It should be mandatory that everyone either read or watch the documentary Guns Germs and Steel. Because on the face of it it wouldnt be a unfair question to ask why did Europeans become the most advanced and dominated other cultures. Guns Germs and Steel lays out a rock solid case on and to sum up the answer comes down to Geography and timing not because of superiority of any race. But the answer is even more complicated then that... andv to sit there and argue with these knuckleheads with this long complicated arguments is pointless. It would be better if kids learn young about why these discrepancies exist so we can shut down those questions early on.
not sure if you're serious but, free transport and specifically decommoditzing transportation is a great step towards leveling the playing field for poorer people. the reason why we don't have free transportation in America is because of politics, partly motivated by auto industry and partly motivated by socioeconomic/race factors.
a lot of countries around the world offer free or partially free public transportation - e.g. anyone over 60 in taiwan can ride the bus for free.
if you're interested in how cities and transportation got to where we are today, look up Jane Jacobs and her book, or watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fwf5h3MIdRs.
Love this guy! Anyone who's unfamiliar he wrote a book last year called The Strange Death of Europe.
Here's a speech he gave that got a lot of traction as well.
> and I always thought "oriental" referred to the Far East, so really not sure what the article was on about.
The article is drawing upon Orientalism by Edward Said, which is a important and popular text among cultural studies types. And is specifically about European attitudes towards the Middle East.
The book <em>Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia</em> is a really excellent (if terrifying) look at the way that the media operated by Putin's authoritarian state has manipulated and brainwashed entire populations. And it was published a solid year before the 2016 election. It's a rough read but I think it's a book everyone in America should be familiar with.
Thomas Sowell and a number of others have argued African American hip hop culture is basically white redneck behavior, Sowell in "Black Rednecks And White Liberals" which I'm about to begin. Colin Woodward's "American Nation's" touches on this as well, as do other authors who've penned books on the topic, although his book is more about all of the regional cultures that make up our country dating back to the groups that founded those regions and how their beliefs are still resoundingly alive and well and how politicians actively exploit these differences we have between one another. There are other academics I've heard doing research like this but I'm having trouble recall their names, I heard about them in some podcasts. But, there's definitely more reading you can do to explore this idea more.
Amazon links to check out both titles I mentioned:
https://www.amazon.com/American-Nations-History-Regional-Cultures/dp/0143122029
Not even remotely.
For a better and much more comprehensive view, read American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America by Collin Woodard.
Most days, I feel optimistic about the future of the country. It looks like Trump's stupidity and incompetence is going to be the undoing of his Post Office scam, and the country is turning against him.
Then I see that yet another QAnon qultist (and this time, a 9/11 denier!) won a GOP Primary for a red district, and is going to Congress in January.
Stupidity will be the death of this nation. We are headed to a future where Nothing is Real and Everything is Possible
Have you guys ever read The World Without Us ? If I remember correctly, the Pyramids could last a million years, Mount Rushmore over 2 million. By far the oldest human structures.
> "nation to nation" relationship
Warning - probably sounds pedantic. sorry.
'Nation' is often confused with 'state' - with states being legal, political entities with borders. 'Nations' being <em>cultural</em>, political entities, but no borders.
Add to that and the our constitution recognizes that bands have legal standing equal to the federal government, and nation to nation makes sense.
(Provinces, unlike bands, have essentially delegated authority. Even though areas of authority - health, education, etc are delegated. Municipalities have an even lower level of authority. Only the Federal government has the 'authority' to negotiate with the bands, regardless of issue.)
Being a completely separate 'nation' within a state is pretty much normal for most of North America.
If you want to follow that path even further, read this book.
It's a journey through how Putin creates exactly the feeling you're experiencing to control Russia, how the strategy developed over time, and what it's like to live in Russia once truth died.
These people believe in the myth of "Western Civilization" that is taught in virtually every college and university in the USA. They don't consider Mao, Stalin, and even Lenin, to be a part of "Western Civilization". From there, it isn't much of a step to go fash and say that Marxism is an "Asiatic ideology" that feminizes men and "masculinizes" women. Socialism is Asiatic, other, and feminine. Lenin was depicted as a scheming Jew in fascist propaganda. Stalin was always portrayed as Georgian and Asian.
