Message from @Vines
Discord ID: 531936221073637418
People jack off the british empire but they actually sucked
“Eleven days after the British commenced their invasion of Zululand in South Africa, a Zulu force of some 20,000 warriors attacked a portion of the British main column consisting of about 1,800 British, colonial and native troops and perhaps 400 civilians.”
It gets touted as “simple tribesmen annihilated weak european colonizers!”
but really it’s more like “african warlord threw his entire army at a single platoon and called it a victory”
and it was basically just the first real encounter, so they had the element of surprise
but as soon as the Brits regrouped, it was obviously over very quickly
and that’s why South Africans speak almost-British English now
wiki says about 50% africanos
yeah, they’ve definitely started taking it back
good on em
and part where zulus lived uses native language
its because Bur's took over there
the language bit was a joke
my point was the brits won in the end, and the zulu victory is less a story of “david standing up to goliath” and more like “david and 10 of his mates bumrushing goliath when he wasn’t looking and then inevitably getting their asses kicked once goliath’s 20 friends showed up”
ah underdeveloped african tribe lost a war against sorld superpower how unpredictable
I’m just mentioning it because like
I never heard the rest of that story growing up
every time i heard about Shaka Zulu, it was as a brave warrior who was so ferocious, he managed to stop the invasion of his home with nothing but leather shields and iron clubs
nah its not like that
and then i looked him up when i was a little older, and realized nearly his entire tribe got *fucked* as soon as that battle was over
zulus had no chance
in a long run
yeah
but they fought as good as they could
but they don’t tell you that as a kid
Oh yeah, they did a good job for what they had, good on em
its like fighting an Alliance from HL2
i think it was fucked up of the British to just take the whole region like that
and I think the Zulus did what they could for as long as they could, as they should
but then, I’ve never been a fan of colonialism anyways
Alliance is busy with bulding Dyson Spheres
only Americans are allowed to Manifest our Destiny
everyone else needs to stay where they are and wait for us to get to them next
they will go away as every major force before them
nothing is ethernal
I know, just meming
I think America is probably as big as a nation can sustainably be, really
like, geographically
anything bigger and you get too thin-spread, it all falls apart in a century or two
china is kinda big too
Yeah, they’re doing good as well
its not about the numbers but about cultural influence
west is losing it
Russia is the biggest, and they’ve been in a rut since the 1980s
Canada is second biggest, but they barely use half their land, and their population is smaller than California, so I don’t really count that
America is the third largest, and we’ve got the most well funded military in the world, but we also have zero local competition, so, maybe also not the best example
China is the fourth largest, and they split up and re-conquer each other every couple hundred years, call it a new dynasty, and move on
then you’ve got Brazil, which is basically just tropical Russia with more gangs
Australia, which is the same as Canada, low population and hectares of untouched land
and India, who can’t poo in loo
So, I repeat:
America does big country the best, or at least the most sustainably
Rome was the biggest western civilization
it’s like with stars
bigger stars shine brighter, but they fall apart under their own weight relatively soon
small stars live longer, but they never burn as brightly
America is a big star, and has burned pretty well so far
BUT we’ve only stopped adding new territory in the past 120 years or so, so who knows where it’ll all go to next
yeah, Rome is why I’m thinking about this
and ahd the longest run