shawn1122
@shawn1122@sh.itjust.works
- Comment on Valid point 17 hours ago:
There is no argument to be had here. That is literally a wallet.
- Comment on Belgium national team's officialsocial media post after beating theUSA national team in the World Cup:"Overturn this" 2 days ago:
It may not be as long a stretch as it seems.
Climate change is in many ways an extension of neocolonialism ie. localizing benefits while externalizing harms. Western countries, despite making up 20% of the global population, are responsible for 50% of global cumulative emissions.
Back during the Earth Summit in 1992:
“In view of the different contributions to global environmental degradation, States have common but differentiated responsibilities. The developed countries acknowledge the responsibility that they bear in the international pursuit of sustainable development in view of the pressures their societies place on the global environment and of the technologies and financial resources they command.”
Based on this, the Rio declararion explicitly stated that developed countries must take the lead in combating climate change and its adverse effects.
As we all know, these responsibilities were ultimately betrayed
The world has a way of rebalancing itself. We may not see a complete rebalancing in our lifetimes but the process has already begun.
- Comment on Belgium national team's officialsocial media post after beating theUSA national team in the World Cup:"Overturn this" 3 days ago:
History doesn’t exist in a vacuum I’m afraid. If an entity, whether it’s a person or a nation, commits atrocities and then simply stops doing so, can we call that justice?
Leopold, turned the Congo Free State into his personal, horrific rubber-and-ivory fiefdom from 1885 to 1908, used the profits to bankroll massive architectural and infrastructure projects in Brussels, Antwerp, and Ostend (e.g., the Cinquantenaire park, the Royal Palace of Laeken, and the Antwerp Central Station).
The profits were deeply integrated into Belgium’s financial and industrial sectors (steel, banking, and manufacturing), giving the country a massive economic head start in European and global markets during the 20th century.
Antwerp is the diamond capital of the world, handling roughly 84% of the world’s rough diamonds. Critics point out that a massive portion of the DRC’s vast diamond wealth historically and currently flows straight to Antwerp, meaning Belgium still captures the high-value “refining and trading” end of the supply chain, while the DRC is left with the environmental and human cost of raw extraction.
Major Belgian conglomerates, or companies born out of the colonial structure (like Umicore, formerly Union Minière du Haut-Katanga), transitioned from colonial owners to powerful multinational players. They still hold significant strategic advantages and interests in extracting critical minerals like cobalt and copper from Central Africa.
When the DRC gained independence in 1960, its first democratically elected Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba, wanted to nationalize the country’s resources so the Congolese people could finally benefit from them. Fearing the loss of mineral access, Belgian officials (with the help of the CIA) were deeply complicit in Lumumba’s overthrow and assassination, replacing him with Mobutu Sese Seko—a brutal dictator who let Western corporations keep extracting wealth while plunging his own country into poverty.
Colonialism may have come to an end but Belgium is still a neocolonialist nation.
- Comment on Anon comes up with a dating strategy 1 week ago:
The first thing I thought was Persian / North Indian woman. So odd that Nazis co-opted that history.
- Comment on Anon comes up with a dating strategy 1 week ago:
The first thing I thought was Persian / North Indian woman. So odd that Nazis co-opted that history.
- Comment on In the US it's Father's Day weekend, so happy Father's Day not just to you American dads but to all you dads wherever you are. 2 weeks ago:
A man so caught up in scientific inquiry and progress that he cares not for the people in his life, who he’s obligated to protect. He fuses his daughter with his dog, proclaiming his great achievement while the new chimera begs for death to be put out of its misery.
The show explores subverting rules of the universe, life and death to a degree.
- Comment on How come Mark Wahlberg got a pass for being the crap out of a Vietnamese guy. But Kevin Spacey, Bill Cosby, Weinstein, do not get a pass? Beside the sexual aspect what is the difference? 5 weeks ago:
I would argue racism against south Asians is fairly normalized also as there have been targetted hate campaigns online which spill over into the real world. It goes back to the model minority myth usually.
- Comment on Where are we heading? 5 weeks ago:
The Kailasa temple was a multi generational effort over more than a 100 years. It was typically a family of artisans across generations.
- Comment on He's just not that into you 1 month ago:
To be fair there are a lot of adults like this too.
- Comment on She only wanted the ring bros 2 months ago:
I get where you’re coming through and I’ve personally gone through many of the feelings you’re describing. As men we sometimes feel that physical intimacy is how our partners communicate to us our ‘value’ in a way. Some of that is toxic cultural norms but there is also just fundamental differences in how intimacy is perceived between men and women in long term relationships.
As you’ve aptly stated, the difference is men often feel that sex is part of how they are made to feel appreciated and valued while, in my opinion, women need to feel validated, appreciated and valued emotionally as a foundation upon which a desire for physical intimacy arises.
I am by no means diminishing the experience of men or trying to say its all on them. I have literally posed the questions that youve posed to the women in my life and while they understood where I was coming from it never fixed the rift. Only after I took the initiave to take interest in and prioritize their emotional security and trust in me did the dynamic change from a diminishing interest in intimacy and rare or infrequent initiation to the opposite of that.
I’m just speaking on my own experience, particularly regarding long term relationships. Hopefully it means something to someone out there.
- Comment on She only wanted the ring bros 2 months ago:
I hear what you’re saying but I’d say that not all women are like that and these conversations are really meant for someone you’re prepared to have a deep commitment with, not necessarily early on in a relationship. There are a ton of toxic attachment patterns and cultural norms on our society that are challenging to navigate but those tend to matter less as a relationship evolves into a long term one.
- Comment on She only wanted the ring bros 2 months ago:
It is not always the mans fault but men don’t have the same needs when it comes to maintaining a long term sexual relationship.
