johnfabian
1yr ago
I actually think it will be a big missed opportunity if Galadriel doesn't fuck Sauron. Like if this is going to be shitty Tolkien fanfic, push all the chips into the centre of the table. Let's get crazy!
johnfabian
1yr ago
I always envisioned in the sense that if you can think of a single exception, then otherwise the rule is sound.
If you were to say "humans don't have brown hair" that's immediately false because you can think of dozens of examples otherwise. But if you could only think of one exception to a rule, then in general it's fairly sound.
johnfabian
1yr ago
At the time it was claimed more than 40,000 had died in the terror bombing of Rotterdam, but the actual figure was more like 1,000.
johnfabian
1yr ago
Kanye in his prime (haven't listened to his last few albums) had a very fun lyrical delivery with interesting rhyme schemes. example from "Golddigger":
Eighteen years, eighteen years
She got one of your kids, got you for eighteen years
I know somebody payin' child support for one of his kids
His baby mama's car and crib is bigger than his
You will see him on TV any given Sunday
Win the Super Bowl and drive off in a Hyundai
She was supposed to buy your shorty Tyco with your money
She went to the doctor, got lipo with your money
She walkin' around lookin' like Michael with your money
Should've got that insured, Geico for your money (Money)
If you ain't no punk
Holla, "We want prenup! We want prenup!" (Yeah!)
It's somethin' that you need to have
'Cause when she leave yo' ass, she gon' leave with half
Eighteen years, eighteen years
And on the 18th birthday he found out it wasn't his?!
then in the last verse the perspective flips:
Now, I ain't sayin' you a gold digger, you got needs
You don't want a dude to smoke, but he can't buy weed
You go out to eat, he can't pay, y'all can't leave
There's dishes in the back, he gotta roll up his sleeves
But while y'all washin', watch him
He gon' make it to a Benz out of that Datsun
He got that ambition, baby, look at his eyes
This week he moppin' floors, next week it's the fries
So stick by his side
I know there's dudes ballin', and yeah, that's nice
And they gonna keep callin' and tryin', but you stay right, girl
And when you get on, he'll leave yo' ass for a white girl
johnfabian
1yr ago
Definitely a thing among male (and otherwise white) academics in Canada, especially because they're the ones most vulnerable on identity grounds.
johnfabian
1yr ago
The written word is vastly more information dense than any other medium. Say you want to know something more about a subject: maybe it's wormholes, maybe it's the Taiping Rebellion, maybe it's about music theory. Well if you want to get even the slightest bit of insight it requires reading a text. A youtube video cannot approach virtually any subject with the required depth. Listening to someone read a text is just inefficient; the audiobook version of the book I read over Thanksgiving weekend runs 53 hours. And some subjects require a combination of plain and pictorial text/illustrations to get across key concepts.
If you want to learn anything about any academic subject, there is no substitute for reading.
johnfabian
1yr ago
he still defended himself with a snide remark about 'he could have made more money with the haters' (where is all this free money, Eric? how do I turn my 'hate' into cash money?)
there is absolutely a section of youtube which is just people pumping out long-winded rants about contemporary "woke" media. Which whether or not the criticisms are correct (and they often are because much of it is dire), it's nevertheless just an endless sea of performative negativity, at its heart not much different from the ones who are playing the reverse game with the algorithm by endlessly fêting the newest Disney/Marvel/whatever product. It can't be mentally healthy to just watch an endless stream of videos bitching about the casting of The Little Mermaid
johnfabian
1yr ago
Wiki is an encyclopedia; it's a primer on a topic, and a good resource for finding more in-depth resources, but not a substitute for actual academic work. A good academic history, for example, will go far beyond what is able to be captured in a wikipedia article. For example, the wikipedia article on the Thirty Years' War has a bit shy of 16,000 words (and much of that is devoted to the bibliography/footnotes). A recent prominent history on the subject that I read has ~256,000.
johnfabian
1yr ago
Kiev was the front line for a good portion of the early war.
johnfabian
1yr ago
The problems within autocracies are that there is always incentives to suppress the free and open flow of information. The sort-of classic text in this genre is Why Arabs Lose Wars, but the problems extend to all closed societies
johnfabian
1yr ago
I've got a deep enough knowledge base that I think I can wade in with an answer. First thing to note: what you are describing as "colonialism" is, very roughly speaking, three very different types of colonialism.
