US slavery also lasted longer because it becomes self sustaining. Other countries had to get supplies of new slaves from Africa, that required an international trade network, which become a lot harder once the Royal Navy went World Police to try and stop the slave trade.
However in the US there was a self sustaining population of slaves, as you'd realised that if you worked the slaves to death more slowly then in they did in say Brazil, then they'd live long enough to generation more slaves.
It was easily for the US to maintain slavery because unlike other countries it didn't need to get new slaves from abroad.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranProtagonist
: That's true for a lot of places though. For example, Brazil had the entirety of the royal family. With D. Pedro the I, the II and the latter's daughter princess Isabel as the most notable. But even besides that there is stories like the emperor's grandchildren having a dinner with some freed slaves.
Well, that's just it, if you include the Civil War, its only fair to include every other country's histories as well. For the U.K., that means including what they did to the Irish in the 1800s. For France, you everything their overseas empire did. For Germany, you get Nazis. I'm not arguing that, today, our racists might be in somewhat higher positions overall than in Europe; but we will see what happens in the next few years.
Thing is other countries have moved beyond their past, the UK I does still have serious problems but I don't think the French romanticise their empire like we do, the Germans certainly don't romanticise the Nazies (or the religious persecution of the 30 years war) the same way. But the US (lol certain bits of it) does very much still romanticise and worship the Confederacy and other dark bits of the US's past, and it's normally done unconditionally.
We've moved on from our past, a lot of the US hasn't moved on from its.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranMight the fact that the United States of America is a very young nation compared to the European countries — whose respective histories and cultures, including folklore and mythic tales, can be traced to around 2000 years ago on average (more if the nation's culture is more or less a successor to the Roman Empire or the Greek city-states and affiliates) — and thus has little to nothing to fall back upon for "good old days" or "age of heroes" or somesuch, be a reason behind this refusal?
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.True enough. Still, you can hardly blame all of us if there are those in the south who don't want to move on. Its not even the whole south either; most of the legislatures made moves to bring down the stars and bars after the Charleston shooting.
Edit: ![]()
Actually, that is kinda my point. True, there are those in America who glorify the Confederacy. Can you honestly tell me there is no one is Germany who acts the same about the Nazis? I've heard two of the right wing parties in Germany described as Nazis; I'm assuming they have more support than their immediate family.
edited 22nd Sep '15 6:34:18 AM by Mopman43
They do, but it's still very tiny. As in, Vocal Minority at best. The post-war German government were pretty smart when they imposed that strict threshold on federal parliamentary representation to prevent another far-right extremist party from abusing their foothold in the parliament to rapidly increase their base of supporters. And most Germans hate Nazism, be they the older generations that remember the horrors of the Nazi regime and the legacy of their crimes that they were forced by the Allies to dig up with their own hands after the war (you know, the mass graves and all that), or the younger generations that their parents and grandparents taught them about all the bad things the Nazis did and cautioned them to avoid such evil.
edited 22nd Sep '15 6:55:06 AM by MarqFJA
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.![]()
Being associated with Nazism is a political death sentence. The NPD is mostly irrelevant since they got hijacked by Adolf von Thadden decades ago, and the only reason they weren't abolished by the state yet is because of our domestic security agency's incompetence. The Af D started out as an "Euroskeptic" populist party, but took a extremely sharp turn right after they ejected their leader and with him basically all moderate members.
Now it's just another NPD, doomed to become irrelevant in the next elections.
Some German citizens may elect "protest parties", but as soon as they notice just a hint of Nazism, most will drop you like a hot iron.
edited 22nd Sep '15 7:17:20 AM by DrunkenNordmann
We learn from history that we do not learn from historyTrue, but they are still there. My point is this: the tea party is something we have right now. It also seems to be trying to drive itself to oblivion with all the grace of a freight train. Eventually, the pendulum will swing back. By January 2017, maybe we will have President Sanders. Hell, even Hillary. I'd vote for a stump before I'd vote for anyone running on the right at the moment. We'll see.
