The Battle of Hastings never happened

[Deleted member 1432]

It is what it is.

A 'Dragon in a Garage" perhaps?

 

[h4ste]

My last name is Hastings and this hurts. I have always wanted to believe but deep down I kind of knew it was fake.

Here is my Linkedin for proof:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-h777/

 

[Deleted member 1432]

My last name is Hastings and this hurts. I have always wanted to believe but deep down I kind of knew it was fake.

Here is my Linkedin for proof:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-h777/

But Hastings was a place before the alleged battle and still is. Why would you be hurt to discover that one of the supposed greatest conquests and defeats of England never happened? Is your first name Norman?

 

[h4ste]

But Hastings was a place before the alleged battle and still is. Why would you be hurt to discover that one of the supposed greatest conquests and defeats of England never happened? Is your first name Norman?

Good point

 

[Broken Agate]

Every time I read about wars and the fate of nations, I get an image of a bunch of men in top hats with a huge chart tacked to the wall. On the left side are written the names of various nations and kingdoms; on the right, a list of stories that are to be attached to each of them. This nation will be conquered repeatedly by a multitude of invaders; this one will be "discovered" by brave explorers and the natives displaced; this other one will be populated by prisoners; and so on and so forth. The top hats simply attach strings from the left column to the right, moving them about until everything is agreed upon. And then they draw borders on a big map on the wall, delineating who is going to live where. Is that actually what's going on? History teachers always present the subject as "This is how things happened," rather than, "This is how the world was arranged."

 

[trismegistus]

Every time I read about wars and the fate of nations, I get an image of a bunch of men in top hats with a huge chart tacked to the wall. On the left side are written the names of various nations and kingdoms; on the right, a list of stories that are to be attached to each of them. This nation will be conquered repeatedly by a multitude of invaders; this one will be "discovered" by brave explorers and the natives displaced; this other one will be populated by prisoners; and so on and so forth. The top hats simply attach strings from the left column to the right, moving them about until everything is agreed upon. And then they draw borders on a big map on the wall, delineating who is going to live where. Is that actually what's going on? History teachers always present the subject as "This is how things happened," rather than, "This is how the world was arranged."

This is one of the best encapsulations of the mainstream way to teach history. At least when I was in public school (90s-early aughts) everything is about keywords, or proper nouns. People, dates, events, laws. You don't really need to pay attention in history textbooks, just read the blue highlighted words and the summary at the end of the chapter. Be ready to fill in a little scantron bubble with a no. 2 pencil, all you need to pass is to remember the blue words.

Not to digress the thread any further, but your comment inspired me to relive the trauma of public education

 

[reverendALC]

That is keen indeed. I have noticed that a lot of “seeds” were planted in my educational years that are only now being harvested. These “subjects” were beaten into our heads, left dormant for a decennia or two, only to be pulled out again.

maybe the battle of Hastings never happened, but if people thought it did, what could they use that for later in the game?

 

[Broken Agate]

I always thought the Bayeux Tapestry was complete crap. Whoever made it couldn't draw worth a damn, it looks like it was sewn by the girls in Mrs. Carson's 6th grade home economics class. You'd think, if they wanted to commemorate an actual battle, they'd have found someone with better artistic skills. They just picked someone who could do embroidery, with no consideration for the quality of the work. I really think it's the equivalent of NASA doing shit CGI and using actors on wires, knowing that everyone will believe it regardless of how bad it looks.

That is keen indeed. I have noticed that a lot of “seeds” were planted in my educational years that are only now being harvested. These “subjects” were beaten into our heads, left dormant for a decennia or two, only to be pulled out again.

maybe the battle of Hastings never happened, but if people thought it did, what could they use that for later in the game?

I'd say it's just another small piece of the puzzle of misinformation and lies that they use to control what we think about our past. Do we even know when "1066" was, given how often the calendar has been changed?

 

[reverendALC]

I’m almost certain that these fables were fabricated to impact our understanding of the world. My wife is working on her psychology degree, and she happened to take “black thought” (whatever TF that means) and “ethnicity and heritage” or something like that, simultaneously. The black thought class was about African-American history in the USA and ethnicity and heritage seemed to only focus on BIPOCs for whatever reason.

subject matter in both courses overlapped with manifest destiny in the USA, but offered strikingly contrasted views; black thought elaborated on how the biggest and baddest black slaves were used to defend the Chinese railroad workers from the hostile and savage Cherokee who relentlessly attacked them. All the while, ethnicity and heritage was waxing poetic on how peaceful and hospitable the Cherokee were, and how the white man took great advantage of them.

while either take may be true, neither true, or anywhere in between… when confronted with the contradiction neither professor had answers.

