I supported totalitarianism... as a joke!!! Just a prank bro! EDIT: You show a picture of the US whilst talking about injustice in totalitarian regimes, (I’m going to steal one of your lines: *Policing is Complicated* ), you then imply that defeating the truly evil 2nd Reich was a pointless cause (from all my ancestors who died; fuck you). Amazingly you even push the Nazi myth of the “Harsh Treaty of Versailles”, ( no serious historians support this). Step back and seriously think about what you have just done. That was fucked up.
I think he means Hugh Moore, tho he was Clerk of the Municipal Court in the 8th District, from 1912 to 1920, not a dictator (unless his secretary thought otherwise).
@@jasonrobinson401the fact that you're describing an actual interview given by Former CIA director James Woolsey on Fox News where he admits the CIA has, and continues to, meddle in foreign elections, is wild.
@@cg1906 they brag about it, it's honestly a little gross the way they're so comfortable talking about commiting terrorism for "the good of the nation" like the fascist wannabe deep state they are on live TV. You can read The Devil's Chessboard if you wanna know more about the supposedly oh so clever games they play.
I always thought the Promised Day coup in Fullmetal Alchemist was such a fascinating case of narrative control in terms of revolution. The blatant and successful manipulation of public opinion used by Team Mustang as they (1) blew up the then-head of state's train and blame it on the other higher staff, (2) successfully brought in troops to central and battled for its command, (3) kidnapped the first lady just so they can lure in a command that can lead them to control public opinion, (4) coordinate with the still relatively oppressed people of Ishval which in turn definitely would have improved public opinion of Ishvalans as well, (5) use radio to tell the "juicier truth" to the public, (6) and even lean onto their enemy's popularity while letting their allies take the fall instead of them, etc.... was always an immense mix of satisfyiing/horrifying, because they are the heroes that are actually fighting for what's right - it's just that they have and also are fighting for control of the nation too, and their brutal competence shows. It was like... an improptu lesson on politics I had as a kid? I dunno, always thought it was one of the best moments of early Promised Day arc. Though to be fair, the entirety of that arc (and the show/manga in general) is a masterpiece.
I also like that even though the heroes want to restore the parliament at some point, they're mostly relying on people who are fine with the military rule so they still end up with a military dictatorship in the end. Even if it's a less genocidal one. It feels realistic to me.
Some revolutions start because the government has not kept up with the times and is badly in need of reform. These are usually left wing revolutions. However, some revolutions begin because the government is trying to enforce some new oppressions into an already oppressive system (think the British taxing the American's Tea). In this case the revolution is about restoring the old way of doing things, defending tradition and not pushing forward. These tend to be right wing or conservative revolutions. If the conservative revolution doesn't go far enough to solve the countries problems you can actually get a second wave of revolution (think Daniel Shay and his attempt to abolish debt). The Bolshevik Revolution is actually a second wave revolution. The February revolution brought democracy to Russia but the revolutionaries began bickering with each other. Some believed the revolution had gone far enough, some believed it needed to go even further. And on the sidelines all the conservatives believed that the revolution had gone too far. Eventually, the guys in the middle are squeezed out and we get the Russian Civil War between the conservatives and the communists.
They didn’t gloss over the aftermath either. In the final chapter, Rebecca and Hawkeye spend a few pages talking about what they need to do to solidify the new government by discussing who they need to take deals with and which parties would be problematic. In any other story, this would be incredibly boring, but they show a few panels that wordlessly explains how the few defectors from the Central Army proved crucial in helping the Central Army accept the new government despite all the death inflicted upon them during the coup.
Your Franch Revolution would not have happened if America's was a failure. Our Revolution against King George was the Revolution to start Revolutions. Many did not make it, many did bring about change, and some ended far worse than the one's they tried to overthrow.
Least violent frenchman. As a Texan, I approve. I may give you guys a lot of shit, but we can agree on one thing and that's "hippity hoppity, get off my property."
One of my favourite parts of revolutions is that they tend to grow more radical. when the french revolution started almost no one wanted to overthrow the king, but because he couldnt stick with one side or the other his opponents ended up getting more radical. Same with the english civil war they didnt want to kill the king but he left them with little choice.
The Russian Revolution is the same. There were actually 2 revolutions in 1917... the Bolsheviks took power in the October one. The reasons for this are basically outlined in this video: there have to be problems in the country in order for a Revolution to happen in the first place. No matter how oppressive the regime, if regular people are fed, clothed, safe, and sheltered, they won't take the chance of death for the possibility of some theoretical "freedom." But even when the old government is gone, those problems still remain. Economies are slow to respond to circumstances; harvests take a while to grow; the new institutions of government need to get their feet under them. Meanwhile, your family is still starving, your kids still are wearing rags that are too small for them, you are still shivering in the cold of night, or the army is still losing the damn war! Now the radicals are promising that if only they were in charge instead of the moderates, they wouldn't be taking these half-measures. No, they can fix all of these problems... so they take over in a bloody coup. And now guillotines are going up all around the city, and people are denouncing their neighbors to the death squads. And all you did was transform one oppressive regime for another. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
@@elliotyourarobot At what cost? Ending the war (even with the disastrous terms they gave Germany) was the right move. However, if given a chance for their policies to continue, the moderates of the February Revolution might have been able to do the same. And then the Russian people (and all of the others in the USSR) would have been spared Stalin, Beria, the Purges, the Holodomor, and all of the oppression they faced for 60 years.
@bludfyre How do you know if the Feburary Revolution would have done the same? Don't forget they continued the war. And how do you know if they wouldn't do those things as well?
As Chilean, yeah, I can't imagine what would happen if the CIA handbook on assassination and destabilizing countries were put into action. Or, you know if they had happened to open a military training center where they taught torture and repression techniques. Can't imagine it at all.
Yeah, I don't think the C.I.A would ever assassinate a leader because their communist model was working too well, or would ever assassinate someone advocating for a Pan-African country that would have a stronger economy. I just can't possibly ever imagine that.
@@SuperMaster000Xand having ties with the Edwards, the family running the famous paper "El Mercurio". Would be horrifying if they had that connection. I mean, Catalina Edwards was (or is?) host on the news of the most popular chilean channel: Mega TV. Would be sad that even in TVN -the national TV station- all managers were from the UDI, the party that still endorses and has direct connections to the CIA's Pinochet "fun" distatorship.
The CIA though is less a federal government agency and more of a cult bent on world dominance. It is not really under the control of the United States government so much as in tenuous cooperation with it. Honestly living in the United States has always felt like everyone is a cultist, criminal, or revolutionary and we all exist in a tense standoff where we pretend to be a society until someone flinches literally the guns go off. On another note; Thanks for all the good salmon! I work in the seafood import & retail business here and Chile is well appreciated for high quality and well priced fish!
This would have been an amazing resource 3 years ago, when I ran a D&D campaign built around a tyrannical prince who tricked his way onto the throne. A revolution got rid of him, but I had to wing it.😊
I don't run campaigns, but I do have a sci-fi dystopia revolution I've been puzzling out in a story more elaborate than anything I've ever put to paper
I'm very much looking forward to the coming revolution that's getting generated right now by Western society completely alienating young men. Progressives are going to get what they deserve.
My favorite dictator in literature is Lord Vetinari from Discworld. People are given just enough liberty to do business, but not enough to oppose him. He stays in power by working with the guilds and making them fight each other instead of uniting to attack him. He does what so few politicians are able to do - mostly nothing. He also makes sure that a government with him in charge is ever so slightly better than a government without him. Plus it helps that he is a highly trained assassin.
Ever so slightly? From what I've read, Vetinari makes sure Ankh Morpork runs as smoothly as a city like that ever can. Any time he's not in power, things tend to go, pear shaped.
@@shadowldrago Vetinari shares the idea with other dictators that the nation can't function without them. Dictatorships sometimes deliberately lack a method of power succession or transition so there won't be any obvious pretenders. Things like monarchies are continued partly because the people around the autocrat have an interest in not being killed in a generational civil war. I think the counter to Vetinari in the books was often Vimes or Carrot. Emperor Palpatine doesn't need to worry about the post-Second Death Star empire because he's dead, and the empire is purpousefully built to start collapsing without him and Vader. All the moffs and admirals underneath should know that their positions without Palpatine are much less secure, that a coup against the "private religion" will undo their stuff as well.
@@shadowldrago A lot of real life dictators also squash all alternatives to themselves until the only choice stands between them and chaos. al-Assad can always say that he is a better choice to IS, and pretend that the only choice is between him and IS. You wan a power pyramid where people underneath think their chances in the chaos after your fall is much riskier than under your rule. I think Vetinari does that, the books always turned to his ability to balance the different factions and guilds of Ankh-Morpork against eachother. Even Vimes gets pulled into the balancing act as a foil to the growing guilds. Vetinari doesn't have a goon or spy on every street, but people should think he might have one on theirs. I think Pratchett made some reference to the internal policeman. The policeman isn't just standing on the street, the police is something you believe in. The moment people see the police as just 30 dudes in cheap armour with clubs, it would all fall.
@@evangrey4737 Are you trying to make a joke? It's legitimately useful as both a guide to how to write a revolution, and for how to write a failed revolution as a backdrop (which can be followed by a successful revolution) As someone writing a book which has a civil war that's predicated by a rebellion (and both the POV character's end up pro-rebel by the end of the book) I find this useful.
The segment on privileged revolutions has really got me thinking about my own story. For a while, I'd been framing it as the usual lower class vs upper class affair, but now I've realized that the world I created -- a monarchy in the midst of an industrial revolution, with an extremely powerful and young capitalist class excluded from governance -- actually invites a much more complex narrative. The idea has now occurred to me: perhaps my story can instead be about a two-pronged revolution. The poor have their reasons, and the rich have theirs, so both rebel against the nobility with different goals and are forced to align. Uneasy cooperation between enemies is one of my favorite tropes, after all. And it leaves a lot of nice sequel room, with the irreconcilable differences between the bourgeoisie and working class boiling over after the king has been overthrown. So thanks, Tim, for making me reconsider my novel's path! (Also, I feel it worth noting since my story took a lot of inspiration from it and you mentioned it in the video, the Powder Mage trilogy does all of this stuff really well. Including what I just talked about, with much of the tension arising from keeping the disparate groups that supported it from turning on each other. The worldbuilding and political plot are top-notch, I highly recommend it.) Edit: Yes, I'm aware something like this is often the case in real life. What y'all are describing, wealthier or educated individuals leading a revolt of the lower classes, was already present in my story. But Lenin, despite being well-off, had the same ideals of communism as his army. The idea I specifically had is for there to be two broad factions, one of socialist-ish goals and one of capitalist ideology, with their disparate objectives explicitly clashing.
>a monarchy in the midst of an industrial revolution, with an extremely powerful and young capitalist class excluded from governance That's basically what every revolution that's ever happened has been. The common people of all countries simply lack the organisational capacity to sustain a governing coalition, much less overthrow one, but semi-elites with no access to the levers of power are very much capable of this. Democracy is different from autocracy not in that a democracy is a government of, by, and for the people, such a thing is a fantasy, but rather in that no one has a monopoly on power and no petty elites are excluded absolutely from politics, and since no one can be excluded, that means that even common people can demand concessions as well.
The poor have never been the minds or funds of the revolutions. The rich with little to no official political power are. They have the resources to manipulate public opinion and fund the change of guard. And when the new leadership is chosen, it is those same rich people who gain power. No revolution is based on freeing people, it is about helping an ambitious person take power. The British Civil War was about new rich taking over from the monarchy. The American Revolution was about the new rich in the 13 colonies taking over the 13 colonies. The French Revolution was about the new rich taking over France. Do you notice a pattern? For the most part, that is what every revolution is. Powerful people usurping other powerful people.
An example is Sun Yat Sen. The revolutionary that went around the world asking for donations to fund the revolution. He gives speeches around the world but donations he goes to Chinese landowners/businessman and the rich. While his opposite is Mao. By getting the support of the poor which consist of majority of the population.
@MrChopstsicks No offence to Mao, but he also was part of the rich. He took power and appointed rich people to govern. The revolution was never for the people of China by the people of China. It was rich people seizing power from other rich people.
@@RealLifeIronMan yea that’s what happens when you become government, most appoints the rich and educated. But for the revolution itself he used the unprivileged for his communist agenda.
I posted on r/fantasy years ago about my growing dissatisfaction with fantasy discussion that is almost always centered on reviews. Which mostly concern themselves with how a book works (plot, pros, characterization, pacing etc). When there are so many other ways we can talk about literature. I hoped for analysis like this one. Where we could discuss themes, meanings, and applications to the real world. I got pretty much nothing but negative responses. I’m very happy we have at least one person doing stuff like this.
But discussing the themes and meanings of stories is the best part! I'll even try to watch play-throughs and summaries of video games so I'll be informed enough to have those discussions about them with my siblings, in spite of not playing video games myself.
Sadly, despite their deep dedication to it, a lot of fantasy fans use it entirely for escapism and despise attempts to relate fantasy world to reality. This despite the fact that the best fantasy world's are basically always heavily related to real world events and are even more interesting when viewed through that lens.
It's enjoyable if you manage to exclude getting too deep into real world politics (not to be confused with real world politic/social/struggle themes) while still keeping it straight and relevant for the topic. Calling the 'First Order' “as oppressive as N.Korea” in casual setting around like-minded friends is one thing, repeating it around religious Star Wars nerds with master's degree in this topic is whole another story (as they would think of you as karen that $h!ts on the franchise with her personal problems), and going to near: “Mein Ķ0mph”- lengths on how all Chubakas are both just a slang term for Spanish people, and the sole cause of all fundamental problems with the Star Wars universe, so irl we should remove all Spanish people from existence to become type 3 civilisation is on a whole another different level of exploiting fictional media to preach your political beliefs. Parallels to our world are acceptable, anything beyond that easily makes it unpleasant for everyone involved given how bias and single perspective are the rules of writing by default. No German fan of certain franchise would want to hear the fictional kingdom of Azeroth to be openly compared to the camps of WW2 Germany with gas chambers, even if it's for the sake of “drama”. No African American D&D fan would want to hear about fictional Elves being segregated and whipped on their naked backs to collect cotton from the fields, even if it's for the sake of backstory. No chinise 40k fan would want Guilimman all of the sudden to start CNN narrative about the Tainamen Square out of the blue while fighting Tyranids for the sake of 'redeeming' GW from their most recent irl scandal. If you do anything like that just keep in mind that this is the quickest way to turn off the so called 'uninvolvement' towards real world politics, but it personally affects the people from your very own audience, even if you mean well. Always ask yourself: “is your fictional revolution relevant for your story, or is it just unnecessary scapegoat for (X) political message”.
For anyone wanting to dig deeper on revolutions I recommend the podcast Revolution by Mike Ducan. Also something to consider is factional infighting on the revolutionary side. For example the farmers who are rising up to get ride of price controls on the food they. While the factory work might rise up to expand the price controls on food. So could lead the revolution to fail or fall into civil after the dictator is removed.
