this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2025
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Science Memes

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[–] dryfter@lemm.ee 20 points 1 day ago

So I'm not so sure this is actually a Science Meme other than proving that sometimes history does repeat itself?

I was skeptical that this was actually real, but it is indeed on the NYT website and the image was taken from their "Timeline view"

[–] CitricBase@lemmy.world 142 points 1 day ago (19 children)

Let's see...

  • Nazism
  • McCarthyism
  • Vietnam War
  • Racial Injustice
  • South African Apartheid
  • Occupy Wall Street
  • Gaza Genocide
  • etc.

I am curious. Has there ever been a wide-scale student protest movement that WASN'T unequivocally vindicated by history?

[–] Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world 0 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

there ever been a wide-scale student protest movement that WASN'T unequivocally vindicated by history?

  • National Socialist German Student League were literal Nazis

  • The Red Guards were a Student-led paramilitary group.

  • Japanese Students protested against the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty (Anpo)

  • Veganism?

[–] CitricBase@lemmy.world 1 points 47 minutes ago (1 children)
  • Veganism?

Hold up, you think the vegans are in the wrong? You can say that they're annoying, but in terms of ethics and morals it's not even an argument. It's fine to not like tofu or whatever, but there is no amount of verbal gymnastics anyone can do to even begin to justify the modern meat and dairy industries. That shit is basically Animal Auschwitz times a billion.

[–] Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world 1 points 29 minutes ago

I mainly put that in to see what reaction it would get.

For arguments sake, there is a militant strain of veganism (e.g. PETA) that is not always on the right side of history. But the damage done there is tiny compared to the other side of the scale.

[–] smayonak@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

The key word is "widescale". The reason is that a malignant narcissist can get a small group of cultists to do anything. But in order to get a large group of cultists to do something, he needs a propaganda machine like fox News and they have a much older demographic

[–] Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world 1 points 48 minutes ago

I think the examples I gave were wide-scale for their time in history.

But I don't really want to argue against OPs point. The intelligent, not yet indoctrinated, youth are usually on the right side of history.

[–] wewbull@feddit.uk 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Closest I can come with is nuclear disarmament. Not because I think they were on the wrong side of it, but I think it's far less clear cut and there's a credible argument that MAD has worked.

[–] JayDee@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 14 hours ago

We can't really prove that MAD has worked without seeing what would have happened if we hadn't done MAD.

I'd argue that without MAD, the cold war might not have happened, which could have avoided a massive number of conflicts.

[–] alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml 37 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

The Young Turk movement started with medical students.

There were quite a few pro-segregation protests when schools were desegregated.

There's also a lot of cases where students with real grievances and positive intentions are coopted; most of the students protesting in the early 90s in eastern europe didn't intend to do a color revolution and have their countries stripped for parts.

[–] CitricBase@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Thank you for bringing those up. However, unless I'm misunderstanding them, the only one of those where the protesters were in the wrong were the pro-segregation protests, correct? But weren't those protests by-and-large made up of parents? (Perhaps along with some of their children doing what they were told?) Not exactly the "rebellious youth sticking it to the man" we generally mean by the words student protest.

[–] alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml 11 points 1 day ago

weren’t those protests by-and-large made up of parents?

Yes and no, a number of universities had pro-segregation actions by students including protests

History is always more complicated and nuanced than any narrative would lead you to believe.

[–] IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 1 day ago (5 children)

Tiananmen got deleted.

Never knew until I immigrated to the US. And even then, its merely a brief mention on it and calls it "communism" (its not lol) and then the teachers proclaim its why "communism" is bad, USA constitution rule of law blah blah.

Look how good the constitution is, its being ripped apart right now.

Sure, the western world knows it happened, but its only a few shitposters on the internet cares about it. If you go on the street and ask the average westerner, they'd have no clue on what you're talking about.

A few posts on reddit shitposting on June 4 is not exactly being "Vindicated".

The CCP won, they erased history.

The USA is now following the same path.

Autocrats of the world have won.

[–] The_Decryptor@aussie.zone 4 points 13 hours ago

Never knew until I immigrated to the US. And even then, its merely a brief mention on it and calls it “communism” (its not lol) and then the teachers proclaim its why “communism” is bad, USA constitution rule of law blah blah.

That's when you bring up Kent State

[–] HasturInYellow@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago

They are winning.* It's not over yet.

[–] CitricBase@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It's possible English isn't your first language? No worries.

The word "vindicated" doesn't mean "won in the end," it means "they were right." As in, justified in their demands, on the right side of history. Even of the protests I listed in my first comment, half of them didn't actually win in the end (Vietnam, Occupy, Gaza, and arguably more).

