Durian is awesome, though I don't know many Westerners who have tried it for the first time and liked it.
But it is awesome.
Durian ice-cream can be iffy because you might not get the rich creamy taste that you should, depending on the quality.
Countries
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Handsome man save me from the monsters.
Avatar credits to rcerione
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Thing is getting it around here is practicaly impossible and have never found a way to get it from outside.
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- assimilation of steppe people happens in Pannonia, as they usually end there.
Other way around in the end. The steppe people assimilated the locals.
Bulgars got assimilated by the local Slavs though, thus creating Bulgarians.
Usually you're right though, China, Persia, all assimilated the folks who invaded them on horseback mostly.
Though the Seljuq Turks and their descendents managed to assimilate lots of people. The Turks and Azeri's are proof of that. And hell, the Arabs are probably the most successful assimilators in history and they came from a tribal nomad basis.- Slavs were invented in XIX century (don't tell anyone, their vision of the world would be ruined)
Pan-Slavism may have been (which was always a huge joke, and I know exactly why a Pole would be the first to point that out), but linguistically/anthropologically there was always a thing called Slavs since sometimes in the Migration period.
- you don't need to be giving examples from Southern Asia to show that Mongols are dangerous in forests, the example of our neighbors would be enough. But they just weren't interested in us that much. Even When they attacked us it was mostly part of strategy in attack on Hungary.
That hardly means they were randomly going to ignore you past pushing you aside.
- that's I was about when I've said Mongols are bad example of steppe dynamic.
Eurasian Steppe maybe. But Turks, Arabs, various African Sahel groups in West Africa had some similar or even more organized structures. Mansa Musa actually compared the Mossi to the Mongols when he heard about the latter on his trip to Mecca.
- The Mongol empire was too big to hold in one piece. They considerably lost vigor once they got divided (they still were to be reckoned with, of course). It was bound to happen. 6) I don't imagine people who had taken over China to be disorganized. How to put it into words… there are organizations, that are giving really strong impetus and ones that are driven by that impetus, once the letter are to far away from the former they can't quite regain the impetus while they lost it. An empire is limited by speed of communication. Mongol empire was able to be that big because communication on steppe is quick, but in the end it would be still slow to conquer and hold Europe. They already were stretched too far.
This is not the same as them being unable to continue conquering while still at their height. Your talking like they're the Huns or something, and had pretty much zero organization and completely fell apart when they started losing power. Europe was easy for them to reach geographically because of the steppes remember. It wasn't like their campaigns at Egypt.
they sure think they do. Knowing the situation I wouldn't be so sure. It's unlikely that they were sent to radiocarbon dating (if they were accuracy is to 30 years), most artifact have longer chronology. The researchers are going with what suits better the theory they uphold.
You aren't seriously making this accusation out of the blue are you lol.
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This thread has gone from food to the deep stuff in 15 pages.
That's AP Forums for you.I call it the Zephos effect. He makes people not want to seem foolish and forces them to up their game.
We prefer the term "Assholes-who-preach-about-saving-money-whilst-they-are-sitting-in-their-tax-payed-Mercedes".
I always found it amusing how there can be no money left for lets say the local hospital but there's apparently enough for multi-million golden parachutes for all the MPs
But it of course is always refuted by someone saying that i don't understand economics. Which i don't really. But it all just seems like it goes against common sense
@No:
The Vatican. Because there pretty much the entiere population is part of the establishment.
Which is realy kinda bullshit btw. I always found it rather stupid how the Vatican doesn't have any sort of native population and how, thusly, it's barely a state.
The Vatican must be one of the more boring places one can live in.
No wonder the pope wanted out
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@wolfwoof:
I always found it amusing how there can be no money left for lets say the local hospital but there's apparently enough for multi-million golden parachutes for all the MPs
But it of course is always refuted by someone saying that i don't understand economics. Which i don't really. But it all just seems like it goes against common sense
There's no need for Mercedes (with a driver no less) for the politicians especially when they get free yearly pass, free flat, extra money for Christmas presents, extra money for sneezing inappropriately in public and for saying "oh, people don't live well because they handle their money the wrong way".
