Sar1n - President Trump's funny insults
Post 1
Originally Posted by Gigantus
No I don't, unless it was an exercise in twisting someone else's statement against him born out of a lack of own ideas. It certainly was a lazy one liner.
That's exactly what it was. But it is better than offended response, at least in the eyes of the average American.
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Originally Posted by GigantusMy vote will not go to the one that deems it necessary to insult his opponent to get his point across. How is he going to get across things that actually matter and not play to the stereotypes to mask his inabilities?
And you are putting the cart before the horse: Donald's "jokes" (a misnomer if ever saw one) are made because of the latching point that this his voters for some really base reason find appealing. But then they have already surrendered their brain to their supreme leader and only require 'panem et circenses' - and his righteous voice obviously.
Never seen a more disgusting and disheartening spectacle then the crowd cheering a American president while he insults and derogates every American tom, dick, harry and senator that doesn't kiss his ring.
See, that's the problem, you're fighting on the wrong front. There's a significant polarization in US society. But Trump is not aiming at those.
There is a longstanding trend in modern democracy. As politics grow more complex and information sources become more abundant and sometimes contradictory, the politics become too opaque for many people, and they withdraw from active role in democratic process. You can see that in a gradual trend in voter turnout decrease, which is noticeable in many countries, not just US. Those people are disillusioned, generally see politicians as corrupt and detached from their world, and have an anti-authoritative tendencies, in part due to that. They're not interested in politicians debating the big things, because they see that as empty words.
Trump managed to appeal to and mobilize small part of those, because he's not a politician, but businessman. Instead of telling people that they should change, let go of their little prejudices (that often trigger SJWs who see it as casual racism), that they should be more ecological while the politicians keep using private planes, he embraces those quirks and flaws of personality, rides the fear of change and appeals to those people by giving a finger to established political figures. It's pure marketing. Instead of telling potential customers that they should change and buy their things (or ideas in this case), he takes the target audience as it is, finds the unexploited niche, and only after he uses it to get them in his grasp he starts twisting them to his purpose.
Common Soldier - Was China really that far ahead of everyone else in the past?
Post 2
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Originally Posted by LudicusAbsolutely,in some aspects; I completely agree. But the point made is the Social Development, Ian Morris' social scores ( based on four traits- energy capture, organization/urbanization, war-making and information technology).It's a useful way to compare the east and the west. Before judging, read the fine PDF. It's very detailed, complex, and obviously, with margins of error.See how they are calculated.
It is that where I don't think the facts support the claim the East was ahead until the 19th or 18th century. Take a look at Morris 4 social criteria scores:
Energy capture:
* By the 16th century, European use of watermills was at least as extensive as the East, and their use of windmills more so. The horizontal axis windmills used in the West were more powerful than the vertical axis windmills used in the East, and so could be used for a broader range of industrial applications, and the Europeans were taking advantage of the tides using tidemills since the middle ages, while I am unaware of any
* The use of coal in the West was comparable to that in the East by at least the 16th century. While during the Song dynasty, coal usage was greater, being used for iron production, by the Northern Song China had reverted back to using wood, and Britain had active coal industry going back to the middle ages.
Organization'Urbanization:
* Although a matter of debate, in is questionable whether the East urbanization was significantly higher than in the West.
The urbanization ration of China seems to have been around 10% to 12% from the 14th to the 17th century (see table 11 http://www.cgeh.nl/sites/default/fil...nVanZanden.pdf ), not that much different from the range of 9.5% to 12.5% range Bairoch estimated for Europe from the 14th to 17th century. (see table 1 http://www.paolomalanima.it/default_...Y1300-1600.pdf ) Starting in the 18th century, European urbanization became significantly higher.
When you compare of the spread of the Black Death in Europe and China in the 14th century, an interesting pattern emerges. The spread of the Black Death seems to follow the route of the Grand Canal, and outside the area of it, while in Europe the Black Death spread pretty much everywhere according to the interactive chart except some isolated regions in the center of Europe. The spread shown by the interactive map seems to indicate that Europe was a more integrated than contemporary China, since the indication is that the Black Death followed trade routes. See the map showing the spread of the Black Death and other plagues. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTn6YIwybwM
* European governments like England, where Parliament shared a significant role in governance, I would say as advance or more so than the autocratic form of government based on the complete rule by a semi-divine figure who had, in theory, no checks on their authority that you found in the East.
war-making
* I think the European war making ability was comparable to the Far East, and the West ability to project naval power over far longer distances was far greater.
European rulers ability to borrow money to support their war making abilities were far greater than the east, and starting in the 17th century, European rulers had the ability to borrow long term loans through the use of bonds and other financial mechanisms that the East last. Loans and bonds that didn't have to be paid back for decades were something you didn't find in the East. In war making social development, the East was behind, and far behind by the 18th century.
information technology
* By the 16th century, not only did the West have printing, but its printing had advanced beyond the East. In addition to the printing press, there were the intaglio printing methods of etching and copper plate engraving, which were better suited to reproduced maps and images than the letter press methods. European book production had overtaken the East by the 16th century
So using Ian Morris own 4 social criteria, I don't think you can say the Far East was ahead of the West in Social Development. In fact, in some areas it lagged. Pre modern China never went to a fully monetarized economy. Silver played an important role in the economy, but only has silver bullion, not as minted money. Part of the reason the Chinese went to paper money was to relieve the burden of having to mint vast quantities of copper coins. The Chinese in the Song through to late Qing did not mint precious metal coins, which meant all the purchases had to be done using copper coins. A single silver coin could serve in place of a dozen copper coins, and there were a number of ordinary purchases, such a cow, horse, or even a day's wage, where a silver coin (or gold) would work.