![]()
Thing is I don't think the remaining Nazis have ever seen anything near the level of support and power that the conferate sympathisers have had since the end of the Civil War (well beyond the rise of the Tea Party).
Yes but that stuff isn't like the Confederate stuff, this isn't (beyond the UK) people hardening back to the old days of empire, it's much more new. We still have a lot of problems with racism but it's much more recent and the racists have much less power, they however do still exist and are trying to come back with a vengeance.
edited 22nd Sep '15 7:25:56 AM by Silasw
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranThere are several things to be said about this.
First things first, yes. Anything that happens in the United States is exagerated and exacerbated around the world for several reasons. For that I refer to the tropes We All Live in America, Eagleland Osmosis, and such. The United states, being a grand producer of cultural phenomena, seems to set a standard across the world that the rest of the countries are suddenly subjected to.
Hence, many situations such as Civil liberties for black people, Women's suffrage, and even Civil rights for homosexual people have been born in the United States' bosom, or rather, more than that popularized from there.
Ask people in Brazil how much they know about Martin Luther King vs how much they know about John Archer, or Paul Stephenson. Heck. Ask yourself. We know about Gandhi because the guy had his role in the liberation of India, but popular culture and academia ignores the facets of Irish sentiments behind the IRA and the Troubles and how related to race are they.
Yes. The United States is often blamed too much for some of the shit they pull. But understand that the culture of the U.S is still riddled with way too many cases of separating the immigrants. The irish racism is largely gone now, since there are new targets. Blacks, latinos and arabs. That Trump has Scottish blood would have been minus points rather than bonus points less than a hundred years ago.
That the U.S culture is riddled, historically, with the targeted denigration of race (Blacks. Irish. Blacks. Germans. Blacks. Russians. Blacks. Latinos. Blacks. Gays. Blacks.) is proof enough that the problem is persistent.
Is it more persistent than in other countries? Well. Ask the starving children in Africa. That is...because it might be worse in other places, it does not immediately make your problems any lesser. That other shit happens elsewhere does nothing to solve your problem, except deny its existence.
And that the U.S has this arrogant attitude toward it does not help at all.
And not to mention: The people in power have always, systematically been white people. The Trumps, the Kochs, the Vanderbilts, the Rockefellers, Lowell's...and they have always reaped the rewards of the benefits of other immigrants in the U.S.
It is also very loud in the U.S because since it is a population full of immigrants, they will inevitably gain some power. Bit by bit. Look how long it took you to get a black president. Zambia had a white president in 2004, and it is a majorly black country.
So yes, I am sorry to diverge a bit into a discussion of race, but the U.S has a distinct culture on accepting immigrants (which is a great culture) and then fucking them over for the benefit of the ones already in power (which is not a great culture). And just because there's children starving in Africa, it does not make it any less racist.
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothesWell, there were a number of reasons. Disease was one of them; basically, the natives died too quickly for plantation owners tastes, and could always run away to another native tribe. Black people brought in were resistant to the diseases the Europeans were covered in, and didn't have any point in escaping, given they had no connections anywhere in America. Interestingly, at the start of it, africans were treated as indentured servants and let go after a few years; it was only after a while of this that the whole thing became an institution.
Why do American car buyers shy away from diesel?
News broke this week that Volkswagen - maker of the Beetle, Passat, Jetta and Golf - has admitted that as many as 11 million of those vehicles contain so-called "defeat devices", or software designed to falsify emissions test results. When the vehicles are actually on the road, they spew nitrogen oxide levels up to 40 times higher than what shows up in the tests.
While carmakers like Volkswagen have recently made a big push to promote their diesel fleet in the US, they still make up a tiny percentage of the market - about 3%. In Europe, diesel cars make up about 50%. How did this disparity come to be?