The russian revolution was a whole string of revolutions where a lot of russian society didn't like the tsar but had different ideas. The aristocracy might have liked to just put another man in place of the tsar, maybe with less absolute power so they wouldn't be as easily overruled. The largely liberal duma wanted to reform the country in the image of western entante powers with or without a figurehead tsar but also supported the unpopular pro-entante position of continuing the war. The bolsheviks growing through worker-councils and soldier-councils had their own utopian ideas.
Mike Ducan's History of Rome is excellent as well. It used to be what I put on every night when I went to sleep for over 6 months straight. I think I've memorized every episode and also I was surprised to find a handful of errors when I did follow up research on parts that really fascinated me. I tried doing the same with revolutions and couldn't do it because his music before every episode was so jarring it kept waking me up. His History of Rome Podcast has that out of tune Guitar music that isn't jarring at all it's very relaxing and an ideal podcast to sleep to. Lately I've been listening to RUclips Channel Thersites the historians coverage of important Romans. Before Thersites for at least a year I listened to RUclipsr Drachinifels "Dry Dock" episodes. I'm happy to be back on Rome I've as I've heard enough Naval History to cure my curiosities for a least a few more months.
Something that struck me about your videos now is how well you manage to actually point out how good writing connects with a good and deep understanding of how the world works. Idk if I articulated it well but what I'm getting at is that, usually, on YT, people seem to kinda talk about writing as if it exists in a vaccum almost, but your videos always help point out how and why certain things are the way the are in the real world and how that can be recreated in a fictional world.
Interesting video. Just one correction: The EDSA Revolution of the Philippines happened in 1986, not 1984. That day is a very important event for us Filipinos, and despite it being a typo, it leaves a bad taste (especially with the current president being the Dictator's son). So yeah, considered that corrected.
For those who aren't aware of Philippines' current issues, there are actually Filipinos who believed that Marcos' dicatatorship was justified just because they watched a few propagandic videos online. And most of these videos aren't even professionally made, the thumbnails and the titles are very clickbaity. Sadly, most of our police force and military are like that, and this is especially since they aren't fond of rallies (even environmental ones), they view them as nuisances. Also, the fact that the other major candidate for presidency is a woman, most of my guy friends sided with Marcos' son because, you know, masculinity bandwagon.
@Name-uv6kz I assume this is rhetorical, but it's sadly because democracy don't exclude them. The only decent candidate against him was a woman, and as expected, she didn't appeal much to male voters. I even know a guy who simply voted for Marcos because he isn't fond of a female leader. Most of my male friends actually ignored reason just to be on the macho bandwagon.
@@hanzquejano7112 that is just sad. As a person in a country (Sweden) who used to have a female Prime Minister, and now has a male one, in my experience they're equally capable (or incapable). Their sex is irrelevant, they're just voted into a job position and can be replaced mid term for a number of reasons, and what determines their effectivness is how much surrounding political support they have and how good they are at making deals with the opposition to actually get their policies through.
@@hanzquejano7112 I don’t think it’s that, because these clowns would vote for Sara Duterte in a heartbeat. It’s her branding (being smart and “elitist”) and proximity to the Yellows Leni beat Marcos in the VP elections. Marcos only won because of the Dutertes. The Dutertes needed the Marcos in power because, if Leni had won, she would throw them in jail.
Liberalization and modernization aren't necessarily linked. The USSR didn't develop by liberalizing. The liberalizing of the former Soviet states destroyed them.
Which "modern" industries didnt the ussr have? Microchips? The ussr developed by showing an extrem amount of labour into industries and not being efficient. And yes the sudden liberalization unter Gorbachev destroyed the union by letting the oppressed people flee the yoke of the ussr. But if you look at the baltic states you see that liberalization can work wonders (or if you look to east asia e.g. taiwan, s.k.)
@@sstff6771 Damn that's a lot of propaganda. 1) Every industry develops through labor. What does that even mean? Have you ever seen an industry develop without workers? 2) Gorbachev wasn't the one who liberalized the USSR and ultimately desolved it. Boris Yeltsin was. And most post soviet states haven't even recovered from his "capitalist shock therepy" into the modern day. 3) The Asian countries you sited didn't develop through liberalization. They developed through strict protectionism, subsidies, and state direction of industry; then liberalized when their industries were developed enough to compete with foreign industry.
It's a simplified view on revolutions and the world. The russian revolution didn't happen simply because of ww1. There were decades of negligence that lead to this, like bad agricultural and economic policies that resulted in regular famines, so everyone even illiterate peasants understood that nothing will change should the system remain. Russo Japanese war exposed how weak and rotten the system is, and ww1 simply created the environment where revolutionary ideas could take a hold and spread.
@@chacanusrhosgenerisrhusett9418 it will happen sooner in usa than in modern russia. And should it happen it will be the end of capitalism. Since usa is the champion of the status quo and has the grip over the world with it's 800+ billions budget and almost 800 military bases, and more important usa is industrialized and geographicaly isolated.
@@usersar2213 the idea that a country where capitalism is a religion and people genuinely believe the rich are the smartest, hardest working people could ever become socialist. Have you ever spoken to an American before?
I love how topics like this, since it's based on things that happen in the world not just in writing, really teach about the topic too. It's more digestible too than the way it's talked about in schools here in America.
@@KillahMate America schools basically tell kids revolution is boring, america just needs to go pew pew on those bad oriental people and teach them the wonders of western democracy
@@KillahMateThey tend to be biased towards the revolutionaries, especially if they are democratic or capitalistic revolutionaries. Which, is pretty understandable when you consider the fact that the USA was birthed from revolution.
As someone who studied coups and Turkish politics through their time at uni, I was delighted that you mentioned the habit of Turkey’s military intervening in politics. It’s absolutely fascinating and more complex than what happens in Thailand. Traditionally, the Turkish Military see themselves as the protectors of Kemalist ideals. Kemalism is a “small L” liberal nationalist ideology that came out of Kemal Ataturk’s tenure as president in the early years of the modern Turkish Republic. Regardless of the shift in politics to the right or left, or if the government is perceptively incompetent, they have intervened in order to try and reset to “center”. Even more fascinating is how these interventions were often popular with the Turkish public, even if it was only initial popularity. But currently, the cycle of these ideological driven coups is arguably broken following the failure of the 2016 coup against Erdogen’s government. With the purges and their long ailing popularity amongst the public, I would not be surprised if we have seen that last of it.
It also makes me question whether the Turkish military may have been willing to coup Erdogan over economic issues had the EU not so openly supported opposition candidates. I can't be much local support for the military overthrowing an elected government if it seems like they are doing the bidding of foreigners.
This was genuinely very interesting! I'm very excited for the third volume of On Writing and Worldbuilding at the end of the year. Also, it'd be really cool for him to be a guest on the OSPod again with this video!
White men have no way to seek justice inside the systems created by progressives. Happy to see that their alienation has led to them creating parallel societies with the goal of burning this whole train wreck down.
Talking about elite infighting kind of reminds me of the Halo trilogy. A big reason that the enemy faction falls in the game lore is infighting between two forces in their military that already hated each other and things only get worse due to your actions in the game.
23:40 _Code Geass_ had basically the struggle of changing it from outside or from within. There are two characters who are focused on the most. While one of them just want a revolution and wants to kill the king... emperor... whatever title he had, the other wanted to change the system from within, which is why he fought against the revolution, despite the fact that he wants that revolution to happen... To be honest _Code Geass_ is a great Anime when it's about these kinds of things.
"Reform & Revolution" is a piece by Rosa Luxemburg that discusses this. It kinda rambles in my opinion, but the consensus my reading group had, was the preference for revolution over reform. However, the revolution doesnt emmediately happen and especially the successful kind as it takes alot of premeditation which can be confused as reform work by the impatient and adventurist "revolutionary." You have to build mass conciousness and connections or risk being very alone and possibly so "advanced" that you are backwards. For example one could be plagued by sectarianism, lack of connections with other groups, being unpalatable/unrelatable to the majority of people (including those we are trying to liberate).
The irony is that Suzaku (the "reform" character) actually had many more practical success and actionable ways to change thing than Lelouch (the "revolution" character) who had no practical endgoal for most of the series, whose seeming success in fighting back against the empire couldn't last long even if stuff didn't go wrong in the way that it had, and whose final success was so out of the scope of his initial planning that you can't really attribute it to his revolution plan (nevermind how it was all done from inside the system as well). Yet most people think Lelouch's way is the right one simply because he's the protagonist, even when the evidence in the show doesn't support it.
@@lilowhitney8614There isn't any irony here tbh. Without Zero, there would be no way the system bulge and breaks. Without the people, there would be no Zero. And in the end, Suzaku completely casted off his own reforming way and don the Zero mask, becoming the symbol of the revolution himself. But he can't do that if Lelouch didn't actually put himself as a target first and being ready to be killed by Zero, nor lay the groundwork for Zero, the legend of the revolution.
wait Suzaku wants to change the system from with in ? i ma pretty sure that he just wants to go so deep in the the Emperor s butt , that he names him Viceroy of Japan thats not really change i mean it is personal change , but except that not much , Suzaku can be the best and most nicest governor in the Empire but when he dies or is removed , we are back at same bullshit
As a lifelong history nerd, particularly with regards to political economics, this was brilliantly put together and presented. You're demonstrating the power of a great storyteller presenting educational material. Bravo!
Yep. As a history nerd, what happens when the entire next generation of young men are completely alienated from the society? Where do you think that'll lead?
@@oswaldmosley5012 Lessons we can draw from history, which are touched on here with regards to the Russian Revolutions, are that when large swaths of people become alienated, they don't all move TOWARDS the same ideology. Think of it in terms of what they all agree on: That something's wrong with society. They may even agree on WHAT is wrong with society (although even that is a maybe). But disagreements always - ALWAYS - happen around how to FIX what's wrong, and that's where history has a wealth of examples to draw from to establish patterns. This can be in the form of simple disputes over who should be in charge (or how power should be distributed), but is often seen as divergent radicalism. Martin Luther King's peaceful protests were radical in a completely different way from Malcolm X or the Black Panthers. They had the same disillusionment, and they even agreed on what the problem was, but they fundamentally disagreed on how to solve it. That's common. That's normal. As well, and this goes beyond revolution to really all walks of life, ideas tend to work in a similar way to Newton's Third Law (for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction). When an idea is pushed in a particular direction, those who disagree tend to develop positions that are FURTHER from it than they would otherwise be. It's no coincidence that the hippy movement in America happened at the same time as a conservative revival that propelled Republicans to EASILY win five of six consecutive Presidential elections, including the beginnings of The War on Drugs. Movement in one direction lead to movement in the opposite direction (or happens at the same time). Closer to today, the story of American politics last decade was of both the Republican and Democratic parties splintering into radical wings (whether it be Bernie or the Progressive caucus, or the Tea Party movement or Freedom caucus). It's not necessarily an equivalency, but that sort of outward pressure in opposite directions is firmly grounded in history.
@@GregMcNeish Absolutely correct... in the modern age, it's important to keep in mind that the liberal/left coalition consists mostly of tiny minorities, women, and the mentally ill or unfit. They're founding principal is solely a hatred of white men. The conservative/right coalition is white men and every one else. Especially young white (and latino) men who have had enough. When one team are capable as soldiers and the other team incapable... and they hate each 9other, it's pretty obvious who will win.
@@elliotyourarobotFalse, revolutions only succeed when the government gives concessions. The USSR legalized dissent and it was dissolved because of that mistep, meanwhile in China dissent is still illegal which is why it still stands.
The great irony of this video is that he describes all the circumstances for revolution in so-called dictatorships, but they're actually coming true in supposed democracies as well.
You see, all these "democracies" are extremely tricky. They are not afraid to oppress people because they know that the real rulers will not be harmed, they will be defended by another wave of "re-elected" politicians. As one of the dictators said about the US "...in your country presidents are changing all the time but the policies remain the same"
it'd be ironic if it wasn't aware, but it is... at least to a degree that makes calling it a "great" irony kind of ignorant, whether willfully or accidentally, I can't discern.
Well as a man with a flag such as yours on here, the entire time as I was listening to this I was thinking that a good chunk of the same things attributed to the fall of dictators here enabled the rise of a man like mussolini, especially the socioeconomic instability.
@@giftzwerg7345 I say so-called dictatorships because they're not so different from so-called democracies. For example, look at the way the American police brutally crush Native Americans protesting against pipelines, or the people at Occupy Wall Street or Black Lives Matter protests. Americans are ruled by oligarchs who allow some performative protests, but do not tolerate real change to the system.
Hey Tim, I really enjoyed this video. I feel like you could easily spin off this video into a world-building video about making believable dictatorships or authoritarian regimes. Oftentimes the governments in fiction (especially YA fiction) seem very simplistic. Exploring how dictatorships or totalitarian regimes actually function and guiding creators to make more tangible, believable fictional ones could be a good help. The book 'The Dictator's Handbook' would be a good reference for you.
I am from Russia and it would be very interesting to watch someday when I have more emotional resources... That topic was something I thought about since childhood, I am very interested in history. I tried to write about revolution when I was like 16-17, my characters were not the people overthrowing the government, but rather victims of circumstances. I didn't finish writing, but now I feel a bit like I am in my book. If I wrote it on heavy drugs, probably... Then there was Belarus. I believed that peaceful protests would work so much! I read the news everyday for months until I completely burned out. I still believe that Lukashenko will be overthrown though. I still believe, at least I want to, that people will win. Somehow. I was also in Moscow when this ridiculous Prighozin thing happened. It was so surreal. He is a shitty parody of a human being, but at the same time there was a part of me that wanted change by any means necessary... I tried to push it away bc revolutions always come with blood. I couldn't even bring myself to be properly scared, I would never imagine a year ago that I won't even cry or something. I just laughed, a lot, all day. It was the kind of breaking anxious laughter people don't know how to react to. And then it ended, and it was even more funny. It was so ridiculously real and bizarre. A lot of memes. I don't know what I wanted to say, I never experienced it, but all my life felt kind of close, like one more corner... And I know I shouldn't want it, and I know that they rarely, if ever, work to the benefit of the regular people, but at least the war will end that way? I mean, there will be civil war, probably. And I could be the victim of circumstances then. Or someone I love. And I obviously don't want that. But I really want the war to end and it ends with putin. I want to move, desperately so. But I don't know if I will be able to. Still waiting to hear about my visa. Thank you for the video, doubt anyone will finish reading my comment, but the algorithm will take into account the engagement:)
I can't even imagine how it feels like, but I have some russian co-workers who have similar thoughts. I don't know how this will end and how messy things will be after Putin gets possibly outed by siloviks. These are scary times, but I hope for the best Hugs from Finland🙏
I feel like one thing that is constantly ignored about revolutions is the assumption that rebels are inherently the morally correct side in any sort of conflict. There are defintely revolutions that are morally good, obviously, but there are just as many that really are not. The simple way to differentiate (keyword simple) is the investor rebel versus the consumer rebel. The investor rebel is someone who is invested in the cause and does not care for short term rewards. They are fighting for some larger picture, be it a freer society or the independence of a region. The consumer rebel is someone who fights for those short term goals. This can be things like conflict diamonds, something that player a massive role in the fighting in Sierra Leone. Consumer rebels are far more likely to be violent against the civilian population, and almost resort to a sort of criminal organization. A massive issue for revolutionary leaders is finding out which category potential recruits fall into. And an investor revolution can become a consumer one as the war goes on, and once that occurs generally speaking there isn't any going back. Just look at the FARC Rebels in Columbia. A way that this can play into world building is looking into the resources that a country has. If a country is generally rich in resources that a rebel could use to sponsor their rebellion like diamonds and drugs, then a consumer rebellion is far more likely to break out in that region. Also, being close to fighting can be another cause of fighting, given people who are already knowledgeable in fighting and the access to weapons. The point is it isn't just about an under class versus an oppressing upper class.
