There is no argument to be had here. That is literally a wallet.

Is Aliexpress better than Temu?

It may not be as long a stretch as it seems.

Climate change is in many ways an extension of neocolonialism ie. localizing benefits while externalizing harms. Western countries, despite making up 20% of the global population, are responsible for 50% of global cumulative emissions.

Back during the Earth Summit in 1992:

“In view of the different contributions to global environmental degradation, States have common but differentiated responsibilities. The developed countries acknowledge the responsibility that they bear in the international pursuit of sustainable development in view of the pressures their societies place on the global environment and of the technologies and financial resources they command.”

Based on this, the Rio declararion explicitly stated that developed countries must take the lead in combating climate change and its adverse effects.

As we all know, these responsibilities were ultimately betrayed

The world has a way of rebalancing itself. We may not see a complete rebalancing in our lifetimes but the process has already begun.

History doesn’t exist in a vacuum I’m afraid. If an entity, whether it’s a person or a nation, commits atrocities and then stops doing so after becoming rich from it, can we call that justice?

Leopold II turned the Congo Free State into his personal, horrific rubber-and-ivory fiefdom from 1885 to 1908 and used the profits to bankroll massive architectural and infrastructure projects in Brussels, Antwerp, and Ostend (e.g., the Cinquantenaire park, the Royal Palace of Laeken, and the Antwerp Central Station).

The profits were deeply integrated into Belgium’s financial and industrial sectors.

DRC’s vast diamond wealth currently flows straight to Antwerp, meaning Belgium still captures the high-value “refining and trading” end of the supply chain, while the DRC is left with the environmental and human cost of raw extraction.

Major Belgian conglomerates, or companies born out of the colonial structure (like Umicore, formerly Union Minière du Haut-Katanga), transitioned from colonial owners to powerful multinational players. They still hold significant strategic advantages and interests in extracting critical minerals like cobalt and copper from Central Africa.

When the DRC gained independence in 1960, its first democratically elected Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba, wanted to nationalize the country’s resources so the Congolese people could finally benefit from them. Fearing the loss of mineral access, Belgian officials (with the help of the CIA) were deeply complicit in Lumumba’s overthrow and assassination, replacing him with Mobutu Sese Seko, a brutal dictator who let Western corporations keep extracting wealth while plunging his own country into poverty.

Colonialism may have come to an end but Belgium is still a neocolonialist nation. So we can’t even give it the benefit of saying that it has stopped.

This is for informational purposes only. European colonial history is not well taught in the Western world so it’s important for people to realize that just because it was overlooked in their education that doesn’t mean it’s really ended.

CPR

The first thing I thought was Persian / North Indian woman. So odd that Nazis co-opted that history.

The first thing I thought was Persian / North Indian woman. So odd that Nazis co-opted that history.

I didn’t know international law recognized European countries as special.

Damn never realized this but every boomer homeowner is actually an investment savant. Why are we all so stupid? Why can’t we just do this? ^/s

This varies a lot by specialty but many doctors would like to see less patients and would be open to be paid less to do so, so that they can take more time on each case.

There was a time (boomer era) where doctors owned practices and had meaningful leverage in the system. Now all of those practices have been bought out by private equity. Most doctors are employees and if they band together in any way the hospital administration has tools to stamp it out because this is America.

I’ve worked at several instiutions in the US where either doctors or nurses sought to unionize and through that effort institute safer patient care practices. The hospital administration stamped it out in every case. Even just the optics is challenging because if you make the suggestion of a strike they will run to the media and insinuate you’re betraying your oath and putting patients in danger. Many people are guilted out of participating.

There are somewhat successful unions in the country but if you’re in a region where there isn’t one, having a grassroots one succeed is very difficult.

Perhaps the most influential and lucrative specialties (neurosurgery, interventional cardiology, orthopedics) could move the needle if they didn’t have to spend all their time working but everyone else who isn’t an MBA administrator has unfortunately become a replacable cog in the system. This is the nature of American capitalism. It enshittifies everything.

Xi Jinping is a huge football fan. China implemented a plan to qualify over 10 years ago but their federation has been rife with corruption. The previous coach Li Tie (who played in Premier league) is in prison for 20 years for bribery.

https://apnews.com/article/china-soccer-bribes-a3fee6547c9fe9f3734d65d23108cf46

The Pakistan Football Federation has had issues with infighting, political interference, and corruption for decades. FIFA has repeatedly banned Pakistan from international football due to third-party/government interference in the federation.

Do you have any examples of cricket matchmaking? From what I’m reading, the planning amounts to always putting Pakistan and India in the same group to maximize viewership and timing the schedule to optimize viewership in India since that’s where the most viewers are.

Easy there Baahubali

Part of the longevity of the US version was the decision to make characters likable, especially Michael Scott / the manager. The UK version leans hard into the cringe / social ineptitude and gives the manager essentially no redeeming qualities.

True that it takes a degree of imagination. We can draw a fairly direct line from Brahmagupta, Al-Khwarizmi, Fibonacci, Piero della Francesca, to Leonardo da Vinci describing the East to West transfer of zero and the decimal place value system.

It often comes down to what a culture considers “useful”.

A man so caught up in scientific inquiry and progress that he cares not for the people in his life, who he’s obligated to protect. He fuses his daughter with his dog, proclaiming his great achievement while the new chimera begs for death to be put out of its misery.

The show explores subverting rules of the universe, life and death to a degree.

I hear the same about the conceptualization of zero as a numeral that operations can be performed on (a crucial turning point in human thinking) which is also laughable. It simply was not compatible with the Greek understanding of mathematics which emphasized the discrete and trigonometric but fit very well into the more abstract view towards math on the Indian subcontinent. There’s a reason why human discovery has global roots.

If the “enlightened” world is totally on board with genocide then we are so fucked.

If dynamic pricing isn’t capitalism decaying back into the feudalism it came from I don’t know what is.

To each their own. I’m fascinated by how societies may normalize and justify such practices over time but I am a student of history. The why often helps to eliminate the regressive practice in a sustainable way.