Meanwhile, the opposite was true in the US. Petrol remained cheap, and American carmakers preferred to invest in electric and hybrid solutions.
There are also historical factors at play in the US. General Motors famously rushed diesel vehicles - most famously in its Oldsmobile series - to market in the late 1970s and '80s with disastrous results.
"The Olds diesel has been dogged by many reports of serious problems," wrote Popular Mechanic in 1981
. "Ruined projection pumps and injectors, worn cams and valve lifters, cracked engine blocks, and even broken crankshafts."
"It was spewing black smoke and failing and just doing badly," says Bruce M Belzowski, managing director at the Automotive Futures group at the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute. "When you get to that point where people start to say, 'I'll never buy another one of those vehicles,' it hurts your reputation."
Though that was more than 30 years ago, independent car industry analyst Bill Visnic says the memory lasted. Then there are other less concrete factors at play, like the perception that diesel is just "dirty" all around.
"The fuel itself is a little bit nasty," says Visnic. "It gets on your shoes, on the bottom of your shoes, it sticks and it's greasy."
"Somebody who buys a 5 series BMW - that's not a pick-up truck - they think, 'I have to deal with that grubby fuel?'"
Those perceptions were beginning to change especially as automakers like Volkswagen were pushing their sportier, smaller size vehicles on American consumers. These newer cars - which thanks to better filtering technology and lower-sulphur diesel - helped shake the old reputation. In addition to Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes and Chevrolet are bringing new models to market.
"Things have changed. These vehicles are so much better now," says Belzowski.
So over in Writer's Block Daily
, someone posted a great article that looks at why, exactly, we're seeing the rise of "victimhood culture." It's a long article, and it goes quite into depth on how the methods of acquiring justice have changed through human history. But I wanted to post a little bit of that article here
for discussion, calling out the parts I thought were the most forceful. Emphasis made by the article, not by me.
It is important to recognize that this shift is not limited to black activism, though the stakes are probably higher there than anywhere else. The same pattern reappears in every social movement that has rallied widespread support over the last decade. "Awareness" is the buzzword of the hour, and it has become an explicit goal of every activist campaign of any fame. Why is this? Why has awareness replaced action as the aim of so many organizations? The answer is that raising awareness is a rational activist strategy when disputes are resolved by gaining the support of powerful third parties who can institute your vision, be they university administrators or the federal government.
<snip>
Since the rights movements of the 1960s and 1970s, racial, sexual, and other forms of intercollective inequality have declined, resulting in a more egalitarian society in which members are much more sensitive to those inequalities that remain. The last few decades have seen the continued growth of legal and administrative authority, including growth in the size and scope of university administrations and in the salaries of top administrators and the creation of specialized agencies of social control, such as offices whose sole purpose to increase “social justice” by combatting racial, ethnic, or other intercollective offenses (Lukianoff 2012:69–73). Social atomization has increased, undermining the solidary networks that once encouraged confrontational modes of social control and provided individuals with strong partisans, while at the same time modern technology has allowed for mass communication to a virtual sea of weak partisans. This last trend has been especially dramatic during the past decade, with the result that aggrieved individuals can potentially appeal to millions of third parties.
<snip>
At the same time many organizations which once gave average men and women the chance to work together or serve in local leadership roles disappeared—or have been consolidated to heights far beyond the reach of the average citizen. There are fewer school boards and municipal governments now than there in the 1950s, despite the doubling of America's population since then. National charities are more likely to ask their members for money than time; lobbying has replaced supporting local chapters as the main activity of most national activists. The federal government assumes powers traditionally reserved to local and state governments. Local businesses have been pushed out of existence by international conglomerates. [11] The businesses, associations, congregations, and clubs that once made up American society are gone. America has been atomized; her citizens live alone, connected but weakly one to another. Arrayed against each is a set of vast, impersonal bureaucracies that cannot be controlled, only appealed to.