 

[ProfessorHotStuff]

I think there are many plausible ideas here, and I'd like to add one more:

The English seem so weirdly delighted by the fact that they repeatedly (according to mainstream historians) got their asses kicked. It's to such a bizarre extreme, it stands to reason maybe this was an early psy op to see if a people could be trained to venerate their conquerors.

If so, it was very successful. There is hardly an equivalent sentiment.

hostile and savage Cherokee who relentlessly attacked

My Cherokee wife said any time Cherokees are depicted as ruthless and duplicitous it is most likely a trustworthy source. But in seriousness, there's enough bizarre fakery and mystery around Cherokees for a Bible-sized book or at least a Stolen History thread.

 

[Deleted member 1432]

The English seem so weirdly delighted by the fact that they repeatedly (according to mainstream historians) got their asses kicked. It's to such a bizarre extreme, it stands to reason maybe this was an early psy op to see if a people could be trained to venerate their conquerors.

If so, it was very successful. There is hardly an equivalent sentiment.

It has been highly successful indeed, myself excepted . My personal thoughts are that the battle served the purpose of filling a historical vacuum and creating a justification for Norman rule with its resulting feudal system. The Roman conquest, which was similar in many details, served the same vacuum filling purpose. In combination with the alleged Saxon and Viking invasion stories, they all serve to demoralise and subjugate the 'post-conquest' native population - it was all an investment in preventing rebellion. Rather than a psy-op I see it as a vengeful obliteration of whatever was in place and was lost, prior to the arrival of William the Bastard. The success you observe is the adoption of the false, manufactured national identity that we have today - or rather 'had' as this itself is now also under attack and being composed of nothing more than a 'house of cards', it will fall easily.

I'm not convinced this situation is unique to England, I think it applies to a great many other places as well.

 

[ProfessorHotStuff]

The success you observe is the adoption of the false, manufactured national identity that we have today - or rather 'had' as this itself is now also under attack and being composed of nothing more than a 'house of cards', it will fall easily.

I'm not convinced this situation is unique to England, I think it applies to a great many other places as well.

The myth probably did have some degree of unifying effect ("everyone here who isn't a Norman/Viking/Saxon is united in loserdom"), but now the self-appointed rulers want disunity. Thus it's time for them to go back on everything, respect for their institutions be damned.

I think you're right, but what's a close analogy? The best I can think of is the schizophrenic love/hate relationship Mexicans have with white Spaniards.

 

[Deleted member 1432]

The myth probably did have some degree of unifying effect ("everyone here who isn't a Norman/Viking/Saxon is united in loserdom"), but now the self-appointed rulers want disunity. Thus it's time for them to go back on everything, respect for their institutions be damned.

Actually I think it would have had the opposite effect. Suppose that the Britons, Saxons, Angles and Vikings had all been getting along nicely, then the Normans arrived and disseminated the "you are all losers" narrative. In time the Saxons, would consider themselves superior to the Britons because they had allegedly defeated them previously, the Angles and Vikings would also feel the same way, plus there would be competition between them all for the position of number 2 in the pecking order below the Normans. This is 'divide and rule' at its best.

Furthermore, the new narrative made them all outlanders / immigrants and therefore justified the Norman takeover because they were also immigrants. The closest analogy I can think of is the British East India Company's takeover of India through the invention of the Aryan invasion theory. Another would be present day society in general, because the same is happening now, but it's based upon colour as well as race this time, imo.

I can't really comment on the Mexican situation, but it sounds likely.

 

[Nick Weech]

I don't know what's behind the need to demean the British. I certainly agree that the British are demeaned by the history they are given. But then so are many cultures, most obviously those cultures colonised by the British.

Therefore I'm not sure we have a case for treating natural losership as an exceptionally British thing.

I did it to draw reader attention to the put-downs that are hidden - though not very hidden - in the history the British are given.

For me to answer that question would involve me presenting the current state of my research as though it were complete enough to answer your question. But... I don't think it is complete enough to answer your question.

I sense you want to see more effort though, so I'll try to answer.

In its current state, the evidence I've seen - plus my interpretation of it - points to two likely answers:

1. British history is part of a large language (and large event) model being used to train human AI. Perception of its undertones may be monitored as part of monitoring the development of the AI's ability to reason and discern.

2. Humans are a genetically engineered edible slave species that rebelled and was briefly 'free'. An era the British now dimly appreciate as under-reported peasants' rebellions, the Reformation and the English Civil War. It's possible that era - and the possibilities once dreamed of during that era - have subsequently been hidden. In this scenario, maintaining a near-subliminal message that the British are poor strategists, planners, tacticians and fighters might help restrain unwanted confidence in these newly empowered British critters.

