581–590 of 605 posts
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yes indeed. Probably everyone in Stockholm knows 'George Floyd' but would be entirely unaware of the names of locals who have suffered police brutality right there at home
But, I mean, aren't Swedish police much better at respecting the rights of suspects and thus already better at avoiding George Floyd-type situations?
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The assimilation goes both ways. American culture is heavily influenced by our immigrants. Looking at food, we Americanize practically any culture’s food, which may just mean changing the seasonings a bit (like making it less hot-spicy), swapping ingredients (Americanized Asian food in the US doesn’t commonly include organ meat), or branching out in tons of directions like we’ve done with pizza. Irish, German, and Je…
While these things are quite influential and continue to the appeal of American culture, they are unable to affect many core attitudes like capitalism, Manifest destiny, and other hallmarks of American navel-gazing.
It’s a high bar to put capitalism (plus an obsolete concept and handwavy other things) as what immigrants need to overturn to have been considered influential to US culture, since in a lot of cases that is precisely what brings them to the country to begin with, and is like the main thing the US is known for.
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It's not a version of USA culture (not American), it's the propagation of Capitalism, of the "american" dream, of USA exceptionalism. The idea that their army is the coolest and will save us from aliens, that their bilionaires (oligarchs) are secretly superheroes, that foreign leaders are crooks secretly plotting to conquer the world and so on.
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Why restrict your kid's knowledge? I know about plenty of people in plenty of countries.
Did you have to read books about Slovenian history in school? There's not enough time to include everything about everyone. The history of the descendants of US slaves might be more interesting to people because of our cultural reach, but it's not necessary for Slovenian kids to learn except as an example of a well documented protest movement.
I read about the histories of many countries. Didn't you? England in particular, all of Europe, China .... How can you understand the world without knowing about more than your own corner? Why would you limit yourself?
On the one hand: If your culture needs a preservation movement, it's not a culture, but a relic. Culture is defined by people, not some sacred thing that needs to be preserved. How much of the Italian cuisine they're trying to protect would exist if they had the same attitude in the 1500s, when the tomato was introduced to Italy? On the other hand: I think countries should resist global cultural homogenisation. No of…
I watched a Dr. Huberman podcast on dance and language. One of the key takeaways was that speaking and thinking are interrelated. When you are thinking, the same area of the vocal chords are activated but with a lower intensity compared to when you are speaking. This means that what you cannot speak, you cannot think. By prioritising Italian, they are scientifically enabling the population to think more like Italians…
This is false.
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Armies are generally uncool.
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> Why constrain to a weird length of 75-80 years? Because I'm talking of a recent trend, and this timeframe offers a relevant context.
But your original assertion is that American far-right movement is being exported to Europe. Now if you are going to stop precisely at the moment when European fascism (which has a big influence on American far right) died down, then obviously that's going to be tautological. So not sure that qualifies as American export to Europe.
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Was that really the reason? What difficulty? They created this difficulty to find a chance to invade. There was a clear plan to create an addiction and even as it was banned to smuggle more and more into the country. A lot of things don't happen by chance. So does a certain country not actually have "weapons of mass destruction" etc.
The war came about through a trading inefficiency. The Chinese markets at the time (still holds relatively true today) was a selling market, not a buying market. They weren't interested in European goods. So European trading vessels would have to stock up on silver as currency, and sail to China to trade the silver for desirable goods such as porcelain and silks. European merchants didn't like this because its far mo…
Think about why the British even introduced Opium to China and who controlled most of the production. Do you really believe they weren't plotting anything here?
> If they were seeking to invade then European possessions in China would have been significantly greater than Hong Kong given the weakness of the Qing dynasty over the course of the 19th century
There are lots of ways to invade. It doesn't have to be via military might. It can be via the church, opium as we're discussing here or other factors before the actual fight.
> but in a similar fashion to today's US hegemony they were not always primarily motivated by conquest and annexation
Are we rewriting history here? What happened to Vietnam, Iraq, etc etc? More like the media tries to paint it another way. You're free to not believe in it. I doubt it's all for the GDP.
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> Try asking _anyone_ who doesn't have English as their first language in a serious context how they feel about their language and you'll struggle to find someone without a genuine fondness for it. Well. My first language is Polish, and there are some of us who call it "superpowers". If you go to a conference, you can be quite sure no-one understands you apart from your friend who you are talking to, and possibly tha…
Greek here, nobody understands us, period. It isn't anywhere close to anything else.
But I got a new greek buddy recently, and when she talks on the phone, my ears cannot lock on anything.
Edit: completely unrelated, but I saw your username on lobster on a dead man switch thread (I use Shamir’s Secret for treasure hunts to I thought the DMS idea was cool). Do you happen to have invites? I started to write again, and wanted to post something but I don't have any account.
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Greek here, nobody understands us, period. It isn't anywhere close to anything else.
I usually can grab a few things from tone alone for a lot of languages. But I got a new greek buddy recently, and when she talks on the phone, my ears cannot lock on anything. Edit: completely unrelated, but I saw your username on lobster on a dead man switch thread (I use Shamir’s Secret for treasure hunts to I thought the DMS idea was cool). Do you happen to have invites? I started to write again, and wanted to pos…
I think I have some invites, can you email me about it?