're not treated as social outcasts for it. Those environments are better equipped to help and accommodate those people on the basis of being able to keep them integrated into a community. At least according to the Ethan Watters guy.

The thing about imagining that autistic children would have been left to die for most of history is just... it's so lazy. And it betrays a huge failure to understand what autism looks like for autistic people and what daily life looked like in history at the same time. It's very frustrating.

There's this weird idea that autistics only develop special interests in this very narrow stereotypical STEM-field domain of life, also, which is total nonsense. Of course religion autistics are a thing. Judaism, too, has a lot of room for autistics: you develop very deep spheres of knowledge, about which you argue constantly, and prayer is sung and you get to move back and forth during it rhythmically.

The other thing that gets me is that it's not just that there's historical room to interpret weird behavior as Godly, it's that autistic people are relatively likely to come up with unusual ideas about people and how people do and should work. If you're talking about any theological tradition that involves contextual study and argument, you often find a very autistic sort of perspective writing the theology.

Also, just as a general data point: my stepdad, who is in his mid-70s, grew up in a rural farming community, and was never diagnosed with anything, is Obviously Autistic to anyone who knows what autism is.

And you know what? He has had a nice long life of being a Rural Farmer and gets along great with other old farmer dudes who want to talk dogs-tractors-farming with him. 

I mean, it’s generally understood that he is Weird, but also that he knows Really A Fucking Lot About Tractors. Which counts for everything in a rural farming community.

It goes beyond lazy into a type of downright cruelty.   No matter how autistic people did or did not fit into their communities in the past, chances are someone loved them.  When they were little, someone found the clothes they could tolerate and food they would eat and something they could do that matched their interests and abilities.   And people married some of them and had children with them.    Maybe not all of them, but some of them at least were loved.   

We know this because archeology shows over and over again a great level of care and because these traits are still present - they had to get passed on somehow.  And we know it because we too feel love for others, despite them constantly failing to live up to any ideal whatsoever.

Anyone who approaches other people with this attitude is only seeking to perpetuate an excuse to be cruel to them.  It has nothing to do with what happened in the past and everything to do with what they hope they can get away with in the future.  They discount the love that must have existed because it can’t be used against us.

OP how does it feel to be completely right? Have a flower 🌹 as a reward.

My dad was one of 8 kids raised rural in the Rocky Mountains. I remember my grandma telling me stories about him growing up, fond and still just mildly perplexed over memories of her strange little boy--the way she had to bake him a separate miniature pizza from his older siblings just so she could put the cheese on afterwards because he refused to eat melted cheese; the way he wouldn't take anything but peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to school for lunch his entire life even long after they had the money to eat better and his friends all grew up into more complex tastes; the way he was so dedicated to his after-school schedule that one day when his big sister was late to pick him up, this 6-year-old kid simply forged straight up the side of the mountain back to their home because it was The Time For Going Home and everyone thought he was lost for two frantic hours until he walked in the front door and quietly asked about dinner with no idea anything was off.

After I realised I was autistic and started exploring what that really meant, I thought back on my life growing up with my dad, understanding him in ways nobody else understood us--even my mom--and about stories like that from his youth, and realised how obviously autistic he is, too. But my grandma loved him and put in the extra care, on top of seven other kids to keep track of, to know what he liked and accommodate his needs.

His family just made room for him. His friends just made room for him. So he could still fit. They didn't know about autism but there was just a little my-dad-shaped space in a bunch of people's lives and that was fine.

And I think about how many people are just like that, and always have been when small communities are left to their own devices. Not all of them, not ever all when it comes to people, but so many. Whether it's someone with thoughts too big for their age who must have been gifted by the divine, or someone so impressively good at one thing that they become a local community resource, or just someone who is extremely serious about unmelted cheese. They still belonged.

We were a little strange or a lot strange, but we were still someone's. And as such we have so often been beloved. Humans, on the whole, take care of what's theirs, or at least try their best; if what's theirs is a bit different then they figure out how to accommodate that in practical ways. It's just not that hard. Whether they ever cared about what autism was or not, or why we are the way we are, we have been loved. That isn't a new concept, and the proposal that it is is horrifying and telling.

The only good reason for an autistic kid to get lost in the woods is because they are very committed to dinnertime. And everyone who loves them panics until they come home safe. Anyone who did otherwise would have been considered inhuman long before the modern day.

having a debate with my mom about the pronunciation. i insist that its obviously one way as do my native-english-speaking father and sibling and she doesnt see why and im wondering if its bc english is her second (actually i think it might be third, shes awesome) language, even though shes been fluent for longer than ive been alive?

reblog for sample size etc etc

Terry knew.

So, you are telling me that after kidnapping me with magic you expect me to become some psychopathic killer to save your country?

"No, we expect you to become a psychopathic killer to save your buddies. Meet your new best friends."