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A staged propaganda photo of Italy's facist leader, Benito Mussolini "harvesting" wheat, 1938
(slrpnk.net)
this post was submitted on 22 Oct 2024
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Can anyone explain WTF he was wearing motorcycle goggles in this photo? "Working" without a shirt, okay, sure, he wants a sunburn, that's his problem. But goggles? Is this some proto-cybergoth bullshit?
Actually, that is probably exactly what he was going for. Mussolini was a huge proponent of the Italian Futurist movement, and he had a lot of weird ideas about what was futuristic. Stuff like, "In the future, people will make their clothes out of milk." Anyway, aviation and representing aviation was a huge part of that, and he frequently used it in his propaganda.
That's interesting. I've long thought that self proclaimed Futurists are a clueless lot. It's technology advancement will always happen and is a good thing, full stop. No consideration for usefulness or how it helps people or even if it will work at all. Most of them lack a background in technology or science, or even just critical thinking skills to tell if they're being hoodwinked or not. The ones that do have a technical background, like Ray Kurzweil, are the real dangerous ones. They tend to dazzle with bullshit, some of which is correct, but it takes an expert to disentangle the correct parts.
The other site's /r/TechNewsToday was the worst for this. Articles about startup companies making impossible claims were swallowed whole, and you'd be downvoted to oblivion for pushing against it. Technology always progresses forward at a breakneck pace, it's always good, and there's nothing you can do to convince them otherwise.
Which is all to say that after a few moments thought, I'm not surprised that it was historically associated with fascism.
There's an RSS bot that reposts HackerNews content to Lemmy. I think [email protected] is the current iteration, if you want some fascists futurists delivered directly to you.
Comments over there on the Orange Site really run the gamut from naive boosters who don't see how technology could ever be misused to straight up grifters lying to promote their shitty startups and glorify the idea of the enlightened tech genius/savior.
FWIW, Caesin can be turned into a fiber (trade names include Aralac and Lanital when turned into fabric,) which could conceivably be used as clothing.
It’s also one of the earliest plastics (used in buttons and jewelry,)
Fascism and claiming to be mentally superior name a better combo
sense of superiority and complete and utter lack of punctuation?
Then a short time later he and the Italian Air force get taught a lesson in aviation by the RAF in Greece and North Africa lmao
Futurism was a fascinating movement; many of the ideas of the Manifesto of Futurism by Marinetti have ended up being absorbed by culture. The change of popular music--particularly synthpop, industrial, and techno--really capture ideas of futurism, regarding changing aesthetic tastes away from the classic.
It definitely got very intertwined with fascism, though. There were a lot of ideas like, "In the future, there will be no books. Books focus too much on the past, and we need to keep looking forward." The never look back mentality especially led to a lot of bad things, and it ended up directly inspiring fascism. It's pretty easy to see the close association, especially considering the Futurist Political Party got absorbed into Mussolini's party basically as soon as he created it.
Idk for sure, but wheat is harvested when it is very dry (lots of dust)... But then the cloth in front of his mouth is missing ...