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Comment by geocrasher | Hacker News Reader

Comment deleted because a guy can't state a feeling without dealing with endless pedantry. Gosh.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1890s#Wars

The 1890s were a rare break in great power conflict, but they were only a few decades after the civil war, Imperialism was in full swing, and there were still plenty of wars. In general, there has not been a more peaceful time than the present.

Rare break for the West you mean? While the West was breaking, instigating, looting, murdering people in rest of the world like business as usual?

Indeed. My point was that the world had not yet been permanently scarred by global conflict. That's all.

There were plenty of world wars before WWI. WWI was simply the first in which America played a major role. The empires fought each other across the planet long before America was a thing. Nearly every country was repeatedly involved in these conflicts. War was not an unussual thing then nor now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleonic_Wars

"The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European powers formed into various coalitions."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Years%27_War

"The Seven Years' War (1756–1763) is widely considered to be the first global conflict in history, and was a struggle for world supremacy between Great Britain and France."

America played large role in its own civil war. And in smaller wars with Mexico and what not before.

In general he greeted them before taking the picture, if you do the same today you’ll usually get smiles, especially from those who know you.

You can find articles that explain various reasons why people don't smile in old photographs, at least when they know they are being photographed. Mimicking what they saw in paintings seems the most likely to me. The advertising around cameras and photos tended to make them painting like, and had more serious subject matter. Though other reasons are cited too...bad teeth, inertia from when exposure times had to be long, etc.

So the smiles could just be the effect of them not knowing they were being photographed.

I presume there is some selection bias to take into account here.

Isn't there always some? It's impossible to create a comment that has any nuance without being selective of the feeling that I wish to convey.

Great hats too!

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