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Paul Cooper

@paulmmcooper.com

Novelist & podcast maker｜Wrote River of Ink (2016), All Our Broken Idols (2020), Fall of Civilizations (2024)｜Creator of the Fall of Civilizations Podcast @fallofcivilizations.com

673 Posts12815 Follower841 Folgt
Paul Cooper@paulmmcooper.com · 14h ago

Not sure how to feel about this historian of Indonesia using a very visibly AI image on the cover of his upcoming book. If he's telling the truth then he's been conned by this "Indonesian artist". And if not...

The cover of Herald van der Linde's upcoming book Srivijaya. It features an AI image of Borobudur and a volcano, with the ocean incorrectly placed right behind it.Instagram comments: I cannot wait to read the book, but I am disturbed by Candi Borobudur on the cover. (Also by the brownish design resembling Al graphics.) Van der Linde replies: the Borobudur is an incredible creative representation of all the ideas that floated around in the region. So it's connected. As for the brown glow, it aims to mimic the style of the front cover of the Majapahit book. An Indonesian illustrator did all the drawings that you will find inside the book.I Love your writing so much! But I hope the final cover for the book is created by a human artist instead of Al. Van der Linde replies: Drawings are done by an Indonesian artist.
Fall of Civilizations Podcast@fallofcivilizations.com · 4d ago

Some photos of our recent film shoot in Indonesia for our video for Episode 21, on the Empire of Majapahit. Really excited to share the results with you all when it's done! All reenactment footage we use is 100% real, with human actors and costumes, and always will be!

Photo of our film shoot in Indonesia. A camera looking at some men in costume.Photo of our film shoot in Indonesia. Some royal women and a queen walk down the stairs.Photo of our film shoot in Indonesia. Two men in Javanese costume stand in front of a far-off temple.Photo of our film shoot in Indonesia. The people are in traditional costumes and are holding a banner saying "Fall of Civilizations from Indonesia".
Tim Leach@timleachwriter.bsky.social · last wk.

I remember someone comparing it to the gym. It's more efficient to move large amounts of weight with a forklift truck than a human being, but the point of going to the gym isn't that the weight is moved, it's that YOU learn to move the weight.

Charlotte Weatherill@ckweatherill.bsky.social · last wk.

The point isn't to produce essays, it's to teach students how to think for fuck's sake. The minute you automate that, it's over. You might as well close the course. Which they're also doing. This is an attack on learning, and everyone is just shrugging.

Paul Cooper@paulmmcooper.com · last wk.

[being beheaded by a barbarian] "Luckily there will be more continuity than change in most aspects of social and political life!"

Nathan Goldwag @goldwagnathan.bsky.social · last wk.

*Trojan historian watching as the Achaeans break down the gates* Wow, my civilization is undergoing a complex transformation from a heavily centralized and stratified administrative society to a more socially-fragmented modality of living in which material culture is dispersed amidst smaller sites.

Fall of Civilizations Podcast@fallofcivilizations.com · last wk.

Episode 21 is now live for subscribers! This time we look at the Majapahit Empire which arose in the 13th century on the island of Java. With the haunting sounds of traditional gamelan music, shadow puppet performances, and readings in Old Javanese, find out how the empire of the islands fell.

Fall of Civilizations Podcast@fallofcivilizations.com · last wk.

Coming later today... Fall of Civilizations Episode 21, available for Patreon subscribers!

Paul Cooper@paulmmcooper.com · 2w ago

Always find it so funny that Charles Dickens got so red and mad about this painting. He stomped all the way home from the viewing and wrote this, still angry.

Dickens also accused Millais of portraying Mary as an alcoholic who looks so hideous in her ugliness that ... she would stand out from the rest of the company as a Monster, in the vilest cabaret in France, or the lowest gin-shop in England
Journal of Art in Society@artinsociety.bsky.social · 2w ago

JUST PUBLISHED! Millais’ painting Christ in the House of his Parents provoked howls of ridicule from critics, including an enraged Charles Dickens. Our latest article analyses what their hostility tells us about Victorian attitudes to religion and art www.artinsociety.com/millais-char...

yaoi gagarin@mel.bzky.team · 2w ago

the emotional crux of the illiad is a broken old man begging the man who killed his son to let him bury the body. the odyssey is more than anything about a mans failure to really come home after war, despite the fact he won

yaoi gagarin@mel.bzky.team · 2w ago

the illiad/odyssey are great because theyre history's first piece of anti-war art twisted by idiots into an uncritical endorsement of war

Fiona Robertson@stonelands.bsky.social · 3w ago

Last month I got to visit the awesome 5,000-year-old Isbister Cairn in Orkney aka the Tomb of the Eagles, which has only just reopened post Covid thanks to a community buy-out. And you get to enter flat on your back via a trolley. Great stuff! #TombTuesday

Stone walls and entrance of the Tomb of the EaglesInside the Neolithic chambered cairn! Looking out to sea down the entrance passage; above is the chain that you use to pull yourself along while lying on a trolley ... lots of fun
Mark Walters@mark-walters.bsky.social · 3w ago

Always love this bit of Hadrians Wall at Limestone Corner because of its time capsule moment displayed in the remains. The quarrying of the ditch north of the wall was abandoned & you can see the early 2nd c. wedge holes cut into the hard quartz dolerite to split the blocks along quartz veins

Bo Thompson@gaudipern.bsky.social · last mo.

Thomas Paine is my favorite founding father. He was famously abolitionist and one of the earliest voices to point out the hypocrisy of fighting for independence while keeping slaves. He also firmly believed that keeping any friendship which required compromising your morals made you a bad person.

The Rude Pundit@rudepundit.bsky.social · last mo.

The founder we should talk more about is Thomas Paine, who will fuck your shit up every time. Here he is in The Rights of Man just ripping into any ideas of "originalism" and that kind of garbage.

Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself, in all cases, as the ages and generations which preceded it. The vanity and presumption of governing beyond the grave, is the most ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies. Man has no property in man; neither has any generation a property in the generations which are to follow. The parliament or the people of 1688, or of any other period, had no more right to dispose of the people of the present day, or to bind or to controul them in any shape whatever, than the parliament or the people of the present day have to dispose of, bind or controul those who are to live a hundred or a thousand years hence. Every generation is, and must be, competent to all the purposes which its occasions require. It is the living, and not the dead, that are to be accommodated.
Jonas Vils@vils.bsky.social · last mo.

BBC Sounds is alas geo-fenced. So if you are a non UK resident the episode can be found here. And do listen, highly recommended. timharford.com/2026/06/caut...

Cautionary Tales – How Civilisations Die (with Paul Cooper)

As Governor of Britannia, Magnus Maximus has a huge army at his disposal, which is just what he needs to secure the Roman imperial throne. But perhaps the impressive general should have looked into…

timharford.com

Paul Cooper@paulmmcooper.com · last mo.

I chatted to Tim Hartford at BBC Sounds about how civilizations die... share.google/I1xKTpBIatb4...

Paul Cooper@paulmmcooper.com · 2mo ago

[King of the Chalcolithic Varna Culture c.6,000 years ago]: I fear the end is near. Make sure to bury me with all my gold regalia. Underling: My lord, even your... King: ESPECIALLY that.

Lori Lou Freshwater@lorifreshwater.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Been talking to a man from Sofia Bulgaria and as often happens I’m just embarrassed by my lack of knowledge about places on this earth. Anyway now I am obsessed with Sofia and this from the Varna Necropolis is so rad.