NebulaSwitch

8371 pts · June 13, 2015


A sketchy, bloody, imperialist history to be sure, but if you are looking for examples, the UK did invest a significant amount of capital and man hours into eradicating the slave trade where they could a few centuries back. While this would not have been possible if it didn't also serve strategic purposes of the wealthy (including ridiculous levels of compensation for 'lost property'), it would also be incorrect to argue that it wasn't also a humanitarian movement (societies are complex).

1 month ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

*American man. We'd rather not have him or his weird ass books

4 months ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 1

A better, but more mundane explanation for the overreaction against Palestine Action is to look at the companies they were protesting against in the UK before proscription and what economic and political influence that those companies have in government. Add to that the fact that many politicians are historically wary of strongly criticising Israel because of the political backlash that can follow, and you get a much more grounded explanation than ‘Britain still thinks it has an empire.’ /2

5 months ago | Likes 9 Dislikes 0

This feels much more like someone who has a rough idea of a country's history and is coming to conclusions based on broad simplifications. You look at the history books and Britain having an empire is a major, unavoidable part of global politics in the centuries leading up to the mid-1900s, including the events leading to Israel becoming a state. That doesn't mean it makes sense for modern UK politics to be seen through the lens of an empire that hasn't been relevant for a generation. /1

5 months ago | Likes 11 Dislikes 1

They are going to need all the seamen they can get.

6 months ago | Likes 5 Dislikes 0

This post is very misleading. The UK is involved in this increased presence in Greenland along with other NATO nations.

7 months ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

I believe that's known as the glass cliff, the act of promoting a woman or minority candidate for an otherwise desirable and competitive position during times of instability, only for the tenure to be short and the candidate fired as a scapegoat.

8 months ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

Yeah, but inside that backpack? A smaller dishwasher

9 months ago | Likes 26 Dislikes 0

Thinking of what was done to him as merely “evil” misses the main lesson. After pleading guilty to “gross indecency”, he was given a choice: being injected with synthetic female hormones to suppress his libido, or a 2-year prison sentence. This wasn’t done in the name of punishment, but as a very unscientific treatment, as the prevailing view was that homosexuality was a mental illness that a “humane” society should attempt to cure. That makes it much worse than simply being an act of cruelty.

9 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

You can quickly start to recognise different AI art styles as people flood the internet with them (like the recent craze for Ghibli-ifying images), but in this specific case, you can look at the details on the robot's left arm.

10 months ago | Likes 19 Dislikes 2

"Tea: Earl Grey. Hot" - Very French person in space

11 months ago | Likes 6 Dislikes 0

11 months ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

Doesn't matter. His face was out there, he was going to get id'd by people who knew him, particularly given how much attention this is getting. If it was your kid, would you leave it to chance that some law enforcement or anyone else would harm him in retribution, or do you help him be put under custody with some assurances to his safety? This isn't some movie where we all watch with popcorn in hand as the kid goes on the run, there are real uncertainties about how this could have played out.

1 year ago | Likes 8 Dislikes 3

Honestly, that could be a kindness, or at least the outcome with the highest probability that his son wouldn't be shot down by overenthusiastic cops on a high profile manhunt. If he recognised his son in the release photos, so would others. It seems that it was also a clergyman that the dad contacted that actually passed on tip to the police.

1 year ago | Likes 19 Dislikes 3

Teleportation (of people and goods) doesn't exist, but we have a word for it, and it is a concept that has been extensively explored in science fiction. While that remains 'uninvented', the word 'robot' and the idea of robots predates the actual development of robots that we would recognise today.

1 year ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

To be fair, that would be £218,125 today (still less than the average UK house though)

1 year ago | Likes 19 Dislikes 0

We did have this fancy ring of rocks to do that for us, but some prat bricked the OS on it a few thousand years back and it hasn't worked since.

1 year ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

Well, highlander nonsense put to one side, we're still pretty mortal over here. We were all born in a relatively functional democracy with a constitutional monarchy that holds some wealth but little political clout (essentially a fancy version of the Kardashians for the tabloids to rag on). Going by living memory and the cultural norms that we've come to expect in both the UK and the US, this Trump situation is as weird for us as it is for you guys.

1 year ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

Yep, they proved that it is possible, but not that it is practical.

1 year ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Well, scientists at CERN did report that they managed to transmutate lead into gold this year, so we're keeping the dreams of alchemy alive in spirit even if we're not necessarily following the old traditions by the letter.

1 year ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 0

For, like, medical reasons? Or is it just important to you that someone sees it?

1 year ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 0

That's an organ, an orgasm is one's position in relation to a specific place or object.

1 year ago | Likes 40 Dislikes 0

It was the banana curry pizza, and you know it

1 year ago | Likes 15 Dislikes 0

*Boasts of above average intelligence compared to my peers*

1 year ago | Likes 9 Dislikes 0

It was also used in a phenomenal diner based teleportation fight scene in the first season of The Umbrella Academy.

1 year ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 0

Though both of their products do have a tendency to explode unexpectedly

1 year ago | Likes 23 Dislikes 1

This time, they got out because one of the guards just forgot to check whether the exits were actually locked or not. The full movie is just that guard getting a severe bollocking from his supervisor and then having to attend a mandatory training course about the importance of proper security procedures. Occasionally they get second hand updates about the wanton carnage and ultra violence inflicted on their friends and co-workers by the action hero escapee outside.

1 year ago | Likes 7 Dislikes 0

If men and women of the public legally had the power to buy and own people, and the authorities of that time protected and facilitated that practise, then by definition those people had the right to own other human beings. Those rights were thankfully taken away, but if the authorities could ammend/remove those rights (or never acknowledge them in the first place), then they were never really inalienable. For better or worse, human rights are constantly being challenged and updated.

1 year ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 1