Godammed SDN

[Civil War Man]

There are worse ways to handle it. Quite frankly the easiest way for someone to start engaging in casual bigotry is if they first convince themselves that they are not a bigot.

Of course, that will not cut it in an intellectual crucible, since admitting that stuff like your living conditions or upbringing can influence how you reflexively judge complete strangers, even though you recognize how irrational it is, means you are admitting that you are not the ubermensch. Completely unacceptable.

[starku]

Expecting ADR to change is discrimination

You have to accept his condition

Aha hoist by emir own petard

[adr-admin]

I really don't think my biases actually came from the family. My father would be actively anti-racist and whatnot.

My grandmother, on the other hand, doesn't even try to hide her racism. She actuallys say stuff like "my neighbor's teenage daughter is pregnant. I told you so, with all the black kids moving in..."

(note my dad was raised by his grandmother - my great grandmother)



I might have caused it myself.


edit: the funny thing is if i indeed brought it on myself surely i can undo it?

[starku]

Do you think that makes sense

Ps prejudging is also a symptom:v

[adr-admin]

idk

when i say i have all the answers and am always perfect

i might just be trolling

[Veef]

sorry for accidentally baiting you on the Plus thing, Tim

It's something I plan on covering next so I have all these notes in a text file burning my hard drive :3

actually, you seem pretty handy with a microphone. Would you care to care to join me? I think you offer a very insightful opinion on the subject.

[starku]

Why do I follow links that turn out to be sidewinder saying 'unless cloning is perfected ....'

[RedImperator]

I'm sorta boggling at the "North America in 1776 swaps places with North America in 2012" thread. That has to be the least interesting attempt to answer an interesting question since TSW.

[starku]

It's a laugh how it looked like it instantly sidelined into JUST HOW OOWERFUL -IS- AMERICA

[RedImperator]

It's a laugh how it looked like it instantly sidelined into JUST HOW OOWERFUL -IS- AMERICA

The subject has forked. The first tine is "Modern USA in 1776" which I think it doomed to be pretty boring except from a "modern industrial state cut off from foreign oil, minerals" perspective, because you figure 2012!USA interacting with the rest of the world is going to devolve into "USA corporations cut ludicrously unfair deals for oil, minerals, labor with foreign despots". You'd have to take it from the perspective of someone on the receiving end of all that, trying to hang on to their autonomy and beliefs in the face of what amounts to an alien invasion. Still, there are possibilities there--the dependence of all modern first world states on the rest of the world, the attitudes underlying colonialism, culture

The second tine is "Colonial North America in modern world", which I think is way more interesting. An entire continent teeming with unexploited natural resources just pops into existence, populated by a few million time-traveling 18th century white people, Indians, and actual legally owned slaves. Anyone who doesn't think that scenario has the potential for a ridiculously fun story is on drugs. Extremely boring ones.

TEO's take? Speculating on how much 21st century pussy Ben Franklin could get and predicting Barack Obama would nuke the Ming Dynasty because why not I guess

[starku]

oh man the ben franklin objectifies women thing was awesome stuff

but yeah when i read the title and then looked at the posts i did not see what i expected to see

but everything has to be about the giggatons i guess

[Dooey Jo]

Barack Obama would nuke the Ming Dynasty because why not I guess

but the ming dynasty ended in the 1600s

[RedImperator]

Barack Obama would nuke the Ming Dynasty because why not I guess

but the ming dynasty ended in the 1600s

time nukes, obviously

(i always get ming and qing mixed up )

[RogueIce]

The second tine is "Colonial North America in modern world", which I think is way more interesting. An entire continent teeming with unexploited natural resources just pops into existence, populated by a few million time-traveling 18th century white people, Indians, and actual legally owned slaves. Anyone who doesn't think that scenario has the potential for a ridiculously fun story is on drugs. Extremely boring ones.

That's why I wanted to posit that Obama and Clinton were still in 2012. Because I think it'd be interesting to see where it goes when you have at least some form of the government (head of state and senior cabinet member) around. Because AFAIK the stuff recognizing sovereignty is about the governments (which would still exist) and defining territory is based on stuff like location of this river or geographical feature, lines of latitude, stuff like that. None of that will have changed, and all the other world governments are unaffected so they'd still be bound to their treaties and so forth.

