Darkness joined in and replied with this 2 hours ago, 5 minutes later, 14 minutes after the original post[^][v]#1,431,791
@previous (Oatmeal Fucker !BYUc1TwJMU)
I think the problem is their "steam engine" was just a metal sphere with two holes in it that spurted steam out the sides, so it didn’t produce enough power to do anything more than be a curiosity. But still it’s surprising they didn’t bother thinking about how they could make it more efficient.
Darkness double-posted this 1 hour ago, 2 minutes later, 1 hour after the original post[^][v]#1,431,811
The British Empire did practice slavery but they had a weird system where you could own slaves as long as you just didn’t do it in Great Britain. (Almost like they knew slavery was a bad look or something.)
Anonymous D replied with this 53 minutes ago, 20 minutes later, 2 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,431,816
@previous (Darkness)
Or they knew history. Slavery was profitable, but slave revolts were expensive.
Move the slaves offshore, and then reshore the profits. They did that very well, until it became clear that slavery was politically unviable, and took credit for forcing other countries to stop.
Just like they gave indpendence to countries that were on the verge of declaring indpendence to look benelovent.
Darkness replied with this 27 minutes ago, 25 minutes later, 2 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,431,820
@previous (D)
It’s amazing how a little island went from being a little island to controlling 25% of the world to just being a little island again. I feel like the era of history where one country could dominate large portions of the world ended in 1945. Now that nuclear weapons exist, I feel like it’s kind of impossible for an industrialized country to dominate in that way again, because all a weak country has to do is align themselves with somebody who has nuclear weapons. Places like Taiwan and Estonia for example, without nuclear weapons there’s no way those countries would exist (even thought they don’t have nuclear weapons they’re just aligned with countries that do).
Darkness double-posted this 22 minutes ago, 4 minutes later, 2 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,431,821
Or South Korea even. Can you imagine South Korea existing if the US didn’t have nuclear weapons? They could never win a war with Russia, China, and North Korea.
> Or South Korea even. Can you imagine South Korea existing if the US didn’t have nuclear weapons? They could never win a war with Russia, China, and North Korea.
North Korea couldn’t fight a war without nukes. 1960s equipment, gasifier rigged troop transports, and starving soldiers.
Darkness replied with this 17 minutes ago, 1 minute later, 2 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,431,824
@previous (E)
They have a border with China. The reason why North Korea exists is because of China. If they went to war with South Korea, it would mostly be Chinese soldiers fighting South Korean soldiers.
Darkness double-posted this 15 minutes ago, 1 minute later, 2 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,431,825
And the thing about that isn’t combat experience or anything like that, it’s just production capacity and population size. China wouldn’t really have to be that good at fighting if they can produce endless weapons and endless amounts of troops.