An alternate way to think about 'idiotperialism' is that it is actually just gender-affirming-foreign-policy-care for a bunch of overgrown man-babies worried about how people will perceive the size of their own little MANPADs unless they go do some manly war stuff.

I'm not advocating violence as a means of maintaining social decorum but it seems obvious that a great many people were only behaving out of fear of eating some punches, and we're gonna have to grapple with the implications of that sooner rather than later

Help me out here, friends - I'm going to record a mailbag episode of Tides of History and I need some questions to answer! Reply here with anything you'd like to know more about!

Literally yes, in the sense that the Roman senatorial class owned or invested in the commercial farms and industrial processing and shipping operations that produced and distributed olive oil.

Watching the Blazers broadcast and just saw that they have an official pest control partner, if anybody would like to be the exclusive pest control partner of Past Lives please hit me up

this is your mission. our pedophile president needs you to jump out of a helicopter to kidnap a head of state and his wife so some oil ceos can make a lot of money. we’ll be watching from a resort in florida that still serves wedge salad and checking how many retweets we get. good luck soldier

some thoughts on all of this madness from earlier in the morning youtu.be/-yUi-0vNlDA

The Dems’ fear of being called a bunch of pansies for not supporting an illegal military operation once again proves that it’s just gender all the way down

The kidnapping of Maduro inaugurates a highly dangerous era of U.S. empire that for perhaps the first time in an era of mass media is not pretending to be anything other than a violent, extractive enterprise of domination.

New Past Lives: Crixus, the Spartacus Rebellion, and Resistance to Slavery. The Spartacus Rebellion of 73-71 BC is one of the most famous events in human history, but what can we know about the participants? And why would people risk everything for a shot at freedom? www.pod.link/1852618120/e...

I will never apologize for a post

I tried to get to as many responses as I could, if I missed yours just know that I'm in your corner, hooting and hollering, telling you that you've got it, whatever it is you're trying to do!

Ringing in the New Year properly with the penjamin and Alice In Chains Unplugged

My daughter is banging on the bathroom door while her brother’s inside, I tell her to go away, her response: “It could be years. I don’t trust that boy.”

it is extremely funny to read this to yourself in Tides of History prologue voice

If anybody is making New Year's resolutions around exercise, reply to this post and I'll shout at you through the computer to hype you up. Going for a walk? GET AFTER IT BROTHER. Trying to get a dump truck ass? HIT THOSE HIP THRUSTS HOMIE, BOOTY LOOKING GREAT. Marathon? YOU'RE A GODDAMN CHEETAH.

Yearly reminder that you CAN just become a different person, you're not as imprisoned in your life as you think. You can just be the one who dresses nice or exercises or reads a lot, or whatever. You can just start doing it, some people might make fun of you but they don't really care.

New Past Lives: Crixus, the Spartacus Rebellion, and Resistance to Slavery. The Spartacus Rebellion of 73-71 BC is one of the most famous events in human history, but what can we know about the participants? And why would people risk everything for a shot at freedom? www.pod.link/1852618120/e...

I am not as astonished as I should be by how thoroughly LeBron has remained LeBron into his forties. I know he'll just retire whenever he wants to do other stuff, but it is fun to think about how long he could be an effective rotation guy. I think he could still be a solid stretch four type at 48.

Just finished explaining something in response to my 6-year-old’s question, and then she hit me with, “I see, carry on.”

I'm not immune to the occasional bout of Poster's Madness but I try to live my online life in ways that present fewer potential portals to that outcome, because getting mad at strangers is one of the worst things you can do for your mental health and quality of life

I was like "@patrickwyman.bsky.social did a great interview with someone about this" and it was of course @bretdevereaux.bsky.social, lol: wondery.com/shows/tides-...

Coolest thing about social media is being able to watch a billionaire's brain turn to mush in real time, the Gilded Age could never

Used the urinal next to Harrison Ford in a restaurant bathroom

It's all ready to go once I have the time to sit down and write the proposal - my hope is to have it sold to a publisher and to be writing by next fall, but I have to finish Tides and get Lost Worlds out first.

Do you have questions about slavery or any of the people I've covered on Past Lives so far? Patrons can ask whatever they want! www.patreon.com/posts/patron...

