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patrickwyman.bsky.social
Pod: Tides of History, currently covering the Iron Age. The Pursuit of Dadliness. Book: "The Verge," on the world around 1500. pwymanusc at gmail.
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Posts 22 Comments 28

Happy to report that the vibes in the bakery are outstanding this morning, especially near the cupcake case

submitted 28 minutes ago • 2 comments

“A sweet dog has become a puppy (again)” — Sumerian proverb

submitted 4 hours ago • 7 comments

Don’t ever say men do not have interior lives

submitted 17 hours ago • 5 comments

Buddy I just got done writing a book covering 10,000 years of history. I've been a historian for a decade. I promise you, the evidence for idiocy in the human past and present is truly overwhelming. It's even more damaging to assume that people "with agency" are playing five-dimensional chess.

submitted 22 hours ago • 11 comments

They’re not, and nobody is saying they are - the problem is the baseline assumption that someone who has achieved wealth and power has done something to deserve it, and that their exercise of power is therefore justified or acceptable on that basis

submitted 1 day ago • 4 comments

Nate Silver 🤝 Noah Smith Knowing nothing about the past, skimming Wikipedia and not doing the reading, and assuming they’ve invented a new way of understanding human history

submitted 1 day ago • 75 comments

This is an actual congressman, someone with the power and the platform to raise hell around what’s happening, and he’s missing the most fundamental opportunity to build a concrete, easy-to-grasp message. “The president isn’t a king” is being handed to you on a platter!

submitted 2 days ago • 9 comments

All credit to my coach, Taylor Gohn (www.instagram.com/taylordrol/?...) who keeps me healthy, feeling good, and lifting reasonably decent weights despite my less-than-optimal lifestyle

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

Turned 40 today, deadlifted 440 lbs (200 kg)

submitted 3 days ago • 41 comments

I'm only going on Twitter now to tell Nazis and would-be Nazis that they're dogshit humans and their fantasies of ethnic cleansing are, in fact, really bad

submitted 3 days ago • 7 comments

Brb gonna assemble a crack force of local dipshits from Protector, the app that allows every hot-dog-necked police academy reject to find work as a gig economy thug

submitted 3 days ago • 13 comments

One of the really striking things when you read about Nazis is how they were already doing daily kinds of evil - child abuse, domestic violence, sexual assault - before they ever started participating in mass genocide. Access to power amplified the terrible personal tendencies they already had.

submitted 5 days ago • 3 comments

The Hardest Place is one of the best books I've read in the last few years. If you want to actually understand the dynamics of 20 years of American futility in the Middle East, it's absolutely essential reading. Highly recommend!!!

submitted 5 days ago • 2 comments

If I ever got really rich I wouldn't be taking over governments or whining about taxes, I'd spend my time arranging high-end lounge chairs and finding increasingly exotic and relaxing places to take a nap. I'm built different I guess

submitted 5 days ago • 14 comments

Just saw my first vandalized Cybertruck and it’s pretty telling that I can’t decide whether it’s a broader social statement or the driver is just a prick on his own merits

submitted 7 days ago • 13 comments

I'm posting some of my old Tides of History intro scenes. They're short examples of sociological storytelling, trying to humanize large-scale trends over time through an individual's perspective. First one: A day in the life of an Archaic Greek woman, c. 770 BC open.substack.com/pub/patrickw...

submitted 9 days ago • 4 comments

In thinking about how to deal with the current political moment, I feel like just constantly saying “fuck you, you pasty dipshits” is a good place to start. Call it not obeying in advance if you want, but “go fuck yourselves” is really the core message

submitted 10 days ago • 10 comments

Just thinking of Thucydides and the Melian Dialogue for no particular reason: "The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must." So, uh, don't preemptively decide to be weak.

submitted 10 days ago • 3 comments

I hate it when my ailing king is usurped by his scheming foreign vizier

submitted 17 days ago • 40 comments

If you're a Dem member of Congress, your job right now is to be the largest possible pain in the ass to the administration. That's it. If you're not standing somewhere in public hollering to the high heavens or visibly supporting people who are, you're failing at your job.

submitted 10 days ago • 7 comments

First of all, don’t talk like a fucking loser. I’d start with that.

submitted 12 days ago • 18 comments

Aleksander III receiving rural district elders in the yard of Petrovsky Palace in Moscow, by Ilya Repin, 1885-86

submitted 12 days ago • 32 comments