After two years, they buy new ones.
Tax-payers money. There it goes.
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@Monkey:
You aren't seriously making this accusation out of the blue are you lol.
You'd be surprised to know how notorious academics are with respect to massaging data points to fit their hypotheses. I know, I'm in academia (for now).
Not commenting on your discussion in any way.
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@Monkey:
Other way around in the end. The steppe people assimilated the locals.
Bulgars got assimilated by the local Slavs though, thus creating Bulgarians.Weren't Thracians also part of the mix? I can't imagine that Bulgarians have too much Bulgar ancestry, considering that they're only 1% East Asian.
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There's no need for Mercedes (with a driver no less) for the politicians especially when they get free yearly pass, free flat, extra money for Christmas presents, extra money for sneezing inappropriately in public and for saying "oh, people don't live well because they handle their money the wrong way".
After two years, they buy new ones.
Tax-payers money. There it goes.
What riff-raff. Our politicians get a special tax cut every time one of their cells splits in two !
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@cooldud_21:
You'd be surprised to know how notorious academics are with respect to massaging data points to fit their hypotheses. I know, I'm in academia (for now).
Not commenting on your discussion in any way.That's not the point, the point is that unless there's grounds for suspicion it's really lazy arguing to just write off something with "Oh they're probably lying".
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@Foxy:
Weren't Thracians also part of the mix? I can't imagine that Bulgarians have too much Bulgar ancestry, considering that they're only 1% East Asian.
The Thracians would have been assimilated already by the Greeks if not the Romans even before the Slavs showed up.
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This post is deleted!
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There's no need for Mercedes (with a driver no less) for the politicians especially when they get free yearly pass, free flat, extra money for Christmas presents, extra money for sneezing inappropriately in public and for saying "oh, people don't live well because they handle their money the wrong way".
After two years, they buy new ones.
Tax-payers money. There it goes.
I always wondered how the obscenly rich people in let's say Manhattan can pass by all the bums in New York and not feel bad about it.
I mean at some point you gotta reach a place where you feel like you have more money than you'd ever possibly need right?
Or is it just an enormous black hole of me me me
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@wolfwoof:
I always wondered how the obscenly rich people in let's say Manhattan can pass by all the bums in New York and not feel bad about it.
I mean at some point you gotta reach a place where you feel like you have more money than you'd ever possibly need right?
Or is it just an enormous black hole of me me me
The entierity of the Milky Way isn't gonna buy itself ya know ~
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@wolfwoof:
I always wondered how the obscenly rich people in let's say Manhattan can pass by all the bums in New York and not feel bad about it.
I mean at some point you gotta reach a place where you feel like you have more money than you'd ever possibly need right?
Or is it just an enormous black hole of me me me
I imagine they live in their own little world. They spend a lot of their time abroad too.
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@Monkey:
Other way around in the end. The steppe people assimilated the locals.
Bulgars got assimilated by the local Slavs though, thus creating Bulgarians.
Usually you're right though, China, Persia, all assimilated the folks who invaded them on horseback mostly.
Though the Seljuq Turks and their descendents managed to assimilate lots of people. The Turks and Azeri's are proof of that. And hell, the Arabs are probably the most successful assimilators in history and they came from a tribal nomad basis.In case of Magyars, they assimilated the locals, but they grew into being more Europe type society eventually.
I think the Hungarians are exception. Other newcomers got assimilated or grew to new conditions.@Monkey:
Pan-Slavism may have been (which was always a huge joke, and I know exactly why a Pole would be the first to point that out), but linguistically/anthropologically there was always a thing called Slavs since sometimes in the Migration period.