In the first instance, you have what I'd call "merger" colonialism. This was the kind practiced in central and south America by the Spanish. When the Spanish landed in the New World, they found themselves two large, urbanized, literate, complex, and populous states in the Triple Alliance and Inca. Both probably had a larger population than Spain itself at the time (Mexico probably had something like 2.5-3x the population of Spain), and both had expanded very rapidly in the century previous. They were big, overstretched empires with lots of internal and external enemies, who were very glad to help these strange dudes in shiny clothing who happened to show up just in time for serious strife. It's hard to overstate just how lucky the Spanish conquest of the Americas was in retrospect, and difficult to understate the degree to which aid from rival indigenous groups helped topple the Aztec/Incan empires. In any case, the Spanish did not wipe out the previous governmental or state structures; rather they placed themselves at the top and married into important local dynasties. The subsequent Spanish crown colonies had a Mestizo elite (that Castile often tried to push back against).
In the English/French colonization of North America, the situation was quite substantially different. Serious attempts at colonial ventures began roughly a century after the Spanish entry into the Americas, and somewhere on the order of 60-80% of the indigenous population of North America had died off from introduced diseases in the interim. The east coast of North America had already seen a fair amount of trading and interchange even if there had been no serious attempts at settlement, and the tribes living along the coast (and somewhat less so into the interior) were ravaged with disease. Somewhat more amusingly you have anecdotes like how when the Plymouth Colony landed the first native they met greeted them by asking in English if they had any beer. Unlike further south there were no large states to conquer; even the Iroquois Confederacy which gave European settlers such a hard time peaked at only slightly more than 10,000 people. This was in large part a virgin land with the large bulk of the pre-existing population destroyed before arrival. Settlement did not face the same military response, nor were settlers obliged to marry into indigenous families. The climate was also much more favourable to Europeans and largely lacked the (imported) African diseases that made the Caribbean so deadly to settlers post-1600.
In the subsequent European colonization in Africa, India, China, etc. the ratio between the colonizers and the colonized was even more extreme. By the time the East India Company had taken control over most of the Indian subcontinent, its administrative functionaries (~1,500 men) ruled 300 million souls. I've just finished reading a book on the East India Company's takeover (The Anarchy, by William Dalrymple) and it is kind of mind-boggling to try and process how a few men in dingy offices in London can effect the conquest of a region so much vaster in wealth and population. It's hard to nutshell exactly what caused the "Great Divergence"; there are various ideas, namely with respect to the burgeoning industrial revolution, Enlightenment principles of rationalism and liberalism, and the revolutions in military science (both theoretical and technological). But I think it is important to stress that it was not for the most part Englishmen who conquered India, but rather largely Indians assembled, trained, and organized by Englishmen. Other colonial takeovers were similar to varying degrees; they tended to be small European expeditionary forces that, once landed, trained and organized local forces to do the bulk of the conquest/occupation. Which I think is getting more along to the point you were wondering about: what changed?
Nationalism is the easy answer, if somewhat of a simplification. In some cases it is less nationalism and some other method of pan-identification, but the principle is simple: Europeans were able to leverage significant technological advantages wielded by small groups of men to exert control over massive numbers of people because most of those people did not care who they were ruled by. In fact, when intervening in regional affairs, many groups would prefer to have foreigners be in charge rather than their rival; especially ones so self-evidently powerful. Why would some tribe in Gabon prefer to stand in solidarity with the tribe next to them they've warred with for a thousand years, instead of the guys with Maxim guns? If you're some local noble in the Laotian highlands what does it matter to you if you're ruled from Paris instead of Hue? And if you're a peasant why care at all as long as the harvests are good?
This is the kind of thing you could write 100k words on easily and not get anywhere so I'm trying to keep things simple. Before mass literacy there is no mass politics, there is no nationalism, there is no reason to care about the guy 30 km down the road, there's no reason to worry about who rules over you except for how it matters to the here and now. There is no class consciousness, there is no sense that you, a farmer, has more in common with a farmer a few towns over than the priests or tanners or dyers who live in your town.
Why didn't Indians unite against the British? Because they didn't know they were Indian. Various polities tried to cobble together anti-British alliances with the help of the French (the most successful being a Maratha-Mysore pact that inflicted a few crushing defeats). But this was all elite squabbling. There was no larger identity to draw on.
Now there are other elements here. These different forms of colonialism wasn't all that profitable in the end; go have a look at the GDP per capita rankings of western European nations and look how neatly it fits to their colonial pasts. Would the USA want to colonize the Philippines or Liberia like it did in the past? Would France really retake Algeria if it could? The west is still plenty able to extract wealth out of these places without requiring armies and colonial administrations. And we could if we really wanted play at war in these regions. We could kill millions. But it would be brutality with little benefit, and a lot of international backlash.
johnfabian
1yr ago
Even "Hinduism" is sort of a retcon as a religion; it's really just a jumble of dozens of local Dharmic traditions rather than a unified confession.
