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bamboozler1 5 points ago +5 / -0

*Bark huts. IF that. Most of them didn't even get that far...

Though the propaganda has been so persuasive that my own parents now believe that they had agriculture, astrology, etc. (which they didn't)...

"Fields of yams", I'm now told. And "wild rice".

No one, literally no one would have believed those things, even 10-15 years ago, so it's quite astounding how quickly the "highly advanced civilization but also noble savage" myths have gained traction...

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bamboozler1 2 points ago +2 / -0

True, but in this case, that entire paragraph is sourced from the New Statesman article, which appears to be "original research". Obviously the Wiki jannie liked the sound of the argument it made, and pretty much copy-pasted the whole thing, which Goolag then quoted near-verbatim...

Which is pretty wild, when you think about it.

1
bamboozler1 1 point ago +1 / -0

Lol, my IP address unironically got banned for "edit warring", when I tried to (anonymously) change a woke editor's claim that an Australian town is "sovereign, unceded Aboriginal land"...

So now I have to log in and/or spoof my IP address (obviously can use a VPN).

Though before that I successfully changed a few of those things, like removing the dual names in their Abo conlang (for example on pages for bridges over a river - reverting the name of the river to its European version. It's easy with obscure pages, as you point out), so believe me, this isn't my first rodeo, lol...

1
bamboozler1 1 point ago +1 / -0

You also can’t turn off “AI Overview”, on Google search, on desktop, now…

For a while you could, but then naturally enough they killed that lol. Because of course…

Obviously you can ignore it, but the fact that it is now forced upon all users, everywhere (I believe), whether we like it or not? That’s pretty scary, too…

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bamboozler1 24 points ago +24 / -0

Pretty much, yeh.

I've noticed this a lot, lately, when it comes to the Abo stuff.

Like, on the TV yesterday, and Abo "activist" was yelling, "Captain Cook killed my family!"

Well no. No he did not. He didn't directly kill anybody. Nor did he introduce disease which did so.

Did his voyages indirectly lead to atrocities against Aboriginals? Sure, that's definitely arguable, but blaming the one explorer for something which happened long after his death is... Very Current Year...

Absolutely wild that this is where we are at, now.

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bamboozler1 26 points ago +26 / -0

The "source" in question:

https://archive.is/sQT5s

The Wikipedia page has been edited since that archive to make the reference even more blatant, but the context of the claim is the same.

All of which, in turn, comes from a New Statesman article by one author with an agenda.

And that, ladies and gents, is how you change a narrative. Put out a bullshit, "original-research" article, get it in a "reputable" publication; have it cited on Wikipedia and then have Google's AI scrape the Wiki page and present its content as undisputed "fact".

Scary times.

1
bamboozler1 1 point ago +1 / -0

On the topic of Australian government (or in this case, government agency) fearmongering, this fucking ad (disturbing, but SFW):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6NEn4NHxoY

They showed that to us in "Defensive Driver Training" in high school. It unironically scarred me for life.

To this day my biggest fucking fear is becoming paralyzed and dependent like the girl in that video. Yeesh.

So, did it "work" in scaring me? Yes (though it hasn't exactly changed my behaviour, subsequently. I still take lifts with randos, lol). Was it necessary, as something to beat schoolkids over the head about? I'm not so sure...

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bamboozler1 17 points ago +17 / -0

I think the UK is more oppressive in some ways, and Sweden is perhaps more "Kafkaesque" (annoying, petty bureaucracy, essentially), having lived there for a bit, but part of the trouble with Aus is how isolated we are here, and how damn hard it is to get out (if you can even afford to, given CoL at the moment)...

Which the government obviously took advantage of during Covid. They know this, which is why and how they get away with what they do.

I mean, fuck, even Singapore is 5 hours from Perth, which is ~4 hours from the East Coast itself, so...

I think that plays into our psyche more than people perhaps realize.

Plus all the immigration from autocratic Asian countries (and lately, Africa) in the last few decades. That has definitely fed into it...

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bamboozler1 19 points ago +19 / -0

Honestly, living here (again), I'm continually astounded by how apathetic most people here are, about shit like this. I hardly know anyone IRL who gives a shit, and certainly don't know anyone who will change their vote because of this issue...

As long as people have their reality TV slop, the cricket team is doing ok, and the media tells them that anyone who disagrees is "like those Trump voters in Yankee-land", then people will just lap this and pretty much applaud it, as their rights are taken away...

Not that Germany, NZ or Sweden would be any better. But nonetheless...

1
bamboozler1 1 point ago +1 / -0

If you were in/around Duisburg or, I believe, Gelsenkirchen, then kind of, yeah…

There is a hell of a lot of Turks, at the very least.

