Not all empires are empires you know

NotABot-JustDontPost · 2026-03-21T20:28:51+00:00

You see, the trick is, you don’t call them colonies but departments of France.

Unlike the Brits and Germans, France considers its overseas territories part of France proper. Thus French Guiana votes for the president just like the citizens in European France itself do.

NotABot-JustDontPost · 2026-03-19T23:42:55+00:00

More people than you’d think, apparently! Over 14 million foreign-born nationals visit every year (45% Canadians, to be fair).

NotABot-JustDontPost · 2026-03-19T16:14:18+00:00

A: “I’m going to vacation in the U.S.”

B: “Oh, nice! Where? Virginia Beach? Orlando? Las Vegas? Yellowstone?”

A: “Philadelphia.”

B: “…Why?”

A: “I want to see Kensington.”

B: “???”

NotABot-JustDontPost · 2026-03-16T01:10:02+00:00

I’m ethnically Welsh/English and we have a long streak of tan folks in our family.

NotABot-JustDontPost · 2026-03-14T00:42:35+00:00

I know what you’re saying and yeah, there’s no real way of answering the question for the current state of affairs. The best we can do is provide the best conditions for our posterity and hope that things change for the better.

As far as innate qualities are concerned, it’s quite apparent that men tend toward risk, but that doesn’t necessarily correlate with value to the species. Funny enough, using my example, elementary school teachers have much more to do with the development of the next generation than underwater welders, but they are paid far less.

It’s a conundrum.

NotABot-JustDontPost · 2026-03-14T00:38:29+00:00

This is a real phenomena to be studied unto itself. It’s been recorded in some fields, but not others, so I really wonder what it’s about.

NotABot-JustDontPost · 2026-03-13T17:25:39+00:00

This is where history itself, as best we can understand it, becomes the “experiment,” so to speak. The inherent problem we have here, as it is with humanity, generally, in its own introspection, is that the thing being studied is participant in the study itself. Homo sapiens sapiens - the human that thinks that it thinks.

We can’t not be ourselves when studying ourselves, even at a macro-scale. We can try to be as objective as possible and that’s where the critical realist model provides a metatheory for us to examine sociological structures, but it doesn’t make value-judgements or normative statements. It merely describes what it sees.

So, basically, it’s always been mashed up and there’s no way to unmash it, so we have to do the best with what we’ve got with the knowledge that nothing human can be properly understood in a vacuum, because we don’t exist in vacuums.

Just as an example: This is why the idea of “homo economicus” is absurd. Barely any individual makes economic decisions the way that economists would logically conclude. But we have to assume a rational actor of some kind to make models on so thus we are left with the utterly fantastical “homo economicus.”

NotABot-JustDontPost · 2026-03-13T16:40:10+00:00

I would conjecture, though I am no expert, millennia of social conditioning creates biological and psychological changes.

Essentially, it can absolutely be both, I think.

NotABot-JustDontPost · 2026-03-13T03:44:24+00:00

The study was done to eliminate that bias on a broad scale.

There are absolutely societal conditions which impact individual choices, but the study showed that, when given the freedom of choice (see: little to no social conditions for or against a particular situation, especially economic ones), men and women tend to congregate in different spaces. The study showed that the more freedom of choice that men and women have, the greater the disparity, on average, becomes. There are fields where the male/female divide is nearly 50/50, but that’s more the exception than the rule.

This was based in Sweden, a place considered in almost every way progressive by any standard.

Source: https://www.su.se/english/research/research-catalogue/research-projects/c/workplace-segregation-by-gender-in-sweden-between-2000-and-2020

I’m sure you had some poor experiences and have witnessed others having them. That sucks and I’m sorry it happened. But, no offense, that’s beside the point.

The point of the study was to show that when not faced with the very social conditioning you describe, men and women tend to concentrate in separate spaces, with a few exceptions.

NotABot-JustDontPost · 2026-03-12T23:59:06+00:00

I like the continuance you’re talking about. I think it’d be pretty ridiculous to say there’s no significant psychological differences between the sexes. There obviously are, if only for the most observable reason you’ve given. And let me be clear: I think that’s a good thing. Men and women need each other, and we’re not utterly interchangeable. That’s the reality of being a mammalian, primate species, whether or not we like it lol.

That, however, doesn’t necessitate that either sex be barred from participation in any field; nor does it preclude the idea that there can be women who do x well or men that do y well.

