Zompist Bboard Again

1) There is not "no one to negotiate with," according to Netanyahu's administration, who negotiated with Hamas over such administrative things as work permits. And no matter who's responsible -- and the Israeli government still bears a huge bit of that responsibility -- fact still remains...

The LCNAF (Library of Congress Authority File) has a lot of names, 11 million of them. One Matt Miller figured that a lot of names must be anagrams of each other, and lo, found 4000 sets of at least 5 names.
He created a web toy to show them off.

I’ve just been pointed to this truly excellent article by Scott Aaronson: https://scottaaronson.blog/?p=7845 . It’s well worth a read. Ugh. He lost me when he tells us that Israel really really needs to starve civilians to death. No, Scott, if you want to commit war crimes, you can't also complain ...

Would it be strange to add ya in the last line (ket Almea ya estae) ‒ it’s not exactly a perfective meaning I’d be going for, but more the kind of intent that it will be perfective...? Sure. I think it'd be taken as future perfect. (Also, don't tell the non-poets, but it's just the sort of word you...

How about orestán instead of telcan? Ok, though isn’t it a bit odd for Eleďî to suggest that theirs is the ‘true’ sun? ... But perhaps it’s just a bit of vague flattery towards Ënomai. Orest means 'true' but also 'loyal'. So it's aimed at Calto worshippers: look, the sun is not a god, but a loyal v...

I'm just going to look at the verse translation. Your Verdurian is good, the problem is the alliteration. You really want to avoid alliterating on the same word. Ä zula s elta, | s elta cuelzulë Maybe "Ä sye l ë selta, cuelzu l ë (er) čistë" i so nëron b r ac | soán Řou r isen Piron, so͜ O...

Would you even mention someone you know closely coming out to you, without knowing that anyone else you or they know also know already, and without them giving you permission to tell anyone? Why do you want to tell other people about it? If they talked to you privately, I'd assume that's how they w...

Why do we have to give up on fixing injustice within communities? Do we still need rights of communities if we can have that? I dunno, ask the person who has the weird opinion you are criticizing. If we can fix injustice within each community, do we still need rights of communities? Yeah, because o...

The Daoists were into alchemy, yes, but someone was inventing clockwork, printing, the compass, paper money, gunpower, the spinning machine, improved plows, and more. I doubt it was the Daoists that were doing it. This was a natural advance. Daoists weren't really into using crafts for social good,...

what the British gov't did in Bengal (horrible mismanagement just like their horrible mismanagement in years past led to other famines in British India; while from what I have read there were issues with shipping food in due to the Japanese occupation of Burma resulting in the Bay of Bengal effecti...

Ignoring the rights of communities means that majorities can simply win an election, then oppress minorities. Why do we have to give up on fixing injustice within communities? Do we still need rights of communities if we can have that? I dunno, ask the person who has the weird opinion you are criti...

Mohists dealt with crafting things to improve society. Daoists were more into concocting potions to achieve immortality. Like Western alchemists, they inadvertently helped develop chemistry. But I don't think Daoists would have dealt with lowly mechanical crafts. Everyone likes the Mohists these da...

Why? What did the Greeks have that the Chinese didn't have? The Chinese invented more things, even invented printing to spread ideas faster, and still didn't quite take off. The Confucians retarded progress every chance they got. The Ming were taking off until the Confucians turned back to the elev...

Christianity would not be the same religion today if it had not become official in Rome--not just because, as zompist noted, Constantine called the council of Nicea which established definitive Orthodoxy, but because of who it was adopted by (i.e. Mediterraneans and then more distant Europeans). Ju...

logical thinking, empirical observation and rational explanations for phenomena. I'm pretty sure Aristotle thought he was doing this. There's hardly a more charged word in Greek philosophy than logos (reason). What inventions/achievements would the Milesians make had they survived for several centu...

I like to play with alternate history now and then... That's not quite the main focus of the board... then again I always appreciated the sound advice I got here. Some recent talk about religion got me thinking. Would a scenario where 'paganism' in whatever form would survive to the present day mak...

imagine a situation where israel ceases to be as a country, succeeded by the Republic of the Holy Land: the RHL has totally different laws, is not an ethnostate, all the checkpoints and legal ethnic barriers are gone, everyone in the territory in question has immediately the same legal rights, incl...

I don't think these differences are essential or hardwired, tho: the brits are perfectly able to conquer a territory and incorporate the inhabitants into the lower class of a new regime, ask the scots, irish and hongkongese, but things went how they went. an interesting piece of evidence for this d...

I'm not like a super expert on the history of colonialism but it seems to me exceedingly similar, especially anglosaxon colonialism, we're talking a) invading non-white peoples land and b) giving it to white people c) with military backing and d) justifying it as bringing civilization, punishing ba...

Ares Land wrote: ↑Mon Mar 25, 2024 4:53 am 'Plant based' feels a little annoying too - why not market it as vegetarian or vegan?

Technically petroleum is plant-based...