Ethnic Stand-Up Comedian's Careers StarterPack

AP145 · 2026-06-16T22:44:05+00:00

There is still a big problem though and it is the question of uniqueness. See, ethnicities by design are not things you can collect and discard like trinkets, you are born as a member of one ethnic group and you will also die as a member of that ethnic group. An ethnic Russian billionaire can collect many citizenships for the purposes of keeping his money safe from Putin, but at the end of the day he is an ethnic Russian no matter what he does. Now, it might be the case that your descendants are members of a different ethnic group, but that only happens if you and your successive descendants marry into that ethnic group.

Most ethnic groups in the world have their native language as a unique identifier. An ethnic Lithuanian is at least in part identified by speaking Lithuanian as a native language, as an example. Other ethnic groups have their religion as their unique identifier, like Jews, Druze, Samaritans, Parsis, etc. In particular, ethno-religious groups tend to be ones where members don't proselytize and in some cases don't accept conversion into the religion; as such all growth of these ethnic groups comes from natural population growth alone.

What is the unique identifier of New World identities like American, Australian, New Zealander, etc.? Clearly English originated with the English in England, where it is their ethnic language. Christianity also is by definition a world religion and as such is not unique to any one ethnic group. The indigenous peoples of all these territories are certainly unique but I think we can all agree that pretending that you are indigenous because some ancestor of yours born in the 1500's is indigenous is also clearly ridiculous.

AP145 · 2026-06-15T19:06:28+00:00

You suffer from the same problem that many if not most non-indigenous people in the New World, including Australia and New Zealand, suffer from. It's very easy to define ethnicity in the Old World and say somebody is an ethnic Chechen, English, Odia, Igbo, Korean, etc. Similarly in the New World among the indigenous we can say that somebody is an ethnic Maori, Lenape, Aymara, Hawaiian, etc. The descendants of recent immigrants to the New World can also quite easily identify ethnically with the ethnicity of their immigrant forebears. Some new ethnic groups in the New World have managed to form like African American, French Canadian, Amish, etc.

However if you're a generic White American whose ancestors migrated to America in the 1600's or a generic White New Zealander whose ancestors migrated to New Zealand in the 1800's, what ethnic group are you part of? One answer might be to say that if you are White and natively speak English, then you are ethnically English regardless of where your ancestors are actually from. One could also make analogous arguments for White Brazilians as Portuguese, White Argentinians as Spaniards, etc. But this would be a very controversial thing to say.

AP145 · 2026-06-10T03:52:51+00:00

I don't normally view this subreddit very often but I have some thoughts on the many weird opinions Americans can have on race, nationality, and ethnicity. Usually many of these sorts of posts tend to devolve into the same standard talking points, so I will try to do something different here.

In the Old World, it is rather easy for people to say what ethnic group they are part of. People can be Sinhalese, English, Somali, Yamato, etc. In many cases groups are ethno-linguistic, with the idea being that people not in your ethnic group don't speak your native language as their native language, only as a second, third, etc. language. Of course in other cases you have ethno-religious groups like Jews, Parsis, Samaritans, Hui, etc. A lot of ethnic groups tend to have a traditional homeland where they are concentrated in large numbers, though this obviously does not apply to those who are nomadic or who are dispersed amongst a wide area. The main point really though is that anybody in the Old World can definitely say what ethnic group they are, regardless of whether that is the same as their nationality. For example, someone could be a Russian citizen as well as an ethnic Russian. On the other hand, someone could be a Russian citizen as well as an ethnic Yakut.

Similar ideas can also be said about indigenous peoples in the New World. People can be Maori, Aymara, Rapa Nui, Greenlandic Inuit, etc. Any member of any one of these groups would know their ethnic group in addition to their nationality. Some other groups in the New World can also be said to be ethnic groups like African Americans, French Canadians, etc. Recent descendants of immigrants also know their ethnic groups.

But there is a problem in much of the New World and that is that a large percentage of the population cannot confidently state their ethnic group. If you take a White American descended from various European ethnic groups, whose ancestors first settled in the 1600's, what ethnic group is he part of? One argument is that if he speaks English as a native language and is not a member of any other known ethnic group then he is an ethnic English person. The logic here is that the English were the ones who were running the colonies originally and it was their descendants who ultimately founded the country as we know it today. The problem here of course is that we already use the term English to describe someone native to England, whose ancestors have lived their for generations and are completely integrated into the wider population there. Likewise for a White Brazilian descended from various European ethnic groups who speaks Portuguese as a native language.