Overriding the Constitution to avoid negotiating with janitors
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms has a little escape hatch that has gotten more attention in recent years. By now I suspect there are even a handful of Americans who have heard of the notwithstanding clause; a segment of the Charter that allows provincial/federal governments the ability to temporarily pass laws that violate certain Charter rights (essentially all the rights except those that pertain to the democratic process). The Canadian Charter is a very popular document (in my opinion, it's one of the best things about my country), and the notwithstanding clause gained a sort of mystical aura in Anglo Canada since 1982 as a big red button that Should Never Be Touched. Outside of Québec, it had only been used a handful of times, and for fairly minor issues that many times were deemed by the courts unnecessary after-the-fact. A few other times it had been employed as a sort of rhetorical tool or threat, ultimately avoided because the legislatures did their job and resolved whatever problem they faced without having to use it. The political norm against not abusing it had become very strong.
Enter Doug Ford. Not the most respectful of norms (in the style of his late brother, who as Mayor of Toronto did a number of turned-out-to-be illegal things, and I'm not talking about smoking crack). His first use of the notwithstanding clause was immediately upon gaining power in 2018, in order to halve the size of the Toronto city council in the middle of Toronto's municipal election. Traditionally the provincial government does not interfere in the affairs of municipal governments, but again this was tradition only and ultimately the courts found that the use of the notwithstanding clause was not necessary. In 2021 he used the notwithstanding clause again to limit third-party political advertising in the run-up to the provincial election that he handily won. In this case the courts did rule that his actions were unconstitutional as they were restrictions on freedom of expression.
But his third use of the notwithstanding clause is the most bizarre, norm-upsetting, and (to me) infuriating of all. The contract for the province's school workers (janitors, early childhood educators, school monitors, basically the blue-collar school employees) is up. The average employee in this union makes $46k CAD (~33k USD). Their wage increases over the last decade was lower than last year's inflation. And meanwhile the cost of living has exploded, especially in the province's most populous areas. So obviously the province owes it to these critical workers to give them a good deal, right? This is not a case of some fat public-sector union, and the provincial government and society at large has spent the pandemic fêting the heroics of these essential "front-line workers".
Well, no. Instead the government is using the notwithstanding clause to override their Charter right to strike. Note that this is not back-to-work legislation; that process involves binding both parties to a neutral arbitration process that tends to give labour a fair shake. Instead this is the unilateral imposition of a labour contract by the state, a first in modern Canadian history. The union has declared its intent to strike anyways, but because this would now be illegal, the potential fines for this are up to $200 million per day.
There are no legal countermeasures available to the union. The provincial governments in Canada are very strong by design, but this was supposed to be balanced by social norms against abusing these powers. But with the increasing polarization of Canadian society and centralization of power within political parties, apparently the weight of the potential backlash has been weakened. It was never the intent of the notwithstanding clause to give provincial governments the ability to just force people to work on the state's terms because they can't be bothered to negotiate, yet here we are regardless. Unless the Prime Minister (or the Governor General) were willing to intervene from on high and use their big red button that Should Never Be Touched (disallowance), there's nothing to be done. But that would kick off a constitutional crisis over janitors, and I don't think Trudeau has the balls; he's no friend of labour regardless and oddly buddy-buddy with Ford (that's another topic though).
Even if you were indifferent to the situation of the workers, there's reason for concern here. This kind of flagrant norm-breaking is what tends to start unraveling countries. The notwithstanding clause was not supposed to be employed this way; indifferent and repeated use of it could turn the Charter into a piece of paper. What's to stop other provincial governments from using their powers in this way? What's to stop retaliation when some other party inevitably comes to power? It used to be that Canadian politics was largely regional, with provincial and federal representatives responsive to local concerns and willing and able to keep their leaders in line. That's gone. The safeguards against misuse of power have disappeared.
The strike starts on Friday, and I'm going to be out showing my support. I've tried to keep this write-up somewhat tonally neutral, but I'm truly incensed about this.
johnfabian
1yr ago
johnfabian
1yr ago
It's not all unskilled labour. Some custodial labour is skilled, and there are other roles involved here (like early childcare assistants) that require degrees or specialized education.
johnfabian
1yr ago
In Canada, pretty much everything of note policy-wise is decided at the provincial level, minus international affairs/defence and building cross-provincial infrastructure. The federal government's biggest role is collecting taxes and then distributing it to the provinces. Even the biggest federal projects enacted in the last few years has been childcare (and soon?!?) dental deals which again, amounts to giving cash to the provinces to spend on specific things.
