The reality is there were violent and nonviolent factions in both scenarios. The oppressive state is not going to platform those that commit violence against it so history is written to suppress that form of dissent and uplift nonviolence.

Not to take away from the brilliance MLK or Gandhi but part of their credibility or legitimacy is derived from the contrast to their violent counterparts.

Whoever did JDs hair and makeup is killing it. True visionary.

Supraphysiologic dosing of testosterone will do that. That and really really really tiny balls.

At their core they don’t believe in merit. They believe in birthright.

The astounding progress humanity has made in the past few centuries doesn’t happen without oppurtunity being, in some way, distributed based on merit. No country on Earth is a true meritocracy but the standard until very recently was feudalism where you’re either born lucky or you’re not.

For some right wing folk, there’s not a lot to offer on the basis of merit so they’d rather move back to the coinflip model being lucky even if they have little to offer.

Look at RFK - does he really have anything to offer besides his name?

High income

This is interesting because I’ve found Eastern Europeans and Russians to be less racist to South Asians overall possibly due to geographic proximity (relative to Western Europeans who in modern history have seen themselves as racially superior). Attitudes towards black people could definitely be better though.

It was an aspiration for white men specifically. It took centuries for the definition of humanity to expand from that perspective.

Sometimes moralizing is necessary. In Canada we had one teacher go into detail on the kidnapping of indigineous children and the residential schools they were sent to where they were often beaten or raped. I’m glad that teacher did that since many of my contemporaries were not aware of that history and some remain oblivious into adulthood. There’s nothing worse for a nation than people having a false sense of pride in it (as we’re seeing in the US currently).

There is no argument to be had here. That is literally a wallet.

Is Aliexpress better than Temu?

It may not be as long a stretch as it seems.

Climate change is in many ways an extension of neocolonialism ie. localizing benefits while externalizing harms. Western countries, despite making up 20% of the global population, are responsible for 50% of global cumulative emissions.

Back during the Earth Summit in 1992:

“In view of the different contributions to global environmental degradation, States have common but differentiated responsibilities. The developed countries acknowledge the responsibility that they bear in the international pursuit of sustainable development in view of the pressures their societies place on the global environment and of the technologies and financial resources they command.”

Based on this, the Rio declararion explicitly stated that developed countries must take the lead in combating climate change and its adverse effects.

As we all know, these responsibilities were ultimately betrayed

The world has a way of rebalancing itself. We may not see a complete rebalancing in our lifetimes but the process has already begun.

History doesn’t exist in a vacuum I’m afraid. If an entity, whether it’s a person or a nation, commits atrocities and then stops doing so after becoming rich from it, can we call that justice?

Leopold II turned the Congo Free State into his personal, horrific rubber-and-ivory fiefdom from 1885 to 1908 and used the profits to bankroll massive architectural and infrastructure projects in Brussels, Antwerp, and Ostend (e.g., the Cinquantenaire park, the Royal Palace of Laeken, and the Antwerp Central Station).

The profits were deeply integrated into Belgium’s financial and industrial sectors.

DRC’s vast diamond wealth currently flows straight to Antwerp, meaning Belgium still captures the high-value “refining and trading” end of the supply chain, while the DRC is left with the environmental and human cost of raw extraction.

Major Belgian conglomerates, or companies born out of the colonial structure (like Umicore, formerly Union Minière du Haut-Katanga), transitioned from colonial owners to powerful multinational players. They still hold significant strategic advantages and interests in extracting critical minerals like cobalt and copper from Central Africa.

When the DRC gained independence in 1960, its first democratically elected Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba, wanted to nationalize the country’s resources so the Congolese people could finally benefit from them. Fearing the loss of mineral access, Belgian officials (with the help of the CIA) were deeply complicit in Lumumba’s overthrow and assassination, replacing him with Mobutu Sese Seko, a brutal dictator who let Western corporations keep extracting wealth while plunging his own country into poverty.

Colonialism may have come to an end but Belgium is still a neocolonialist nation. So we can’t even give it the benefit of saying that it has stopped.

This is for informational purposes only. European colonial history is not well taught in the Western world so it’s important for people to realize that just because it was overlooked in their education that doesn’t mean it’s really ended.

CPR

The first thing I thought was Persian / North Indian woman. So odd that Nazis co-opted that history.

The first thing I thought was Persian / North Indian woman. So odd that Nazis co-opted that history.

Damn never realized this but every boomer homeowner is actually an investment savant. Why are we all so stupid? Why can’t we just do this? ^/s

Part of the longevity of the US version was the decision to make characters likable, especially Michael Scott / the manager. The UK version leans hard into the cringe / social ineptitude and gives the manager essentially no redeeming qualities.

A man so caught up in scientific inquiry and progress that he cares not for the people in his life, who he’s obligated to protect. He fuses his daughter with his dog, proclaiming his great achievement while the new chimera begs for death to be put out of its misery.

The show explores subverting rules of the universe, life and death to a degree.

If dynamic pricing isn’t capitalism decaying back into the feudalism it came from I don’t know what is.

Even worse, false equivalence.