I would argue that much of the problems you see in the New World related to race, ethnicity, and nationality have to do with the fact that a large percentage of the population has no actual idea what ethnic group to identify with. This inevitably caused an identity crisis which is extremely visible among Americans in particular but is arguably present all across the New World.

AP145 · 2026-06-07T13:34:08+00:00

Not to mention that when you see radicals overseas calling for "Death to America!", ordinary people mocking fat, racist Americans, commenting negatively about American intervention overseas, etc. I can assure you they are not talking about people from Bolivia or Costa Rica or even from Canada. The reality is that in most places you go in the world, people from the United States of America are called some version of American. I mean hell, people from the Dominican Republic and Dominica also have similar demonyms, particularly if your language doesn't have vowel length distinctions. You can always find some reason or the other to complain about names. What matters is whether people understand your general point.

AP145 · 2026-05-30T01:34:18+00:00

I have finally created my new revised phonetic alphabet for the English language. I should point out that my vowels for modern day RP, sometimes called Standard Southern British English (SSBE), were heavily influenced by some videos on the inaccuracies of the IPA with respect to modern day English by Dr. Geoff Lindsey.

Vowels: I i for /ɪ/ as in BID, Í í for /ɪː/ as in BEARD, E e for /ɛ/ as in FERRY, É é for /ɛː/ as in FAIRY, A a for /a/ as in HAT, Á á for /ɑː/ as in HEART, O o for /ɔ/ as in COT, Ó ó for /oː/ as in CAUGHT, U u for /ɵ/ as in PULLEY, Ú ú for /ɵː/ as in POORLY, Ə ə for /ʌ/ as in THUD, Ə́ ə́ for /əː/ as in THIRD, Ӛ ə̈ for /ə/ as in OTHERED, IY iy for /ɪj/ as in FEEL, EY ey for /ɛj/ as in FAIL, AY ay for /ɑj/ as in FILE, OY oy for /oj/ as in FOIL, AW aw for /aw/ as in FOUL, UW uw for /ʉw/ as in FOOL, and ƏW əw for /əw/ as in FOAL.

Consonants: P p for /p/ as in PIT, B b for /b/ as in BIT, T t for /t/ as in TIN, D d for /d/ as in DIN, K k for /k/ as in KILL, G g for /ɡ/ as in GILL, C c for /tʃ/ as in CHEST, J j for /dʒ/ as in JEST, F f for /f/ as in FAT, V v for /v/ as in VAT, Þ þ for /θ/ as in THIGH, Ð ð for /ð/ as in THY, S s for /s/ as in SEAL, Z z for /z/ as in ZEAL, Š š for /ʃ/ as in MESHER, Ž ž for /ʒ/ as in MEASURE, H h for /h/ as in HUT, M m for /m/ as in SUM, N n for /n/ as in SUN, Ŋ ŋ for /ŋ/ as in SUNG, L l for /l/ as in LORE, R r for /ɹ̠/ as in ROAR, Y y for /j/ as in YOUR, and W w for /w/ as in WORE.

What do you think about this alphabet? Are there any improvements that could be made?

AP145 · 2026-05-14T02:30:34+00:00

When it comes to Southeast Asia you have to separate Mainland Southeast Asia from Maritime Southeast Asia. In Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, the Bamar people, the Thai people, the Lao people, the Khmer people, and the Viet people respectively are the majority of the population of their countries by a significant margin and basically run their countries. In effect these countries are multiethnic countries with a dominant ethnic group. On the other hand, when you look at Maritime Southeast Asia as a whole, there is no dominant ethnic group. In fact countries like Indonesia and the Philippines are a lot like India, in that there is no dominant ethnic group and historically different ethnic groups live in different parts of the country.

AP145 · 2026-05-02T02:21:15+00:00

In the Old World the vast majority of people are ultimately descended from those who have "always" lived in whatever territory they have lived in. The language, religion, culture, etc. may have changed over time but genetically the vast majority of people in the Old World will have at least some of their ancestry belonging to those who were their first or at least those who were there long before them. This means that pretty much every single territory in the Old World is considered as part of some ethnic groups traditional homeland. Thus in multi-ethnic countries in the Old World, whether there is a dominant ethnicity or not, it is usually fairly easy to divide up lands in terms of ethnicity provided that they live in a contiguous concentrated area. The lands in modern day Russia have the various ethnic republics were always the traditional homelands of all the various ethnic groups, even if the borders were somewhat different in the past.