Women generally need to feel a sense of emotional security, trust and connection for a long term relationship to thrive, especially in the bedroom. Men would like this too, but they don’t necessarily need it to continue a sexual relationship.
Unfortunately in many (perhaps most) relationships women do feel that a disproportionate share of household and childcare duties fall on them, which erodes at those core foundations of a healthy long term relationship.
Is it all on men to work this out? No. But if they want to take an active approach to maintaining the health of their relationship, meeting their partners emotional needs has the highest likelihood is doing that and keeping the bedroom alive.
- Comment on Shart of The Deal 2 months ago:
Agree that Mossadegh was imperfect but, in the eyes of many, Western meddling was one direct cause of the Mullah regime and the hipocrisy of claiming to stand for democracy while installing autocratic puppets around the world is all too apparent.
- Comment on Shart of The Deal 2 months ago:
Agreed thanks for the insights.
- Comment on Shart of The Deal 2 months ago:
This seems like an inaccurate representation of Iranian history so please feel free to elaborate. Sure Iran was an autocracy in 678 BC, not sure how that’s relevant to today, but Iran’s democracy was overthrown by Western powers when it tried to nationalize its oil. The West then installed an autocrat representing their interests until the revolution in 79.
- Comment on Shart of The Deal 2 months ago:
One can imagine that being told “a civilization will die tonight” will act as motivation for them to get one.
- Comment on Shart of The Deal 2 months ago:
It’s not just about how useful the dollar is to Iran, it’s about making it less useful to other countries also.
If Iranian oil is back on the market there will be a lot of interested buyers. If it’s only sold in yuan or crypto.
The petrodollar wasn’t going to last forever youre right but there are many parties interested in ending it sooner than later.
- Comment on [deleted] 2 months ago:
Always good to have standards.
- Comment on Why do some people with college degrees and an education, still act so fucking stupid? 2 months ago:
It’s even worse when you find out they’re not acting.
- Comment on Meanwhile in California 2 months ago:
For some reason this comment reminded me of that Cuban dude that retrofitted his car to run on coal because of American sanctions. What a world we live in.
- Comment on How to stop a parent from jumping into the nearest religious rabbit-hole to cope with a divorce? 3 months ago:
Spirituality is healthy when it isn’t exclusionary. Unfortunately it so often manifests that way.
Dont quote scripture at them. Approaching an emotional challenge with a logical solution is never well received. The other side just assumes you don’t understand them.
It what context are they lecturing? Is it due to people they’re directly interacting with or social media?
- Comment on I am an American. I used to be proud of my country. Now it feels like a turd circling the drain. Is there anything going on behind the scene that America is actually doing good in? 3 months ago:
This is true wisdom.
- Comment on For Iranians, Bombing of Gas Field Worsens Already Dire Energy Crisis 3 months ago:
Up the escalation ladder we go, as instigated by Israel. They’ve already bombed Qatar’s LNG plant which is the biggest in the world.
- Comment on Happy 17th of March 3 months ago:
You’re absolutely right, the scale of the transatlantic slave trade was greater than ever before seen in human history.
Somewhere between 1 in 5 to 1 in 6 died on the journey alone.
One needs to also be aware that slavery as practiced by modern Western colonial empires was even more cruel than how slavery was practiced traditionally even dating back to antiquity.
In most of the world historically slavery was often contingent and there were several pathways to manumission (freedom). It was not an inherited status by default (partus sequiter ventrum).
The Western colonial empires very much perceived the entire world according to a race based caste system where Europeans were the highest caste and those of African descent were the lowest. Complexion defined your worth as a person. They spread this worldview globally, which has poisoned so many minds, and the world is still recovering from it to this day.
America adopted and upheld this race based caste system until the civil rights act passed in the 1960s (within the lifetimes of many of parents/grandparents). During the American era of slavery, slaves had no legal rights. They did not have personhood. Children of slaves were automatically also slaves from birth. Slaves could be grieviously injured or killed with impunity. They were seen as property, or livestock.
This is not how slavery was practiced historically around the world.
In fact, even ancient Greece and Rome (both of which thrived on slavery) had more legal protections and pathways to freedom. Slavery was not race based. In many cases, they had earnings and could eventually buy their freedom. In Rome they could be set free by an owner and become Roman citizens.
None of this is taught in American history likely because the ruling class worries it would hurt the average person’s national pride and their ability to exert control over them. But the truth is no society can improve without honestly reflecting on their past so I hope there will be some that read this and learn.
- Comment on Happy 17th of March 3 months ago:
I don’t think anyone is arguing that on a global scale though colonial/Western powers did decimate Africa and continue to engage in neocolonialism there.
But if we’re talking about American history we need to be transparent about the fact that this was a nation that was an apartheid state until about half a century ago and the consequences of that reverberate to the present day.
- Comment on send thoughts and peer review 3 months ago:
Not mutually exclusive though I can understand how the West’s experience has led them to that conclusion.
Though there are many scientists in the West that are religious.
One has to understand that the purpose of prayer and community isn’t necessarily to improve material circumstances.
- Comment on Unconventional strategy. 3 months ago:
When you’re persecution complex is so robust you reanimate the Old Testament despite being a “secular” nation.
- Comment on Every single time. 3 months ago:
Melania is that you?
- Comment on Real Height 📏 4 months ago:
I think you touched on how social pressure can make it toxic.
By no means advocating for a change in how we define adulthood but a recent paper looking at topographical turning points in the brain identified adolescence as extending from 9 to 32 years of age which explains a lot in my view.
- Comment on Game over 4 months ago:
Might be a good time to learn about the curry leaf.