conditional_soup

I don't know that I'd agree that the EU and the articles of confederation are comparable. There were a few big differences, including states printing their own currency without a common exchange medium (as opposed to the Euro), and that the mechanism for funding the federal government was (IIRC) entirely voluntary. States could just choose to not send money without consequences, and most or all made the obvious choice of not funding the federal government. The articles of confederation also had a few things about it that were more progressive than the constitution; for example, if I'm remembering right, it offered automatic citizenship to all native Americans, which pissed a lot of the farmer-settlers right off.

This is how nations destabilize. States perpetuate themselves through maintaining the exclusive monopoly on violence and using that monopoly to secure certain guarantees for or against its people. The Roman empire saw a similar decline of administrative willpower and rises in both vigilantism and shitty little civil wars between the wealthy elite who really ran the show (spoiler alert). I'm convinced that Balkanization of the US is, at this point, inevitable. I'm not saying that's necessarily a good or bad thing in its own right. On one hand, it might be better for both the states and the world if we went to more of an EU type structure. On the other hand, a nuclear armed independent Texas.

This is really cool, but it would have been cooler if they'd named their scouting missions Hugin and Mugin, since they're Odin's ravens that scour the earth for secrets to give to Odin.

I fuck with this energy, let's get it done!

I don't know if I can; it's not, well, in my lane as a bicycle/pedestrian committee member. I still show up and advocate for lane narrowing and traffic calming at the city council meetings.

Edit: disregard. I thought you meant lanes, you clearly mean sweepers

I'm trying to secure wholly separate bike lanes, or at least flexi-posts, anything but a sharrow or a line of paint. Tbh, I dunno how that'll work with a street sweeper.

Day 30 of being fucking bewildered that I, a non-voting member of my city's bicycle commission, have stricter ethical laws binding me than those for judges and politicians.

I wish they'd explored this more in Voyager, as rationing their energy reserves was always a narrative tension throughout the series. It would have been interesting to explore a crew used to post-scarcity economics have to wrangle with switching to scarcity economics and all of the problems that come with it.

I've always wondered about how they have to seemingly make the replicators suck at random shit, like how they can't just make the fancy new tricorders (Lower Decks S1E3, I think) and have to compete for the chance to win one.

Is this ceasefire deal in the room with us now?

STOP PULLING MYSTERIOUSLY WELL PRESERVED WEAPONS OUT OF TOMBS

• HAVEN'T THESE PEOPLE EVER READ A BOOK FOR FUCKS SAKES

• STOP FUCKING AROUND. STILL WANT TO FIND OUT, FOR A LAUGH? THERE'S ALREADY A WAY TO DO THAT, IT'S CALLED WAKING UP IN THE 20s.

• THOUSANDS OF CURSED SWORDS REMOVED FROM GRAVES TO DATE AND NOT ONE USE FOUND FOR THE HORRORS THEY UNLEASHED

"Yes, hello, there's surely a reasonable, non-magic explanation for how this sword is as spotless as the day everyone buried it under a giant boulder with its wielder in an unmarked hole. It's completely fine for swords to whisper about things forgotten and not yet known." -STATEMENTS DREAMED UP BY THE UTTERLY DERANGED