It’s good to meet someone else who is enthusiastic about this period of history. I first became interested after watching, of all things, a History Channel documentary on the Dark Ages. I learned more about it as I got older by reading popular histories like Norwich’s and Obolensky’s Byzantine Commonwealth. One of the happiest points for me during undergrad was taking a survey course on Byzantium, which I took with a professor who was an Eastern European Medievalist who spoke a mile a minute. Learning about how much more complex the changes and continuities were in the Roman world when compared to the old traditional narrative of decline and fall made me fascinated with this period of history. Learning about this period also gave me a greater appreciation for the history of the first millennium of the Christian Church, something I feel is little understood amongst most American Christians. Even though it was an interest I had as a more conservative-minded liberal, I nevertheless have continued to find this period of history interesting, even after the evolution of my politics. I feel that the topic would be fruitful for Marxist historians to delve more into as it offers a unique opportunity to study the evolution of a state as it saw the transition from one mode of production to another. There was a clip one of my favorite Marxist commentators had where he discussed the empire’s evolution in Late Antiquity. I’d like to find it to share with you later, as I cannot immediately remember the video it was in.

I have to check this out later. I’ve never read Byzantine historical fiction before. I’ve loved reading about the Byzantines since high school.

Thanks for the mod rec. I want to get into this game once I have enough time. Vicky 2 was my first map game.

We’ll remember in Joevember.

He is charging up his eye beams.

Yep. Gen 4 had best cosmology with Arceus and the creation trio. Can’t get higher than that.

No Explorers of the Sky. That installment had a good plot and more expanded mechanics than original Mystery Dungeon. I did like the effort they put into designing the friend areas though.

Basically I remember watching my first movies on only Laser Disc around the same time the Sopranos came out. That and VHS tapes. My father isn’t going to get rid of something he bought brand new in the 80s. Still works fine along with his old speakers.

I have one of those at home. It’s strange that I’m a young millennial that grew up watching things on Laser Disc.

We need another Mystery Dungeon instalment.

Usually I just talk to myself until I’m able to sift something funny out of the logorrhea. Only I find it funny though because most people don’t understand the context of my inner thoughts. Constant distraction through self entertainment is a good way to keep all those negative thoughts away.

sounds like the Safari Zone warden from that banned episode in the anime.

This is one of my more favorite labor songs. For some reason it beats out Solidarity Forever in my preferences.

I just want to hear him talk about how the banks don’t give out sacks of oranges for Christmas like they did in 1972.

They give Biden enough Vyvanse to ace a battery of Chinese Imperial Exams.

Trump comes out with his mojo back. Hopefully he mentions something like the handsome pilots or a Broadway musical he saw 40 years ago. That’s where the entertainment value is for me. They’re never letting Biden talk about Corn Pop or Aunt Gertie again.

That gave me an idea of how the Tories can regain their monopoly: Take Reform to court for piracy and shut them down the way Nintendo prosecutes ROM hackers.

One example I can think of that was pretty bad was during the Great Famine of 1315-1317, which coincided with the end of the Medieval Warm Period. Several bad harvests over those years devastated the people of Northern Europe a generation and a half before the coming of the Black Plague. Even the aristocracy, the people at the top of the feudal mode of production, had episodes in which they found food harder to come by. Anecdotally, the King of England himself, when taking up residence in a town, found it without enough food to feed his entire group of followers.

The very young were abandoned and sometimes the very old volunteered to starve themselves to spare the able-bodied. After the people exhausted their reserves of food, ate their seed grain, and slaughtered their draft animals, it’s not hard to imagine at least some instances of cannibalizing the recently deceased, if stray animals could not be found. It was reported in the chronicles of the era.

Another I can think of off the top of my head is the Jamestown colony during it’s early history, which was called the Starving Time. During the winter of 1609-1610, less than a fifth of the original 500 colonists were still there, and recent archeological findings show clear evidence of survival cannibalism.

Horrible showing from a Tory. No confidence or conviction in their beliefs. A sheer disgrace. The old public urinal knew how to say it.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2xcjyV0W7r4&t=16s

One of my favorite Matt moments.

I suppose we miss what’s familiar to us.