China suffered several times from copper shortages for minting coins, which is why tried paper money, which by and large was a failure. In fact, one scholar proposed that it was paper money that led to the Mongol conquest of the Song, by enabling the Song government's bad practice. While even metal coin money can be debased and abused, as the Romans showed, it is even easier to overprint paper money.
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In conclusion, then, the two most-cited explanations for the fall of the Song, itsmilitary weakness and hyperinflation, can be traced as mere symptoms of an underlyingsubstitution of paper money for tax revenue, a process that allowed the empire tobecome independent of private-sector performance in the short term, thus permitting itto become more parasitic than symbiotic http://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/t..._09_stonge.pdf
(Another factor to the Chinese earlier use of paper money ultimately failing, is that the letter press printing method used by the Chinese couldn't reproduce the finer detail than intaglio engraved plates could use, which would make them easier to counterfeit. When the Europeans reintroduced paper money, intaglio engraved printing can produced finder details, and even today, the very fine details on paper money is one of the major counterfeit features. The examples of Song and Ming paper money I have seen lack the kind of details you find on modern paper money, which makes modern paper money harder to counterfeit in my opinion).
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"Notwithstanding", what do you mean?
That although the Portuguese were leaders in the Age of Exploration, Portugal was never one of the more advanced parts of European, and in social factors lagged the more advance parts of Europe like the northwest areas.
No, I don't have access to the full paperQuote:
The World Economic System in Asia before European Hegemony The World Economic System in Asia before European Hegemony
Do you have access to the full paper?
I quote, excerpts,
RandomPerson2000 - The Afghanistan Papers
Post 3 After a 3 year long legal battle, the Washington Post has won the release of government documents compiled by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, containing more than 2000 pages of unpublished transcripts and notes of 428 interviews concerning the war in Afghanistan. In it, many senior U.S officials and others frequently gave a very pessimistic view of the Coalition war effort, citing massive problems with it such as
- Widespread corruption within the Afghan government at all levels with much of it stemming from the $133 billion dollars given as aid by the U.S for nation building, flooding the country with far more aid than it can handle
- The general incompetence and ineffectiveness of the Afghan police and military
- Trying to impose a strong centralised government on a country that was much more accustomed to tribalism
- The $9 billion dollar effort by the U.S to curb the thriving opium industry, a massive source of income for the Taliban and other insurgents in Afghanistan being a complete failure
- The war goal for the Coalition becoming less clear as the conflict dragged on
Despite this, the U.S government throughout the 18 year long conflict had consistently spinned and manipulated information to make it seem like the war was a success, for example portraying the Taliban suicide bombings in Kabul as a sign of desperation and that they were too weak to engage in direct combat.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graph...ial-documents/
Also peace talks between the U.S and Taliban have resumed but have been paused after a major suicide car bomb and gun attack on Bagram Airfield, the largest American military base in Afghanistan, mostly striking a nearby clinic which killed 2 civilians and injured 80 others.
https://www.voanews.com/south-centra...pause-few-days
Elmetiacos - Britain 2020: the final decline, or forging a new path?
Post 4
Originally Posted by 95thriflemanEngland has been a nation for 1000 years. It's laughable to think we can't survive leaving a trading bloc that has only existed for around 30.
Ἀπολλόδοτος Α΄ ὁ Σωτήρ - The Afghanistan Papers
Post 5
Originally Posted by GromovnikThe war serves its purpose admirably, so it will continue in perpetuity.
Wonderfully put... Excellent place for both testing weapons on live targets whose lives are clearly held as... not quite valuable, but also for corrupt construction deals... build a one gas station, charge 43 million dollars for it. In Pakistan same size gas station costs around half a million...
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Originally Posted by Legio_ItalicaI think this excerpt from the WaPo interviews sums up the situation well:
“We don’t invade poor countries to make them rich,” James Dobbins, a former senior U.S. diplomat who served as a special envoy to Afghanistan under Bush and Obama, told government interviewers. “We don’t invade authoritarian countries to make them democratic. We invade violent countries to make them peaceful and we clearly failed in Afghanistan.”
I know that this requires a sophisticated understanding of psychology and sociology that US policy makers sadly lack, however, droning mothers who had given birth a few hours before being vaporized tends to make people very sad or very angry, or both. Angry people living in harsh conditions tend to be a bit more prone to resolving their grievances in an violent manner. Lots of people subjected to these kinds of actions might not be too much of a zealous Muslim, but if Taliban are the only ones who can provide them a means to kill those they hold responsible for the deaths of people they cared about they might just join the Taliban, unless they're an avowed atheist, communist or a liberal, not sure if there are many of those in Afghanistan.