Watching this reminds me of Legend of the Galactic Heroes. In the autocratic Galactic Empire, there was a revolt in a planet in which Peasants revolt against the Nobility (alienation) and then there was a civil war in which two factions (the high nobility and Lohengramm’s forces) in which it could be seen as elite infighting. Moroever the Lohengramm faction could also be alienation as it was made of commoners and lower ranking nobility. Also great Video Mr. Tim
Really fun series but heavily skewed from the start. It has a very fascist undertone as well. It very implicitly favours the narrative that liberal republicanism is this ideal that needs to be tempered by centralized control. The proposed solution is, suprise surprise, a system almost exactly like Japan's constitutional monarchy led by a warrior and technocrat class. It's very much fun but once you watch it twice and see where it's going, it becomes clear that the ending was determined beforehand so the twists and turns were foreshadowing the support for the status quo of Japan post Meiji. It also has that Furukawa "end of history" theme, as it portrays the passing of history as having decided that the two prevailing theories are always going to be liberal republicanism and absolute autocracy. All other concrete ideologies are stamped out as part of the progress of history, which as a historian Yang Wan Li should most definitely be against this type of myopic analysis.
@@themeerofkats8908 He also declared war on switzerland, he lilkely just got toomad and unhinged . I am not saying he could wage war pon switzerland, but declaring ,em, really did alienat anyone tolerating him in support. The truth is probably he was tolerated by some western support till then.
Also, you are right. The spark that might lead for the critical mass needed for revolution might be overnight or a single incident, they still do not operate in a vacuum and rely on organizational capacity of either resistance groups that have been there for years or some other established institutions that might have been recently alienated from a role in the power structure.
The Amaris Civil War of Battletech is a pretty neat depiction of both revolution AND counter-revolution. The periphery was always getting shafted by the inner sphere, so one of their leaders, Stephen Amaris, got real close with the First Lord of Star League, enabling him to break armament treaties and replace a lot of the SLDF garrisons with his own Rimworlds Republic troops. He played it for so long that when he made his move, most of the SLDF was in the periphery, and nobody batted an eye when he came to the First Lord with a retinue of armed bodyguards and gifted him a golden, jewel-encrusted laser pistol only to blow his brains out with it. And then, of course, there was the immediate response. Most of the SLDF garrisons were filled with mostly Amaris' own men, so they fell quick. The Black Watch, House Cameron's bodyguards, were considered a significant threat by Amaris, so he nuked their main base of operations, Fort Cameron. Unfortunately for Amaris, there were 9 of them in Unity City, who were VERY much unhappy with the First Lord, who they were supposed to protect, being shot by fat Genghis Khan. These nine mechwarriors TERRORIZED the early Amaris regime, killing whoever came to stop them. Finally, Amaris resorted to throwing everything he had at them, which only served to slow them down. But all those forces weren't meant to stop the Black Watch, they were meant to distract them long enough that several tactical nukes could be used to take down the Black Watch. Amaris succeeded in killing them, but he still missed a few, including one Elizabeth Hazen. Hazen, along with one other who's name I forget, would form the Ghosts of the Black Watch and lead underground terror campaigns against the Amaris regime. Meanwhile, the majority of the Star League's forces, led by one Aleksandr Kerensky, caught wind of this in the Periphery. I could go on, but we'll be here for ages and this comment is long enough. Instead, I'll point anyone interested to sarna.net and the two-part lore video done by Tex of the Black Pants Legion.
Just wanna throw in there that modernisation sadly doesn’t necessarily entail liberalisation or democratisation. If that were the case most countries in the world would have a democracy and not the minority of all nations. There are many more modernised nations and more open nations than North Korea and yet, they’re not democratic. It’s a huge system which keeps dictatorships or authoritarian governments in place, a system which often represses education and fosters corruption. “You want a good life? Then say something good about me.” “You don’t want to vote for me? I know where you live.” “You are educated? Then work for me or be afraid that each thing you publish will endanger your family”. My bf comes from Cambodia and the country has poor education, a lot of poverty and a lot of corruption. The only way to get out of poverty is education or corruption, but many rather chose to work than to study. And even those who studied won’t have a good life unless they at least give a minimum of support to the ruling party.
Real world history and understanding it is key to writing lore. Tolkien and George Orwell were able to pull this off and write classics. Tim is giving everyone the game for free. This isn't a change in direction for the channel but an exploration of the better ways you can worldbuild and write relevant lore that everyone loves for years and years, gaining a cult following, even if you mayn't blow up as you wished!
really love how you go into complexities of actually thought-trough world building!! also, thanks for teaching us how to give a rise to long awaited revolution in minecra- i mean, in our stories!!
Can you do a whole review of the Thousand Names series? I think the power progression throughout the series is very interesting and can be learned from
For me as a venezuelan, we have a very big example of something I never see in other places. And that is that the best government we ever had, was a dictatorship. Under that government, all the important infrastructure of our country was build, our economy was in the top 10 of the world, the security was amazing (unless you were communist) to the point that everyone left their houses all the time with the door open because the regime had such an iron fist against criminals that nobody would dare to commit crimes, and so on. Today, like 6 decades after that, a lot of venezuelans (old and younger) have a lot of respect for Marcos Perez Jiménez (the dictator). After he abandoned (yeah, the guy literally abandoned the president role instead of trying to stick to the power cause he didn't want to cause a civil war), and democracy came back, the country went down hill from there. Worse and worse. Then the oil crisis came and it was even worse. THEN, radical socialism came with Chavez and that was the last nail in the coffin. Another dictatorship, but this time... It was bad, very bad. And here we are. More than 20 years of the same government, misery and corruption. So this brings the irony that... our best government and the worst were both dictatorships. And before the typical american smartpants reply: No. He wasn't working with the CIA. He actually even threatened the USA government several times with breaking commercial relationships or starting a war if necessary if they dare to take advantage of venezuelans. You don't have to agree with everything he did, but the guy really knew a thing or two about how to give prosperity to your country and defend your people against outsiders, specially imperialists countries like US or England.
damn... dictorships really dont seem like the best way of goverment, you may have someone decent at one time. but at least from it seems like, more often then not dictators can really be horrendus.
When our group had an in-game revolution we spent several sessions to figure out who stood where in the city-state. A warrior-princess had put her father in house arrest and acted as regent with her own cadet corps around her. So we started looking for the parts of the city garrison this new cadet corps were trying to replace. We talked with organized crime/merchants and gave them good enough future concessions, we talked with the mercenaries on the city walls and found out their pay had been short a couple months. We tried to get the church to rally people by spreading news of the princess teaming up with death-cults. We had a word with the older aristocrat families who didn't have scions in her cadet force, and found that they were very willing to fill their old institutional roles again. An agent for another city-state tipped us off about vampires who might stop our attempt, and guaranteed that their larger city would not show up with the air force. And most important, outside the city we had found a group of barbarian warriors who had been raiding the slave-trade of the city and just hoped for a way to get in over the wall. A week's pay to the mercenary guards to take a day off solved that, and our organized crime pals were running interference on the inside to draw the attention of the cadets. In the end we got to install a puppet regent of our own and the king could go back to his normal business of non-governing.
I remember the old days when this man used to talk about nothing but video games and anime. Now, the last several videos have informed me about more about various types of subject matter than anything else. The long con worked! I've been tricked into actually gaining knowledge and learning shit while actually enjoying it. Awesome! Really shows the teaching skills by this gentleman are fully intact and capable. Much appreciated!
as someone currently living in israel, where the govt is currently trying to give itself more power and theres massive protests happening because of it, this was very interesting to watch!
same. I’m mostly thinking about how the protestors against Netanyahu are arguing from a socioeconomic instability framework - “no hitech without democracy” etc - but I’m thinking it might be a good idea to argue from an alienation standpoint. By extension we on the Israeli left need to be able to work with Palestinians, who have certainly been alienated from the regime much more than we have
@@IsaacMayerCreativeWorks theres a lot of ways to view this from from the framing of the video. for instance the dictators dillema itself - israel is very technologically advanced and in contact with the outside world, which adds to why people are protesting
@@IsaacMayerCreativeWorksso Bibi is indeed making jews and palestinians have a dialogue, and therefor bringing peace closer in the Middle East. Good job, you wannabe dictator 😂
this video makes me want to do now a _third_ watchthrough of Andor, all of the factors get a decent amount of screen time. one of the main characters _is_ an elite and trying to form the infighting necessary to depose the emperor, while all the time spent with Andor himself is just a constant horror show of every kind of injustice, inequality, instability, and alienation the Star Wars universe can muster
Tim (i think im new to this channel, already subed): Talks about the complex social and economical dilemma's of being a dictator and its reasons Also tim with zero hesitation: *"its morbin time"*
@@Borel-nv5bq lmao god that’s some dumb logic you have and none of that was about stopping revolutions god you people like propaganda and it’s amazing 🤣
Actually Hunger Games actually kinda goes against the YA special girl thing in the total revolution. Katinis doesnt capture snow. She doesnt lead the rebellion in the end, heck random soldeirs nd rebels storm in at the last moment saving her and finishing everything
True! She's also pretty uninvolved with the post-revolutionary government. While Gale, who she cuts ties with over his brutal military tactics, ends up with a position in the new regime.
After watching this magnificent video, I cant recomend enough the book/anime series "Legend of the Galactic Heroes" writen by Yoshiki Tanaka, which to me is one of the best space operas ever writen, but thats just my opinion. Author thoroughly explores unbiasedly Imperial regime (mainly the Prusian one) and Modern democratic nation on galactic stage. It dives deeply into all the reasons listed in this video and we read it/watch it develop as the story focus on several characters from each nation, their motivations, reasons for what they do and people surrounding them with look into geenral population as well, and we see how each states works, pointing out various weaknesess and strenghts of each regime, withouth ever telling us what is right and wrong, but leaving it up to the audience to decide for themself. Especialy once the plots start going and religions, revolutions gets thrown more into the story, it really goes deep withouth hand holding us, finished by epilogues of "historical summary of ongoing story" in that universe from pov of future historians.
There has to be a disclaimer at the start of this video that it is about creating sorties and world building. It doesn't really have much to do with the real world and it's really interesting how revolutions are framed as something that can just happen in countries that we call "autocratic" or "dictatorship" as if in the "democratic" west these problems of economic instability, alienation, elite infighting and injustice don't exist. It's really easy and brings good clicks to point to North Korea and condemning Kim Jong Un whilst completely ignoring the history and US policy against the country. I'll quote a declassified US government document here: "[...] every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba. [...] [We will] make the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government." This is why the embargo on Cuba exists to this day and if you think the embargo and sanctions on North Korea aren't for the same reason you're extremely naive. Maybe start looking at your own countries repressions a bit more, why look "over there" when repression and the potential for revolution exist at home?
I really wanna know where people are getting this idea that the video creator thinks America is squeaky clean when he shows multiple video clips of oppression and violence going on in America
Feedback: 1] Just place the Injustice section above the Proximate Socioeconomic Instability (PSI) section. You clearly wanted to discuss it first, and it's a good place to start. As it is now, you start the PSI section, but interrupt it to talk about Injustice, then discuss PSI, and then the Injustice section begins. It's needlessly muddled. Its also worth acknowledging how the other sections tie into Injustice. PSI feeds into feelings of injustice, especially when you're talking about wealth disparity. Many would argue that political and economic Alienation themselves are fundamentally unjust. The fact that so many sections can't be properly discussed without relating them to Injustice makes it a good topic to introduce first. The Elite Infighting section also touches on how an Injustice narrative is useful for organization, but that seems like something worth discussing in the Injustice section rather than just pointing out that such narratives are often post-hoc justifications and leaving it there. 2] It might lend greater weight to your arguments if you support each of your points with both real and fictional examples. Use real life examples when giving evidence for principles behind real life phenomena, and use fictional examples to discuss the writer's implementation of those principles in their fiction. You lose credibility when you support assertions about the real world with primarily fictional examples. (16:50) I also don't recommend using such muddled metaphors as core examples unless you're specifically dissecting where they went wrong. 3] The opening with the Dictator's Dilemma feels like a relic of an early draft from a time when the video was going to be all about dictators. It actually detracts from the video as a whole, because it makes it seem like you're only discussing revolutions that arise from dictatorships. A single sentence to make the transition could clear this up. 4] The International Support section needed more historical and current real world examples. One worth pointing out: Operation Condor.
Have you listened to Mike Duncan's Revolutions podcast? If not, I strongly recommend it. The podcast in general and the final conclusions episodes specifically really gave me alot to think about worldbuilding-wise.
I'm always amazed at how many "people's revolts" find so many liberal arts college kids willing to organize the battles on their behalf (while not actually participating in the fighting as they are too valuable as the political leaders of the movement) then spare them the troubles of having to run the governments that result. Their cause must be truly just that it attracts such altruistic, noble and well educated members of the slightly less than most powerful elites.
Have to still watch through this entire video, but as someone who has done their fair share of community organizing and been a part of strategic protests, I will say that the writers of the Andor series got a lot right that has paralleled my own experiences (though not at the same stakes that those in that series faced.) Especially Lucien's monologue of lament about sometimes (and the stress is sometimes and not always) having to use the same tactics that they are being oppressed because of the box they are put into by the oppressive force and are fully aware that they sacrifice much of who they are in the hopes of freeing others from making that choice. That is a very real decision people in that situation have to make. Some of what fuels people into rebellion is that they feel like the system pushes that choice upon them. They also did a great job of showing the oppression of the empire on a day to day level and did it all without any mention of Vader, scant mention of Palpatine and minimal amount of scenes involving stormtroopers. Also, what they got right about rebellions, as well as Rogue One to a smaller degree, and what autocratic regimes try to lean into to keep them from coalescing, is that there are made of disparate bodies of affected peoples with different ideas on the best tactics and strategies to use. In some of ways, the easiest part of rebellions are the revolutions because it is easy to agree on what the problem is. The hard part is what comes after and getting a consensus among everyone on what the solution is. If you look at failed revolutions in the real world, the disagreement on the solution is why some slip back into the governments that rebelled against. The general public can only tolerate a lack of structure and stability for so long. Additionally, and tangentially related, something that a war correspondent once said when asked what the common element he observed when civil wars broke out in societies. His response was it wasn't when both disagreed about how to govern, but when both sides believed that the other was only concerned with the elimination of them as individuals.
