@trudheim.se
I like both Stoic and Buddhist philosophy, electronics, IT, woodworking, and generally just pondering life. I also have been known to say Ni! and I like little white picket fences, not too big, not too small. Avoid salmon mousse.
Woot!
A missile that does 1200 m/s - that is awesome. That's 4,320 km/h or 2,700 mph. Yeah, good luck shooting that down with conventional weapon systems.
Basically, Ukraine could see Russia launch an Iskander, and still hit Russia before the Iskander hits.
Hmm..
He did a Groucho on his eyebrows.
And here in Sweden, self assessment is through you getting a digital mail from our tax office and you basically check that it looks correct and then digitally sign it.
For most, it takes less than two minutes to do.
Utterly predictable from the moment the old guy was killed.
Mojtaba lost both parents, wife and child to USA/Israel. He won't rest until he sets both on fire.
Fair.
And point taken about decline narratives. Maybe "relevance" is a better term. An empire is relevant until it isn't and the world moves on.
Hmm..
Question: is that an accepted hypothesis? That the inflection point of an empire starting to decline is when they debase their currency?
But by then, they were already long into the slow and steady decline that started long before.
From a fiscal point, the moment they started mucking about with the coins, the writing was on the wall.
😂😂
When immersed in the moment, it is hard to be objective. It is far easier to note several centuries after the fact that "ah, yes, by this time they were past their prime".
The romans themselves probably did not realise just how bad things had got until the Vandals sacked Rome.
An empire may actually "advance" even in their declining phase. They're just not able to capitalise on those advancements. A younger and "hungrier" competitor might though. Until they fall, like every empire does.
*nod*
I'm not interested in the reactionary or fascist angle, though I can imagine that some people are.
It's a fact that empires rise and fall. How long they're around and how fast they fall are differentiating factors. "Decadence" and inequality seems common factors in the fall though.
This graph is the crude price. Take one look at the graph and then imagine what that will do to your bill at the pump, transport costs of everything and hence the price of food and pretty much everything else.
Buckle up, this'll get rough.
At this point, why not just point at the EU ruleset and say "comply with that" and throw in an application to rejoin.
It feels like that is the goal anyway, just with a lot of extra steps so Farage can't toot his horn over it.
But there is an accumulation of debt, both in economic sense and in a political and societal sense that starts adding up.
There isn't that hunger to prove the empire any longer, it's riding on the coat tails of old victories and achievements. And when that happens, you're over the peak.
The roman empire, if you can say that, peaked, probably in mid third century. (Historians - do educate if this is off.)
The problem with empires decline is that it is slow at first. There is rarely *one* event to point at and go "there, that's it".
AFAIUI, Rome's decline began well before the split into east and west roman empire. It probably (doing a bit of guessing since I didn't major in History, nor were alive at the time) began sliding 80-120 years prior.
Wow.
That's what you call precision.
Devaluing their currency. Corruption. Nepotism. Inequality.
Factors that, along with political infighting and external threats (Visigoths, Vandals etc) ultimately brought the empire to its knees.
Isn't the decline here pretty much the same as in the case of Rome, just that it is progressing faster due to the technological advances made in the nearly two millennia since?
I'd love a thread by historians that lay it all out. 🤗
omni.se/a/QJ7nJq
Availability of shipping fuel is not good. Normally, fuel oil is cheaper per barrel than crude, which suggests that stocks are sparse already. And if refineries are slowing down or being turned off - it'll get worse.
This will hit international trade hard.
omni.se/a/pBQJd1
China researchers advocate for a second Great Wall, this time for power plants and other critical infrastructure, to make it harder for hostile actors to both detect and strike.
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China's paying attention. Will EU? @ec.europa.eu
omni.se/a/V6Py43
As if things were not bad enough. In Australia's Northern Territory, flooding have brought an unusual pest with it. Crocodiles. People are warned to not head out in the waters.
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Only two animals in the world view humans as legitimate huntable food.
Polar Bears and Crocodiles.
Another one is the absolute lack of accountability for the upper echelons in the capitalist hierarchy. They can break the law with seemingly impunity - but woe the regular worker that put a foot wrong.
Until the law is applied fairly and equally, no matter the size the bankaccount - it's all a sham
This is *one* of the things that irks me about capitalism.
Those espousing the views and actions that lead to risk of life, limb and livelyhood - are never themselves at any risk.
It is galling hypocracy.
For a long time European countries helped USA out when USA stormed head first into yet another conflict without thinking first.
But this time, after all the insults, threats, belittling - the appetite for helping out is none.
And when USA can't even show cause, there won't be any help at all.
Yikes.
60 days is two months. We're already a week into this. The clock's ticking. If this isn't resolved by first week of May - this summer is going to be rough.
Usaians that worry about petrol being $5/gallon - start worrying about it approaching $10/gallon.
From where I sit today - there is little to no difference between USA regime and Russia or China regime.
I've no quarrel with the *people* of any of those countries. But the regimes of those countries? They all deserve a Nuremberg trial of their own.
USA has had a very bad habit of dabbling in other countries to undermine legitimately elected regimes in favour of "friendly" puppets. Often with horrific results.
Some foreign policy actions have stoked or ignited conflicts instead of defusing tensions.
I asked my parents what it meant, but didn't get a satisfactory answer. It wasn't until over a decade later, in history classes, that I started to get an idea what it might mean.
By the time the second Iraq war rolled around, and after that, I encountered the album "The Fire This Time" - clarity.
I was about six or seven. Because we were a low income family, our entertainment was cheap, so we used to do "go for a drive" which could last hours.
On one of them, I noticed a boulder with the words "USA vill krig" ("USA wills war") spray-painted on them.
An interesting thread, and I hope you expand on it, not from the vegan angle, but from the land and animal angle, because it seems to me like there is a lot of "old" knowledge there that would be a shame if it were lost to the ages.