Orientalism plays a large role in why people over estimate the "death toll of communism". The Holocaust that the Nazis carried out was particularly horrifying to Europeans. European Empires such as the British East India Company had committed mass atrocities and genocides for hundreds of years in places like India, China, Africa, and the Americas. This was the birth of capitalism, in blood. The idea of Europe having this level of genocide horrifies the Reactionary Mind.
Edward Said's book on Orientalism explores the subject further.
I mean this guy wrote an entire book (I haven't read it) explaining these so-called nations. Eastern California and N Dakota are both mostly rural republican places with a libertarian bend. New York City does have a pretty distinct culture with way more immigrants than lots of other areas and just generally feels like it's a world unto itself. New Orleans and Quebec is a little shaky, but LA is different than the rest of the south and I suppose he didn't want to make another category. Maine and Minnesota don't lean either super republican or super democrat. Minnesota is pretty distinct, but it is definitely part of a greater area if not this "nation". Bob Dylan (native Minnesotan) famously said "the nation I come from is called the Midwest".
Like the buildings are described in the book, The World Without Us but with people still living in the buildings. The moisture and the roots will get into the cracks in the concrete and tear the building's apart. This will be a shitshow.
There's a nice pop-ecology book on this very subject, The Triumph of the City. As you can guess from the title, the author concludes that yes, moving to NYC is a very green thing to do. The book is about the ecological impact of cities in general, but he cites lots of data about NYC in particular, since it's such a prototypical example of city living.
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The ubiquity of mass transit was one major reason of course, but there were other surprising examples, like (IIRC) the piles of trash bags stacked on the curb. The same volume of trash, he argues, generated by a suburb, would be spread out over a much larger area, requiring more garbage-trucks-miles to collect, generating more emissions, etc. Many of the arguments come down to: if you're going to have 8 million people in the first place, better to put them all in one place (at least from an environmental perspective). I'm not qualified to judge the book's arguments scientifically, but it was a fun read, and the arguments at least sounded plausible.
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The author would probably encourage you to get a tote bag for the bodega. :)
https://www.amazon.ca/Apocalypse-Never-Environmental-Alarmism-Hurts/dp/0063001691
Very good book and excellent reviews, I'll be starting it tomorrow... He debunks the whole myth of the world will end and even exposes the eugenics as the culprits in all this bullshit.
Spread the truth and educate yourselves on this subject, they are constantly spreading disinformation on this subject in order to further advance their goals of fascism and tyranny... Fascism going forward will come not only from the "War On Virus" hoax but also the climate change hoax.
Despite decades of news media attention, many remain ignorant of basic facts. Carbon emissions peaked and have been declining in most developed nations for over a decade. Deaths from extreme weather, even in poor nations, declined 80 percent over the last four decades. And the risk of Earth warming to very high temperatures is increasingly unlikely thanks to slowing population growth and abundant natural gas.
Curiously, the people who are the most alarmist about the problems also tend to oppose the obvious solutions.
What’s really behind the rise of apocalyptic environmentalism? There are powerful financial interests. There are desires for status and power. But most of all there is a desire among supposedly secular people for transcendence. This spiritual impulse can be natural and healthy. But in preaching fear without love, and guilt without redemption, the new religion is failing to satisfy our deepest psychological and existential needs.
Lead Paragraphs:
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is not the world’s first pandemic, and it is unlikely to be the last. In recent years, there have been actual or potential pandemics in 2002 (severe acute respiratory syndrome), 2009 (H1N1 influenza), 2012 (Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus), and 2014 (Ebola). The new normal seems to be an actual or potential epidemic every 2 to 3 years.
Loss of life is one devastating effect of regular pandemics and economic damage is another. Consider what happens to the economy if pandemics occur regularly. Close association of individuals with different perspectives is <strong>a key to productivity</strong>. Large, dense cities are the most innovative areas, and the most innovative companies are those that bring disparate people together. If cities become ground zero for pandemics, fewer people will probably choose to live in them. And with that will come a decline in national vitality.
Preventing recurrent pandemics is a major public health challenge. To meet this challenge, society will need to act domestically and globally.
I agree, but boy I wish there was an updated version of it. It's data is before H.W. Bush.
I spoke too soon. I was going to leave an amazon link and found this from 2012:
More death. Period. End of story.