A "Culture of Victimhood" is a perfectly natural response to this shift in the distribution of power. Remember that the central purpose of moral cultures is to help resolve or deter disputes. Dignity cultures provide a moral code to regulate disputes among equals from the same community. They also help individuals in a community—citizens—organize to protect their joint interests. 21st century America has lost this ability to organize and solve problems at the local level. The most effective way to resolve disputes is appeal to the powerful third parties: corporations, the federal government, or the great mass of people weakly connected by social media. The easiest way to earn the sympathy of these powers is to be the unambiguous victim in the dispute.
Interesting. Of course, this all hinges on the foundation that is the liberal-democratic nature of the USA government and society. You can't apply the same principle to, say, the PRC or Russia.
Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.Eh. It's not a bad read, and Greer makes some strong observations about power structures and how marginalized people affect and are affected by those power structures, but this seems to be a trend now where Coates' contemporaries are going to take jabs at him for not writing the book/essays they want him to write.
Yeah, I'm a cheerleader for Coates, so that bias is being aired out right now, but describing Coates as a pessimist who does not see a possible future in black people's (or any other marginalized group's) autonomy and enfranchisement strikes me as missing the mark of his ongoing thesis. I don't think Greer, Cornel West or even Lukianoff are necessarily trying to destroy Coates or anything like that, but I saw this sort of thing in my English lit program. Damning with faint praise, passive-aggressive phrasing and erudite yet sophomoric observations about what has already been said dozens of times before.
Good essay in terms of its social and cultural observations, but it's also grad school dick swinging.
EDIT:
This isn't quite bullshit, but it's missing the point of something Coates and others like him have argued for a while now. While his success as a writer is noteworthy in this context, Coates himself has been leery about the idea of having finally "made it" in the sense that he is in a position of security and unchallengeable influence that can be replicated with ease. If anything, Coates has argued that the "successful black man" narrative has been part of the problem in that its exponents presuppose that we have established ourselves as a post-racial society and that we therefore have no one to blame but ourselves. In another writeup, Greer does acknowledge that a balance must be struck between pessimism and militant separatism.
There are Viola Davises, Neil deGrasse Tysons and Ta-Nehisi Coates being born everyday, but the fact that these talented individuals are seen as an anomaly is not necessarily a sign of defeatism and acquiescence to social inequality, but a frank realization that many marginalized people in fact do not "make it" despite their best efforts and sometimes because of those efforts.
If nothing else, Greer is right for the wrong reasons, and while I can see his concern, it's also worth noting that this is a very old argument (which isn't a bad thing) dating back to the intellectual sparring match between those among Booker T. Washington (accomodationist, making progress from the inside) and those in the W.E.B. DuBois camp (tear down the foundation and rebuild with autonomy.
I don't think Greer is totally wrong, but there's more to what Coates has been arguing about with the overwhelming weight and pressure of racist hierarchies than that quoted paragraph is illustrating.
edited 24th Sep '15 10:07:59 AM by Aprilla
To save on space in living quarters, transforming homes are looking like a real possibility
, at least for anyone who doesn't have children, because no fucking way am I about to trust my kids with a transforming living room.
The 40 square meter studio apartment alternates between a lounge, kitchen, dining room, bedroom, and office, with storage space beneath the floors and a separate bathroom. The concept is made possible by a network of counter-weights that moves furniture in and out of the walls, floor and ceiling on request. Moving parts are equipped with sensors to ensure they do not collide with the occupant. "I've been involved with theater and designing the stage for shows - the mechanics of stage scenery are magical," says YO! Company founder Simon Woodroffe, who also created the popular sushi chain YO! Sushi. "I wanted to use mechanics to make a small studio apartment of around 400 square feet into three or four rooms, because otherwise these apartments are divided into tiny rooms with no space."
