• Godort@lemmy.ca
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    6 days ago

    There was also that time a prison guard lost a prisoner during a transfer, and because the punishment for such a crime was death, he released all his prisoners, became their leader, and overthrew the monarchy.

    • Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works
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      6 days ago

      There’s a few examples throughout history where having an insane punishment for a crime has caused serious problems.

      • riwo@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        6 days ago

        this is such a typical issue in hierarchical structures and i love it because its so what they deserve

      • Godort@lemmy.ca
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        6 days ago

        There have probably been a few, but they’re almost certainly all Chinese.

        The guy’s name was Liu Bang if you want to read up about it

    • Buddahriffic@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      Wasn’t there at least one other time where “failure means death” turned into “guess we might as well just try to take over”?

      Time I’m thinking about was when an emperor had summoned some warlords to be there by x date or die and one group realized they weren’t going to make it by the date, so since they had their armies with them anyways, they just pivoted from answering summons to invading/conquering. Not sure that one worked out though.

      • fibojoly@sh.itjust.works
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        5 days ago

        Yes! I clearly remember reading about that one, but it was Japan. Something about being summoned and if you ain’t on time, well, clearly you are a traitor and it means death. They get late so they decide to just go with the flow. I looked it up but no luck :/