Unless there's some mass rush to revoke recognition of the United States in favor of "OMG LAND GRAB" in the midst of the global economic crash, but whatever.

But anyway, I think my scenario is slightly more interesting because there still exists a 'United States of America' but now there's a bunch of colonists, slaves and indians there instead of what used to be. And since I'm pretty sure international law in its current form does not cover a situation like this, it would be totally uncharted territory.

For instance, the various tourists and military personnel would, to some extent at least, own pieces of property back home. But some colonist or tribe might have been there in 1776. So who would get the claim? After all, the land was switched but that doesn't automatically invalidate all of the modern law and property deeds*. So who is said to own it?

*Well, except for probably inasmuch as those records might have gone back to 1776, unless they happened to reside on some out-of-US server or location somewhere.

And since the territory hasn't changed, nor has international recognition and so forth, does that technically make all the 1776 people into illegal aliens in the modern US?

And I totally disagreed with Darth Wong's statement of the old colonial claims being in effect, for reasons stated above. The modern governments (and their bills of sale, treaties giving up territory, and so forth) still exist, so it's not like their claims would still be valid in the modern context. But I didn't really go into that (guess I should have) and instead merely pointed out that Mexico didn't exist in 1776 so they'd have zip claim to anything in the US anyway, even if we assume 1776!America somehow brings back the colonial claims in force during that time. Maybe I just didn't want to argue, I don't know.

I also don't buy his "no US government anymore nuh uh" because, aside from whether or not having the HOS and such still constitutes the government, I doubt the various nations of the world with large numbers of US military personnel and/or good numbers of American tourists really want to deal with a bunch of suddenly Stateless persons on their hands. So they'd likely keep on recognizing the US on that fact alone, I'd expect. But others have kinda mentioned that angle but I don't know if he's really responded to it or not.

So yeah, I think there's quite a bit to explore about 1776!America in 2012 (and the above doesn't even really touch on what to do with 18th century people suddenly in the modern world) but it seems most people are getting a hard on over "haha rest of world carves up US like a resource-rich pie bwahahaha" which, if I were to be uncharitable, I could attribute to some notion of revenge fantasy on their part due to the US being in a suddenly weak position all of a sudden.

But again, maybe I'm just being unfair to SDN in that regard. Sometimes it is hard to tell.

[RedImperator]

See, I don't know if I necessarily buy "US still exists, all treaties in force", except the parts of it which were overseas at the time. Who in North America would recognize the surviving US government as having any sovereignty over them? The 13 colonies probably wouldn't--the Constitution is 13 years away, and even the Articles of Confederation aren't in effect yet. The British fighting the 13 colonies certainly wouldn't--they're subjects of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, and to their way of thinking, so are the colonists in rebellion. The Spanish colonial authorities in Louisiana and New Spain wouldn't, for the same reason. And the Indians sure as shit wouldn't.

You're right international law doesn't cover any of this, and I doubt Britain, Spain (and Russia) are going to try to start enforcing their claims. And the time travelers are going to have to make one kind of accommodation or another because they're not equipped to stop anybody at all from just taking what they want, so they need friends. But it's a huge mess and North America is an unimaginably valuable treasure trove with no clear ownership. It's a really fun scenario.

[Dooey Jo]

the us getting "carved up" in some way is pretty likely though, but due to nationalism it don't happen like it used to, countries don't just send armies and say "we own you now, you are sweden II"

no they just send their industries over and let them set up shop

the lack of infrastructure is going to pose a large obstacle for that though

and they are now basically a third-world shithole where there's no clear profit for anyone abroad to build such infrastructure

would the us going state capitalist here and pulling a stalinist, rapid industrialisation scheme be an interesting and ironic possibility?

communism with american characteristics

[starku]

there'd be all kinds of stories around groups of semi-state sponsored adventurers trying to get control/create legitimacy for claims/influence the population/move the population

but i guess it's better to talk about BEJAMIN FRANKLIN BANG DOZ HOEX

[Aaron]

Canada is destroyed as it's economy collapses, being tied to the hip with the Yanks.