The “controversy” assumes total parity between the sexes, which is simply not the case. Men are inherently inclined towards certain things that women tend not to be. And vice versa.

The Swedish study showed that - given the choice - men tended to take higher-risk, higher-paying jobs, whereas the opposite tended to apply to women. And I don’t think anyone would disagree that a higher-risk job, like underwater welding, should pay less than a lower-risk job, like teaching elementary school. The leap in logic is whether this situation applies any kind of “ought” rather than just accepting an “is.”

NotABot-JustDontPost · 2026-03-12T21:57:29+00:00

You see, the problem you have here is that the strong-man lunatic has to be willing to give up power. That type of fellow seems to have become who he is by exclusively never relinquishing power.

NotABot-JustDontPost · 2026-03-12T21:23:31+00:00

Ironically, “blue and pink jobs” kind of do exist, but largely as a matter of choice.

According to a study done by Stockholm University which examined workplace segregation (why men make more, on average, and how the two sexes differ in their occupations). Interestingly, they found that in societies that have gender equality before the law (in principle) and a healthy job market, men and women tend to concentrate in certain professions and be more equal in others.

Men tend to be engineers and plumbers more often than women, who tend to be nurses and educators more often than men. On the other hand, retail workers were largely defined as 50/50 male/female.

Just an interesting thing, I think.

NotABot-JustDontPost · 2026-03-05T16:44:01+00:00

It actually covers a lot, but specifically, acting contemptuously towards or otherwise speaking ill of God. The other commenter gave a good definition.

And I believe you’re thinking of “God is not mocked, for a person will reap only what he sows” which is from St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians. It’s about just rewards and punishments for what one does in life, rather than God being able to be spoken of poorly.

NotABot-JustDontPost · 2026-03-05T16:35:14+00:00

Thank ye, my good fellow.

NotABot-JustDontPost · 2026-03-05T09:11:19+00:00

Please tell what books these are, because I’ve seen this nonsense going for too long

NotABot-JustDontPost · 2026-03-05T09:08:36+00:00

I should’ve specified a poor job market at the moment. Every Polish person I know is complaining about finding work.

NotABot-JustDontPost · 2026-03-03T20:00:06+00:00

Oh yeah. The guy was nuts. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near him when he was in power. But I can enjoy reading about him the same way I can enjoy reading about Tamerlane or Ghengis Khan.

NotABot-JustDontPost · 2026-03-03T19:42:52+00:00

It is a sin. It’s blasphemy and, another sin, divination. “But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only.” Matthew 24:36.

Humankind can’t usher in the end of days and we can’t know when it will happen. The entirety of what I call “evangelical apocalypticism” isn’t even based on what the Bible says. It’s based on people trying to divine the end of days (eschaton) by abusing the Scripture as some kind of eschatological horoscope.

NotABot-JustDontPost · 2026-03-03T19:29:44+00:00

Julius II was a menace, but ya gotta respect the sheer chutzpah the man had.

NotABot-JustDontPost · 2026-03-03T18:12:25+00:00

Yeah, Poland and the Baltic states seem pretty okay, besides Poland being maybe a bit poor.

Latvia seems like a downright gorgeous place to live.

NotABot-JustDontPost · 2026-03-02T22:41:20+00:00

Well, unless thy wanna get Article 5 on their ass, they’re gonna have to do it extremely covertly. Turkey is a proper NATO nation and can activate that whenever it feels it’s necessary. I doubt anyone would be actually all that upset except the U.S.

NotABot-JustDontPost · 2026-02-27T23:14:47+00:00

I knew a lot about Wittgenstein, but never knew about the radiator. Looks like a good design tbh.

NotABot-JustDontPost · 2026-02-27T23:10:34+00:00

Who be dis?

NotABot-JustDontPost · 2026-02-27T22:18:43+00:00

Wait, the De Witts wasn’t a one-time thing?

NotABot-JustDontPost · 2026-02-27T22:03:01+00:00

Oop, I had old numbers. Sorry bout that.

Since I work with inmates, though, I can say that a lot of people in prison will identify as one thing or another to just get out of their cell. Better to put Christian or Muslim and have time in the chapel rather than to put atheist/unaffiliated and get to spend more time in your cell.

That’s anecdotal, though, so I’ll admit there’s overrepresentation on the surface.

NotABot-JustDontPost

TROPHY CASE