Ngl, this was a good video. I didn't expect much but you surprised me. Despite the metric tone of Liberal propaganda you believe, you're way better than 90% of people. You actually analysed revolutions instead of just saying it's because of injustice and calling it a day. A great well-researched video.
I love this video Tim. Well done and well researched on your end. I want to bring up a 'good' two book series set in an expanded universe, "The Trickster's Choice/Queen" by Tamora Pierce. I would say that it's prob one of the best High Fantasy rebellion that I have personally read. It goes through a lot of stuff... and the main character comes into it for the last two? years of the rebellion.
Yes, more love for Tamora Pierce work! I loved her books as a child and rereading it as an adult, several times I just keep on loving it for some of the same and some new reasons.
Trickster's Choice and Trickster's Queen are fantastic novels. One thing that struck me about it is that the "hero" of the rebellion is a side character. But the thing that really hit home for me is the "where do you draw the line" about race. Will you kill off those who are half? One quarter, one eighth? Especially when one of your allies comes fully from the side you hate. It's a brief conversation but it leads to some serious thought.
@@Xenozfan2 There were also some good "do the ends justify the means?" moments that were handled well and subtly. Like when the rebellion essentially stages a terrorist attack which takes out several powerful elites - most of whom were adults who had actively participated in oppression, but at least one of whom was a young boy whose only crime was being born into a wealthy and powerful family.
This video is fascinating. I was studying to be a historian or history teacher when my university was closed after the Kent State Massacre. This resulted in my change of university and major. However, I retained an interest in history and political science. This video has suggested a new way to view the history of my own state, which I might call The Hundred Year Revolution. I learned the various parts of the history, but applying the principles of this video suggests a more interesting and complex process. In the beginning, there was a divisive and sometimes violent religious struggle in England, and some groups left, but found the Netherlands too worldly, so they came to North America for "religious freedom," in actuality to establish a totalitarian theocratic state. In the 18th Century the local governments had been replaced by the Crown, which forced the people to not only tolerate Anglicanism, but to pay for the Anglican church. The break in the monopoly of religious power led to decline of Puritanism and the rise of Unitarianism. And the various strands of discontent and alienation continued until the Crown made one of it's worst decisions ever. The Coercive Acts [a.k.a. the Intolerable Acts] abolished the elected colonial parliament, and, more egregiously, local government by town meeting. The parliament [following an English precedent] refused dissolution and went into session outside occupied Boston and usurped all authority previously exercised by the crown. Town meetings met, refused to be dissolved, continuing electing representatives to the Provisional Congress, and began arming and training the militias. Into this powder keg, the Redcoats marched to Concord, and massacred the militia after they had started to disband. The militias of surrounding towns were furious and forced a Redcoat retreat to Boston under constant sniping. Concord is usually considered the start of the American Revolution, though historians do often delve into underlying causes, though without the frame provided in this video. Americans usually misunderstand the issue as an attempt to confiscate the colonists' guns, and Britons usually think of it as resistance to taxation and paying for common defense. This misidentification of primary and secondary causes, in general, is referred to in the video and deserves to be thoroughly examined by historians in specific cases like this one. It took over a hundred years for the factors mentioned in the video to arrive at the final spark that, in 1774, set off the revolution that spread throughout Yankee New England , then to the other colonies, and from there to a world wide war among the colonial powers, and later revolutions. Note: The revolutionary government of Massachusetts is still in power [as of 2023 CE] under the constitution it promulgated and which was accepted by the town meetings in 1780. The same constitution is still in force, having been amended numerous times, evolving from proto-democratic to fully democratic in the process. I think this would be a good case study to follow up the present video.
I live in Russia. Oil workers and programmers are in completely different economic classes compared to everyone else. And Moscow and Saint Petersburg are still kept at such a high standard of living that an average person can still afford some nice things here and there
@@andrewredden9563 Thanks! Long story short it's the third novel in my trilogy. Started as a vampire buddy cop story on book one (Blood Herring) and has developed into the beginnings of war while I've been writing book two.
If you want to understand the political aspects of revolutions and how dictatorships work more, I HIGHLY recommend the following: -CGP Grey's "Rules for Rulers" videos and the book the summaraize: "The Dictator's Handbook" -"Rules For Radicals" by Saul Alinski, which details proven track records and strategies for winning with revolutionary movements -"The Prince" by Machiavelli, which details political realism in such an honest way that I still say it's the best treatise on the subject 500 years later CGP Grey's videos and the book they're based on explain the how of government power structures, Machiavelli is essentially an instruction manual for the "haves" to maintain their power, and Alinski is the instruction manual for the "have nots" to win power or material possessions from the "haves" by winning over the "have a little, want mores" (I intentionally use Alinski's descriptions of the clauses in a social conflict because I feel they best describe the social hierarchy in revolutions, that being the established power, the revolutionaries, and the general public just trying to keep their heads down
To emphasize one point: really consider is what means a dictator or other authoritarian regime uses to legitimize itself. This can make it much easier or much harder for them. If they took power during a period of social collapse or seized power from a hated prior regime, they'll have a lot more social capital to burn on keeping their power secure. The image of being a "hero of the people" will cover a lot of sins, especially if it grows into a cult of personality, which happens surprisingly often, even if not actively encouraged. And while not ever dictator believes their own hype, many authentically do, especially if they started off as an idealist or even a revolutionary themselves. Sadly not uncommon shift.
This is what I keep telling people, so many young people think that revolution is going to happen in America. The thing is though people are far too complacent and not suffering enough individually for any of that to happen. There are still a lot of groups of people that are doing okay for themselves and it takes a lot to get a revolution kicking. It's not the first thing that drops due to injustice or even instability in the economy. People even as adults act a lot like children. They get really angry in the moment, they throw a little tantrum, then they forget about it the next day. It takes a lot for that anger to even snowball let alone roll in the right direction.
There’s also this idea that everyone else in politics would vote like them if they were given the chance. You could see it in the last two Democrat primaries with people supporting Sanders over Clinton or Biden. Bernie didn’t lose the primary because of DNC conspiracies or media shenanigans, he lost it because most Democrats lean more liberal and voted for what they viewed as the best candidate.
Well ,the coming economic collapse and the fact many are looking at homelessness and starvation will certainly make things bad enough for a revolution. Might be why so many elites are moving to replace the common folk in police, farming, and military with brain washed activists who depend on the government to get their meds or keep their cushy lives they have since they were born to rich parents.
I wouldn't know that we're not suffering enough. I am completely lacking in shelter, and I have only gotten more radical the longer my situation has gone on.
The U.S. is far too fragmented snd varied for that to happen realistically. Literally all it would take is the "revolution" getting painted as liberals/conservatives doing domestic terrorism and half the country would be signing up to go shoot the other half
@@breakingboardrooms1778Are you a homeless guy on your phone? Pizza and watching football is preferable to sitting in a cold wet trench for most Americans.
Another great video on this subject is CGP Grey's "The Rules for Rulers" (itself adapted from "The Dictator's Handbook", by Bruce Bueno De Mesquita & Alastair Smith)
Honestly, thinking on this topic really makes you marvel at the role religious systems play now and the roles they played in the past. Both stabilizing and destabilizing people groups and nations. They either help to foster stability by establishing a sense of trust through the idea of shared beliefs, values, or perhaps a shared sense of purpose. You may be a peasant but if ideologically your own king has the same purpose in life as you, you trust your king to do the right thing. In the opposite though it can create a sense of distrust, even to the extent of the other 'side' being deemed as anti-human. Consider this for your world building. You could borrow ideas or aspects from many different current day or past religions. The main similarity between all the systems is that they tend to connect people together by building a sense of togetherness and belonging. It connects people in an important way that can only really be replicated through personal relationship. It is trust. As I said, the opposite is also true. If you once thought your king was not following your religious practices like he should or even that he outright breaking the laws of the religion, that creates distrust which can turn into resentment and resentment into hatred. Thanks for reading my thoughts on it. What do you think about the role of religious systems in rebellion and world building/story telling?
also with russia, the Russian people had been under poor conditions for a long time, to the point when they'd even revolted in 1905 and the Tsar gave in and created the Duma, although he barely ever used it. These aggravations just became worse due to the strain of world war 1
I really love that Deadpan joke about the CIA, because it reminds us that if there is a known conspiracy that a covert operation entities did something, them being covert means they’d never admit to it. Tim is think you should do a series on Covert organizations all together!
I'm barely 5 minutes in but this comes at an interesting time for me as I'm currently reading "The Dispossessed" by Ursula K. Le Guin. Highly recommend!
"The U.S. might fund a revolution [in the DPRK] for geopolitical reasons in the same way that they have in the past other places" Like that one war in the fifties lol, I think they made a show about a hospital or something idk tho
Foreign intervention could be much more direct than just sending advisors, trainers, cash and some kit or letting the group you support have a little help from your state-scale information gathering and communications. It could be a no-fly zone where the government suddenly can't use its air power and drones, a bomber conducting a mission over government troops and installations or entering the conflict as an active participant with anything from international UN troops with mandates to secure safe zones to an invasion or the threat of one. In Europe, partisan warfare was not necessarily intended to romantically overthrow the government. Each frontline unit the government has to keep in reserve as internal troops or coup defence was units that weren't at the front. As you can supply the partisans with information, so can they supply you with the same. Sometimes all they wanted was a dude sitting in a cabin with a hidden radio that could tell which trains came and went each week. Partisans could sabotage installations, or make the threat of sabotage force the government to divert even more units to internal security.
1:30 Iran had a democracy but in 1950s it was destroyed by a CIA backed coup. Because their prime minister wanted to bring the oil to the people (is that called nationlising?), but America absolutely did not want that since they would of lost their oil profits.
Nationalizing is when the government takes a private enterprise and makes it public typically so they can use it to provide for their people (i.e Nationalization of the Healthcare industry), or to make money from it so they have an additional stream of income to invest in other government programs (probably the Oil).
A lot of dictators seem to like to portray themselves as the sole hero and guiding light, especially if and when they try to hide or even deny certain questionable ideas in their beliefs or actions, etc.
This video really got me thinking about writing! If I wrote a series about revolution in a futuristic society mired in poverty and corruption, I would include the following characters: First, a young and high-minded political prisoner in a surprisingly comfortable jail and his increasingly chummy relationship with the guards. Second, a would-be reformer within the despot’s inner circle (maybe a relation of the prison warden) struggling against bloody-minded comrades, and taking his efforts public, which makes the situation more dire. Third, a fanatical revolutionary running a cult-like political party which shows up to any bread riot or disturbance to cause problems, and promising everything to everyone (maybe the prisoner is connected to him/her). Fourth, a high-ranking member of the political police who is fiercely dedicated to the regime, perhaps trying to ring alarm bells about the third character. I hope this would give the shades of gray in revolution and show the many competing factions at work. I would love it if everyone offered thier thoughts on this!
![On Worldbuilding: Fallen Civilizations! [ Forbidden West | Halo | Doctor Who ]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/DdH3RqVNUaE/mqdefault.jpg)
![On Worldbuilding: Fallen Civilizations! [ Forbidden West | Halo | Doctor Who ]](/img/tr.png)
The number of commenters who don't seem to understand sarcasm or deadpan humour is hilairious.
~ Tim
I supported totalitarianism... as a joke!!! Just a prank bro!
EDIT: You show a picture of the US whilst talking about injustice in totalitarian regimes, (I’m going to steal one of your lines: *Policing is Complicated* ), you then imply that defeating the truly evil 2nd Reich was a pointless cause (from all my ancestors who died; fuck you). Amazingly you even push the Nazi myth of the “Harsh Treaty of Versailles”, ( no serious historians support this).
Step back and seriously think about what you have just done. That was fucked up.
What sorcery is this "humour" you speak of?
Hum-what?
I think he means Hugh Moore, tho he was Clerk of the Municipal Court in the 8th District, from 1912 to 1920, not a dictator (unless his secretary thought otherwise).
That is Sam Hyde Manouver, when you are called out, say its Joke or Sarcasm
"I asked thr CIA if they ever used it, and they haven't, which is really good news" made me laugh abruptly and loudly.
I mean, their exact words when asked are usually "eeeeehhhhhhh.
Interviewer: but you don't still do all that, do you?
CIA official:*whale noises*
@@jasonrobinson401the fact that you're describing an actual interview given by Former CIA director James Woolsey on Fox News where he admits the CIA has, and continues to, meddle in foreign elections, is wild.
@@cg1906 they brag about it, it's honestly a little gross the way they're so comfortable talking about commiting terrorism for "the good of the nation" like the fascist wannabe deep state they are on live TV.
You can read The Devil's Chessboard if you wanna know more about the supposedly oh so clever games they play.
"Oh thank God, this trusty youtuber asked the CIA and the CIA said no, I should believe him now"
"If you can't trust the CIA, then who can you trust?"
I always thought the Promised Day coup in Fullmetal Alchemist was such a fascinating case of narrative control in terms of revolution. The blatant and successful manipulation of public opinion used by Team Mustang as they (1) blew up the then-head of state's train and blame it on the other higher staff, (2) successfully brought in troops to central and battled for its command, (3) kidnapped the first lady just so they can lure in a command that can lead them to control public opinion, (4) coordinate with the still relatively oppressed people of Ishval which in turn definitely would have improved public opinion of Ishvalans as well, (5) use radio to tell the "juicier truth" to the public, (6) and even lean onto their enemy's popularity while letting their allies take the fall instead of them, etc.... was always an immense mix of satisfyiing/horrifying, because they are the heroes that are actually fighting for what's right - it's just that they have and also are fighting for control of the nation too, and their brutal competence shows. It was like... an improptu lesson on politics I had as a kid? I dunno, always thought it was one of the best moments of early Promised Day arc.
Though to be fair, the entirety of that arc (and the show/manga in general) is a masterpiece.
I also like that even though the heroes want to restore the parliament at some point, they're mostly relying on people who are fine with the military rule so they still end up with a military dictatorship in the end. Even if it's a less genocidal one. It feels realistic to me.
@@merrittanimation7721the truly realistic scenario is ten years into Mustang regime, they rationalise and commit a new genocide.
Some revolutions start because the government has not kept up with the times and is badly in need of reform. These are usually left wing revolutions. However, some revolutions begin because the government is trying to enforce some new oppressions into an already oppressive system (think the British taxing the American's Tea). In this case the revolution is about restoring the old way of doing things, defending tradition and not pushing forward. These tend to be right wing or conservative revolutions.
If the conservative revolution doesn't go far enough to solve the countries problems you can actually get a second wave of revolution (think Daniel Shay and his attempt to abolish debt).
The Bolshevik Revolution is actually a second wave revolution. The February revolution brought democracy to Russia but the revolutionaries began bickering with each other. Some believed the revolution had gone far enough, some believed it needed to go even further. And on the sidelines all the conservatives believed that the revolution had gone too far. Eventually, the guys in the middle are squeezed out and we get the Russian Civil War between the conservatives and the communists.