The design was first announced in 2012 and has gone through several prototypes since. Now, work is underway with developers to roll out the finished product in the northern English city of Manchester. The prefabricated apartments will cost around £150,000, and they can be stacked on top of each other for fast and easy construction, which Woodroffe hopes will enable high rise blocks around the world. "I don't see why we shouldn't have 40 floors of them in Hong Kong and New York," says the British entrepreneur. "Everything has to be for a world market and where land is expensive, property developers can make money from YO! Homes."
Rapid growth in the world's major cities — the majority of the global population now live in urban areas - has forced developers to find more efficient uses of space. Micro homes are finding a niche in London, and former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg has supported micro design by relaxing laws on the minimum size of apartments. Innovative architects are showing that smaller homes need not mean sacrificing comforts, using techniques such as trap doors and multiple-function furniture to create new space.
"The demand for housing is not abating, so thinking about density and efficiency is key," says Sarah Watson, deputy director of the Citizens Housing & Planning Council in New York. "We need a new way of looking at space." Watson is exploring the potential of micro and transformable homes and believes that changing lifestyles have reduced space requirements. "In big cities people blend their public and private life, so the city is used as an extension of the home," says Watson. "People are more likely to eat and socialize outside rather than at home. The change has already come and the (living) spaces are catching up."
The planning expert adds that a steep rise in single living — an estimated 27% of Americans now live alone, according to census data — has increased demand for small solutions. Technology advances have also reduced the need for cumbersome furniture such as bookshelves and home computers, Watson adds.
Others at the sharp end of the micro-home industry believe tech developments will only create further exciting efficiencies and neat features in years to come. Living space is likely to become much smarter, predicts Nimish Biloria, a professor of architecture at the Netherlands' TU Delft University. Biloria oversaw a 'Swiss Army knife' home design that used flexible polypropylene walls to make numerous configurations possible, and wants to enable "dialogue between you and your architecture."
"We have already shown advanced robotics, and the issue is how to go further," says Biloria. "We can work with AI (artificial intelligence), facial recognition systems that adapt the environment to your mood, and many other possibilities...If I come home with an unexpected guest, the house should condition itself to be appealing." Such futuristic solutions may be some years away, but an IKEA-sponsored project is preparing to hit the market with transforming technology that emphasizes convenience, functionality and ease of use.
The City Home from MIT's Changing Places group takes a "disentangled" approach - using a single piece of furniture that morphs into an office, kitchen, party space, shower and more, within a conventional apartment. "(Transforming) solutions need to be designed as furniture to allow for retro-fitting and new construction," says Kent Larson, director of Changing Places. "They also need to be effortless to be sustainable for daily life — almost magical. Transforming your apartment should be as easy as opening a door."
Larson is targeting two key sectors of the market: millennials willing to sacrifice space for location, who are interested in new technologies and able to afford them, and older or vulnerable people benefiting from an adjustable environment tailored for their safety and comfort. He predicts demand for "hundreds of thousands" of units. The architect believes that developers and politicians now recognize that new, affordable spaces are essential for maintaining the cultural and economic health of cities, which will ensure that micro solutions reach the market in significant numbers.
Larson hopes to eventually integrate transport and zoning with communities of the transformer homes, to create a network that is optimized for efficiency and resources. He also expects transforming features to spread to the luxury market: "It's the same logic for a penthouse. The initial applications will be for micro units but then it will spread more widely." The competition is equally confident that a new era is upon us. "People will look back and say: 'do you remember when a room could only do one thing?" says Simon Woodroffe.
All the proponents of the Tiny House thing that I know, do not and never have had children. If I didn't have children, or a Pack Rat wife, I might be tempted myself. But children + large heavy moving things = injury or death. Children are really good at out-idioting the idiot-proof safety measures.
Sad news for the trope page makers, as CSI is going off the air
.
Relatively recent additions Ted Danson, Elisabeth Shue and Elisabeth Harnois are being joined by original cast members William Petersen and Marg Helgenberger, among others, for a finale titled "Immortality." That's an appropriate description of the series' impact.
