Ever hear of the Sam Vimes Boot Theory? Terry Pratchett in the Discworld novel Men at Arms has the Vimes say:
"The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that'd still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet. This was the Captain Samuel Vimes "Boots" theory of socioeconomic unfairness"
I looked up a 1950s advertisement for similar boots and saw a pair for $12.95, plugged that and 1955 into the inflation calculator and it came out to $144.41. So not too far off really
John Adams, the 2nd President of the United States, once said
"I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain."
I figured (related to previous poster) that the lack of evidence of domesticated animals was a decent indicator that there were no big civs in the past interglacials
what-about-isms often bother me too. That said any commenter that excuses the CCP because of US dalliances is way off base. I'd say that there is some value to pointing out that unelected agencies both domestic and foreign do this stuff to US citizens.
it always is a comfort to know that the alphabet boys did bad things in the 1950's, 1960's, 1970's, 1980's, 1990's, 2000's but are actually totally chill now
Although leftists already seem to think the CIA started the Iraq War, when they were against it and Cheney/Rumsfeld had to invent ways to get all the intelligence agencies out of the picture so they could make something up in peace.
Similarly, they didn't overthrow Bolivia recently, but people think Elon did it personally to get cheaper lithium because he joked about it on Twitter once.