@@genericyoutubeaccount579 “brought democracy to Russia” *laughs in Ukrainian* sure it did mate
They didn’t gloss over the aftermath either. In the final chapter, Rebecca and Hawkeye spend a few pages talking about what they need to do to solidify the new government by discussing who they need to take deals with and which parties would be problematic. In any other story, this would be incredibly boring, but they show a few panels that wordlessly explains how the few defectors from the Central Army proved crucial in helping the Central Army accept the new government despite all the death inflicted upon them during the coup.
As a french man, I'm greatly pleased by the number of time the word "revolution" is said in this video. Now I need new pants.
Your Franch Revolution would not have happened if America's was a failure. Our Revolution against King George was the Revolution to start Revolutions. Many did not make it, many did bring about change, and some ended far worse than the one's they tried to overthrow.
Least violent frenchman.
As a Texan, I approve. I may give you guys a lot of shit, but we can agree on one thing and that's "hippity hoppity, get off my property."
No culottes!
You lot have been blueballing the world for so long now.
Every protest has a few guilotines brought out, but they go unused.
Sacre Blue!
One of my favourite parts of revolutions is that they tend to grow more radical. when the french revolution started almost no one wanted to overthrow the king, but because he couldnt stick with one side or the other his opponents ended up getting more radical. Same with the english civil war they didnt want to kill the king but he left them with little choice.
The Russian Revolution is the same. There were actually 2 revolutions in 1917... the Bolsheviks took power in the October one.
The reasons for this are basically outlined in this video: there have to be problems in the country in order for a Revolution to happen in the first place. No matter how oppressive the regime, if regular people are fed, clothed, safe, and sheltered, they won't take the chance of death for the possibility of some theoretical "freedom." But even when the old government is gone, those problems still remain. Economies are slow to respond to circumstances; harvests take a while to grow; the new institutions of government need to get their feet under them. Meanwhile, your family is still starving, your kids still are wearing rags that are too small for them, you are still shivering in the cold of night, or the army is still losing the damn war! Now the radicals are promising that if only they were in charge instead of the moderates, they wouldn't be taking these half-measures. No, they can fix all of these problems... so they take over in a bloody coup. And now guillotines are going up all around the city, and people are denouncing their neighbors to the death squads. And all you did was transform one oppressive regime for another. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
@@bludfyreHell even North Korea use to be a group of Communist guerillas.
@@bludfyreBut the Reds did give peace, land, and bread.
@@elliotyourarobot At what cost? Ending the war (even with the disastrous terms they gave Germany) was the right move. However, if given a chance for their policies to continue, the moderates of the February Revolution might have been able to do the same. And then the Russian people (and all of the others in the USSR) would have been spared Stalin, Beria, the Purges, the Holodomor, and all of the oppression they faced for 60 years.
@bludfyre How do you know if the Feburary Revolution would have done the same? Don't forget they continued the war. And how do you know if they wouldn't do those things as well?
As Chilean, yeah, I can't imagine what would happen if the CIA handbook on assassination and destabilizing countries were put into action. Or, you know if they had happened to open a military training center where they taught torture and repression techniques. Can't imagine it at all.
Add, paying "strikes" to deprive of supplies and make food scarce. (Wena wn)
Yeah, I don't think the C.I.A would ever assassinate a leader because their communist model was working too well, or would ever assassinate someone advocating for a Pan-African country that would have a stronger economy. I just can't possibly ever imagine that.
@@SuperMaster000Xand having ties with the Edwards, the family running the famous paper "El Mercurio". Would be horrifying if they had that connection. I mean, Catalina Edwards was (or is?) host on the news of the most popular chilean channel: Mega TV. Would be sad that even in TVN -the national TV station- all managers were from the UDI, the party that still endorses and has direct connections to the CIA's Pinochet "fun" distatorship.
Or the CIA sending single team assassins to to rebuild countries to their interests that’s never happened at all
The CIA though is less a federal government agency and more of a cult bent on world dominance. It is not really under the control of the United States government so much as in tenuous cooperation with it. Honestly living in the United States has always felt like everyone is a cultist, criminal, or revolutionary and we all exist in a tense standoff where we pretend to be a society until someone flinches literally the guns go off.
On another note;
Thanks for all the good salmon! I work in the seafood import & retail business here and Chile is well appreciated for high quality and well priced fish!
This would have been an amazing resource 3 years ago, when I ran a D&D campaign built around a tyrannical prince who tricked his way onto the throne. A revolution got rid of him, but I had to wing it.😊
I just had a campaign end for which I could've used this
I'm putting the finishing touches on my campaign set during the collapse of a feudal space empire. This is perfect
Right, Imma start a campaign with this.
I want to roll to seduce the revolution.
I don't run campaigns, but I do have a sci-fi dystopia revolution I've been puzzling out in a story more elaborate than anything I've ever put to paper
I’ve always loved how history has been incorporated into On Worldbuilding, and this was a perfect mixture of both.
I'm very much looking forward to the coming revolution that's getting generated right now by Western society completely alienating young men. Progressives are going to get what they deserve.
Hm
True
My favorite dictator in literature is Lord Vetinari from Discworld. People are given just enough liberty to do business, but not enough to oppose him. He stays in power by working with the guilds and making them fight each other instead of uniting to attack him. He does what so few politicians are able to do - mostly nothing. He also makes sure that a government with him in charge is ever so slightly better than a government without him. Plus it helps that he is a highly trained assassin.
Ever so slightly? From what I've read, Vetinari makes sure Ankh Morpork runs as smoothly as a city like that ever can. Any time he's not in power, things tend to go, pear shaped.
@@shadowldrago Vetinari shares the idea with other dictators that the nation can't function without them. Dictatorships sometimes deliberately lack a method of power succession or transition so there won't be any obvious pretenders. Things like monarchies are continued partly because the people around the autocrat have an interest in not being killed in a generational civil war. I think the counter to Vetinari in the books was often Vimes or Carrot.
Emperor Palpatine doesn't need to worry about the post-Second Death Star empire because he's dead, and the empire is purpousefully built to start collapsing without him and Vader. All the moffs and admirals underneath should know that their positions without Palpatine are much less secure, that a coup against the "private religion" will undo their stuff as well.
@@SusCalvin A fair point, but, counterpoint, Vetinari never committed genocide.
@@shadowldrago A lot of real life dictators also squash all alternatives to themselves until the only choice stands between them and chaos. al-Assad can always say that he is a better choice to IS, and pretend that the only choice is between him and IS.
You wan a power pyramid where people underneath think their chances in the chaos after your fall is much riskier than under your rule. I think Vetinari does that, the books always turned to his ability to balance the different factions and guilds of Ankh-Morpork against eachother. Even Vimes gets pulled into the balancing act as a foil to the growing guilds.
Vetinari doesn't have a goon or spy on every street, but people should think he might have one on theirs. I think Pratchett made some reference to the internal policeman. The policeman isn't just standing on the street, the police is something you believe in. The moment people see the police as just 30 dudes in cheap armour with clubs, it would all fall.
@@SusCalvin I don’t deny what you say, just that Palpatine is orders of magnitude worse than Vetinari.
Im a huge fan of this new series pivoting towards more modern subjects linked to worldbuilding.
@@evangrey4737 Are you trying to make a joke?
It's legitimately useful as both a guide to how to write a revolution, and for how to write a failed revolution as a backdrop (which can be followed by a successful revolution)
As someone writing a book which has a civil war that's predicated by a rebellion (and both the POV character's end up pro-rebel by the end of the book) I find this useful.
Plus, the messaging is clearly pro-revolutionary.
Yes
The segment on privileged revolutions has really got me thinking about my own story.
For a while, I'd been framing it as the usual lower class vs upper class affair, but now I've realized that the world I created -- a monarchy in the midst of an industrial revolution, with an extremely powerful and young capitalist class excluded from governance -- actually invites a much more complex narrative. The idea has now occurred to me: perhaps my story can instead be about a two-pronged revolution. The poor have their reasons, and the rich have theirs, so both rebel against the nobility with different goals and are forced to align. Uneasy cooperation between enemies is one of my favorite tropes, after all. And it leaves a lot of nice sequel room, with the irreconcilable differences between the bourgeoisie and working class boiling over after the king has been overthrown.
So thanks, Tim, for making me reconsider my novel's path!
(Also, I feel it worth noting since my story took a lot of inspiration from it and you mentioned it in the video, the Powder Mage trilogy does all of this stuff really well. Including what I just talked about, with much of the tension arising from keeping the disparate groups that supported it from turning on each other. The worldbuilding and political plot are top-notch, I highly recommend it.)
Edit: Yes, I'm aware something like this is often the case in real life. What y'all are describing, wealthier or educated individuals leading a revolt of the lower classes, was already present in my story. But Lenin, despite being well-off, had the same ideals of communism as his army. The idea I specifically had is for there to be two broad factions, one of socialist-ish goals and one of capitalist ideology, with their disparate objectives explicitly clashing.
>a monarchy in the midst of an industrial revolution, with an extremely powerful and young capitalist class excluded from governance
That's basically what every revolution that's ever happened has been. The common people of all countries simply lack the organisational capacity to sustain a governing coalition, much less overthrow one, but semi-elites with no access to the levers of power are very much capable of this. Democracy is different from autocracy not in that a democracy is a government of, by, and for the people, such a thing is a fantasy, but rather in that no one has a monopoly on power and no petty elites are excluded absolutely from politics, and since no one can be excluded, that means that even common people can demand concessions as well.
The poor have never been the minds or funds of the revolutions. The rich with little to no official political power are. They have the resources to manipulate public opinion and fund the change of guard. And when the new leadership is chosen, it is those same rich people who gain power. No revolution is based on freeing people, it is about helping an ambitious person take power.
The British Civil War was about new rich taking over from the monarchy. The American Revolution was about the new rich in the 13 colonies taking over the 13 colonies. The French Revolution was about the new rich taking over France. Do you notice a pattern? For the most part, that is what every revolution is. Powerful people usurping other powerful people.
An example is Sun Yat Sen. The revolutionary that went around the world asking for donations to fund the revolution. He gives speeches around the world but donations he goes to Chinese landowners/businessman and the rich.
While his opposite is Mao. By getting the support of the poor which consist of majority of the population.
@MrChopstsicks No offence to Mao, but he also was part of the rich. He took power and appointed rich people to govern. The revolution was never for the people of China by the people of China. It was rich people seizing power from other rich people.
@@RealLifeIronMan yea that’s what happens when you become government, most appoints the rich and educated. But for the revolution itself he used the unprivileged for his communist agenda.
I posted on r/fantasy years ago about my growing dissatisfaction with fantasy discussion that is almost always centered on reviews. Which mostly concern themselves with how a book works (plot, pros, characterization, pacing etc). When there are so many other ways we can talk about literature. I hoped for analysis like this one. Where we could discuss themes, meanings, and applications to the real world. I got pretty much nothing but negative responses. I’m very happy we have at least one person doing stuff like this.
But discussing the themes and meanings of stories is the best part! I'll even try to watch play-throughs and summaries of video games so I'll be informed enough to have those discussions about them with my siblings, in spite of not playing video games myself.
Sadly, despite their deep dedication to it, a lot of fantasy fans use it entirely for escapism and despise attempts to relate fantasy world to reality. This despite the fact that the best fantasy world's are basically always heavily related to real world events and are even more interesting when viewed through that lens.
@@IshtarNikeyeh especially isekai where author only write for escapism not story I rare found isekai have story
This is what happens when we pretend the liberal arts are useless. You get vapid non-discussion.
It's enjoyable if you manage to exclude getting too deep into real world politics (not to be confused with real world politic/social/struggle themes) while still keeping it straight and relevant for the topic.
Calling the 'First Order' “as oppressive as N.Korea” in casual setting around like-minded friends is one thing, repeating it around religious Star Wars nerds with master's degree in this topic is whole another story (as they would think of you as karen that $h!ts on the franchise with her personal problems), and going to near: “Mein Ķ0mph”- lengths on how all Chubakas are both just a slang term for Spanish people, and the sole cause of all fundamental problems with the Star Wars universe, so irl we should remove all Spanish people from existence to become type 3 civilisation is on a whole another different level of exploiting fictional media to preach your political beliefs.
Parallels to our world are acceptable, anything beyond that easily makes it unpleasant for everyone involved given how bias and single perspective are the rules of writing by default. No German fan of certain franchise would want to hear the fictional kingdom of Azeroth to be openly compared to the camps of WW2 Germany with gas chambers, even if it's for the sake of “drama”. No African American D&D fan would want to hear about fictional Elves being segregated and whipped on their naked backs to collect cotton from the fields, even if it's for the sake of backstory. No chinise 40k fan would want Guilimman all of the sudden to start CNN narrative about the Tainamen Square out of the blue while fighting Tyranids for the sake of 'redeeming' GW from their most recent irl scandal.
If you do anything like that just keep in mind that this is the quickest way to turn off the so called 'uninvolvement' towards real world politics, but it personally affects the people from your very own audience, even if you mean well. Always ask yourself: “is your fictional revolution relevant for your story, or is it just unnecessary scapegoat for (X) political message”.
For anyone wanting to dig deeper on revolutions I recommend the podcast Revolution by Mike Ducan.
Also something to consider is factional infighting on the revolutionary side. For example the farmers who are rising up to get ride of price controls on the food they. While the factory work might rise up to expand the price controls on food. So could lead the revolution to fail or fall into civil after the dictator is removed.
I cannot recommend that podcast enough. Fantastic narration, and it doesn't take sides or shie away from the complexities and the horrors.
The russian revolution was a whole string of revolutions where a lot of russian society didn't like the tsar but had different ideas. The aristocracy might have liked to just put another man in place of the tsar, maybe with less absolute power so they wouldn't be as easily overruled. The largely liberal duma wanted to reform the country in the image of western entante powers with or without a figurehead tsar but also supported the unpopular pro-entante position of continuing the war. The bolsheviks growing through worker-councils and soldier-councils had their own utopian ideas.
Mike Ducan's History of Rome is excellent as well. It used to be what I put on every night when I went to sleep for over 6 months straight. I think I've memorized every episode and also I was surprised to find a handful of errors when I did follow up research on parts that really fascinated me. I tried doing the same with revolutions and couldn't do it because his music before every episode was so jarring it kept waking me up. His History of Rome Podcast has that out of tune Guitar music that isn't jarring at all it's very relaxing and an ideal podcast to sleep to. Lately I've been listening to RUclips Channel Thersites the historians coverage of important Romans. Before Thersites for at least a year I listened to RUclipsr Drachinifels "Dry Dock" episodes. I'm happy to be back on Rome I've as I've heard enough Naval History to cure my curiosities for a least a few more months.
Something that struck me about your videos now is how well you manage to actually point out how good writing connects with a good and deep understanding of how the world works. Idk if I articulated it well but what I'm getting at is that, usually, on YT, people seem to kinda talk about writing as if it exists in a vaccum almost, but your videos always help point out how and why certain things are the way the are in the real world and how that can be recreated in a fictional world.