Put on the air in 2000 almost as an afterthought — the money was on its stablemate, a rebooting of "The Fugitive" — by the end of the 2000-01 season, the procedural about the Vegas crime lab was the No. 10 show of the year. Two years later, it was the No. 1 show on television, and it probably would have held that status for at least two more years if not for "American Idol." By the late 2000s, it was the most popular show in the world.
It also spawned three spinoffs — "CSI: Miami," "CSI: NY" and "CSI: Cyber" — a traveling exhibit called "CSI: The Experience" and, of course, what's come to be called the "CSI effect." The latter has proved problematic over the years. In a 2008 study by three Eastern Michigan University professors, the researchers found that jurors' high expectations of fingerprints and DNA weren't just anecdotal — though, in a cautionary note, author Donald E. Shelton noted that "There was scant evidence in our survey results that 'CSI' viewers were either more or less likely to acquit defendants without scientific evidence." "CSI's" style has also been highly influential as television. It's now rare to see a crime show that doesn't have sleek lighting, grisly inside-the-body special effects (pioneered by the movie "Three Kings") and atmospheric music.
Creator Anthony E. Zuiker, however, attributed "CSI's" success to the most basic of human instincts: rubbernecking. "I think the show is kind of like a car wreck," he told CNN in 2003. You want to keep watching it, but you don't want to turn away. And because people know it's not real and it's make-believe, and people are out there solving crimes and giving a great mystery week to week, I think that's what lures viewers to watch."
Over the years, the show has cycled cast members in and out almost as often as its grittier New York rival, "Law & Order." Petersen, who headed the crime lab for the show's first nine years, was replaced by Laurence Fishburne and then Ted Danson. Jorja Fox, a "West Wing" player who expected to return to that show, ended up leaving after season 8 and returning three years later. Only Gary Dourdan, who played audio-video expert Warrick Brown, was permanently put on a slab, having been killed off in the season 9 premiere.
The show has also picked up some famous fans, perhaps most notably Quentin Tarantino, who directed the fifth-season finale. "CSI" may be ending, but like its crime-drama cousins, it will live on forever in reruns — even if many of its victims are never coming back. Petersen had the right idea when he left in 2009. "(It's) like losing a great co-worker they've known for years," he told Entertainment Weekly. "He didn't die in a plane crash; he didn't get a brain tumor. He's out there."
edited 26th Sep '15 7:58:34 AM by BlueNinja0
That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - SilaswI think this is a relevant question to ask in this thread. I think.
A question for Americans.
What do you think it means to be an American?
That's a question that popped up in my American writers class (deals with Hawthorne, Emerson, Thoreau, you know) and we had quite a discussion about it.
Based on readings, among the conclusions that we arrived are being American means not being afraid to stand up to what you believe in, making a name for yourself with your own hands, and taking responsibilities for your own action and never lose your conscience.
I think we ended up talking more about American virtues than anything. Then again, those "virtues" mentioned above are probably not restricted to America.
Continuously reading, studying, and (hopefully) growing.
I would say that America's core values are meritocracy and individual freedom. A person fully adopting American Values™ would simultaneously have a strong sense of ownership (IE, 'this is my stuff'), and judge others based on their merit rather than any other reason (such as class, color, ect).
Leviticus 19:34

The fact that slavery lasted longer in the US than in many other nations (and the fact that the South was willing to fight a war over it) has more to do with economics than anything else. The Southern economy was driven by the slave labor of the plantation system, as opposed to elsewhere (including the North) where the economy was becoming increasingly industrialized. Threatening to end slavery was basically threatening the South with economic ruin. The racism still present today is essentially a relic of the Civil Rights movement in the 60s... which was itself the result of the treatment former slaves received after being freed post-Civil War. It's a lot easier to convince yourself that slavery is a good thing when your way of life depends on it.
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.