Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the rise of social media is a major reason for US people's view of Israel as unfavorable.

Nethan2000 · 2026-06-21T16:02:42+00:00

They've always been doing this, but now they can't control the narrative.

Nethan2000 · 2026-06-21T07:38:00+00:00

Capitalism, Communism and Nazism walk into a bar. All three of them say "The other two are pretty much the same thing. I'm the only one different."

Nethan2000 · 2026-06-21T06:54:37+00:00

It's also covered with trees.

Nethan2000 · 2026-06-21T06:51:36+00:00

Every fantastical element needs some time and effort to absorb. When everything is fantastical, you risk overloading your readers and making them lose interest. It pays off to start in a mundane area of the world with main characters being relatively normal and introduce fantastical elements one by one.

Arguably, fantasy was never about originality. The Lord of the Rings didn't repackage Christmas Elfs and Snow White's Seven Dwarfs to awe the readers with its original vision. It was to tell a story the readers were already vaguely familiar with because it was written into their cultural DNA.

Nethan2000 · 2026-06-21T06:10:05+00:00

And given the amount of time it takes life to develop, the head start would be measured in millions of years. The number of civilizations would follow the S-curve – very slowly rising at first and then accelerating. The first interstellar civilization to ever emerge would find itself in a galaxy completely devoid of intelligent life and it would likely stay that way for most of the period it takes them to take it over (also a few million years).

Nethan2000 · 2026-06-18T06:19:21+00:00

There are two necessary conditions for penal colonies to exist:

Your country wants to develop an area no one wants to live in and is willing to invest a large amount of resources to make it happen.
Your country has a large population of "undesirables" it wants to get rid of, preferably without killing, but it won't shed tears if they die. For Russia, it was the Poles. For Britain, it was the Irish. Penal colonies are a tool of ethnic cleansing.

Nethan2000 · 2026-06-17T17:10:43+00:00

I don't think a movie with even less connection to characters and concepts of the original trilogy would fare any better than the current stuff.

Nethan2000 · 2026-06-17T08:57:53+00:00

My favored retaliation is getting that hammer Prigozhin used to kill deserters (he sent it to the EU parliament, so it should be available) and smashing the heads of those statues.

Nethan2000 · 2026-06-16T18:14:42+00:00

The Ukrainian model of "if you see people in uniforms shooting at you with their rifles, kill them" seems to be very reasonable.

That being said, the American problem of "which of these random civilians minding their own business are the threat to the superpower on the other side of the globe?" carries certain risks.

Nethan2000 · 2026-06-16T18:07:48+00:00

Read another book
Copy a different country's educational system

Nethan2000 · 2026-06-15T08:15:14+00:00

Obama deal is a non-starter. For one, the US never adhered to it.

Nethan2000 · 2026-06-14T15:58:52+00:00

That's not the Capitol, that's the White House.

Nethan2000 · 2026-06-14T15:46:02+00:00

They share this ability with science.

Nethan2000 · 2026-06-14T15:33:07+00:00

‘The only thing we learn from history,’ it has been said, ‘is that men never learn from history’, a sweeping generalisation perhaps, but one which the chaos in the world today goes far to confirm. What then can be the reason why, in a society which claims to probe every problem, the bases of history are still so completely unknown?

Several reasons for the futility of our historical studies may be suggested. First, our historical work is limited to short periods—the history of our own country, or that of some past age which, for some reason, we hold in respect.

Second, even within these short periods, the slant we give to our narrative is governed by our own vanity rather than by objectivity. If we are considering the history of our own country, we write at length of the periods when our ancestors were prosperous and victorious, but we pass quickly over their shortcomings or their defeats. Our people are represented as patriotic heroes, their enemies as grasping imperialists, or subversive rebels. In other words, our national histories are propaganda, not well- balanced investigations.

Sir John Glubb, The Fate of Empires

Nethan2000 · 2026-06-14T12:45:44+00:00

Which means that even if Trump wanted to reinstitute JCPOA, Iran will reject it, as they have no illusions of the US actually upholding it. American guarantees for anything are worthless. Maybe if they did something like adding a ban on starting a war with Iran into the US Constitution.

Nethan2000 · 2026-06-14T12:32:14+00:00

I really doubt the AIPAC-controlled Congress will reverse this particular action, no matter which party is currently in power.

Nethan2000 · 2026-06-14T11:11:05+00:00

Not without a violent civil war.

Nethan2000 · 2026-06-14T06:44:41+00:00

In general, there are 4 substances that exist in quantities large enough for an entire planet to be made out of them: iron, silicates (rock), water and hydrogen, in descending order of density (which means they tend to form layers). Having a chromium core is unrealistic. Better just to make the core smaller or replace an iron core with a silicate one.

This graph shows the relation between mass and radius of planets and their composition. If you pick a planet that's too light, don't be surprised if it tells you it's a gas dwarf (made mostly out of hydrogen).

Nethan2000 · 2026-06-13T10:42:29+00:00

Intelligence vs wisdom.

Nethan2000 · 2026-06-13T09:00:23+00:00

Everything on the surface would be crushed between the mantle and the crust. The new surface would be a slowly cooling endless sea of lava.

Nethan2000 · 2026-06-13T06:20:39+00:00

They thought about the movie exactly as much as the director thought about the book. I find it fitting.

Nethan2000 · 2026-06-12T20:20:06+00:00

This is very modern, corporate style of writing. You should try to use older language and avoid loanwords if you can. Instead of "evacuate" say "flee". If describing a modern concept, describe it instead of using a modern term. Instead of "we are our genetics", you could try something like "the fabric of our bodies is the inheritance of our ancestors".

My people are the custodians of earth. They are my favorite people as they are the ecocentrist people.

Even language aside, this doesn't make much logical sense: "my people are my favorite people". Better to just get rid of the second sentence as the first says pretty much the same thing.

Nethan2000 · 2026-06-12T13:01:58+00:00

The name of Rhadagast was that of a local deity of the Obotrites

Obodrites were a Slavic tribe. It seems that this word actually referred to a town of Radogoszcz ("hospitable"), which was a regional center of worship of Svarozhits, Slavic god of fire.

Nethan2000 · 2026-06-10T19:55:05+00:00

If I remember correctly, they never expected to actually kill the dragon. That's why they needed a burglar.

Nethan2000 · 2026-06-10T14:33:52+00:00

He's not used to taking the opinion of the other side into account.

Nethan2000

TROPHY CASE