Hot, Bad & Unpopular Takes

[Hindsight was 2020]

Game of Thrones has sucked since season 5

[Hindsight was 2020]

Wind farms are, in terms of aesthetics, extremely elegant additions to the landscape.

Agreed.

Game of Thrones has sucked since season 5

This is not a bad take, indeed it is corrext

Both of these are just wrong!

If you’d read the books you’d know that S5 coincides with A Feast For Crows and Dance with Dragons, which not coincidentally is when the books start to suck, too

I disagree I say the opposite the problem with S5 is all the changes they made from the books and that AFFC and ADWD are great

[Hindsight was 2020]

Not sure if either REALLY counts as a "Hot, Bad [or] Unpopular Take," but I have been on a World War I kick lately:

1) The Central Powers, in a vacuum, were completely justified in going to war, and Germany's over-the-line actions once the war broke out (took "the best defense is a good offense" to an extreme, for example) overshadow this simple fact WAY too much in our retelling of the Great War.  The Central Powers may have wanted a war, and they may have clearly been the overall "worse actors" in this conflict (I would agree with both), but Austria-Hungary had every right to go to war with Serbia, and Germany had every right to back them up ... until conspiracy theories are proven.

2) Germany was much more impressive from a military standpoint in WWI than they were in WWII, regardless of the fact that Hitler was able to conquer much of Europe.

How justified were they?

They broke all international agreements about respecting neutral countries by invading and destroying a neutral country. Furthermore, Franz Joseph never cared about his neohew, all he wanted was to crush Serbia and austria dominance in the Balkans.

How is it justified?

As I believe I explained, their actions - beyond considering Serbia literally sponsoring terrorism an act of war - were NOT justified.  However, in the end, that is what sparked the conflict.

I don't understand. Now you say their actions weren't justified?

I think he was talking about Serbia's actions not being justified

Right.  It's fair enough to criticize Germany and Austria-Hungary for probably "wanting war" and using their reasons for going to war as somewhat of an excuse, and it's CERTAINLY fair to criticize a lot of their wartime actions ... however, if we simply look at the first "cause" (the assassination of Franz Ferdinand), I believe Austria-Hungary was completely justified to go to war with Serbia, and Germany was not "in the wrong" to back them.  The fact that Russia and then France also joined due to similar treaty-related reasons isn't OVERLY relevant to that question "in a vacuum" (which was my original phrasing).

I sympathize with this point to a degree. I must confess annoyance at the fact our textbooks when covering WW1 tend to paint Serbia in a more innocent light then they truly were. From grade school until senior year of HS I was given the impression that Austria-Hungary accusations of Serbia’s role in Franz’s were unfounded until I did independent readings and discovered not only were the accusations not unfounded but the head of Serbia’s equivalent of the CIA organized the whole thing and Austria had solid proof of it.

[Hindsight was 2020]

Our countries obsession with “change” and “new” when it comes to the presidency might be one of our worst traits. It feels like everyone wants to change to the point we’re forgetting the president is still a job that one should be qualified for.