However Canada's political culture is obsessed with the federal government, as well as the United States. So we have a very unproductive public discourse. Take the convoy truckers; the COVID restrictions they were protesting against were almost all provincial (except the federal border restrictions, but we were just mirroring the US and even if we had struck ours down it wouldn't have made a difference). Yet it was the federal government and Trudeau who was the target of the protests. It's not like they were going to protest against the mainly conservative Premiers.
Yes, janitors, like most working class professions, feel sympathetic to the average voter, but that sympathy gives them political power disproportionate to what the free market may otherwise dictate.
I'm aware of this issue. Certainly there are specific public sector unions which use their position to extract excessive concessions from the government. But this union's raises in the past decade combined were less than inflation last year. They have not been milking the province for all they could get. To have the government refuse to negotiate with them and just impose a unilateral contract on them is galling. If the PCs had wanted to they could've just enacted back-to-work legislation, schools would remain open, and arbitration would take care of it and get a fair-ish deal for everyone.
johnfabian
1yr ago
The government always could have passed back-to-work legislation and send this to arbitration. But instead they chose to unilaterally impose a contract on the union.
Politicians have gotten handsome raises throughout the pandemic. Does that not count as extorting the public?
johnfabian
1yr ago
Since then there have been numerous instances of governments using back-to-work laws. Off the top of my heads the feds used it for Canada Post in 2018 and CP Rail in 2019
johnfabian
1yr ago
It seems strange to use the word "tyrannizing" in the context of the government voiding constitutional rights, but having it apply to the ones whose rights are being violated
johnfabian
1yr ago
They have too much power.
The government could always send this to arbitration if they didn't want a work stoppage. Instead they violated the union's Charter rights.
There are certainly public sector unions that grow fat at the taxpayer's expense, but we're talking about a union whose average wage/salary is at about the Canadian median and has gotten dismal raises over the past decade. If they can exercise such power over the Ontario government they're showing it in an odd way.
johnfabian
1yr ago
The Quebec side used French farm lot shapes. The French style uses thinner strips.
It's highly visible on this map.
I remember learning about this in grade 5, it's called the seigneural system.
johnfabian
1yr ago
My opinion of Trump circa 2016 (that I think has largely been borne out) was that he would be like Silvio Berlusconi. He would be corrupt, he would be outrageous, he would weaken existing norms, he would drag political discourse into the mud and create a lot of drama. But the country wouldn't be much worse off after him.
The January 6th thing does make me think he was more sinister. I assumed that he had little interest in actually illegally seizing any power, because he had no interest in actually exercising it. But even all the "stolen election" bullshit seems more focused on his personal pride rather than any dictatorial aim.
johnfabian
1yr ago
Update to the education workers strike
Last week I wrote about how the Ontario government was voiding Charter rights in order to impose a contract on the union for education workers (basically, the employees in schools who aren't teachers or admin). They went on strike on Friday, there were protests over the weekend, there seemed to be a crescendo as both sides started to entrench, with other unions from Ontario and Québec announcing plans to strike or protest in solidarity, and rumours there would be a call for a general strike and then... thunderous anticlimax. The government of Ontario announced at 10 AM today that the legislature would rescind the bill and return to negotiations if the strike ended. The union appeared surprised at this (they had their own press conference scheduled right after to call for an escalation in strike actions, but had to delay it), and a few short hours later announced that schools would reopen tomorrow. The union says it reserves the right to strike (because now doing so would be legal; the actions up to now were illegal because of the use of the notwithstanding clause) but with tensions ratcheting down I'm betting on no more drama.
Basically this looks like capitulation from the province. They spent a lot of political capital on bringing out the Big Stick and then surrendered rather than smack someone with it. Maybe there will be further twists to come but it looks like they had an expectation of a much more muted public response. The Ford government relies very heavily on public opinion polling to mediate their decision making (all throughout the pandemic they were some of the worst offenders of trying to make policy via the latest poll) and apparently polling showed most Ontarians blamed them for the strike.]
Anyways I'm obviously tentatively happy about this. The atmosphere among the crowds in Queen's Park today was pretty jubilant. I really hope this is a shot in the arm for labour because it's been a long few decades without any meaningful wins in Canada.
I've seen it referred to as "CW casting" (in reference to a channel that pumps out mostly teen soap operas). Just blandly generic handsome people
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