From Wikipedia:

...(the Seven Demands) for the government:

  1. Affirm Hu Yaobang's views on democracy and freedom as correct.
  2. Admit that the campaigns against spiritual pollution and bourgeois liberalisation had been wrong.
  3. Publish information on the income of state leaders and their family members.
  4. Allow privately run newspapers and stop press censorship.
  5. Increase funding for education and raise intellectuals' pay.
  6. End restrictions on demonstrations in Beijing.
  7. Provide objective coverage of students in official media.[84][83]

I hope that you'd agree that the students were in the right, and that the oppressive CCP was in the wrong?

[–] IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 day ago (4 children)

In Mainland China, most people don't know about Tiananmen, the older people who heard about it didn't know much unless they were in Beijing, my parents (in Guangdong province at the time) just think its some kids "causing trouble".

Most of the liberalizations goals failed, there is no free press. China is a State-Capitalist dictatorship.

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[–] uuldika@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 day ago

wasn't the Red Guard also a student movement? it didn't get deleted, but it's definitely not looked back upon fondly. tbf most of what I know of it comes from Three Body Problem though, so I could be wrong.

there's also the Red Army Faction (Baader-Meinhoff gang) in Germany during the '70s which killed some people.

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[–] OprahsedCreature@lemmy.ml 88 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Weren't they revoking degrees now for protestors? Anyone who considers Columbia a real school at this point is incurable.

[–] yeather@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 day ago

Haven’t seen that, just the green card of one of the organizers.

[–] OldWoodFrame@lemm.ee 55 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Given enough time, we were always going to have right wing authoritarians back in power.

But call me an idealist, I didn't think it would be actual Nazi sympathizers. Thought the brand was appropriately tarnished what with the Holocaust.

[–] Saleh@feddit.org 28 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The US always had right wing authoritarians in power. They just prefered to slaughter people abroad.

[–] 0_o7@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 1 day ago

Cherry picking history is what US excels at. So, they're always the good guys. Always…

There'll probably be some footnotes about their heinous history just so they can point and say they're not hiding anything. But the way they control almost all major social media companies and mainstream media. They get to play god with what sticks and what doesn't.

[–] OprahsedCreature@lemmy.ml 21 points 1 day ago

Thought the brand was appropriately tarnished what with the Holocaust.

I wish I had the faith in humanity you have

[–] WolfmanEightySix@piefed.social 31 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Didn’t the USA join a war against some Nazis?

[–] iSeth@lemmy.ml 74 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Not unprovoked and not for 5 more years. Germany declared war on the US. Until Pearl Harbor, the US was quite neutral.

Edit: correct 4 to 5

[–] FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 30 points 1 day ago (4 children)

They were about as “neutral” as they were in the Ukraine conflict under Biden.

They were selling loads of weapons at discount prices and supporting the allies in many ways.

You’re right though that the US public was generally against joining the war, and the US as a whole, tended to be quite isolationist until Pearl Harbour.

[–] msage@programming.dev 18 points 1 day ago

US was selling stuff to EVERYONE, including the Nazis

[–] alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml 38 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

They were selling weapons to both sides. GM controlled Opel until the 1940s, they built a lot of the nazi war machine (using forced labor), the Ford-Werke factory in Germany produced V2 rocket turbines among other parts, and US strategic bombers were specifically told to avoid bombing it because it was owned by an american, Exxon and Dow licensed patents for synthetic rubber and other war materials Germany lacked, Chase provided loans necessary for the rearmament, IBM sold the nazis the computers they used to carry out the holocaust.

The capitalist class looked at fascism as the savior of capitalism; they'd been terrified of a revolution in Germany and Hitler had just shown them an alternative. There's a reason he was Time's man of the year in 1938.

[–] Shrubbery@piefed.social 13 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Adolf Hilter was Time's Person of the Year in 1938. Joseph Stalin was 1939.

Source: https://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,2019712,00.html

[–] alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml 16 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (7 children)

Good catch, I have edited it accordingly. Real "giving the nobel peace prize to Henry Kissinger and the guys he is currently dropping chemical weapons on" vibes.

Also: Holy shit, Chiang Kai-Shek is there for 1937.

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[–] hikuro93@lemmy.ca 16 points 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Yes, yes, every piece slowly falls into place. *Cue maniacal villain laughter

It's like they actually studied history, to try and replicate the desired results as identically as possible. Or they didn't, at all, and this is just 2+2=4 scenario but with history.

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