The greatest anger about colonialism seems to come from two types of people. Demagogues in the country formally colonised, and the guilt-ridden citizens of the former colonising country conditioned to believe they inherited the crimes of their ancestors.

My argument is that the criticism of colonialism is coming from a modern time absent the need to expand or die. International law was scant. Fair treatment not to be expected.

The peoples colonised were no less violent or conquering, just less able. The European powers won the game, but they didn't make the rules.

But that victory produced the comforts and luxuries that allow the narrow minded to condemn it. Historical suicide. They would see eradicated the historical means that enable their own entitlement.

Exactly. To put it another way though, can you imagine going back in time to *any* nation, not just the victorious European powers, and trying to explain why they shouldn't act the way we know they did? They had a mandate to either be the conquered or be the conquerors, so to try and tell them to not be the conquerors because it seems mean to us is to tell them to be the conquered.

Empires aren't built on being polite. But there are always empires.

As the saying goes, 'if not us, someone else - so why not us?'

The East India Trading Company had one of the largest military forces in the world at its height.

I think the key difference between then and now is that companies in the past tended to have some kind of national allegiance. Modern multinationals virtually by definition do not, and those companies are not accountable to virtually anyone save their board or shareholders.

Apparently not in here. You could snapshot it with Gyazo and then post the link.

Not sure if that's prohibited however.

Impressive.

I thought you were talking about the British one not the Dutch though. It was the British one I believe had more soldiers in its employ than the British Army did.

Those were the days when concepts like honour and loyalty mattered a lot more it seems. Even the financially self-interested appeared to have some kind of respect for their nation of birth.

Hahaha. There was certainly an investment in the symbolic and abstract with regards to life and nationhood. Beyond mere individualistic materialism.

Little need to fear death back then either. Lower life expectancy was absolute but a great deal of the reduction is due to higher infant mortality. Survive your first ten years and you could easily clear another fifty or sixty.

Outside external circumstances.

That's true. When death was more probable, people seemed far more ready to deal with the concept.

There's a nursery rhyme about dying to the plague.

Outside of blasphemy I doubt the people of the past really had a concept of offensive humour.

Death was something to make songs about for children to sing.

Can you imagine trying to write and make popular a children's song about dying of cancer today?

<:FeelTheBarn:591276979844808734>

The chart deals with genetics however, not nationality. Where you are on that chart depends on your genetic admixture.

Means you've been accepted I think.

Well as a Xenos.

Oh so am I now.

That was fast.

@Little Boots Ironically he didn't sign it.

I just found that out myself. Never heard of George Mason and was wondering whether you'd confused him for James Madison.

So I searched him and found that he was one of three delegates who refused to sign the Constitution.

Oh I did find that he did the stuff you said he did, yes.

I just find it ironic that he ended up not signing the document he helped create the basis of.

Oh I see. So the Bill of Rights-

Ah yes I see it now. They were the amendments.

My apologies, I'm not an American citizen or national.

I know less than I probably ought to about the founding of the US and its subsequent years.

He had a lot of children.

Twelve. Two by the same name so I presume one died.

Re-writing history because you find it unsavoury...

If more of our ancestors had done the same we'd have far less historical knowledge than we do now.

You mean northern US citizens?

Just clarifying. I'm British, so for me 'Yankees' means all Americans.

Or just 'Yanks' for short.

I don't hear the term used much but it's in our cultural consciousness and we don't differentiate between the former Union and Confederate states.

The civil war means far more to American history than it does to anyone else.

For obvious reasons of course, it was your civil war.

But the symbolic and cultural ideas that emerged around and from it don't really permeate any other nation.

For you, a Yankee is a northern US citizen. For us, it's every US citizen.

The most significant interaction Britain had with the US after the War of 1812 was WW1, by which time of course your civil war had been over for about half a century. So, there was just one American identity that joined the war in 1917.

I'd rather prefer this island to remain afloat thank you.

Probably not enough to cause the entire nation to sink beneath the waves.

Why on earth are your tick marks back to front?

If you want to be technical, Epstein would be an ephebophile.

Pedophilia itself is subject to defence.

I've heard it described as pedosexuality.

Absolutely insane.

Oh I'm not saying it is defensible, sorry.

I'm saying people do defend it.

Sexual art of a character physically reminiscent of either early pubescence or pre-pubescence does not become acceptable because people claim the source material makes them older than they appear.

