Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Greenland is a beautiful nightmare

matduggan.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 352 posts

Re: Greenland is a beautiful nightmare

#111

Post by pcrh »

threemux wrote: post #47
danielscrubs wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly my thoughts. I think US ownership (not necessarily of land) is inevitable, but it is going to take a couple of decades of these kind of polarising pieces.

I think it even makes sense if it were pursued in a different way. Greenland is looking for full independence but can't really hack it financially without aid. I think the COFA (Compact of Free Association) model that we have with Palau and Marshall Islands would work well. We get expanded military rights and potentially some mineral/drilling rights, while Greenland gets protection, lots of money, access to USPS dome…

Greenland needs protection from whom? The only country threatening it is the US.

Re: Greenland is a beautiful nightmare

#112

Post by jb1991 »

Waterluvian wrote: post #48
Arainach wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then again, that stretch also has Gary. Having grown up in that area of the Midwest, I largely agree with the author's categorization, except that "people on their way to somewhere better who got tired and decided this was good enough" describes a LOT of the midwest, not just Indiana. Significant chunks of Michigan, Ohio, and Missouri, most of Iowa/Kansas/Nebraska, etc. If you read the history of westward expansion,…

I took a moment to realize there’s a place called Gary, Indiana. And that there isn’t just some guy who is so infamous that he’s just known as Gary.

It’s actually a very famous city, but not for entirely good reasons. For starters, it did in my youth have the highest per capita rate of murder in the United States.

However, Michael Jackson is from there. So there’s that.

Re: Greenland is a beautiful nightmare

#113

Post by majormajor »

WalterBright wrote: post #53
FridayoLeary wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The midges are horrific. It's amazing how something so tiny can make your life so miserable. I don't know how people in the olden days survived. I wonder what kind of social and political effects the midges had. I can imagine Scots with all their gifts of the mind and body fleeing and surrendering to the English just to get away from them.

> I don't know how people in the olden days survived. Maybe they found a material they could smear on their body. For a similar example, I have a friend who spends a lot of time hiking and camping. He tells me that the first day, he needs to apply sunscreen. The next day onward, he doesn't need to anymore, as his body oil and sweat seems to do the job. It makes sense that our skin has not evolved to be cleaned every…

Most people don't have nearly that good luck.

I'm fortunate that they just don't like me as much as some of the people I've done week+ hiking/camping trips with. I was ok with deet. Some folks still got dozens of bites even after it.

Re: Greenland is a beautiful nightmare

#114

Post by jb1991 »

W-Stool wrote: post #88
hinkley wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Illinois has a few rust belt towns as well. Decatur is the asshole of Illinois, with a water supply to match. Though for variety, it smells like old gym socks instead. Corn processing plants are almost as bad as paper mills, and when I lived there it had two, ADM and the very aptly named Staley.

East St. Louis, Illinois would like to have a chat with Decatur about which is worst.

Newark New Jersey just walked into the room. “The armpit of America“.

Re: Greenland is a beautiful nightmare

#116

Post by threemux »

epolanski wrote: post #104
threemux wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it even makes sense if it were pursued in a different way. Greenland is looking for full independence but can't really hack it financially without aid. I think the COFA (Compact of Free Association) model that we have with Palau and Marshall Islands would work well. We get expanded military rights and potentially some mineral/drilling rights, while Greenland gets protection, lots of money, access to USPS dome…

> Their citizens could also live and work in the US indefinitely. Not sure why Greenlanders would care at all. They can already do the same in Denmark, which is a country with far better standards of living.

Oh gimme a break. That's one of the largest benefits to COFA and is heavily used by the Marshallese. Greenland on its own is not a first world country - there simply isn't enough population/work and it's a hard existence as detailed in TFA.

You may not want to come here and that's fine, but it's a huge draw and will continue to be. Administrations are fleeting, but the allure of opportunity remains. You're posting on a forum that is somewhat of a monument to exactly that.

EDIT: some of this made a bit more sense prior to your hasty edit

Re: Greenland is a beautiful nightmare

#117

Post by phlakaton »

Waterluvian wrote: post #48
Arainach wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then again, that stretch also has Gary. Having grown up in that area of the Midwest, I largely agree with the author's categorization, except that "people on their way to somewhere better who got tired and decided this was good enough" describes a LOT of the midwest, not just Indiana. Significant chunks of Michigan, Ohio, and Missouri, most of Iowa/Kansas/Nebraska, etc. If you read the history of westward expansion,…

I took a moment to realize there’s a place called Gary, Indiana. And that there isn’t just some guy who is so infamous that he’s just known as Gary.

It is known for not being Louisiana, Paris, France, New York, or Rome.

Re: Greenland is a beautiful nightmare

#118

Post by paulcole »

> There is nothing distinct about Indiana, it's just a place full of people who got too tired on their way to somewhere better and decided "this is good enough".

This is how Norte Dame was (allegedly) founded. Priests set out from the East Coast, planning to found the greatest Catholic University in the world in California. They get to Indiana and encounter a terrible snowstorm. They hunker down and decide they’ll get moving again when the weather improved. It never did.

Re: Greenland is a beautiful nightmare

#119

Post by threemux »

pcrh wrote: post #111
threemux wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it even makes sense if it were pursued in a different way. Greenland is looking for full independence but can't really hack it financially without aid. I think the COFA (Compact of Free Association) model that we have with Palau and Marshall Islands would work well. We get expanded military rights and potentially some mineral/drilling rights, while Greenland gets protection, lots of money, access to USPS dome…

Greenland needs protection from whom? The only country threatening it is the US.

The Arctic will be the battleground and trade route of the future as it warms. Being associated with the US is preferable to the other options (Russia, China most likely). There won't be an option of the status quo.

Re: Greenland is a beautiful nightmare

#120

Post by throwup238 »

WalterBright wrote: post #53
FridayoLeary wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The midges are horrific. It's amazing how something so tiny can make your life so miserable. I don't know how people in the olden days survived. I wonder what kind of social and political effects the midges had. I can imagine Scots with all their gifts of the mind and body fleeing and surrendering to the English just to get away from them.

> I don't know how people in the olden days survived. Maybe they found a material they could smear on their body. For a similar example, I have a friend who spends a lot of time hiking and camping. He tells me that the first day, he needs to apply sunscreen. The next day onward, he doesn't need to anymore, as his body oil and sweat seems to do the job. It makes sense that our skin has not evolved to be cleaned every…

In Scotland they would have smeared bog myrtle over themselves. Other alternatives were animal fat mixed with an aromatic or even tar and pine resin. As far as I know most cultures had some sort of equivalent.

The best contemporaneous example would be the otjize clay rub used by the Himba in Namibia. It’s largely an adaptation to water scarcity but it also protects them from insects and cleans their hair and skin by trapping dirt and flaking off.

Post reply on HN