Interesting video. Just one correction: The EDSA Revolution of the Philippines happened in 1986, not 1984. That day is a very important event for us Filipinos, and despite it being a typo, it leaves a bad taste (especially with the current president being the Dictator's son). So yeah, considered that corrected.
For those who aren't aware of Philippines' current issues, there are actually Filipinos who believed that Marcos' dicatatorship was justified just because they watched a few propagandic videos online. And most of these videos aren't even professionally made, the thumbnails and the titles are very clickbaity.
Sadly, most of our police force and military are like that, and this is especially since they aren't fond of rallies (even environmental ones), they view them as nuisances. Also, the fact that the other major candidate for presidency is a woman, most of my guy friends sided with Marcos' son because, you know, masculinity bandwagon.
@Name-uv6kz
I assume this is rhetorical, but it's sadly because democracy don't exclude them.
The only decent candidate against him was a woman, and as expected, she didn't appeal much to male voters. I even know a guy who simply voted for Marcos because he isn't fond of a female leader. Most of my male friends actually ignored reason just to be on the macho bandwagon.
@@hanzquejano7112 that is just sad. As a person in a country (Sweden) who used to have a female Prime Minister, and now has a male one, in my experience they're equally capable (or incapable). Their sex is irrelevant, they're just voted into a job position and can be replaced mid term for a number of reasons, and what determines their effectivness is how much surrounding political support they have and how good they are at making deals with the opposition to actually get their policies through.
@@hanzquejano7112 I don’t think it’s that, because these clowns would vote for Sara Duterte in a heartbeat. It’s her branding (being smart and “elitist”) and proximity to the Yellows
Leni beat Marcos in the VP elections. Marcos only won because of the Dutertes. The Dutertes needed the Marcos in power because, if Leni had won, she would throw them in jail.
Liberalization and modernization aren't necessarily linked. The USSR didn't develop by liberalizing. The liberalizing of the former Soviet states destroyed them.
Thank you. I'm glad someone said it.
he seemed to use them as synonyms, wich really bothered me
Ehmmm, some of them yes ,others actually improved after the 90ties.
Which "modern" industries didnt the ussr have? Microchips? The ussr developed by showing an extrem amount of labour into industries and not being efficient. And yes the sudden liberalization unter Gorbachev destroyed the union by letting the oppressed people flee the yoke of the ussr. But if you look at the baltic states you see that liberalization can work wonders (or if you look to east asia e.g. taiwan, s.k.)
@@sstff6771 Damn that's a lot of propaganda.
1) Every industry develops through labor. What does that even mean? Have you ever seen an industry develop without workers?
2) Gorbachev wasn't the one who liberalized the USSR and ultimately desolved it. Boris Yeltsin was. And most post soviet states haven't even recovered from his "capitalist shock therepy" into the modern day.
3) The Asian countries you sited didn't develop through liberalization. They developed through strict protectionism, subsidies, and state direction of industry; then liberalized when their industries were developed enough to compete with foreign industry.
It's a simplified view on revolutions and the world. The russian revolution didn't happen simply because of ww1. There were decades of negligence that lead to this, like bad agricultural and economic policies that resulted in regular famines, so everyone even illiterate peasants understood that nothing will change should the system remain. Russo Japanese war exposed how weak and rotten the system is, and ww1 simply created the environment where revolutionary ideas could take a hold and spread.
Thank you. I'm very glad that someone said it. Btw, hope for a new socialist revolution in Russia someday.
@@chacanusrhosgenerisrhusett9418 it will happen sooner in usa than in modern russia. And should it happen it will be the end of capitalism. Since usa is the champion of the status quo and has the grip over the world with it's 800+ billions budget and almost 800 military bases, and more important usa is industrialized and geographicaly isolated.
@@usersar2213keep dreaming. the ussr collapsing in 1991 was a great thing
@@s0rtaananym and what is particularly?
@@usersar2213 the idea that a country where capitalism is a religion and people genuinely believe the rich are the smartest, hardest working people could ever become socialist. Have you ever spoken to an American before?
I love how topics like this, since it's based on things that happen in the world not just in writing, really teach about the topic too. It's more digestible too than the way it's talked about in schools here in America.
I wonder how American schools teach their kids about revolutions. It'd probably be a fascinating thing to examine in itself.
@@KillahMate America schools basically tell kids revolution is boring, america just needs to go pew pew on those bad oriental people and teach them the wonders of western democracy
@@KillahMateThey tend to be biased towards the revolutionaries, especially if they are democratic or capitalistic revolutionaries. Which, is pretty understandable when you consider the fact that the USA was birthed from revolution.
As someone who studied coups and Turkish politics through their time at uni, I was delighted that you mentioned the habit of Turkey’s military intervening in politics. It’s absolutely fascinating and more complex than what happens in Thailand. Traditionally, the Turkish Military see themselves as the protectors of Kemalist ideals. Kemalism is a “small L” liberal nationalist ideology that came out of Kemal Ataturk’s tenure as president in the early years of the modern Turkish Republic. Regardless of the shift in politics to the right or left, or if the government is perceptively incompetent, they have intervened in order to try and reset to “center”. Even more fascinating is how these interventions were often popular with the Turkish public, even if it was only initial popularity.
But currently, the cycle of these ideological driven coups is arguably broken following the failure of the 2016 coup against Erdogen’s government. With the purges and their long ailing popularity amongst the public, I would not be surprised if we have seen that last of it.
It also makes me question whether the Turkish military may have been willing to coup Erdogan over economic issues had the EU not so openly supported opposition candidates.
I can't be much local support for the military overthrowing an elected government if it seems like they are doing the bidding of foreigners.
This was genuinely very interesting! I'm very excited for the third volume of On Writing and Worldbuilding at the end of the year. Also, it'd be really cool for him to be a guest on the OSPod again with this video!
White men have no way to seek justice inside the systems created by progressives. Happy to see that their alienation has led to them creating parallel societies with the goal of burning this whole train wreck down.
Talking about elite infighting kind of reminds me of the Halo trilogy. A big reason that the enemy faction falls in the game lore is infighting between two forces in their military that already hated each other and things only get worse due to your actions in the game.
"I asked the CIA and they've never used it"
Had me laughing for a solid minute, well done
23:40 _Code Geass_ had basically the struggle of changing it from outside or from within.
There are two characters who are focused on the most. While one of them just want a revolution and wants to kill the king... emperor... whatever title he had, the other wanted to change the system from within, which is why he fought against the revolution, despite the fact that he wants that revolution to happen...
To be honest _Code Geass_ is a great Anime when it's about these kinds of things.
"Reform & Revolution" is a piece by Rosa Luxemburg that discusses this. It kinda rambles in my opinion, but the consensus my reading group had, was the preference for revolution over reform.
However, the revolution doesnt emmediately happen and especially the successful kind as it takes alot of premeditation which can be confused as reform work by the impatient and adventurist "revolutionary." You have to build mass conciousness and connections or risk being very alone and possibly so "advanced" that you are backwards. For example one could be plagued by sectarianism, lack of connections with other groups, being unpalatable/unrelatable to the majority of people (including those we are trying to liberate).
The irony is that Suzaku (the "reform" character) actually had many more practical success and actionable ways to change thing than Lelouch (the "revolution" character) who had no practical endgoal for most of the series, whose seeming success in fighting back against the empire couldn't last long even if stuff didn't go wrong in the way that it had, and whose final success was so out of the scope of his initial planning that you can't really attribute it to his revolution plan (nevermind how it was all done from inside the system as well).
Yet most people think Lelouch's way is the right one simply because he's the protagonist, even when the evidence in the show doesn't support it.
@@lilowhitney8614There isn't any irony here tbh.
Without Zero, there would be no way the system bulge and breaks.
Without the people, there would be no Zero.
And in the end, Suzaku completely casted off his own reforming way and don the Zero mask, becoming the symbol of the revolution himself. But he can't do that if Lelouch didn't actually put himself as a target first and being ready to be killed by Zero, nor lay the groundwork for Zero, the legend of the revolution.
wait Suzaku wants to change the system from with in ?
i ma pretty sure that he just wants to go so deep in the the Emperor s butt , that he names him Viceroy of Japan
thats not really change
i mean it is personal change , but except that not much , Suzaku can be the best and most nicest governor in the Empire but when he dies or is removed , we are back at same bullshit
As a lifelong history nerd, particularly with regards to political economics, this was brilliantly put together and presented. You're demonstrating the power of a great storyteller presenting educational material. Bravo!
Yep. As a history nerd, what happens when the entire next generation of young men are completely alienated from the society? Where do you think that'll lead?
@@oswaldmosley5012 Lessons we can draw from history, which are touched on here with regards to the Russian Revolutions, are that when large swaths of people become alienated, they don't all move TOWARDS the same ideology. Think of it in terms of what they all agree on: That something's wrong with society. They may even agree on WHAT is wrong with society (although even that is a maybe). But disagreements always - ALWAYS - happen around how to FIX what's wrong, and that's where history has a wealth of examples to draw from to establish patterns. This can be in the form of simple disputes over who should be in charge (or how power should be distributed), but is often seen as divergent radicalism. Martin Luther King's peaceful protests were radical in a completely different way from Malcolm X or the Black Panthers. They had the same disillusionment, and they even agreed on what the problem was, but they fundamentally disagreed on how to solve it. That's common. That's normal.
As well, and this goes beyond revolution to really all walks of life, ideas tend to work in a similar way to Newton's Third Law (for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction). When an idea is pushed in a particular direction, those who disagree tend to develop positions that are FURTHER from it than they would otherwise be. It's no coincidence that the hippy movement in America happened at the same time as a conservative revival that propelled Republicans to EASILY win five of six consecutive Presidential elections, including the beginnings of The War on Drugs. Movement in one direction lead to movement in the opposite direction (or happens at the same time). Closer to today, the story of American politics last decade was of both the Republican and Democratic parties splintering into radical wings (whether it be Bernie or the Progressive caucus, or the Tea Party movement or Freedom caucus). It's not necessarily an equivalency, but that sort of outward pressure in opposite directions is firmly grounded in history.
@@GregMcNeish Absolutely correct... in the modern age, it's important to keep in mind that the liberal/left coalition consists mostly of tiny minorities, women, and the mentally ill or unfit. They're founding principal is solely a hatred of white men. The conservative/right coalition is white men and every one else. Especially young white (and latino) men who have had enough. When one team are capable as soldiers and the other team incapable... and they hate each 9other, it's pretty obvious who will win.
@@oswaldmosley5012 lol yeah, overthrow the govt and you'll get a gf
You know that feeling when escapism hits way too close to home. Genuinely forgot this was a world building channel until 5:14
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." JFK
True, look at the various revolutions around the world, they all started out peaceful until forced to defend themselves.
@@elliotyourarobot Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
@shadowldrago Yeah, just look at the west. They are still Tring the same thing, no reverse gear.
@@elliotyourarobotFalse, revolutions only succeed when the government gives concessions. The USSR legalized dissent and it was dissolved because of that mistep, meanwhile in China dissent is still illegal which is why it still stands.
Yeah he got shot in the head
I have so much respect for the quality of work you put out. These videos are amazing.
As someone who lives in a dictatorship, I found the way everything was explained to oddly removed the sting of my situation by a little bit
It's strange our dispassionate analysis can have that effect.
The great irony of this video is that he describes all the circumstances for revolution in so-called dictatorships, but they're actually coming true in supposed democracies as well.
You see, all these "democracies" are extremely tricky. They are not afraid to oppress people because they know that the real rulers will not be harmed, they will be defended by another wave of "re-elected" politicians. As one of the dictators said about the US "...in your country presidents are changing all the time but the policies remain the same"
it'd be ironic if it wasn't aware, but it is... at least to a degree that makes calling it a "great" irony kind of ignorant, whether willfully or accidentally, I can't discern.
Well as a man with a flag such as yours on here, the entire time as I was listening to this I was thinking that a good chunk of the same things attributed to the fall of dictators here enabled the rise of a man like mussolini, especially the socioeconomic instability.
They are dictatorships, not so called.
What He teaches us us that Revolutions are mir complex and gray than justice
@@giftzwerg7345 I say so-called dictatorships because they're not so different from so-called democracies. For example, look at the way the American police brutally crush Native Americans protesting against pipelines, or the people at Occupy Wall Street or Black Lives Matter protests. Americans are ruled by oligarchs who allow some performative protests, but do not tolerate real change to the system.
Hey Tim, I really enjoyed this video. I feel like you could easily spin off this video into a world-building video about making believable dictatorships or authoritarian regimes. Oftentimes the governments in fiction (especially YA fiction) seem very simplistic. Exploring how dictatorships or totalitarian regimes actually function and guiding creators to make more tangible, believable fictional ones could be a good help. The book 'The Dictator's Handbook' would be a good reference for you.
I am from Russia and it would be very interesting to watch someday when I have more emotional resources... That topic was something I thought about since childhood, I am very interested in history. I tried to write about revolution when I was like 16-17, my characters were not the people overthrowing the government, but rather victims of circumstances. I didn't finish writing, but now I feel a bit like I am in my book. If I wrote it on heavy drugs, probably...
Then there was Belarus. I believed that peaceful protests would work so much! I read the news everyday for months until I completely burned out. I still believe that Lukashenko will be overthrown though. I still believe, at least I want to, that people will win. Somehow.
I was also in Moscow when this ridiculous Prighozin thing happened. It was so surreal. He is a shitty parody of a human being, but at the same time there was a part of me that wanted change by any means necessary... I tried to push it away bc revolutions always come with blood. I couldn't even bring myself to be properly scared, I would never imagine a year ago that I won't even cry or something. I just laughed, a lot, all day. It was the kind of breaking anxious laughter people don't know how to react to. And then it ended, and it was even more funny. It was so ridiculously real and bizarre. A lot of memes.
I don't know what I wanted to say, I never experienced it, but all my life felt kind of close, like one more corner... And I know I shouldn't want it, and I know that they rarely, if ever, work to the benefit of the regular people, but at least the war will end that way? I mean, there will be civil war, probably. And I could be the victim of circumstances then. Or someone I love. And I obviously don't want that. But I really want the war to end and it ends with putin.
I want to move, desperately so. But I don't know if I will be able to. Still waiting to hear about my visa.
Thank you for the video, doubt anyone will finish reading my comment, but the algorithm will take into account the engagement:)
I can't even imagine how it feels like, but I have some russian co-workers who have similar thoughts.
I don't know how this will end and how messy things will be after Putin gets possibly outed by siloviks. These are scary times, but I hope for the best
Hugs from Finland🙏
Man...I am also Russian and you perfectly described my feelings. I wish more people thought as we do
This is a perspective I don't get to hear often. Thank you for sharing.