Number two takes a lot more unpacking than that. For example, I'm pretty sure that whatever the Reformation era really was, it involved very capable third-party destructive agency. In eastern England, there's more physical evidence for combat or reformatting by third-party agency than there is for combat or destruction by British peasants. At least as we understand the capabilities of Reformation era peasants.

Another nuance to item two is that being newly-free, powerful and yet uncouth may have provoked a desire by others to reign us in; to suppress our newly-acquired exuberance. Perhaps even by those who had previously freed us. Or helped free us. Or modified us. Not very different perhaps to parents' response when their teenage darling goes out, gets drunk and attempts to drive home.

I've used this video clip before to show how a sudden change of environment in which an AI lives might cause it to apply its hard-learned knowledge without realising that its knowledge is inappropriate:

View attachment 29151​

He's a growing boy. Source: Westworld

And a bit of a worry to his parents.

There does seem to be clear evidence of an intent to enculturate humans - not just educate humans - from around 1700 onwards. It's not hard to find evidence of this. What is hard is to prove that the evidence is not a back-dated insert from a later time.

Why the British in particular? Apart from not being sure that military losership is a uniquely British thing, it's just possible that freedom from 'what went before' occurred in Britain first. In that scenario, problems like the one illustrated in the video clip may have appeared in Britain first. Leading to the earlier and more thorough deployment in Britain of losership as a confidence-busting technique.

But as you can see, I'm speculating. These are possible leads, not a court-ready case.

Alternatively, you can dump the humans as AI stuff and the IHASFEMR stuff and just speculate that if losership is a uniquely British phenomenon it is just cultural management as part of the circa 20th century transfer of Anglo power to the US, etc, etc.


If homo sapiens sapiens existed before, say, 1600 (call it the end of the Middle Ages), then perhaps they were training AI in the Middle Ages.

Agustina Bazterrica's Tender is the Flesh is a good mind-stretcher for this. It portrays the deliberately de-cultured minds of the tale's human cattle. I won't spoil it.

I could have inserted various links to evidence and reasoning for the claims I'm making but I assume anyone interested enough to follow this sort of material already knows where to look.

A link to the team over at Applied Epistemology? Lots of related questions ...

 

[usselo]

A link to the team over at Applied Epistemology? Lots of related questions ...

You mean this fascinating and witty Applied Epistemology, yes?

 

[Nick Weech]

You mean this fascinating and witty Applied Epistemology, yes?

It's totally unique.
I must ask how one searches terms= I'm looking at the different ways out counting e.g. Score/10 and Dozen/6 - they had different applications/histories? I can't see it using search'... my only complaint about the site Mick

 

[TuranSilvanus]

happend something probable but as is said '' not there not then not with those and not like that'' etc XD

 

[lancsDavid]

Everything is speculation quite frankly, including my take on the past being invented by those who deign to rule by authority. Its not looking likely we will ever come up with a methodology that can put paid to speculation.

much is speculation.... that's true.... but far too many of these threads are choc-full of uninformed speculation.... which, to me as a researcher, renders the whole thread a bit useless.... there's just way too much stuff to wade through to get to the useful info.... it'd be good if a number of the best threads could be refined.... cleared out of guff, having links to best info sources included at the start, etc.... unfortunately i can't help much with this with regards to 1066 as i've not yet come across even one good book on this period....

 

[Deleted member 1432]

much is speculation.... that's true.... but far too many of these threads are choc-full of uninformed speculation.... which, to me as a researcher, renders the whole thread a bit useless.... there's just way too much stuff to wade through to get to the useful info.... it'd be good if a number of the best threads could be refined.... cleared out of guff, having links to best info sources included at the start, etc.... unfortunately i can't help much with this with regards to 1066 as i've not yet come across even one good book on this period....

I've been researching this subject for many years and have found that "best sources" are as much "uninformed speculation" as many of the comments in this thread may appear to be. In my experience, "best sources" simply means those with a consensus agreement, which has nothing to do with fact. As @Jd755 says, everything is speculation, although I much prefer to call it a reinterpretation of alleged events.

 

[Deleted member 1432]

Someone recently sent me the full copy of a 1985 research paper on the logistics of the Norman invasion. Previously it had only been available as a preview behind an academic paywall. I have uploaded it to the Library section of this forum. I haven't had time to read it yet tbh. It seems the author goes on to later suggest that the necessary technology to undertake such an enormous feat came from the Byzantines. This is perhaps done in order to maintain the myth of the invasion after he makes it perfectly clear how such a monumental and perilous sea voyage would have been impossible with the resources available to him under normal circumstances.

https://stolenhistory.net/resources/on-the-origins-of-william-the-conquerors-horse-transports.207/