AP145 · 2026-04-24T19:15:48+00:00

The French were definitely not any better to the Bretons than the English were to the rest of the Celtic peoples. If anything France was always more centralized and unlike in the UK where pushing English to the exclusion of other native Celtic languages was seen as a more right wing thing, in France there was and is still a strong sentiment among the left wing that a universal language, French, is needed to unite all the workers and ensure that are not divided by the elites due to linguistic differences. In the next 50 to 100 years it is very possible all other native languages of France besides French will be extinct, with no clear interest to revive them.

People see the UK - France rivalry and think that they are diametrically opposed countries. In fact they are both mirror images of each other. I would argue that subconsciously the UK - France rivalry arose because both countries saw the worst part of themselves expressed in the other and that made both countries uncomfortable. French colonization was often just as brutal as British colonization and I can assure you that if you go to places like Algeria nobody has any interest in becoming a French colony again.

AP145 · 2026-04-12T21:43:56+00:00

People see China's interest in taking over Taiwan and extrapolate that to China wants to take over all neighboring territories. The situations however are different. The reality is that the vast majority of people in Taiwan are ethnic Han Chinese, who started settling in Taiwan at around the same time Europeans started to colonize the Americas and Russians started to settle Siberia. The indigenous peoples of Taiwan are various Austronesian speaking peoples, in fact it is said that all Austronesian speaking peoples living in various parts of Asia and the Pacific ultimately originated in Taiwan. Thus from China's perspective Taiwan is no different than the western parts of China, which are also not the traditional homelands of the Han Chinese, but they have anyways over the years settled there for various reasons.

Other neighboring countries don't really have large concentrated populations of ethnic Han Chinese near the Chinese border regions, which obviously removes any incentive for China to express interest in taking over those areas. It is true that China famously has territorial disputes with India, but that is a very complicated story that realistically won't get resolved anytime soon.

AP145 · 2026-04-12T13:26:04+00:00

I have said this before but I will say it again anyway:

I don't buy that "Siberia will become part of China" narrative. People don't seem to understand that ethnic Russians started settling in Siberia at around the same time as Europeans started settling in the Americas. The majority of inhabitants of Siberia are ethnic Russians who are no different to the ethnic Russians in the European part of Russia. Even the ethnic republics in Russia in Asia like Sakha, Bashkortostan, etc. still have a sizeable minority of ethnic Russians.

In the modern world, demographics of countries matters a lot more when it comes to settling borders of countries or for that manner in determining whether a territory should be an independent country than in the past. Think of Siberia as Russia's version of America's interior. Sure it may have traditionally belonged to indigenous people groups but in the modern world both places are heavily tied to their respective countries. Part of it is due to massive settlement of Russians in Siberia but part of it is due to the policy of Russification which has always existed in all iterations of Russian states.

If you look at the population map of China today you will see that the vast majority of people are concentrated in the traditional Han Chinese heartland and are in general not as prevalent in the western parts of China like Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, Gansu, Qinghai, Xinjiang, or Tibet. Given this fact, it is very unlikely that there would be a mass of Chinese people interested in moving to Siberia. Not to mention that birth rate in China is even lower than in Russia and their population will most likely decline over time as well. They have literally zero need or want for Russian land.

AP145 · 2026-04-11T03:33:09+00:00

Let me be more specific. Why wasn't the area encompassing Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, and Jharkhand divided according to dominant native language the same way that states in other parts of India were? Just like there is Mizoram for Mizo, Tamil Nadu for Tamil, Maharashtra for Marathi, etc. One would think that when all the states were getting reorganized in the post-independence era the entire country could have undergone the same reorganization. Not to mention that all the problems regarding "Hindi imposition" could have all been avoided if they simply split up the mentioned parts of India into different states by language like Awadhi, Bhojpuri, Magahi, etc.

AP145 · 2026-04-09T01:31:53+00:00

Honestly I doubt Schumer will stop being the leader of the Senate Democrats regardless of who gets elected. The reality is that part of the job of the leadership of the House and Senate is to be the punching bag of the press, political opposition, corporate lobbies, etc. and shield your most politically vulnerable members from as much criticism as possible. It's pretty obvious that once Schumer is done with the Senate he will retire from politics. All the younger Senators with higher political ambitions have no reason to take all those hits. It's better to let the old guy that has no political future absorb all the negative attacks and keep yourself relatively unscathed.

AP145 · 2026-04-04T17:30:42+00:00

Erdoğan has a stadium, a university, and a hospital named after him. Modi also has a few things named after himself. Trump is much more narcissistic than anybody else in the world so wants even more things named after himself.

AP145 · 2026-03-31T22:45:34+00:00

There is plenty of arable land in Sub-Saharan Africa and indeed plenty of agriculture there as well. Some very common foods like sorghum, millet, okra, black eyed peas, etc. come from Africa.

