Somehow I don't think that blood-and-soil nationalism is the solution to this! Reconcilliation policies and the formation of a unified Iraqi national identity that isn't based on religion are far better than creating two sectarian states that are almost certainly going to be at each others' throats from day one. I honestly think it's kind of gross that you seem to think that ethnoreligious violence and mass population transfers are an inevitability.Actual experience of nearly two years of humanitarian work in Iraq has left me with an impression distinctly at odds with what you are claiming here. The idea that dictators are bad isn't somehow lost on me, but Iraq is artificial construction; a left-over of the latter days of colonialism. That creates a fundamental problem, and that problem ensures that in the long run, only authoritarian oppression can keep such a construction from falling apart. It's not dictators that create deep divisions. Dictators exploit them, but the causes run far deeper.
Planet Nine confirmed to exist, and another planet beyond it (the “Mars-size body,” which are actively being theorized to exist alongside those slightly larger)? Yep. You got me. I’m a sucker for settings based on wishful thinking.The Centauri Highway
so is this incomplete? because I'm wondering if you're going to do the description for the rest of the political balls seen on the spectrum, and I'm guessing there is going to be a write-up?snip
Love it-especially the layout of the map. India having a US-y colour kinda bugs me though. I'd have gone with a purplish-blue.snip
The 'dudes with a flamethrower' could win precisely because they were a small group (giving them an advantage in terms of being able to tell who is where, if anyone has gone missing, being able to be around and monitor each other, etc...) in a lifeless, empty, isolated environment. In, say, the jungles of the Amazon then The Thing could be literally every single animal or even potentially the plants - and the only people you could even potentially trust to be uninfected are the people immediately around you (good luck coordinating an army literally incapable of working together out of fear of the others being infected).I don't think so, as I said to Ameck16, the war is winnable especially if the big boys bring out some WMDs and as long as the army keeps its distance from the melee only creatures, I mean the Thing was beaten in the movie, and that was by some dudes with a flamethrower, so imagine what a well-equipped army could do
Oh yeah, because dividing the Raj into India and Pakistan sure created a whole lot of peace....And that's why dividing Iraq is so often suggested, and why it's an inherently good idea. The process is a horrible mess, but the end result is greater stability. It's a simple matter of understanding that short-term bloodshed and long-term peace is a better (or at least less terrible) prospective than short-term peace and long-term bloodshed.
Could you imagine what would be happening if Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh were all still united today? That's a recipe for disaster, destruction, full-on civil war, and probably some ethnic cleansing and genocide. A lot less peaceful than border skirmishes, minor terrorism, disputes over Kashmir, and painting the Pakistani flag on some of India's sacred cows.Oh yeah, because dividing the Raj into India and Pakistan sure created a whole lot of peace.
Actual experience of nearly two years of humanitarian work in Iraq has left me with an impression distinctly at odds with what you are claiming here. The idea that dictators are bad isn't somehow lost on me, but Iraq is artificial construction; a left-over of the latter days of colonialism. That creates a fundamental problem, and that problem ensures that in the long run, only authoritarian oppression can keep such a construction from falling apart. It's not dictators that create deep divisions. Dictators exploit them, but the causes run far deeper.
Could you imagine what would be happening if Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh were all still united today? That's a recipe for disaster, destruction, full-on civil war, and probably some ethnic cleansing and genocide. A lot less peaceful than border skirmishes, minor terrorism, disputes over Kashmir, and painting the Pakistani flag on some of India's sacred cows.
So India can handle 780 or so languages spoken in its borders; more ethnic groups and tribal identities than even that; and, besides the Hindu majority, significant communities of Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Jains; but adding more Muslims to the mix will inevitably result in ethnoreligious civil war? I'm not sure I'm picking up what you're putting down, my dude.Could you imagine what would be happening if Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh were all still united today? That's a recipe for disaster, destruction, full-on civil war, and probably some ethnic cleansing and genocide. A lot less peaceful than border skirmishes, minor terrorism, disputes over Kashmir, and painting the Pakistani flag on some of India's sacred cows.
(Yes, Pakistanis in Kashmir actually did this. Personally, I think the world would be a much better place if instead of terrorism we just did things like this more often than, ya know, killing people.)
Given that India, the 3rd (2nd until relatively recently) most Muslim-populated country in the world, has managed to avoid any large scale ethno-religious oppression/genocides even with Pakistan's existence there to inflame Islamophobia? I'm gonna have to disagree with you.Could you imagine what would be happening if Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh were all still united today? That's a recipe for disaster, destruction, full-on civil war, and probably some ethnic cleansing and genocide. A lot less peaceful than border skirmishes, minor terrorism, disputes over Kashmir, and painting the Pakistani flag on some of India's sacred cows.
This is quite different from the map in the timeline. Is this is a diversion within the timeline or a different interpretation?View attachment 470900
Here we have Europe and parts of the middle east and africa from Chester A. Arthur's For All Time, circa 1960.
The Number of Terrorist acts, that Im imagining being replaced by pranks is radically approaching infinity.(Yes, Pakistanis in Kashmir actually did this. Personally, I think the world would be a much better place if instead of terrorism we just did things like this more often than, ya know, killing people.)
Could you imagine what would be happening if Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh were all still united today? That's a recipe for disaster, destruction, full-on civil war, and probably some ethnic cleansing and genocide.
this is very cool, but i dont see information lag being that big of a deal, its only 5 years tops to get news signals from other settlements. also how is going fast only economical for short distances? surely the longer the journey is the more economical it os to go fast. just got to accelerate up to speed and decelerate back to a stop. very little resistance in space, so you dont need to be contastly burning to keep your velocity. even small comunities would ballon out very quickly into the billions, at least compared to millennia, centauri should be packed and everyone should know it because they are watching centauri tv dramas out in deep space. 400 year voyage i can see being mighty strenuous, but an 80 year voyage i can see being successful. there is still the worry of mission drift i guess, and maybe kids born in deep space wont really care for orbital living, even if itsfresh in family memory.Snip
They were gonna be at each other's throats anyways, the whole point of that map was that it was balkanizedSomehow I don't think that blood-and-soil nationalism is the solution to this! Reconcilliation policies and the formation of a unified Iraqi national identity that isn't based on religion are far better than creating two sectarian states that are almost certainly going to be at each others' throats from day one. I honestly think it's kind of gross that you seem to think that ethnoreligious violence and mass population transfers are an inevitability.
I understand that you did humanitarian work there, but consider! As an American or Brit or otherwise Westerner acting as an agent of a foreign government, you are not going to be encountering the most enlightened and tolerant members of Iraqi society. It's very easy when you're poor to blame your misfortunes on the [Shi'as/Sunnis] and call it a day, rather than taking the time and effort (which, due to living in poverty, you often cannot afford to expend) to grasp the higher causes of the bad things that have happened to you.
It's the same reason why nationalist populism is so appealing to many poor folks in the West: it's just easier to scapegoat people who are different than to work together as a society to fix these large-scale problems. That doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't fix those problems, though, not by a longshot. A unified, harmonious Iraq is both possible and far better a solution than the ethnoreligious gerrymandering you seem to be in favor of.