Scandinavia and the World

Is it just me, or is the very idea of sales of land between states obscene?

Edited by Kayeka on Aug 21st 2019 at 11:58:19 AM

Of...?

Or, y'know, in general, like the biblical one?

Edited by TheLovecraftian on Aug 21st 2019 at 6:59:27 AM

It's just you. I would point out that historically the United States has gained a very significant fraction of it's current area by purchasing it off other colonial powers. Most significantly the Louisiana Purchase (France) and the Alaska Purchase (Russia).

Well, yeah, but that was ages ago, between colonial powers. But in this day and age, just selling off land and the citizens on that land? That's seems to go against our modern ideas of self-determination.

Edited by Kayeka on Aug 21st 2019 at 12:05:34 PM

In this day and age, you certainly cannot do such a thing anymore. The Americans may have tried in the fifties, sure, but that was probably just about the last time such a thing would even be considered possible. We are now living in a post-colonial world, where civilized nations have generally agreed to not treat any other places like colonial territory free for the taking for the rich and powerful.

Clearly, Trump did not get the message.

The other thing was about Trump basically saying loyalty to Israel is more important than loyalty to your own country, and that voting Democratic is voting against Israel. It's all pretty crazy, as usual.

I mean, "Make America Great Again" is basically "Bring back 50's America", so, yeah, unsurprising that Trump has that kind of idea in his head.

Redmess called it.

I'd propose on behalf of the US that we do buy Greenland. For three reasons:

1. To section off most of the place as a near continent sized nature preserve.
2. To conduct experiments in geoengineering and terraforming (both to create habitable conditions and regenerate ice sheets).
3. To recover the remains of Kee Bird and other aircraft.

A nature preserve? You know that wouldn't happen. They just want to exploit the island for all it's resources. And don't expect the locals to profit from it, most of that wealth would flow straight to the US.

You do realize how ridiculously colonialist this whole proposal is, right?

How about investing in Greenland so the Greenlanders can profit from their own natural resources?

Edited by Redmess on Aug 28th 2019 at 11:50:22 AM

It's a better use than oil exploration. Unless Trump is the kind of idiot that wants to make Venezuelan heavy crude look cheap. (It's basically the most expensive type of crude currently on the market. Everything else is cheaper be it Russian oil, Middle Eastern, American, North Sea or otherwise.)

But then again, everybody else involved in the whole faux outrage is acting just as dumb and unaware that Greenland's oil if it exists is likely under upwards of a half mile of ice and 2000 miles from anything important.

And yes a nature preserve is unlikely because even the allegedly environmentalist countries don't do those things. If they did, they'd be putting moratoriums on building basically anything be they homes, businesses or otherwise.

Absolutely nobody:

Majortom: The US an imperial power? Surely not!

I don't know where you've been the past three years, but Trump is not particularly interested in enviromental protection. He has, in fact, torn a lot of those protections down to give oil and coal companies free reign.

So yeah, it's pretty clear Trump wants to buy Greenland for it's resources, not to preserve it's nature.

And besides, turning Greenland into a national park is not going to stop the glaciers from melting. Stopping climate change would, though, and they don't need to buy Greenland to do that.

I feel I should point out that Greenland isn’t continent sized, it just looks that way due to map projection distortion, it’s actually about the size of Algeria.

It's still as large as the whole of Scandinavia, though. It could certainly pass for a minor continent.

I don’t really think you could call the region like Scandinavia (a region of the smallest continent, that arguably should just be a subcontinent) arguably a minor continent.

It’s just a part of the smallest continent.

Edited by Silasw on Aug 28th 2019 at 10:31:10 AM

But Greenland is big in spirit. The real question is what are his handlers thinking?Is this just another version of the political theater which is supposed to distract us all from the Republicans' behind the scenes policy changes?

I Guess.

Here's A Thought.

Edited by Eagal on Oct 30th 2019 at 7:08:28 AM

Can You Imagine the Clipshow?

I'd say the difference in attitude is mostly the time difference: the Viking age ended over 900 years ago, while American slavery only ended about 150 years ago and still has profound impacts on present-day American society.

Not to mention that Black People in the USA don't have their own nation state from which they can laugh at the past.

^^ 154 years to be precise. The 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States prohibiting slavery was ratified in 1865 shortly after the end of the American Civil War.

Fun fact: TODAY marks 154 years since the 13th Amendment was formally ratified and thus adopted.

Edited by MajorTom on Dec 6th 2019 at 8:17:50 AM

Well, unless you committed a crime - in which case slavery is still good to go, according to that very same amendment:

You know, "we abolished slavery" loses a lot of weight when it comes with a big "but" attached.

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Dec 7th 2019 at 10:42:35 AM

And a big "but" that is still law today! A judge could, in theory, convict someone to slavery in a lot of states.

No could, they do in most (all?) states, now it’s temporary slavery over a fixed term in most cases, but if someone receives a life sentence in the US they are made a slave of the US government until their death.

US prisoners aren’t like european prisons where the punishment is being locked away, in (much off?) the US prison system the punishment includes forced unpaid labour, AKA engaging in slave labour.

Fishy Tale

I just had salmon sushi a few hours ago.

X-Files theme plays

Edited by Sivartis on Dec 12th 2019 at 11:01:31 AM

Their objection was that it was too colourful? Why would that be a problem?