Terrible choice of founding fathers to use for that example. Benjamin Franklin was kinky as fuck.
He would be browsing xHamster going, “Seen it… seen it… seen it… done that… done that, too… seen it… cliche…”
no he’s the perfect choice because he’s a horny bastard and having porn at his fingertips would drive him absolutely apeshit
Something tells me he’d be more interested in the farting and scat porn…
It’s OK, he’ll come out of his gooner cave sooner or later.
Take another look at that jak friend. That’s not the look of shock, it’s awe.
Him and his student, John Paul Jones.
Hell yeah, Zeppelin rules!
Listen. Alexander Hamilton died in 1804 and the current year is 2025. If I died today and found out that in the year 2246 that the laws, mannerisms, dress, economics, attitudes, and technology had changed so little that I “recognised” it, I wouldn’t be proud, I would be concerned. My mind would be going “what the fuck why hasn’t anything changed”. I would expect things to be different, if I noticed that nothing or little had changed technologically, socially, economically or politically, I would suspect there had been a collapse akin to the Bronze Age Collapse that society was only just recovering from.
My Grandmother was born in 1920. She was born two years after women got the vote, Modern Art was in it’s heyday, Cinema was still silent, the quickest way you could sent a message to anyone was via Morse Code, and there were people around who were born in the 1830s. She used to have to take a fucking candle up to bed with her like in those Bugs Bunny Cartoons. She lived to see gay marriage in the UK, The Lord of the Rings Trillogy, Video calls, and the Moon Landing.
I expect to see commercial Fusion Power and a moon base by my 90s. If I was told that little changed between now and 2246, my first question would be a terrified “why”?
I love how you make it sound like the moon landing happened after LOTR.
If you subscribe to the notion that Middle Earth is our world, it did!
It did though? The Lord of the Rings was written in the 1930s and 1940’s, the moon landings took place in 1969-1972.
They just said “Trilogy,” so it’s unclear if they meant the movies or books. But video calls were definitely after the moon landing, as was gay marriage in the UK being legalized.
The first two-way video call was demonstrated in 1930.
And the first message sent over the internet was in 1969. They’re clearly referring to when it became easily accessible to the masses.
Good point. I assumed they meant the films because the books were not any kind of technogical innovation.
I’d be concerned that I was brought back to life.
Unfortunately, porn is getting banned, so little Ben will not have his happy ending.
Our founding fathers fought back against their government. At the very least they would wonder why people aren’t gathering in mobs outside the homes and offices of legislators demanding change.
why people aren’t gathering in mobs
Well, it happened about a hundred years after your time, but there’s this thing called the Gatling gun that got invented that really became a hard counter to angry mobs trying to storm things, and once that stopped being an option they just kinda stopped listening to us
Before that they had archers and keep walls. And after that there have been many successful protests and revolutions which created freer democracies (with varying degrees of success).
Fair enough, but, like, 100 archers against 1000 people ends poorly for the archers if the people are willing to take some casualties, and a keep wall is only good so long as nobody inside decides to unlock a door or people outside can’t get a ladder set up somewhere for a few minutes
Yes, there have been successful revolutions since the 1850s, but they’re definitely a lot harder than they used to be, and I think they now really do require some sort of defection from the ruling classes or military over to the opposition in a way that you didn’t really need for, say, the French revolution, where an angry mob of peasant women could just force their way into the kings castle and tell him how things were gonna be going forward
I’m not saying it’s impossible, and I’m definitely not saying people should give up protesting all the bullshit going on right now, but I do think meta social contract between the rulers and the ruled has changed a lot since the 18th century because of technological progress
I have to say, this is a very weird take and you should really consider that you might be mistaken.
Pre-1850, most governments were autocratic in some way or another. Many of these governments lasted for hundreds or thousands of years, only toppled when another, larger autocratic government conquered them. This was true in China, Africa, the Middle East, Mexico, and Europe. Post 1850, democracy began to spread much more rapidly. These days, autocrats at least try to pretend to be elected. And meanwhile, the personal freedom and standard of living for the average person have increased dramatically since that time.
