HN user
Thank for your reply.
I see we agree on most points except the final point which is ok because I was not arguing whether or not the British empire supplanted a culture that had violence - that topic of discussion would is incredibly complex and I wouldn't be able to make sweeping statements on it. But I can see that you have proven that perhaps some indigenous nation's in North America had a culture of violence.
But this thread is not about other people, I haven't said that it was ok if Spanish or some indigenous people's were carrying out violence or just the British carried out violence.
I have made a statement that the British Empire is absolutely / objectively bad - what's the comparison aiming to do?
Ok, firstly I am unsure how any of the above refutes my statements about the British Empire.
You have decided to get into the semantics of conquest vs land theft. My reading of your reply is that conquest is an excusable activity?
My understanding of your argument rests on that everyone does it (conquest) so what the British Empire did was only unique in its scale.
I think your question and argument takes on more a personal morality question and I will present you with the way I think about it.
A couple of questions, if you have different answers to me then we just have different personal belief systems and we can leave it at that.
Do you excuse murder, rape, kidnapping, robbery in your current life as just being something people and chimpanzees do?
If the answer is no (I am sure it is) then why do you say conquest is excusable? Which by my definition is just larger groups of people engaging in the above mentioned crimes?
I do not want to be celebrating an organisation which is responsible for those crimes.
Finally, indigenous people's violence (and remembering there are 1000s of nations across the world which is kind of ridiculous to be saying them all at once) does not culturally define them in the same way mass violence defined the British Empire.
Violence, oppression and misery was the modus operandi of the British Empire.
Please you tell me, do you think conquest is different to land theft?
To me they are the same thing
I totally agree - and just wanted to point it out as people always reach for the what about those other people when discussing these topics.
I had my awakening on this subject in my 30s, I started to read academic writing on colonialism. Having grown up in Australia and knowing colonial history having been learnt from the British perspective I was just shocked at my ignorance on British Empire and it's colonies was.
Your argument is a rhetorical diversion away from my comment regarding the crime's of the British empire.
When someone commits a murder do you say. Well what about all the other murderers?
What hypothetical American indigenous tribes may or may not have done is not the subject of this thread.
No absolutely, sorry if I sounded that way.
I certainly was not saying you were excusing, just adding an addendum to your comment.
That is such a great point about universal suffrage, a point completely overlooked far too often (by people including myself).
A private corporation committing atrocities is still the country or empire that sets the rules. It's still British people carrying out / orchestrating the violence.
British equally carried out similar atrocities there is so much evidence of this. But none of it is taught in British or Australian schools, I also was brought up with the myth of "British weren't as bad as so and so"
Here is the map of British massacres in Australia that have written evidence (so you can double, triple the actual number). They have this right across their empire.
https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/colonialmassacres/map.php
If detail accounts I recommend reading "Conspiracy of Silence" a detailed account of massacres throughout colonial Queensland in Australia, the accounts and actions and just as horrifying.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17674559-conspiracy-of-s...
You are forgetting enslavement and genocide of indigenous populations they encountered, the Atlantic slave trade, mass land theft all in the pursuit of profit.
No indigenous population was left better off - as much wealth and resources as possible were looted.
To say that it was anything but utterly disgusting is an understatement.
The whole thread is off the rails, just conspiracy and rumour
This is precisely what I have realised is my special skill as well!
I can read the manual / docs and I can cast an eye over third party packages to see how it works it astounds me that so few people take these simple steps.
When I was a smoker, my smoke breaks were the thing that was noticed, I used to have one in the morning and one in the afternoon.
Was incredibly awkward (due to the addiction) and in hindsight incredibly shortsighted on behalf of the company due to how productivity works.
Now most of my inspiration comes from taking breaks.
I read Allen Carr's easy way to give up smoking.
It was amazing, it opened my eyes to what my addiction actually was and I have never been addicted since reading that book.
Been twelve years addiction free.
I totally agree but at what price point.
I do think supersonic was just priced out of the market. Would you pay twice for the time saving?
Yes but this is my point is there are great reasons why concorde failed but equally it's technology was not enough of progress to overcome the fact that 747s could do things at much greater scale and more economically.
The reach of aeroplane travel is far more impressive now than flying under a 100 people at supersonic speeds.
I also dispute that there was mass transport plans - the total passenger load was tiny.
Not to take away that the plane itself is an amazing piece of technology.
Scale is everything though - great technology is nothing without reach
Having a total of 20 supersonic airlines wasn't exactly common place.
And spending 1.5% of your GDP to send like ten people to the moon probably isn't that great an achievement from a cost benefit analysis (I know there will be fierce disagreement).
Not taking away from how amazing those things are but we have billions of computers that connect most people in the world together which in my opinion just insanely amazing.
They are beautiful, mischievous, highly intelligent birds.
My favourite video of a cockatoo removing the pigeon spikes from a building.
I would say please don't cage these beautiful wild birds.
Best: you get the most life satisfaction from working to your best ability all the time.
Worst: some workplaces allow the negative workers on the team to get away with anything.
Interesting that it is so widespread- from my perspective it's great that there people now have leverage in negotiating their wage
How do you know it's not that more people have access to cheap loans, more people are wanting construction done?
Firstly, thank you for preserving some of the natural ecosystem on your farm. That is a tricky choice to make but from what I see driving about you are in a minority.
You take a drive from Melbourne to Sydney and you get to see the effect of livestock farming, it's been completely denuded of natural vegetation everywhere where it's flat enough to smash down.
The destruction is right there in front of your eyes. Knocking down scrub for cattle farming wipes out the natural environment, there are some species where it does good for them or kangaroos and birds that like open grasslands but for everything else it's really bad.
Drive from Melbourne to Adelaide you get the same thing.
Australia knocked down more open forest in the last four years than they did in the Amazon - 90% for beef farming.
You can grow crops on a much smaller area, without even mentioning organic crop growing where you don't use chemicals to wipe everything out.
My thought is it's for people who are meat replacing rather than being vegetarian.
I agree with you about so many foods to choose from.
For me as a vegetarian it's an absurd thing wanting to eat something that tastes like animal but it's a taste thing so it's just a subjective view of mine.
But you should be mindful about it and try and minimize your impact.
Precisely - quite fascinating their multi-faceted approach
My partner had a subscription I do not remember her having any issues cancelling it.
We are in Australia.
I used to use hyperterminal as a child to transfer if we didn't both have unlimited hour ISP access.
Clearly it would be prevailing attitudes of white supremacy.