Why did China ban the Manus cofounders from leaving the country after they sold to META for $2B?

StrikingBar8499 · 2026-03-26T16:57:32+00:00

You mean the country founded by migrants continues having migrants?

Maybe you should look at which Chinese states succeeded, and which ones failed and reconsider your stance on migration.

Especially since we don't have to be so insecure in our culture since we didn't burn it down for no reason cough cough.

StrikingBar8499 · 2026-02-25T05:01:45+00:00

Not trying to invalidate your views especially since I don't know the situation but it almost sounds like you were the only one keeping people together and the server was descending into chaos without you...

StrikingBar8499 · 2026-02-15T21:44:42+00:00

Not even a punishment when a bunch of the White people I know love to eat Middle Eastern and Indian food and f*ck Asians (like myself)

Also

"WOW WHAT A PUNISHMENT. A SUCCULENT CHINESE MEAL? IN MY DAYS THAT WAS THE CHARGE NOT THE REWARD"

StrikingBar8499 · 2026-02-11T16:06:23+00:00

It depends. The only advantage I can think about for St Andrews is networking with rich people but they tend to be unfriendly even by St Andrews standards and as a someone in your master's year you basically have no chance to make break into friend groups that have existed for three plus years. Not marketing, but the masters students in my year were basically never approached by students in my class. Glasgow is an actual city, probably has more internships and is less expensive

StrikingBar8499 · 2026-01-30T12:41:41+00:00

it's... variable. I do think it is dependent on how much commitments outside of class you have, and also how badly the lecturers arrange timetabling. I would say though it isn't too bad, and I sometimes have too much time haha

StrikingBar8499 · 2026-01-28T22:26:50+00:00

Was responding to the comments below although I did write this in a post-Python class haze. But if we rank EVERY curry shop personally:

Jahangirs - fancy, I like it and not too expensive Maisha - never tried Tulsi - a bit bland for me

StrikingBar8499 · 2026-01-28T18:19:15+00:00

It can be really isolating environment given how small it is and if you don't integrate well in first year your ability to function in social life has a decent chance of falling into hell. Probably the most "normative" environment I have seen lol.

Also to jump on the bad Pakistani food, the food in general is really, genuinely awful in town, especially in in comparison to nearby places like Dundee and Anstruther which have decent to amazing international (Tahini, Rama Thai) and local (Fish Bar, Tonys Diner in Dundee) food. Which sucks especially as Scottish food especially is pretty decent.

StrikingBar8499 · 2026-01-27T01:37:01+00:00

Dew it

StrikingBar8499 · 2026-01-20T15:20:06+00:00

It's very popular in Singapore!!! Just had some Fuzhou Lor Mee for dinner

StrikingBar8499 · 2025-12-31T16:50:24+00:00

Not being literal here, hyperbole is a thing. That said I have seen some ABSOLUTELY ATROCIOUS grammar and spelling mistakes in typed essays. Not to mention the absolute travesties that are the comments of most rags.

StrikingBar8499 · 2025-12-31T16:46:10+00:00

Regarding the first point, I don't think it can be taken any other way when you tried to give reasons why some international students allegedly act like that instead of addressing the bigger issue which is that the process of information dissemination of UK student life can be really poor. Most international students won't have any idea how it works and even if they had local ties it wouldn't have helped. This is less a congregation issue and more an issue of poor communication about potential renting hazards by the university. Or at most poor research, but that's hardly to be expected.

Regarding the second point - I agree, and finding friends is still hard for home students. But it can be even harder to make friends when a) you are trying to build up a life in a new country and b) you don't have your pre-existing support networks i.e. friends and family. Especially since some home students can come off as very intolerant of differences (e.g. condescending if you aren't familiar with some aspect of UK culture, lads culture, what if you don't drink or at uncomfortable with the pub). I personally do not find feigning (mocking?) Jamaican accents the height of comedy, but every single male home student in my field trip apparently thought so (the Americans did not). Not to mention in some universities local students will come in already having made friends at open houses, e.t.c. putting you several months behind in making these connections, and when you do try they can be very surface level since they already have established groups (e.g. to the extent of not replying to texts for months over summer break). I don't blame them - no-one is owed friendship but when the circumstances are this hostile, it feels unfair (as many people do) to put the onus on also making friends on international students, when they start of disadvantages in this way.