Also Köln seems to have quite a few, as we saw from the attacks a few years back…

2
bamboozler1 2 points ago +3 / -1

Eh, I’m not sure they are, per se

At least if we removed the historical context of last century, anyway. And I guess you also have to factor in that they don’t have free speech, so who knows what they think and say privately (from experience, it can be pretty extreme, lol)…

But it is interesting that even Duisburg and Kreuzberg (Berlin), while having a lot of Muzzies, haven’t been “taken over” at an institutional level to quite the same extent as Hamtranck, Dearborn, or even Western Sydney (Australia) have…

Nor has Malmö in Sweden, despite the very noticeable presence of these individuals there…

I’m not sure exactly why that is the case, but us Anglo countries sure do seem to struggle with stopping the Muzzie takeover, once they reach critical mass…

Scotland even had one as “First Minister”, FFS…

2
bamboozler1 2 points ago +2 / -0

Tbf they’ve also interfered in Western European elections at a national/state level (mostly the two big ones of France and Germany), though of course in that case, those countries are in the EU (as is Poland), so it’s a bit more… “Expected” or “palatable”…

I’m not so sure about the case of Zelenskyy. You could argue that they’ve kept him in power, but in terms of him getting into power in the first place… It did seem fairly organic. Of the candidates at play in that particular election, I’m not sure the EU would have chosen him. But honestly, who knows?

That feels like a very long time ago, at this point, given everything that has happened in that region since then…

But yeah, I do absolutely think he should step down at some point, ideally once martial law is over, and then we can start looking into all that more seriously…

But we shall see what happens, I guess.

6
bamboozler1 6 points ago +7 / -1

Regarding the election result (also from Reuters): https://archive.is/rzdSb

We seem to be back to the bad old days (arguably, the 80s) of "this despot/ethnocentrist is a goodie, because they're our political ally". Not that this is anything new, of course. They're just more blatant about it now.

She's like Ardern or Trudeau, but in a much more corrupt, arguably less "democratic", poorer, non-Anglo country...

See also Poland's very own "I want a federal EU" prime minister Tusk...

1
bamboozler1 1 point ago +1 / -0

There seems to be more “clusters” of F2Ms, though… At least among teens and young adults.

I believe there was a cluster in Palo Alto (surprise surprise) of all places, a few years back…

I was trying to find the article prior to writing this, but it seems most of the evidence has been scrubbed, since (again, to no one’s surprise)…

But I do recall the “social contagion” angle being talked about in various publications. Which lines up with the anorexia and other “mental illness” (people on TikTok claiming to have one, etc) comparisons…

When it comes to adult trannies, though? Yeah, you’re generally right…

Which makes sense I guess. There’s a lot less perks to being a mediocre, ugly “man” than to being a mediocre, ugly “woman”, I imagine (in reality)…

1
bamboozler1 1 point ago +1 / -0

Huh, TIL!

I didn’t know any of that (I should have, about Cyprus at least, but I didn’t). Thanks!

All very complicated…

The Soviets’ tendency to move ethnic groups around at will obviously contributes to that…

I guess what you say about the Baltics applies also to the Russkies that stayed in Poland, East Germany, etc., after 1991..?

Honestly, this is all definitely interesting, but I guess I haven’t thought about it in detail before…

The only Russians I met in Sweden presumably had citizenship (as they owned property), lol.

Are you Romanian then? Definitely an interesting part of the world!

3
bamboozler1 3 points ago +3 / -0

Romania is very corrupt. Moldova, I believe, is more so. So it wouldn’t surprise me if the criminal entities there are cross-border, plus probably the politicians are in cahoots (kick backs, etc.)

But it’s also some sort of historical revisionist thing, i.e. “Moldova was always historically part of Romania, and only split off by the Soviets to serve Russian interests.”

Which is only partly historically true, and is, almost to a tee, very much the same argument Putin uses to justify Ukrainian-Russian “brotherhood”…

Which is… Ironic.

There’s also the desire to destroy anything from the Soviet era (such as the writing system, political structures, old textbooks, etc.), so I guess this plays into that…

Which is kind of what Ukraine has done as well, albeit replacing Russian things with their Ukrainian equivalent…

It’s all very stupid.

I suppose though, to give them their due, it’s a bit like East Germany, in that Moldova is poor, and barely produces anything of large-scale economic value (except wine, lol), so it’s in the economic self-interest of the elites to merge with the larger, less-poor, EU-member “mother country”…

However the majority of ordinary people do not want this merger, and unlike the 90s, with the breakup of Czechoslovakia (also an elite project with limited popular support), I don’t see this one being quite as easy to ram through…

Edit: it’s worth noting that Moldova is effectively land-locked, and only has one port that is capable of handling large ships. Whereas Romania (which wants to buy said Moldovan Port, because of course they do)… Is not.

All of which suggests to me that Romania is almost certainly manipulating large parts of this, a bit like Bulgaria (yes, really) does with (North) Macedonia, for similar reasons…

2
bamboozler1 2 points ago +2 / -0

I’m interested in how that works - is it much like how NIrish residents can get it through having had previous generations of relatives in the Republic..?

