Comments by "Winston Smith" (@kryts27) on "Voices of the Past" channel.

  1. The Western Front was mainly a four year artillery battle. Being killed by shellfire; high explosive and shell fragments was the main cause of wounding and death (other than illness like typhus). There were machine gun nests, barbed wire entanglements and poison and caustic agent gas attacks, but these were not the main killers.
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  2. Interesting documentary, with Edo era silk paintings etc. i really wonder if it was written by a Japanese historian? I am aware of Coomodore Perry's mission and that was in response to a failed but more concillitory approach by British some years earlier. Shows the effect of a more gloves-off bellicose approach, and just what it can achieve. Also the costs of getting into a war; blood and treasure will be spilled like a river. Wonder if a more bellicose approach by the Suga government will cause the aggressive Jinping government to back away from the Senkaku Islands? We never get away from politics, ever. Just a footnote; The Vikings were the first Europeans to discover North America. Columbus voyages did not even sail to that continent.
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  3. Why would the ancient Chinese contact the ancient Greeks before they contacted the ancient Persians?
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  4. Japan is still insular. It has it's unique cultural interests, buildings, festivals and refined arts, but it was and still is insular. Some this insularism comes from being an archipelago country on the edge of Asia, the Edo period hyper-insuralism and before the industrial revolution from 1868, Japan was not all that wealthy. A similar Asiatic island archipelago Empire, the Majapahit Empire on Java (from the 13th to 16th centuries) was wealthier, more cosmopolitan and military had more advanced gun-carrying ships with stellar ocean navigation techniques (even better than the Carracks in my opinion). The Portugeuse arrived at the time the Majapahit was in steep decline. Unlike the Spanish in the Americas with the Aztecs and Incas at the height of their civilizations (fall of these empires was directly related to the conquistadors), the Majapahit's were already in deep decline.
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  5. Luminous platitudes, but it has an air of non-sequitur paradigms (as you would expect in a sect praising itself), i.e. it's logic is weak. Hardly even touches the philisophical works of Socrates or Plato for questioning of being and non-being, and more importantly, dialectic argument.
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  6. The image of tall hatted Buddhist retainers or nobles probably are Thais
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  7. Turtles are monsters??
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  8. Why cross the Gobi desert to go to India? There are safer ways of getting there presumably even back then
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  9. The indians had writing at the time of the Greek arrivals of merchants, so that account probably is wrong. Possibly Sanskrit by scribes, although this usually was writings by the elite and priestly classes (Brahmins). The ordinary Indian merchants who had business with the Greek merchants had a monetized system and possibly numeracy and literacy.
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  10. So, i can't have a beer and enjoy a steak in ancient India. Too bad for religious food fetishes 😂
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  11. The Japanese realised the scam and absurdity of Christianity. However, they were not wise enough to dispense with the supernatural and heroic sages (like Buddha) altogether.
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  12. The ancient Greeks believed that crossing the equator would fry you with the heat. This meant navigating around Africa to get to India would fry you. This was wrong, but how many beliefs were and are wrong? Nevertheless the ancient Greek coveted Indian spices, particularly pepper, and sailed the Periplus of the Erythranian sea (a navigation book or papyrus) to navigate to India from Egypt via the Red Sea.
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