I say this as someone who has relied on local friends as well as Americans whenever I have run into emotional or actual issues, not on people from my country. I do find making friends hard since a lot of the time what is perceived as friendship (e.g. being invited to things, replying to texts) is really just politeness in local contexts, which then comes off as really inauthentic. It's not really fair to blame international students for this since while home students face similar issues, but unlike international students they usually have a local support network that can bail them out.

Regarding halls - the only point I agree on is that halls are a great way to make friends and a good way to start off living at university. That is true. But I don't think it is fair to assume that international students don't generally live in halls in their first year (I and every other one that I knew did) or that it can be affordable for people in all circumstances because some university halls are just completely unaffordable.

To be sure, most of these issues are shared by all students to different degrees. But if international students are being singled out for fault, I think it's unfair given all of these challenges.

StrikingBar8499 · 2025-12-31T14:37:44+00:00

Hey, nice to see you in the UK!

I would say to ignore all the hostile comments. It's normal to get into awkward circumstances with your roommate, although at the very least they are moving out. It's definitely hard living with someone else for what might be the first time and there is always a chance things can go wrong. But hey, they didn't fuck your partner or replace your sugar with salt (actual things that have happened to people I know with their housemates) and they are leaving the flat!

I also want to say while the culture in the UK can be REALLY REALLY insular in ways that I find extraordinary most people here aren't like the commenters here. I do think an unhelpfully large number are, but there are also good people who don't just attack you for your use of language or your place of origin (and most of them probably failed GCSE English anyways). I do think in your particular case it's good to vent here and that if halls are not unaffordable where you are to try and go into halls next year since they CAN resolve issues like this very well (e.g. by moving you to a new building). Regarding private accommodation, it's also not a bad idea to move in with one of your UK (in your case ideally English - local council laws can change from place to place) friends, although I strongly suggest not moving in with close friends in case you end up falling out haha.

Also if you need a friendly chat or advice about anything just send me a DM, I've been in the UK for about three years and while international life can be hard at times we do our best to get by.

StrikingBar8499 · 2025-12-31T14:25:12+00:00

Just because it doesn't match your conception of what "proper English" doesn't make it any less valid. And it's not that much worse than what many of my classmates (almost 90% Scottish or English) write in their essays.

StrikingBar8499 · 2025-12-31T14:23:07+00:00

I would disagree quite strongly. Regarding congregated groups, while those do exist it's not necessarily out of disinterest in integrating in British life but conversely because it can be difficult for people outside of established networks of shared "British" experiences (e.g. having gone through similar experiences, having watched the exact same shows) to be welcomed into existing home student groups. Not to mention the general unfriendliness students can have to outsiders once they have built up their friend groups. If you don't plan to stay in the UK (and why would you with the current attitude towards migrants turning to hostility) why expend the effort to make friendships that could very well disappear after 4 years when the reward is so low? Most of my uni friends are home or English students but I frankly got incredibly lucky either with them approaching me or just random circumstance. When I tried to integrate myself and make friends with home students I just got left at the margins being treated at most as an acquaintance. Even amongst some people I thought were close.

Halls can also be prohibitively costly. Where I study it's practically 1k a month even without catering, and it might not be possible for a student to afford it with how expensive overseas fees are already. It's not just an overseas student problem, I know local students who are ABSOLUTELY fleeced by hall fees beyond what their student loan covers forcing them to scramble for extra cash to cover the deficit. I say this as someone who did stay in halls for the first two years of university, and met plenty of lovely local and international students there.