This is a great idea. 70% Tides of History 6% Fall of Rome 23% Lost Worlds 1% The Verge royalties and a TV appearance

found @patrickwyman.bsky.social's new "Past Lives" podcast today—short biographies of regular people's lives from antiquity. Absolutely fascinating; the kind of stuff I always wanted to know. Were you or I born 3000 years ago, these are the folks we'd be, not nobles. www.patreon.com/cw/PastLives...

There are so many amazing things about being a parent but the most unexpected for me was how funny they are. E.g.: My daughter has an ongoing bit with her grandfather in which they try to steal each other’s dessert. They taunt each other over FaceTime. My daughter brainstorms ways to prank him.

Do you have questions about slavery or any of the people I've covered on Past Lives so far? Patrons can ask whatever they want! www.patreon.com/posts/patron...

Kevin is coming on Past Lives to talk about John Doar next month - I'm so, so stoked to learn more about this fascinating person and the times he shaped!

Well, after eight years of research, writing and revision, I just sent the full manuscript for THE DIVISION: JOHN DOAR, THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT, AND THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT to my publisher. This is happening, people. Whether you want it or not.

Not with an attitude like that it’s not. Poster’s Cynicism is just laziness cosplaying as savvy knowledge of how the world works. We, collectively, have agency.

When the time comes - and it will - I will happily write a check to the relevant agency if they’ll use the money to prosecute these assholes.

My dad died last May. More than anything else, history was what we shared in common. As we have the first Christmas without him, I reflected on what that meant. open.substack.com/pub/patrickw...

Merry Christmas from the roof, where I had to climb up to retrieve a brand-new soccer ball that my large son blasted up here

Merry Squatsmas! Ugly 160 kg (352 pounds), kinda but not really paused

My dad died last May. More than anything else, history was what we shared in common. As we have the first Christmas without him, I reflected on what that meant. open.substack.com/pub/patrickw...

New Past Lives: Terence, Slavery, and Ancient Rome's First Literature. Terence was one of the founders of Latin literature, a standard entry in Roman students' reading for centuries. He was also a former slave, an outsider to mainstream Roman culture. www.pod.link/1852618120/e...

So I have the cover story in next month's TNR. I interviewed the heads of police groups; immigration defense attorneys, ex-judges and ex-prosecutors; former DOJ and DHS officials, and the former head of Border Patrol. They're all horrified at what we've seen, and they all fear what's coming.

New Past Lives: Terence, Slavery, and Ancient Rome's First Literature. Terence was one of the founders of Latin literature, a standard entry in Roman students' reading for centuries. He was also a former slave, an outsider to mainstream Roman culture. www.pod.link/1852618120/e...

Ernst Röhm, Heinrich Himmler, and Josef Goebbels were all Gymnasium graduates who spoke Latin and Greek. Goebbels had a PhD in literature and wrote novels. Many extremely popular modern novelists are also massive nazis, including one who titled one of his books "my struggle".

In 2023 I became obsessed with videos of dads in cargo shortswaiting in parking lots during Taylor Swift's Eras Tour. So when she came to town, I grabbed a camera and headed down to talk to them. I thought it'd be funny. It turned out to be something else entirely.

I want to take a moment of reflection. I don’t post a lot of threads anymore (bc really who wants to read them) but this seems like a good time to make a few points about wins & losses & surviving & fighting during the Trump administration’s siege on democracy. Especially as 2025 comes to a close.

Not a single person on the planet - not even elite athletes - needs to record the entirety of their workouts, much less make themselves the center of attention in the gym with all their video shit

The CBS 60 Minutes Doc confirms what we knew: The U.S. is currently using our tax dollars to imprison brown people with no criminal record in torture camps overseas. It’s no wonder administration shill Bari Weiss pulled this off the air: www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjY7...

I’m apparently now old enough that getting carded buying tobacco products is the best compliment I’ll receive all day, just a warm glow settling into my bones here at the gas station

"Get the principals on camera" is such a telling phrase here, because it tells us that for Weiss there's no world in which the victims of these horrific actions can actually be seen as the subjects of the story: They're background noise, and the people who matter are the ones sending them.

Push-pull supersets were hitting this morning

The electoral map when he runs for president is gonna make Goldwater look like prime FDR