Damn. As useless as my words sound, I really hope things get better for you. 😢
The CIA failed to overthrow Lukashenko, better luck next time
I feel like one thing that is constantly ignored about revolutions is the assumption that rebels are inherently the morally correct side in any sort of conflict. There are defintely revolutions that are morally good, obviously, but there are just as many that really are not. The simple way to differentiate (keyword simple) is the investor rebel versus the consumer rebel. The investor rebel is someone who is invested in the cause and does not care for short term rewards. They are fighting for some larger picture, be it a freer society or the independence of a region. The consumer rebel is someone who fights for those short term goals. This can be things like conflict diamonds, something that player a massive role in the fighting in Sierra Leone. Consumer rebels are far more likely to be violent against the civilian population, and almost resort to a sort of criminal organization. A massive issue for revolutionary leaders is finding out which category potential recruits fall into. And an investor revolution can become a consumer one as the war goes on, and once that occurs generally speaking there isn't any going back. Just look at the FARC Rebels in Columbia.
A way that this can play into world building is looking into the resources that a country has. If a country is generally rich in resources that a rebel could use to sponsor their rebellion like diamonds and drugs, then a consumer rebellion is far more likely to break out in that region. Also, being close to fighting can be another cause of fighting, given people who are already knowledgeable in fighting and the access to weapons.
The point is it isn't just about an under class versus an oppressing upper class.
Watching this reminds me of Legend of the Galactic Heroes. In the autocratic Galactic Empire, there was a revolt in a planet in which Peasants revolt against the Nobility (alienation) and then there was a civil war in which two factions (the high nobility and Lohengramm’s forces) in which it could be seen as elite infighting. Moroever the Lohengramm faction could also be alienation as it was made of commoners and lower ranking nobility. Also great Video Mr. Tim
My favorite anime and sadly very overlooked
A great series, though a bit dry perhaps for a wider audience.
Really fun series but heavily skewed from the start. It has a very fascist undertone as well. It very implicitly favours the narrative that liberal republicanism is this ideal that needs to be tempered by centralized control. The proposed solution is, suprise surprise, a system almost exactly like Japan's constitutional monarchy led by a warrior and technocrat class.
It's very much fun but once you watch it twice and see where it's going, it becomes clear that the ending was determined beforehand so the twists and turns were foreshadowing the support for the status quo of Japan post Meiji. It also has that Furukawa "end of history" theme, as it portrays the passing of history as having decided that the two prevailing theories are always going to be liberal republicanism and absolute autocracy. All other concrete ideologies are stamped out as part of the progress of history, which as a historian Yang Wan Li should most definitely be against this type of myopic analysis.
Even though I’ll probably never write a book I can’t help but find these videos fascinating
You open up your country to economic opportunity, when suddenly some friendly and interested people from the State Department show up...
Exactly
Qaddafi ended Libya's nuclear program, guess what happens next.
@@themeerofkats8908Everyone learned a terrible lesson.
@@themeerofkats8908 He also declared war on switzerland, he lilkely just got toomad and unhinged . I am not saying he could wage war pon switzerland, but declaring ,em, really did alienat anyone tolerating him in support.
The truth is probably he was tolerated by some western support till then.
He was tolerated and accommodated, which is why the US didn't have a plan when the revolution happened.
Also, you are right. The spark that might lead for the critical mass needed for revolution might be overnight or a single incident, they still do not operate in a vacuum and rely on organizational capacity of either resistance groups that have been there for years or some other established institutions that might have been recently alienated from a role in the power structure.
I like the direction your channel is going. Somewhere between history and writing. It's a nice niche and you fill it well
I've learned far more from you Tim than I ever did in school
The Amaris Civil War of Battletech is a pretty neat depiction of both revolution AND counter-revolution. The periphery was always getting shafted by the inner sphere, so one of their leaders, Stephen Amaris, got real close with the First Lord of Star League, enabling him to break armament treaties and replace a lot of the SLDF garrisons with his own Rimworlds Republic troops. He played it for so long that when he made his move, most of the SLDF was in the periphery, and nobody batted an eye when he came to the First Lord with a retinue of armed bodyguards and gifted him a golden, jewel-encrusted laser pistol only to blow his brains out with it.
And then, of course, there was the immediate response. Most of the SLDF garrisons were filled with mostly Amaris' own men, so they fell quick. The Black Watch, House Cameron's bodyguards, were considered a significant threat by Amaris, so he nuked their main base of operations, Fort Cameron. Unfortunately for Amaris, there were 9 of them in Unity City, who were VERY much unhappy with the First Lord, who they were supposed to protect, being shot by fat Genghis Khan.
These nine mechwarriors TERRORIZED the early Amaris regime, killing whoever came to stop them. Finally, Amaris resorted to throwing everything he had at them, which only served to slow them down. But all those forces weren't meant to stop the Black Watch, they were meant to distract them long enough that several tactical nukes could be used to take down the Black Watch.
Amaris succeeded in killing them, but he still missed a few, including one Elizabeth Hazen. Hazen, along with one other who's name I forget, would form the Ghosts of the Black Watch and lead underground terror campaigns against the Amaris regime.
Meanwhile, the majority of the Star League's forces, led by one Aleksandr Kerensky, caught wind of this in the Periphery.
I could go on, but we'll be here for ages and this comment is long enough. Instead, I'll point anyone interested to sarna.net and the two-part lore video done by Tex of the Black Pants Legion.
One of my favorite books is the Dictator’s Handbook and it deals with this discussion of power.
Weirdly, there seem to be two books of that title. Which one do you mean?
@@ankyfire Bruce Bueno de Misquita and Alastair Smith one. It’s solid as hell
Just wanna throw in there that modernisation sadly doesn’t necessarily entail liberalisation or democratisation. If that were the case most countries in the world would have a democracy and not the minority of all nations. There are many more modernised nations and more open nations than North Korea and yet, they’re not democratic.
It’s a huge system which keeps dictatorships or authoritarian governments in place, a system which often represses education and fosters corruption. “You want a good life? Then say something good about me.” “You don’t want to vote for me? I know where you live.” “You are educated? Then work for me or be afraid that each thing you publish will endanger your family”.
My bf comes from Cambodia and the country has poor education, a lot of poverty and a lot of corruption. The only way to get out of poverty is education or corruption, but many rather chose to work than to study. And even those who studied won’t have a good life unless they at least give a minimum of support to the ruling party.
I love the combined use of real world and fictional examples of these situations. Great work
Real world history and understanding it is key to writing lore. Tolkien and George Orwell were able to pull this off and write classics. Tim is giving everyone the game for free. This isn't a change in direction for the channel but an exploration of the better ways you can worldbuild and write relevant lore that everyone loves for years and years, gaining a cult following, even if you mayn't blow up as you wished!
really love how you go into complexities of actually thought-trough world building!! also, thanks for teaching us how to give a rise to long awaited revolution in minecra- i mean, in our stories!!
Can you do a whole review of the Thousand Names series? I think the power progression throughout the series is very interesting and can be learned from
For me as a venezuelan, we have a very big example of something I never see in other places. And that is that the best government we ever had, was a dictatorship.
Under that government, all the important infrastructure of our country was build, our economy was in the top 10 of the world, the security was amazing (unless you were communist) to the point that everyone left their houses all the time with the door open because the regime had such an iron fist against criminals that nobody would dare to commit crimes, and so on.
Today, like 6 decades after that, a lot of venezuelans (old and younger) have a lot of respect for Marcos Perez Jiménez (the dictator).
After he abandoned (yeah, the guy literally abandoned the president role instead of trying to stick to the power cause he didn't want to cause a civil war), and democracy came back, the country went down hill from there. Worse and worse. Then the oil crisis came and it was even worse. THEN, radical socialism came with Chavez and that was the last nail in the coffin. Another dictatorship, but this time... It was bad, very bad. And here we are.
More than 20 years of the same government, misery and corruption. So this brings the irony that... our best government and the worst were both dictatorships.
And before the typical american smartpants reply: No. He wasn't working with the CIA. He actually even threatened the USA government several times with breaking commercial relationships or starting a war if necessary if they dare to take advantage of venezuelans.
You don't have to agree with everything he did, but the guy really knew a thing or two about how to give prosperity to your country and defend your people against outsiders, specially imperialists countries like US or England.
damn... dictorships really dont seem like the best way of goverment, you may have someone decent at one time. but at least from it seems like, more often then not dictators can really be horrendus.
When our group had an in-game revolution we spent several sessions to figure out who stood where in the city-state. A warrior-princess had put her father in house arrest and acted as regent with her own cadet corps around her. So we started looking for the parts of the city garrison this new cadet corps were trying to replace. We talked with organized crime/merchants and gave them good enough future concessions, we talked with the mercenaries on the city walls and found out their pay had been short a couple months. We tried to get the church to rally people by spreading news of the princess teaming up with death-cults. We had a word with the older aristocrat families who didn't have scions in her cadet force, and found that they were very willing to fill their old institutional roles again. An agent for another city-state tipped us off about vampires who might stop our attempt, and guaranteed that their larger city would not show up with the air force. And most important, outside the city we had found a group of barbarian warriors who had been raiding the slave-trade of the city and just hoped for a way to get in over the wall. A week's pay to the mercenary guards to take a day off solved that, and our organized crime pals were running interference on the inside to draw the attention of the cadets. In the end we got to install a puppet regent of our own and the king could go back to his normal business of non-governing.
I remember the old days when this man used to talk about nothing but video games and anime. Now, the last several videos have informed me about more about various types of subject matter than anything else. The long con worked! I've been tricked into actually gaining knowledge and learning shit while actually enjoying it. Awesome! Really shows the teaching skills by this gentleman are fully intact and capable. Much appreciated!
This is a masterpiece! Not only as a tool for worldbuilding but also for understanding a lot of what is going on in the real world right now.
A coup isn't really a revolution, though. It's an important distinction to make.
He just casually asked the CIA if they used their manual called 'Study on Assassination.' Yep.
You can tell from his tone that he's being sarcastic
@@a_al I know, just putting it out there
This is a brilliant video Tim. Worth all the watchlists this probably put you on
as someone currently living in israel, where the govt is currently trying to give itself more power and theres massive protests happening because of it, this was very interesting to watch!
same. I’m mostly thinking about how the protestors against Netanyahu are arguing from a socioeconomic instability framework - “no hitech without democracy” etc - but I’m thinking it might be a good idea to argue from an alienation standpoint. By extension we on the Israeli left need to be able to work with Palestinians, who have certainly been alienated from the regime much more than we have
@@IsaacMayerCreativeWorks theres a lot of ways to view this from from the framing of the video. for instance the dictators dillema itself - israel is very technologically advanced and in contact with the outside world, which adds to why people are protesting
@@IsaacMayerCreativeWorksso Bibi is indeed making jews and palestinians have a dialogue, and therefor bringing peace closer in the Middle East.
Good job, you wannabe dictator 😂
נודר
lol Israeli settlers bickering over bs while still genociding Palestinians
13:06 I like how the map reflects an Argentinian view of their borders pre-1881
this video makes me want to do now a _third_ watchthrough of Andor, all of the factors get a decent amount of screen time. one of the main characters _is_ an elite and trying to form the infighting necessary to depose the emperor, while all the time spent with Andor himself is just a constant horror show of every kind of injustice, inequality, instability, and alienation the Star Wars universe can muster
I’m just about to start a creative writing phd on world building revolution, so thank you very much for this video!
Tim (i think im new to this channel, already subed): Talks about the complex social and economical dilemma's of being a dictator and its reasons
Also tim with zero hesitation: *"its morbin time"*
The US has a pretty good understanding of revolutions because we have so much experience putting them down in South America
That’s not true at all god you people love conspiracy theories
@@The_king567 lol you wanna bet?
@@Borel-nv5bq yeah I know the history you clearly don’t lmao god you people love conspiracy theories don’t you 😂
@The_king567 so I guess you know better than Harvard. Or the CIA whos admitted this stuff.
@@Borel-nv5bq lmao god that’s some dumb logic you have and none of that was about stopping revolutions god you people like propaganda and it’s amazing 🤣
Actually Hunger Games actually kinda goes against the YA special girl thing in the total revolution. Katinis doesnt capture snow. She doesnt lead the rebellion in the end, heck random soldeirs nd rebels storm in at the last moment saving her and finishing everything
She doesn’t even do anything for the revolution but propaganda.
I guess the brilliance of any writing gets overshadowed by the cheap knock off copies it inspired?
True! She's also pretty uninvolved with the post-revolutionary government. While Gale, who she cuts ties with over his brutal military tactics, ends up with a position in the new regime.
This is a pretty good intro to the basic mechanics of revolutions. Better than most. Kudos!
After watching this magnificent video, I cant recomend enough the book/anime series "Legend of the Galactic Heroes" writen by Yoshiki Tanaka, which to me is one of the best space operas ever writen, but thats just my opinion.
Author thoroughly explores unbiasedly Imperial regime (mainly the Prusian one) and Modern democratic nation on galactic stage. It dives deeply into all the reasons listed in this video and we read it/watch it develop as the story focus on several characters from each nation, their motivations, reasons for what they do and people surrounding them with look into geenral population as well, and we see how each states works, pointing out various weaknesess and strenghts of each regime, withouth ever telling us what is right and wrong, but leaving it up to the audience to decide for themself. Especialy once the plots start going and religions, revolutions gets thrown more into the story, it really goes deep withouth hand holding us, finished by epilogues of "historical summary of ongoing story" in that universe from pov of future historians.
There has to be a disclaimer at the start of this video that it is about creating sorties and world building. It doesn't really have much to do with the real world and it's really interesting how revolutions are framed as something that can just happen in countries that we call "autocratic" or "dictatorship" as if in the "democratic" west these problems of economic instability, alienation, elite infighting and injustice don't exist. It's really easy and brings good clicks to point to North Korea and condemning Kim Jong Un whilst completely ignoring the history and US policy against the country. I'll quote a declassified US government document here: "[...] every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba. [...] [We will] make the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government." This is why the embargo on Cuba exists to this day and if you think the embargo and sanctions on North Korea aren't for the same reason you're extremely naive. Maybe start looking at your own countries repressions a bit more, why look "over there" when repression and the potential for revolution exist at home?
I really wanna know where people are getting this idea that the video creator thinks America is squeaky clean when he shows multiple video clips of oppression and violence going on in America
I love this new arc you've been on Tim!
Feedback:
1] Just place the Injustice section above the Proximate Socioeconomic Instability (PSI) section. You clearly wanted to discuss it first, and it's a good place to start. As it is now, you start the PSI section, but interrupt it to talk about Injustice, then discuss PSI, and then the Injustice section begins. It's needlessly muddled.
Its also worth acknowledging how the other sections tie into Injustice. PSI feeds into feelings of injustice, especially when you're talking about wealth disparity. Many would argue that political and economic Alienation themselves are fundamentally unjust. The fact that so many sections can't be properly discussed without relating them to Injustice makes it a good topic to introduce first.
The Elite Infighting section also touches on how an Injustice narrative is useful for organization, but that seems like something worth discussing in the Injustice section rather than just pointing out that such narratives are often post-hoc justifications and leaving it there.
2] It might lend greater weight to your arguments if you support each of your points with both real and fictional examples. Use real life examples when giving evidence for principles behind real life phenomena, and use fictional examples to discuss the writer's implementation of those principles in their fiction. You lose credibility when you support assertions about the real world with primarily fictional examples.