It's just a cop out to try and justify a perversion.

Like, if you met an 18 year old girl / woman however you want to describe her, but she had the body of an 11 year old. Wanting to have sex with her would indicate a problem in my view.

I'm actually not well versed in anime types.

The inverse situation there is, I don't know. Based purely on physical attraction, you're being attracted to physical traits typically seen in more developed bodies, so the attraction in and of itself would be less perverse. Her age would be subject to the law of the locality.

Only addressing the sexual desire, yes.

Taking action into account, probably not.

The age at which females become sexually attractive to men on a normal basis is usually younger than the age of consent in most developed countries.

Because biological sexual maturity and social norms just do not align.

I'm afraid I don't know those references.

I've watched two animes in my life.

I think the desire to do something based in biophysical reality is separate from an action taken with regards to the local law. @SPOOKY Phil, Ruler of Heck.

If you are sexually attracted to someone who is of the legal age, but whose body is that of a prepubescent child or early pubescence (before normal sexual attraction kicks in), then that indicates to my mind a perversion even though legally nothing would be wrong with acting on it.

However, being sexually attracted to someone legally underage but with a body more developed for their age, corresponding to someone of an age where typical body is going to elicit sexual desire in males at the normal rate, is not what I regard as perverse even though taking action to that end would be illegal.

I'm trying to account for what is biologically normal and what is legally permissible. The two do not reconcile.

I did read once that East Asian girls enter sexual maturity either two years earlier or later than European.

I can't remember which way around it is.

On average, their menarche occurs at a different age.

@Goddess Tyche Because normalising and permitting what is in effect a dangerous desire cannot possibly be good.

What would actually stop that person from deciding they want the real thing instead of the digital?

@svarozhyc I'm not sure a child-porn simulator is quite equivalent to a video game.

It's playing on a deep perversion.

If you're finding the idea of having sex with a child in any medium to be something acceptable then I have serious concerns.

@Samaritan True, the design is different. But you can tell when a character is clearly designed to emulate young girls of no or minimal sexual maturity.

And my thinking is that those who can bring themselves to enjoy loli in a sexualised manner aren't too far removed from enjoying actual children in the same manner.

Did I just get called an SJW?

I'm working from inference.

You're getting off on artistic depictions of child porn.

It's not my fault if the studies haven't been conducted.

I'm still capable of using independent reasoning.

You called me an SJW because I take opposition to people wanking to artistic child porn.

Images of children in swimwear is not an inherently sexual image @leavethisbotnet.

People using it for sexual purposes are the problem.

I'm not taking issue with the artistic depiction of anime girls who aren't pubescent. I'm taking issue with their depiction in clearly sexualised contexts.

I'm really going to have to adjust to the political medium here.

In other servers I've been called fascist, Nazi, racist, sexist etc.

Never have I been called an SJW.

I don't understand why parents want to take pictures of their kids in the bath.

If for nothing else than it can be humiliating for the child when they grow up.

I think being turned on by depictions of young girls - even digital ones - in an explicitly sexual context belies some level of child sexual attraction in the consumer.

I don't think this is remotely equivocal to video games and violence. Violence is a natural human instinct. Fucking a child is not.

This conversation went from actually being somewhat intelligent to whatever the fuck it is now.

Gustavus Adolphus showed up in this chat right as I started listening to 'The Lion From The North'.

Der Lowe aus Mitternacht!

No thanks. I tried nihilism.

Nihilists are hedonists hiding behind flawed philosophy and an abysmally misguided interpretation of Friedrich Nietzsche.

What is going on?

Nihilists are pathetic.

Oh I know lune. I was one of them.

Philosophically I continue to believe that the proposition of nihilism is fundamentally true.

I also just don't give a fuck.

But nihilists that use it as an excuse for solipsist hedonism, quoting Nietzsche inappropriately, are just pathetic wastes of life.

Nietzsche framed nihilism as something to be overcome for the reconstruction of values, not the end in and of itself.

It may well be true that there is no meaning, purpose, or value to anything in the universe inherently.

Well who gives a shit? I live somewhere far smaller than the universe where the local reality does impact me, so I do give a shit about how it is operating and I don't have any respect for those who just want to self-indulge.

No. I've overcome nihilism.

Took me a few years but I managed it.