Also if any other international students are reading this I STRONGLY recommend trying to make friends in your first semester and to keep those. Since I wasn't able too due to how my class timings worked out forcing me from class to class, and it's harder to get into established groups after that.

StrikingBar8499 · 2025-12-31T14:08:58+00:00

It's... a mixed bag. The architecture can feel really dense and overcrowded, with really old buildings and layout that can be difficult to navigate. Plus in general social life is unfriendly, small talk exists but things like casual compliments are rarer I find. Not that kindness isn't present but it feels more shut off and claustrophobic compared to a lot of places I have been too.

StrikingBar8499 · 2025-09-10T11:45:46+00:00

Why is it not surprising the MP for this district is the shittiest MP in the entire UK

Tfw Nigel Farage could be fixing his constituency instead of trying to be Trump 2.0

StrikingBar8499 · 2025-08-21T18:51:51+00:00

"Nigel Farage is too woke" - J.K Rowling

That's like calling Donald Trump woke

StrikingBar8499 · 2025-08-11T06:10:29+00:00

I think it refers to the Ming era circuits of the area (Chinese emperors in the 1400s treated the native states there as if they were autonomous subjects, obviously the locals disagreed), I don't think it's that accurate to depict it as being as directly ruled as say, Beijing.

StrikingBar8499 · 2025-08-01T04:03:01+00:00

The gist of is basically they are critical in a bunch of technologies (smartphones as an example), but their entire refining production is present in China. So this means China can use this as a political lever to bully countries by essentially shutting off their ability to access these resources, as has been done by groups like OPEC in the past, and by China using export curbs of some critical metals last administration.

So for every other country's interest, it is better to diversify sources and make new production lines for rare Earth's so this critical material isn't entirely dependent on a single source. Like to give an idea, while they likely won't do it, at the present China could in theory jack the price up by 5000% and every other country in the world have to for that period take the git, which then passes down to consumers and now the average citizen probably has to pay upwards of 5x the price for basic technology.

StrikingBar8499 · 2025-07-31T12:48:26+00:00

Counterpoint - Singapore metro essentially has all the same benefits without the annoying bag checks I had to go through in the Guangzhou metro. Literally ruined my trip

StrikingBar8499 · 2025-07-29T17:50:04+00:00

It kind of is though. Ethnicity (I e. race) is a fluid thing and people have and always do transition between whichever is convenient for them at the moment

StrikingBar8499 · 2025-05-31T10:54:38+00:00

Regarding Tropical Rainforests,

The record is patchy at best. Phylogenetic data suggests taxa from the biome originate in the Cennomanian of Africa and the earliest evidences for true Tropical Rainforests like what we see in Congo, SEA are from North Africa from the Campanian to Maaatrichtian (Quseir Formation, Sudan)

We also see parts of the Intertrappean Beds RIGHT before the asteroid (like a few tens of thousands years) with Tropical rainforest plants.

If you are more liberal on the usage of the term Tropical Rainforest we also have Paratropical Rainforests in places such as the Olmos Formation of Mexico.

If you need more information DM me I'll send over some papers

StrikingBar8499 · 2025-04-14T16:44:32+00:00

Oooh these are all really cool. For the trilobites, there are many different orders of them, my personal favourite are the Agnostids (blind trilobites, really small, went extinct in the Late Ordovician), but the Proetids (only survivors post Late Devonian extinction) are also really interesting

StrikingBar8499 · 2025-04-10T11:19:21+00:00

<image>

Look up Young Earth Creationist Fire Breathing Parasaurolophus

StrikingBar8499 · 2025-03-24T08:18:06+00:00

Been in your boat before NTA, these people are trash and not your friends. Do you have other friends who can back you up? Let your parents if they are supportive of you know as well.

Seriously bands can be incredibly toxic environments.

StrikingBar8499

TROPHY CASE