(16:50) I also don't recommend using such muddled metaphors as core examples unless you're specifically dissecting where they went wrong.
3] The opening with the Dictator's Dilemma feels like a relic of an early draft from a time when the video was going to be all about dictators. It actually detracts from the video as a whole, because it makes it seem like you're only discussing revolutions that arise from dictatorships. A single sentence to make the transition could clear this up.
4] The International Support section needed more historical and current real world examples. One worth pointing out: Operation Condor.
When it comes to it, men and women will pay in blood to see freedom for those who will come after them.
If u want to learn more in depth on revolutions you shoudl definitely give Mike Duncan's "Revolutions" podcast a try. Amazing series
Have you listened to Mike Duncan's Revolutions podcast? If not, I strongly recommend it.
The podcast in general and the final conclusions episodes specifically really gave me alot to think about worldbuilding-wise.
I really like this format.
Keep killing it man.
I'm always amazed at how many "people's revolts" find so many liberal arts college kids willing to organize the battles on their behalf (while not actually participating in the fighting as they are too valuable as the political leaders of the movement) then spare them the troubles of having to run the governments that result. Their cause must be truly just that it attracts such altruistic, noble and well educated members of the slightly less than most powerful elites.
If Marxist-Leninists could read actual history, they would be really upset right now.
Intriguing. I personally wonder what brings these 'college kids' so-to-speak to organize and fight for those ideals.
Have to still watch through this entire video, but as someone who has done their fair share of community organizing and been a part of strategic protests, I will say that the writers of the Andor series got a lot right that has paralleled my own experiences (though not at the same stakes that those in that series faced.) Especially Lucien's monologue of lament about sometimes (and the stress is sometimes and not always) having to use the same tactics that they are being oppressed because of the box they are put into by the oppressive force and are fully aware that they sacrifice much of who they are in the hopes of freeing others from making that choice. That is a very real decision people in that situation have to make. Some of what fuels people into rebellion is that they feel like the system pushes that choice upon them.
They also did a great job of showing the oppression of the empire on a day to day level and did it all without any mention of Vader, scant mention of Palpatine and minimal amount of scenes involving stormtroopers. Also, what they got right about rebellions, as well as Rogue One to a smaller degree, and what autocratic regimes try to lean into to keep them from coalescing, is that there are made of disparate bodies of affected peoples with different ideas on the best tactics and strategies to use. In some of ways, the easiest part of rebellions are the revolutions because it is easy to agree on what the problem is. The hard part is what comes after and getting a consensus among everyone on what the solution is. If you look at failed revolutions in the real world, the disagreement on the solution is why some slip back into the governments that rebelled against. The general public can only tolerate a lack of structure and stability for so long.
Additionally, and tangentially related, something that a war correspondent once said when asked what the common element he observed when civil wars broke out in societies. His response was it wasn't when both disagreed about how to govern, but when both sides believed that the other was only concerned with the elimination of them as individuals.
Is it me or there is a mistake at 34:00 you talk about Libya and Egypt but show Yemen and UAE ?
He said "it's Morbin time"
My goofy ah ears heard "it's Mormon time"
My confusion was palpable.
Ngl, this was a good video. I didn't expect much but you surprised me. Despite the metric tone of Liberal propaganda you believe, you're way better than 90% of people. You actually analysed revolutions instead of just saying it's because of injustice and calling it a day. A great well-researched video.
Parts of this feel less like a world building essay and more a real world guide for dictators concerned about potential revolutions on the horizon.
I love this video Tim. Well done and well researched on your end. I want to bring up a 'good' two book series set in an expanded universe, "The Trickster's Choice/Queen" by Tamora Pierce. I would say that it's prob one of the best High Fantasy rebellion that I have personally read. It goes through a lot of stuff... and the main character comes into it for the last two? years of the rebellion.
Yes, more love for Tamora Pierce work! I loved her books as a child and rereading it as an adult, several times I just keep on loving it for some of the same and some new reasons.
Trickster's Choice and Trickster's Queen are fantastic novels. One thing that struck me about it is that the "hero" of the rebellion is a side character. But the thing that really hit home for me is the "where do you draw the line" about race. Will you kill off those who are half? One quarter, one eighth? Especially when one of your allies comes fully from the side you hate. It's a brief conversation but it leads to some serious thought.
@@Xenozfan2 There were also some good "do the ends justify the means?" moments that were handled well and subtly. Like when the rebellion essentially stages a terrorist attack which takes out several powerful elites - most of whom were adults who had actively participated in oppression, but at least one of whom was a young boy whose only crime was being born into a wealthy and powerful family.
This video is fascinating. I was studying to be a historian or history teacher when my university was closed after the Kent State Massacre. This resulted in my change of university and major. However, I retained an interest in history and political science. This video has suggested a new way to view the history of my own state, which I might call The Hundred Year Revolution. I learned the various parts of the history, but applying the principles of this video suggests a more interesting and complex process.
In the beginning, there was a divisive and sometimes violent religious struggle in England, and some groups left, but found the Netherlands too worldly, so they came to North America for "religious freedom," in actuality to establish a totalitarian theocratic state. In the 18th Century the local governments had been replaced by the Crown, which forced the people to not only tolerate Anglicanism, but to pay for the Anglican church. The break in the monopoly of religious power led to decline of Puritanism and the rise of Unitarianism.
And the various strands of discontent and alienation continued until the Crown made one of it's worst decisions ever. The Coercive Acts [a.k.a. the Intolerable Acts] abolished the elected colonial parliament, and, more egregiously, local government by town meeting. The parliament [following an English precedent] refused dissolution and went into session outside occupied Boston and usurped all authority previously exercised by the crown. Town meetings met, refused to be dissolved, continuing electing representatives to the Provisional Congress, and began arming and training the militias. Into this powder keg, the Redcoats marched to Concord, and massacred the militia after they had started to disband. The militias of surrounding towns were furious and forced a Redcoat retreat to Boston under constant sniping.
Concord is usually considered the start of the American Revolution, though historians do often delve into underlying causes, though without the frame provided in this video. Americans usually misunderstand the issue as an attempt to confiscate the colonists' guns, and Britons usually think of it as resistance to taxation and paying for common defense. This misidentification of primary and secondary causes, in general, is referred to in the video and deserves to be thoroughly examined by historians in specific cases like this one. It took over a hundred years for the factors mentioned in the video to arrive at the final spark that, in 1774, set off the revolution that spread throughout Yankee New England , then to the other colonies, and from there to a world wide war among the colonial powers, and later revolutions.
Note: The revolutionary government of Massachusetts is still in power [as of 2023 CE] under the constitution it promulgated and which was accepted by the town meetings in 1780. The same constitution is still in force, having been amended numerous times, evolving from proto-democratic to fully democratic in the process. I think this would be a good case study to follow up the present video.
I live in Russia.
Oil workers and programmers are in completely different economic classes compared to everyone else. And Moscow and Saint Petersburg are still kept at such a high standard of living that an average person can still afford some nice things here and there
became really engrossed with Tim's commentary on dictators, briefly forgot this is a channel about how to improve your world building in writing
Thank you! Working on a novel with vampire dictator and this gave me some lovely-awful ideas.
Ok, that sounds interesting. I would love to hear more about this.
@@andrewredden9563 Thanks! Long story short it's the third novel in my trilogy. Started as a vampire buddy cop story on book one (Blood Herring) and has developed into the beginnings of war while I've been writing book two.
If you want to understand the political aspects of revolutions and how dictatorships work more, I HIGHLY recommend the following:
-CGP Grey's "Rules for Rulers" videos and the book the summaraize: "The Dictator's Handbook"
-"Rules For Radicals" by Saul Alinski, which details proven track records and strategies for winning with revolutionary movements
-"The Prince" by Machiavelli, which details political realism in such an honest way that I still say it's the best treatise on the subject 500 years later
CGP Grey's videos and the book they're based on explain the how of government power structures, Machiavelli is essentially an instruction manual for the "haves" to maintain their power, and Alinski is the instruction manual for the "have nots" to win power or material possessions from the "haves" by winning over the "have a little, want mores" (I intentionally use Alinski's descriptions of the clauses in a social conflict because I feel they best describe the social hierarchy in revolutions, that being the established power, the revolutionaries, and the general public just trying to keep their heads down
To emphasize one point: really consider is what means a dictator or other authoritarian regime uses to legitimize itself. This can make it much easier or much harder for them. If they took power during a period of social collapse or seized power from a hated prior regime, they'll have a lot more social capital to burn on keeping their power secure. The image of being a "hero of the people" will cover a lot of sins, especially if it grows into a cult of personality, which happens surprisingly often, even if not actively encouraged. And while not ever dictator believes their own hype, many authentically do, especially if they started off as an idealist or even a revolutionary themselves. Sadly not uncommon shift.
This channel is the juice of youtube
This is what I keep telling people, so many young people think that revolution is going to happen in America. The thing is though people are far too complacent and not suffering enough individually for any of that to happen. There are still a lot of groups of people that are doing okay for themselves and it takes a lot to get a revolution kicking. It's not the first thing that drops due to injustice or even instability in the economy. People even as adults act a lot like children. They get really angry in the moment, they throw a little tantrum, then they forget about it the next day. It takes a lot for that anger to even snowball let alone roll in the right direction.
There’s also this idea that everyone else in politics would vote like them if they were given the chance. You could see it in the last two Democrat primaries with people supporting Sanders over Clinton or Biden. Bernie didn’t lose the primary because of DNC conspiracies or media shenanigans, he lost it because most Democrats lean more liberal and voted for what they viewed as the best candidate.
Well ,the coming economic collapse and the fact many are looking at homelessness and starvation will certainly make things bad enough for a revolution. Might be why so many elites are moving to replace the common folk in police, farming, and military with brain washed activists who depend on the government to get their meds or keep their cushy lives they have since they were born to rich parents.
I wouldn't know that we're not suffering enough. I am completely lacking in shelter, and I have only gotten more radical the longer my situation has gone on.
The U.S. is far too fragmented snd varied for that to happen realistically. Literally all it would take is the "revolution" getting painted as liberals/conservatives doing domestic terrorism and half the country would be signing up to go shoot the other half
@@breakingboardrooms1778Are you a homeless guy on your phone? Pizza and watching football is preferable to sitting in a cold wet trench for most Americans.
34:10, Haftar isn't actually the dictator of Libya. Libya is still divided between rival administrations and militia groups. He's just a big warlord.
Another great video on this subject is CGP Grey's "The Rules for Rulers" (itself adapted from "The Dictator's Handbook", by Bruce Bueno De Mesquita & Alastair Smith)
This is probably my favourite video of yours, they're all good but this one has just been up in the top bar.
Did you use Azgaars fantasy map generator for those maps that the beginning? It's one of my favorite mapping tools.
Honestly, thinking on this topic really makes you marvel at the role religious systems play now and the roles they played in the past. Both stabilizing and destabilizing people groups and nations.
They either help to foster stability by establishing a sense of trust through the idea of shared beliefs, values, or perhaps a shared sense of purpose. You may be a peasant but if ideologically your own king has the same purpose in life as you, you trust your king to do the right thing. In the opposite though it can create a sense of distrust, even to the extent of the other 'side' being deemed as anti-human.
Consider this for your world building. You could borrow ideas or aspects from many different current day or past religions. The main similarity between all the systems is that they tend to connect people together by building a sense of togetherness and belonging. It connects people in an important way that can only really be replicated through personal relationship. It is trust. As I said, the opposite is also true. If you once thought your king was not following your religious practices like he should or even that he outright breaking the laws of the religion, that creates distrust which can turn into resentment and resentment into hatred.
Thanks for reading my thoughts on it. What do you think about the role of religious systems in rebellion and world building/story telling?
also with russia, the Russian people had been under poor conditions for a long time, to the point when they'd even revolted in 1905 and the Tsar gave in and created the Duma, although he barely ever used it. These aggravations just became worse due to the strain of world war 1
Honestly, in ALOK Tarlok was playing into Amon’s hands so well that I expected the twist to be that Tarlok WAS Amon.
29:10
_"Of course, I asked the CIA and they assured me they never did such a thing!"_
🤣
I really love that Deadpan joke about the CIA, because it reminds us that if there is a known conspiracy that a covert operation entities did something, them being covert means they’d never admit to it. Tim is think you should do a series on Covert organizations all together!
I'm barely 5 minutes in but this comes at an interesting time for me as I'm currently reading "The Dispossessed" by Ursula K. Le Guin. Highly recommend!
I watched this on Nebula already, but now I’m watching on RUclips, and adding a comment for engagement.
"The U.S. might fund a revolution [in the DPRK] for geopolitical reasons in the same way that they have in the past other places"
Like that one war in the fifties lol, I think they made a show about a hospital or something idk tho
north korea needs to be overthrown
Foreign intervention could be much more direct than just sending advisors, trainers, cash and some kit or letting the group you support have a little help from your state-scale information gathering and communications. It could be a no-fly zone where the government suddenly can't use its air power and drones, a bomber conducting a mission over government troops and installations or entering the conflict as an active participant with anything from international UN troops with mandates to secure safe zones to an invasion or the threat of one.
In Europe, partisan warfare was not necessarily intended to romantically overthrow the government. Each frontline unit the government has to keep in reserve as internal troops or coup defence was units that weren't at the front. As you can supply the partisans with information, so can they supply you with the same. Sometimes all they wanted was a dude sitting in a cabin with a hidden radio that could tell which trains came and went each week. Partisans could sabotage installations, or make the threat of sabotage force the government to divert even more units to internal security.
1:30 Iran had a democracy but in 1950s it was destroyed by a CIA backed coup. Because their prime minister wanted to bring the oil to the people (is that called nationlising?), but America absolutely did not want that since they would of lost their oil profits.
Nationalizing is when the government takes a private enterprise and makes it public typically so they can use it to provide for their people (i.e Nationalization of the Healthcare industry), or to make money from it so they have an additional stream of income to invest in other government programs (probably the Oil).
Tying this in with the rules for rulers(CGP grey) is amazing. Modernising makes your treasury dependent on the people rather than natural resources
why is he still relevant?
A lot of dictators seem to like to portray themselves as the sole hero and guiding light, especially if and when they try to hide or even deny certain questionable ideas in their beliefs or actions, etc.
This video really got me thinking about writing! If I wrote a series about revolution in a futuristic society mired in poverty and corruption, I would include the following characters:
First, a young and high-minded political prisoner in a surprisingly comfortable jail and his increasingly chummy relationship with the guards.
Second, a would-be reformer within the despot’s inner circle (maybe a relation of the prison warden) struggling against bloody-minded comrades, and taking his efforts public, which makes the situation more dire.
Third, a fanatical revolutionary running a cult-like political party which shows up to any bread riot or disturbance to cause problems, and promising everything to everyone (maybe the prisoner is connected to him/her).
Fourth, a high-ranking member of the political police who is fiercely dedicated to the regime, perhaps trying to ring alarm bells about the third character.
I hope this would give the shades of gray in revolution and show the many competing factions at work. I would love it if everyone offered thier thoughts on this!