[artemas]

but bead production ramps up 1000%

[Aaron]

but bead production ramps up 1000%

Fucking A

[artemas]

surely beads can sustain us

beads and wind and solar power

our reliance on the us is overstated

[RedImperator]

the us getting "carved up" in some way is pretty likely though, but due to nationalism it don't happen like it used to, countries don't just send armies and say "we own you now, you are sweden II"

no they just send their industries over and let them set up shop

the lack of infrastructure is going to pose a large obstacle for that though

and they are now basically a third-world shithole where there's no clear profit for anyone abroad to build such infrastructure

If oil companies are willing to spend billions and billions of dollars trying to squeeze a few drops of high sulfur crap oil out of tar sands in northern Alberta, they'll sure as shit build the terminals, pipelines, and wells to extract the billions of barrels of light, sweet crude waiting for them 50 feet under West Texas. Same for everything else. You still need to build roads and hack out airfields and somebody should probably patch up the St. Lawrence Seaway, but the US extracted fuck-only-knows how much wealth out of this continent with pickaxes and mules, and all that easy shit is lying around waiting for someone to take it. Shit, if you have the right maps, you could get rich just walking around California and Nevada picking up gold and silver off the ground.

[Dooey Jo]

Yeah, oil they can get. It's pretty easy to extract and can easily be transported long distances through pipelines. Maybe we could see a similar situation to the oil-companies' forays into Africa. Drag it out of the ground, ship it away, contribute negatively in the way of otherwise useful infrastructure.

I was thinking more along the lines of modern mining, where you need roads and power and all sorts of shit. And then you have to ship it out to sea, if you don't also start building factories there, requiring even more roads and power. Even then you need to ship the products, because these Americans are going to be too poor to buy them.

Though I guess if China get there they can set up some less modern solutions without suffering too many consequences...

Actually that is another interesting question. In all likelihood industries will want to exploit the shit out of these Americans and their land. Is the Western world going to allow them to do it, like we allow them to do it in Africa and other places we don't care about, or will there be some remnant feelings of solidarity?

[RedImperator]

Yeah, oil they can get. It's pretty easy to extract and can easily be transported long distances through pipelines. Maybe we could see a similar situation to the oil-companies' forays into Africa. Drag it out of the ground, ship it away, contribute negatively in the way of otherwise useful infrastructure.

I was thinking more along the lines of modern mining, where you need roads and power and all sorts of shit. And then you have to ship it out to sea, if you don't also start building factories there, requiring even more roads and power. Even then you need to ship the products, because these Americans are going to be too poor to buy them.

Though I guess if China get there they can set up some less modern solutions without suffering too many consequences...

Actually that is another interesting question. In all likelihood industries will want to exploit the shit out of these Americans and their land. Is the Western world going to allow them to do it, like we allow them to do it in Africa and other places we don't care about, or will there be some remnant feelings of solidarity?

I was thinking about Africa regarding the mining, actually. People are willing to spend a lot of money in places like the Congo to get mining operations working. I can't imagine that North America would be that much more difficult. There's a huge initial investment, sure, but it's not like Rio Tinto or whoever can't afford it.

Keep in mind, most of this shit came out of the ground the first time with picks and shovels. There's tons of exceptional quality ore near the surface. You can initially get it out with a fairly low tech, low skill operation while you build the infrastructure for more intensive extraction. Shipping is the biggest problem, but there's good water transport available in a lot of places and, shit, Bangladeshi laborers are cheap, right? It's not exactly like the local government has labor laws. You can even save money by feeding them passenger pigeons.

[timmy]

sorry for accidentally baiting you on the Plus thing, Tim

It's something I plan on covering next so I have all these notes in a text file burning my hard drive

actually, you seem pretty handy with a microphone. Would you care to care to join me? I think you offer a very insightful opinion on the subject.

That sounds pretty good. Are you doing the movie version or OVA? If the former, I'll have to watch it first.