In general, the sort of revolution you are talking about where the people storm the palace gates seem to have become less common because: first of all, you are imagining them as more common than they actually were in the past. In the past, most people were slaves or semi-slaves (surfs, peasants) who lived pretty miserable lives and mostly coped via Jesus and drinking. Second of all, because for the most part people don’t want to storm the palace gates anymore because their lives are pretty good. Sure, Elon has billions while you are living paycheck to paycheck - but you still have a roof over your head, food to eat, and circuses to watch on TV. The risk of losing that and going to jail or dying is not worth the slim potential reward of having a better government in some way. Storming the palace gates and overthrowing the government is a bad thing, because it implies that the government was doing such a bad job that the people became so agitated that they tried such a desperate tactic in the first place.
I think they now really do require some sort of defection from the ruling classes
This has literally always been the case. The idea that a disorganized mob of peasants can storm the palace gates, depose the monarch, and create a utopian, egalitarian government from scratch is a fantasy - just like dragons, fairies, and anyone on Lemmy ever getting laid. A king derives his power from the accumulated power of his court, and each member of the court derives power from the power of their subordinates. As long as the court stays loyal to the king, mobs of people will be largely impotent. If the mob ever did manage to storm the gates and destroy the king, the very next day the court would appoint the king’s heir and send the military out to murder every person in the mob. Mobs succeed when the court is tired of the king’s bullshit and conveniently “forgets” to lock the palace gates.
People in LA are certainly doing so! And it’s spreading everywhere in the US.
As they should!
What do you mean? The slaver owners, who genocided the local population to steal their land and didn’t consider women or children people wouldn’t be happy with Trump’s America? Trump’s America is their dream, and it won’t change until you stop mythologizing genocidal slave owners.
I feel like that’s incredibly reductive and it just kind of bothers me every time I see it. The Constitution was almost not ratified because there was a contingent of founders that opposed slavery. What’s important about that is that it completely destroys the moral relativism argument for the rest of them. Founders that supported slavery knew it was wrong and did it anyway cause they were greedy.
Well, except for Jefferson. His reasons are more rooted in being an incredibly lazy psychopathic rapist who had created a slavery powered life of luxury for himself. But that’s going off on a completely different tangent.
Owning slaves is owning slaves. Genociding the natives is genociding the natives.
If you say you’re against slavery, but own slaves, you’re not actually against slavery, you’re against the bad rep.
George Washington: “They kept on with political parties, didn’t they? Told 'em.”
Thomas Jefferson: “The Tree of Liberty hasn’t been refreshed, I see.”
Americans and their Founding Daddy issues.
This exact joke made into a sketch:
I’m so glad someone posted this, WWG is great
I think they would be horrified, but that’s because of the maga. And because black people would not take their shit.
Ben Franklin would try modern clothes, start sleeping with trans women, then get addicted to the internet. He would be indistinguishable from someone from the 21st century within a year tops
He’d be exhausted searching for all the local milfs in his area.
George Washington could finally get some implants or dentures and stop stealing the teeth from slaves.
“It’s all about the me’s, baby!”
Let’s be honest here if anybody from the 1700s slept with a trans woman it was definitely Ben Franklin. Man was a professional horn dog.
George Washington would be like: “Why this portrait of a slave in the white house?” (referring to Obama) 💀
There were free black people in Washington’s day. But yes, the first several presidents were all slave owners.
The idea that he might use slave as a slur while understanding he was a free black man isn’t that crazy though.
Oh my God, I haven’t laughed this hard at a meme in a very long time. Congratulations.
What Founding Fathers would have to say.
“Did you not read all ‘men’ are created equal. That did not include slaves or women.”
gotta get that skullet on him
