“It has been dubbed Britain’s ‘most woke’ roundabout because drivers must give priority to pedestrians, then cyclists, and then other cars and lorries before continuing on themselves. Locals have pointed out the priority for cyclists and pedestrians is unnecessary as only cars and lorries regularly use the Boundary Way route.”
About “fucked” this and “fucked up” that, personally I just see it as laziness and weak language skills. Always reaching for the bazooka because hunting for the scalpel is too hard. But it’s probably a bit generational too.
On empire, it’s the story of humanity. Every nation in the world has been either the author or the subject of imperialism, and it’s usually nonstop back-and-forth. Sure, the European empires were the first to cross seas, but why should that change anything fundamentally?
Personally I find it interesting to observe the relative fates of those countries that choose to dwell on their imperial victim status, and those that don’t. Look at the different outcomes of Algeria and South Korea, for example.
Eh, to each their own. I find them to be a touch of salt and spice, useful adverbs for emphasis.
It informs the origin of influence. The OP you responded to suggested that a lot of “third world mentality” is really just the aftereffects of the first (and often only) empire to conquer and colonize the region.
This is massive “chicken or the egg” territory here. It’s silly to suggest that an entire nation is suffering from victimhood, when the much more likely scenario is that they were victims of worse / more recent abuse.
South Korea has tremendously different geopolitical conditions that lead to its modern success. It was the staging ground of a proxy war (sorry, “police action”) because it has significant strategic importance, and the US had clear and transparent interest in developing and maintaining a successful capitalist society.
The US literally still holds the line at DMZ, not many other nations ever enjoyed the stability of developing under the umbrella of the world’s most oversized military instead of being pillaged by said military.
Whereas Algeria had lots of oil.
As you say, Algeria sat on natural resources. It also had a “better” experience of empire than Korea, which was absolutely brutalized by Nazi-adjacent Japanese, leaving it (IIRC) the 2nd poorest country in the whole world. Korea has no natural resources, as doesn’t Japan, possibly the world’s least colonized country. The different trajectories of these three countries suggests very clearly to me that degree of empire-suffering - at the hands of “white” people or otherwise - is not the determinant factor in human development. Nor are material resources. It is something else. But anyway, none of this is falsifiable, neither of us is going to convince the other and nobody else is reading, so let’s call it a day there.
It’s almost as if the nation of Algeria was specifically colonized for those natural resources, and people have continued to fight over those natural resources, because they have always been attempting to extract those natural resources.
Look into the railroad structure of Sierra Leone. They don’t connect the people. They connect the mines to the ocean.
Those natural resources are the exact reason why these nations haven’t been able to recover. There are incentives in place to stop them from flourishing. They don’t have time to stabilize because there is a pot of gold sitting on the table, and everyone wants it. This is literally why Taiwan still hasn’t achieved sovereignty, and why the Middle East is constantly awash in a river of blood.
Also, Japan? Really? The literal former empire? The former empire that also flourished in the aftermath of WW2 because it fell under the umbrella of the American military? Because of its incredible strategic importance in the region? Literally the exact same situation as South Korea?
Seriously, these aren’t good comparisons. At all. Claiming that Algeria suffers because it wants to be a victim - and then justifying that stance by comparing it to Japan and South Korea is so fundamentally wrong that it’s genuinely fucked up to say these things. The shit you say is falsifiable, you just don’t want to listen.
These nations uniquely benefitted from the influence of a white empire because they weren’t plundered for natural resources, they were reinforced as a wall against the Red Scare.
So please define for me - exactly - what you think that something else is.
Just popping in to say that others are reading and I found your exchange interesting. Have a good day!
It was all worth it, then. Thanks.