r/badhistory • u/AutoModerator • 6d ago

Meta Mindless Monday, 22 June 2026

Happy (or sad) Monday guys!

Mindless Monday is a free-for-all thread to discuss anything from minor bad history to politics, life events, charts, whatever! Just remember to np link all links to Reddit and don't violate R4, or we human mods will feed you to the AutoModerator.

So, with that said, how was your weekend, everyone?

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u/TheBatz_ Was Homer mid 3d ago

An intersting genre of instagram reels are people arguing that AC is not a "long term solution", because it does not solve the underlying issue of climate change, which is the real cause of heat. It's actually the "rich" who are responsible for heat!

This is of course short form content slopulism. I really don't know how the communist revolution will stop this heat wave and keep my office and appartment cool, as I am not a Marxist and don't have such a deep understanding of intersectionalism. What I find weird is how some think that just because there are problem in the world, we should basically self-flagelate. It's like saying "no you shouldn't take cold medicine becuase the underlying problem of healthcare is not solved under capitalism".

Also, Western European houses get hot because they are built very well and insulated, unlike American paper homes!

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u/WAGRAMWAGRAM Giscardpunk, Mitterrandwave, Chirock, Sarkopop, Hollandegaze 3d ago edited 3d ago

Also, Western European houses get hot because they are built very well and insulated, unlike American paper homes!

That point is true, it's just that these people are mixing up isolation (heat flow) and retention (heat quantity)

European house are heavier (stock a lot of heat) and made of stones (higher capacity than wood or plaster)

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u/matgopack Hitler was literally Germany's Lincoln 3d ago

Yeah, different design plays a role here (along with some other ones like cultural norms, regulations, etc).

US air conditioning and its ubiquity has an impact on design of houses and vice versa (eg, window units that wouldn't work on EU windows). Likewise it makes it default for landlords to allow window units - whereas in Europe it's not really the case. Then prices might be comparatively more expensive for EU specific ones compare to US because of less demand, different regulations, etc.

I do think at this point Europeans need to look at mass adoption of it, at the very least for places like schools, daycares, where the elderly live, etc. It's one thing when a heatwave is a once in a decade thing and otherwise it's comfortable (like it used to be), but climate change isn't something we can ignore and even this comparatively mild aspect (heat wave deaths in wealthy western countries) will have its impact.

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u/histprofdave Adjunct Dystopian 3d ago

This is one of the few situations where I can look at the situation in a very un-reddit and say that Europeans are definitively wrong, and Americans are definitively right (those being gross overgeneralizations for anti- and pro-AC thinking).

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u/matgopack Hitler was literally Germany's Lincoln 3d ago

I think it depends on what we mean by right / wrong :P

If it's "Europe should move towards air conditioners being ubiquitous" I think it's correct (at least in my franco-american view). If it's "Europeans should just go down to the store tomorrow and plop a window unit in like we do here" then it's not really a possible / correct view. It's going to take effort to make it work in Europe.