The nuclear bomb won WW2. I know that there are people who disagree, but most boots on the ground agree that the invasion of Japan would've been a long brutal affair with millions more dead. And, without nuclear deterrence, the US may have gone to war against the USSR because conventional wars seem far less of a losing proposition than mutually assured destruction and a potential extinction levelevent.
Nuclear energy, is actually the safest and cleanest energy production method we have. (I highly recommend you check out: this book by Michael Shallenberger for a more thorough treatise on the benefits of nuclear power. In his book, he outlines how oil, gas, and coal are responsible for a LOT of pollution and the shortening of the lifespans of many people due to air pollution-related illnesses. In a world without nuclear power, we move from energy-dense matter-poor energy production techniques to more matter-dense materials. These materials create pollution and are more prone to environmental catastrophes like oil spills, fires, etc.
Now, you may be saying "yeah, but what about wind and solar?" Wind and solar are causing extinction issues in birds and bats, and are woefully inadequate at this time to solve our energy problems. Developing nations are actively lobbying against renewables like wind and solar because they are so unreliable.
So, in summary: Nuclear weapons make the cost of war heavier than conventional warfare. A world without nuclear weapons sees more war in the 20th century and more war-related death. Nuclear energy provides clean electricity and a world without it becomes far more polluted, leading to more deaths and shorter lives.
OOOO you should read this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/0393317552
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Really good.
Long story short: population density allowed for these diseases to grow and become not a problem in Europe far earlier than in the Americas. Americas were just too big, not old enough, and didn't have enough domesticable animals for this to occur.
Indeed. For anyone unfamiliar with Russian domestic propaganda the book Nothing Is Real And Everything Is Possible is excellent. The Russian government has become very good at using conspiracy theories to manipulate their citizens and they are leveraging those expertise to influence other nations.
Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
https://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/0393317552
This is a fantastic read which both addresses this sentiment and explores why some areas of the world didn't follow suit in industrialization. I'm not a big reader but it is pretty great. Even has some pictures.
look at the amount of people in this picture... Russia allows and even controls protests like this as a pressure relief valve.
Everybody in Russia knows Putin is a corrupt supergarch...... check out the following book.
https://www.amazon.ca/Nothing-True-Everything-Possible-Surreal/dp/1610396006
This is what we used to think.
Then Libertarianism got a hold on a town, and the town got invaded by bears, and the bears started attacking people and the town didn't get enough money to fend them off, and people started dying. In a span of 10 years. True free market capitalism collapses harder and faster than government-regulated sociocapitalism.
Obligatory reading: https://www.amazon.com/Libertarian-Walks-Into-Bear-Liberate-ebook/dp/B083J1FXY8
You might also be interested in...
Eliminate single family zoning. Build more housing. Lots more housing. Build it on small lots. Lend money to motivated residents to improve their dwellings, or build new dwellings, or start businesses to provide services to new residents.
Don't build parking.
If you remove the causes of artificial scarcity, prevent cataclysmic change from superblock developments constructed by one or two highly capitalized out-of-town developers, and allow access to capital for residents the neighborhoods will improve on their own with much more demographic growth than demographic replacement.
This is actually real and represents the divide between the Deep South (redneck) culture and Appalachian (hillbilly) culture. As a black guy from the south I’d say that you should visit areas around the mountains (Asheville, NC is pretty cool) if you’re interested in southern culture with less of the negative stereotypes. There’s also a pretty cool book 11 Nations of America that goes into this in more detail
If you're interested in this, you may like the book <em>The World Without Us</em> by Alan Weisman. It looks at how long signs of our civilization would endure if all humans disappeared overnight.
You my friend are 100% right. People like to use the standard trope of blame the developer/landlord. In reality, it should be blame the NIMBY's. Anyone interested in the topic should read this book. It explains why cities like NYC, London, and Mumbai are so expensive. It's the restrictive zoning passed to protect the NIMBYs.
Not saying all zoning is bad, I think Canadian cities did a much better job of reducing suburban sprawl, but ironically we make it so that today you couldn't even build the 100-year-old building that everyone likes in the same spot.
Pretty sure that comment is referencing this book, which gives a solid case for why Europe in particular dominated the world in the Colonial Era.