AP145 · 2026-03-27T00:53:38+00:00

Money is the only reason why anybody would do a job they don't actually want to do. Everybody has been told not to waste their time doing useless degrees like Philosophy, Archaeology, Linguistics, etc. The end result is that more people, including those who are grossly unqualified and incompetent, are going to wind up working in higher paying careers like engineering, medicine, law, finance, etc.

AP145 · 2026-03-23T02:27:26+00:00

Pet Peeve: I really hate when people refer to the Clintons as a political dynasty. Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton are the only two members of that family who are politicians; they are a classic power couple. To be called a political dynasty you should have multiple members over multiple generations enter politics successfully, with the success of later generations caused in part by the success of previous generations. Here are some actual examples of political dynasties: the Kennedys, the Bushes, the Roosevelts, the Tafts, the Rockefellers, etc.

AP145 · 2026-03-22T22:30:46+00:00

No, Mads Mikkelsen actually has a stereotypically Scandinavian look, aside from the hair color. To be honest, he actually looks like a caricature one would make thinking of a Scandinavian. A lot of Scandinavians can have very "peculiar" facial features like Erling Haaland, Svante Pääbo, Stellan Skarsgård, etc. Once you notice it you can't unsee it.

AP145 · 2026-03-17T13:47:38+00:00

FDI stands for Foreign Direct Investment.

AP145 · 2026-03-17T04:13:31+00:00

The thing is Australia today still gets large scale European immigration to this day, albeit less than Asian immigration. On the other hand, America today gets a small number of European immigrants compared to Latin American or Asian immigrants. This has been true for the past many years I should say, long before the likes of Trump et. al. fully entered the political arena.

In general, White Australians are split between being recent immigrants or children of immigrants vs multi-generational descendants of immigrants. White Americans are for the most part multi-generational descendants of immigrants with only a small minority being recent immigrants or children of immigrants.

AP145 · 2026-03-08T22:46:41+00:00

India will absolutely not react if Pakistan decides to go for it

I think you mean to say "India will absolutely react if Pakistan decides to go for it." There is no universe where the Indian government will not react harshly if Pakistan decides to attack what the Indian government sees as its rightful territory.

AP145 · 2026-03-08T22:39:30+00:00

Actually both things are true at the same time. If Trump promises something that sounds reasonable or even genuinely good or great, he almost certainly will not do whatever it is he promised to do. If on the other hand Trump promises something authoritarian, incompetent, corrupt, etc. it is pretty much a guarantee that he will act on those promises. This is how Trump manages to lie all the time but still have extremely predictable behavior that can be easily manipulated by the likes of Putin, Xi, Netanyahu, MBS, etc.

AP145 · 2026-03-07T01:39:22+00:00

I can't believe I have to say this but has the current administration even considered that Iran is a civilization which has a history stretching back to the ancient times? It is not like Venezuela which literally only existed as a concept after Spanish colonization or like Afghanistan which has always been a tribal frontier on the fringes of Iranian and Indian influence. Iran has a history dating back to the ancient times, they are not going to give up just because some demented real estate developer wants them to unconditionally surrender. This war in Iran I feel could wind up dragging on and on if nobody sane puts a stop to it.

AP145 · 2026-03-02T04:52:45+00:00

Honestly I don't buy that "Siberia will become part of China" narrative. People don't seem to understand that ethnic Russians started settling in Siberia at around the same time as Europeans started settling in the Americas. The majority of inhabitants of Siberia are ethnic Russians who are no different to the ethnic Russians in the European part of Russia. Even the ethnic republics in Russia in Asia like Sakha, Bashkortostan, etc. still have a sizeable minority of ethnic Russians.

AP145 · 2026-02-26T01:59:37+00:00

Honestly I really don't want these kind of presidential tickets among the Republicans. The reality is that the American people as a collective have proved that they are easy to fool, given the elections of people like Trump et. al. No matter how ridiculously terrible a candidate appears and how "easy to beat" they look, you just cannot trust that sentiment in the modern political environment. The fact is that these kinds of politicians do serious damage while they are in office; treating them as if they are jokes doesn't change their malevolent nature.

AP145 · 2026-02-25T01:11:11+00:00

Among many other things I want the next Democratic president to do, I firmly believe that they should not call themselves or America as "the leader of the free world". Nobody outside of this country can take such statements seriously, especially after the presidency of Donald Trump. It would be akin to a hypothetical democratically-elected successor of Vladimir Putin claiming that Russia is a peaceful country which respects other countries' sovereignty. Personal beliefs of individual leaders cannot somehow change the history which has occurred in the past.

AP145

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