The shit that doesn't merit its own thread (the resurrection)

General Chat
4471

I might have said an age of nationalism. But there was another one in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries driven by competitive colonial expansion as European nations sought to acquire the wealth of less well-armed places abroad.

Perhaps the root cause of nationalism is competition ? Nations work best when they’re large enough to compete but still sufficiently small that when the winnings are shared out the winners do very substantially better than the losers. Once we’ve eliminated competition there will no longer be any need for nations.

VB

4472

Was that not driven by the rise of capitalism?

That would be nice.

4473

As the multinationals have shown, capitalism doesn’t require the support of a state, indeed it’s sometimes defined in terms of private ownership of capital as opposed to national ownership. Restrictive nationalism and competition wouldn’t have helped the early capitalist institutions e.g. the Renaissance Italian bankers. Capitalism did play a role a little later though, particularly through organisations like the East India companies in the seventeenth century.

VB

4474

FWIW, this slim book, first published in 1983 is worth reading. Very thought provoking and pertinent to the current global situation.

4475

I have just had occasion to refer to drainage in the lower field.

2 Likes
4476

Is this what we’ve come to? To add insult to injury 70% of the fine goes to a private firm who are, no doubt, perfectly fair and honest when dishing out the fines. The Guardian analysis is clearly fake news.

:disappointed:

4477
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4478
4479
4480

This species is so dangerous it has to be kept in a cage.

image

(stolen from twitter)

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4481

China does not fuck-about when it comes to feeding its zoo animals, eh?

3 Likes
4482
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4483

There were loads of sirens last night near me, and an air ambulance. There was a car crash, in which a car ended up on its roof.

It’s a 20 limit.

4484

"I was going through my phone media to prepare it for a factory reset and came across a… file named “tempSoundPlay.3gp,” wrote the user nicknamed tydoctor.

"The file was a full audio recording six minutes long of the last time I had used the app to control my… vibrator. (We used it at a bar while playing pool).

:open_mouth:

4485

Thank you, amusing.

But my (mid-eighties, getting frail) Mum with a shoulder replacement is now used to getting hauled aside

by metal detectors on Newcastle- Southampton flights.

The thing that distresses her most is that it seems all the security staff are trained not to look her in the eye.

Just following procedure, without the intervention of humanity, is not good enough.

4486

Fully agree. Have you complained to the airport?

4487
11 Likes
4488
4489

apparently I now have access to:

Speed Faithing
Join the Chaplaincy, Equality Office and Student Union for an afternoon of Speed Faithing in celebration of Interfaith Week
A fun opportunity to say all those things you wish people knew about your faith or lack of faith and a chance to ask other people questions about their beliefs in a fun and safe space

4490

If you go, could you ask on my behalf what the point of God allowing Dr Mengele to do those experiments was, and whether He/She really couldn’t think of a less distressing way of achieving whatever that point might be.

VB

3 Likes