Which raises interesting points in places where this doesn’t apply (such as ethnic Croats in Bosnia, for example)…

But I suppose we can’t possibly expect them to apply the same rules everywhere. Tis an interesting thought experiment, though…

I don’t even know how Cyprus manages that (presumably they’re just not in Schengen?), let alone all these other cases…

4
bamboozler1 4 points ago +4 / -0

I… Realize that everyone’s circumstance is different, and I’m glad you’re (presumably) close to your mother, but I personally would recommend thinking about that decision extremely carefully, and maybe even trying it out, short to medium-term, first…

Because (almost) everyone I know who has done that, for the same reasons as you mention (and it was the same for me), has… Ended up regretting it.

I think there comes a point once you’ve been out of their house for a bit where it just… Doesn’t work to go back. Or, at least, it isn’t necessarily a positive outcome for one’s mental health.

But that’s just my 10 cents.

Do whatever you feel is right for you and your circumstances!

1
bamboozler1 1 point ago +1 / -0

It really, really feels like that in Australia now, too.

Hell, even in one of the big local subreddits, someone said pretty much exactly the same thing. So when even they admit to it, it’s probably true…

6
bamboozler1 6 points ago +6 / -0

I have some semi-educated thoughts on this (yes, hello, I’m still alive) and literally no one around me cares, nor does the Australia media, it seems, so please allow me to indulge myself for a minute…

Moldova, much like Ukraine and the Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, et al) has suffered a serious identity crisis ever since the USSR fell, arguably owing to linguistic/cultural tensions that go back way before that.

In general, the push and pull has been between the pro-Russian camp (Transnistria and its allies ) and the supposedly pro-European but really pro-Romanian faction.

And I don’t say that lightly. Because what is interesting is that, unlike say Ukraine (where Russian is being erased and replaced by Ukrainian), the pro-“European” camp would quite literally be happy to erase their own country, if it was politically tenable.

They’ve already done this by removing any references to a separate Moldovan language/dialect, and even by demanding that Ukraine deprecate Moldovan (because there is a sizable Moldovan minority in Ukraine) in favour of “Romanian”.

That latter point has really only happened since Sandhu and Zelenskyy both took office.

This comes after they deprecated the Cyrillic script (historically the main writing script in Moldova, which resulted in the destruction of previous “elites”, exactly as Ataturk did in Turkey) soon after independence.

On Reddit, the Moldovan sub is dominated by Anglos, despite the vast, vast majority of locals there not speaking any English. They constantly shit on the “country hicks” (using the equivalent slur) for not voting as they are told, and wanting to retain things like the Cyrillic script, and references to a Moldovan linguistic and cultural identity.

And that’s where it gets really interesting: none of these pro-Romanian policies have popular support. None of them. From extinguishing the Moldovan identity to changing the script to even unifying with Romania in the future. But you wouldn’t know that from listening to Sandhu speak. Or from reading Wikipedia or Reddit. And hell, even their Eurovision entry a couple of years back was pushing this weird “pan-Romanian” idea, and selling that their is no real, measurable difference between Chișinău and Bucharest. Which is odd, considering that even in the days of Dragostea Din Tei (written in Romanian, by a Moldova group living in Romania) no one would have dared to claim that…

That is the context of this referendum, which she barely got over the line, and of the runoff presidential elections there: an extremely pro-Romanian globalist who the media pretends is “liberal and pro-EU”, vs the so-called “backward conservatives” who apparently only exist in rural areas, and are “bought out” or “brainwashed” by Russian propaganda.

It ain’t great. And shit, I say all this as a Europhile and supporter of both Ukrainian and Moldovan independence.

Something about all this, ever since Sandhu got in and became “popular” in the West, just ain’t right.

But, much like with the Voice Ref in Aus last year, I don’t hold my breath for either Wiki, or Reddit, to acknowledge that.

TL;dr she’s a pro-Romanian globalist, and this is all much more murky and complicated than most sources are making it out to be…

12
bamboozler1 12 points ago +12 / -0

These celebrities truly do enjoy sniffing their own farts.

“I’m the GOAT, y’all, and I know it.”

No, no you’re not. Fuck off back to the ghetto, scum.

No way I could sit through the entirety of this bullshit…

1
bamboozler1 1 point ago +1 / -0

So they’re both Canadian then? My (admittedly ignorant) impression is that it is fairly easy for Canadians to move to the US, fairly indefinitely, provided they have no criminal record, etc..?

Somewhat like how it is for Australia and New Zealand.

At least, that seems to have been the case for (at least most of) the many Canuck celebs I know of…

10
bamboozler1 10 points ago +10 / -0

It’s also partly because, to my knowledge, municipal waste collection just… Doesn’t exist. And there’s no, for example, urban garbage bins/trash cans.

People just dump shit on the side of the road, and then burn it. On the open-windowed trains, it’s just thrown out the window…

In Darjeeling (so relatively less poor, at least historically), when you walked around the town squares, you would have piles of trash smouldering away off to the side, and everything vaguely smelled of it. It was… Unpleasant.

Varanasi and Old Delhi were the worst I saw, however. At least 10 times worse than Darjeeling, Jaipur or even Agra (where the Taj is)…

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