1. Poles have their own version of Pan-Slavism.
2. Most Poles believe in Slavs, they even believe Biskupin is Slavic (it can't be since is too early)
3. As far as I know there is no clearly separated Slavic anthropological type. Archaeological markers, that are supposed to be distinct for Slaves in early period are laughable (because they are not that distinctive at all). There remains case of languages.@Monkey:
Eurasian Steppe maybe. But Turks, Arabs, various African Sahel groups in West Africa had some similar or even more organized structures. Mansa Musa actually compared the Mossi to the Mongols when he heard about the latter on his trip to Mecca.
I was referring more to specific pattern Eurasian Steppe migrations than organization.
@Monkey:
This is not the same as them being unable to continue conquering while still at their height. Your talking like they're the Huns or something, and had pretty much zero organization and completely fell apart when they started losing power. Europe was easy for them to reach geographically because of the steppes remember. It wasn't like their campaigns at Egypt.
I don't think that's the case. I terms of military and strategy Mongols would be able to conquer Europe. And no environmental barrier big enough to be serious hindrance in their conquest existed. Yet the facts are that they hadn't conquerer Europe.
@Monkey:
You aren't seriously making this accusation out of the blue are you lol.
It's more of evaluation than accusation.
You know, since I've mastered in archeology I'm aware more or less what problems archaeologists are facing with dating and I know general state of archaeological research in Poland. If they've send material from last few years researches to radiocarbon dating, than it's already better than I expect, but it's still possible. Even if they haven't send it to for dating, it not necessarily their fault, as those analysis cost, and archeology is not on the top of the list for scientific funds. Granted they haven't sent the material from last 60 years of researches. Researchers themselves may be faulty of nothing - every situation on the site can be interpreted in few different ways, everything lege artis. I'm not making accusations that they did something wrong, but there are some natural limitations of the discipline, where not everything can be said for sure.
The hypothesis seems to be possible, but it's hard to prove, since Magyars were making more movements, than one direction migration movement. It's also possible that part of tribes settled in southern Poland and joined the other tribes later on."I'm a bad guy! I don't save the day, I don't fly off to the sunset and I don't get the girl! I'm going home." - MegaMind
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@wolfwoof:
I always wondered how the obscenly rich people in let's say Manhattan can pass by all the bums in New York and not feel bad about it.
I mean at some point you gotta reach a place where you feel like you have more money than you'd ever possibly need right?
Or is it just an enormous black hole of me me me
Well, some (not all) of those obscenely rich people are responsible for a majority of the funding that goes into non profit foundations, research for diseases, and other philanthropic engagements. Some of these programs fund those bums on the streets.
The Big Issue is a PR initiative in Britain where corporations take on social responsibility to aid those in need. They've offered Homeless people help in getting a job and have also created a program where they fund and supply schools with food so that the students can eat breakfast everyday.
Rich people give back and yes they do have hearts.
LA LA LAAAAAA. LA LA LA LA!(-Dearly Beloved)
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In case of Magyars, they assimilated the locals, but they grew into being more Europe type society eventually.
I think the Hungarians are exception. Other newcomers got assimilated or grew to new conditions.The Hungarians are so European because they were surrounded by y'know, Europeans. If they'd assimilated the locals in a more isolated place instead of dead center in the joint it may have looked pretty different. But I made the point that they aren't THE exception, the Turks for instance. Hell the Turks even created a separate Slavic ethnicity with the Bosniaks. There's other examples around the world too.
Not really nomads, but certainly hill peoples coming down into lowlands in heavy migration and assimilating the lowlanders heavily is a central theme in Southeast Asia.
Mon got assimilated by the Burmese. And pretty much all of Thailand and Laos used to be Khmer territory, now they just exist in a rump state with Cambodia.1. Poles have their own version of Pan-Slavism.
Hmm, I just assumed you guys would be really cynical about it considering that the Russians were at the height of their Pan-Slavism, also treating the Poles in their territory with special contempt and disregard. I guess though Austrian/German Poles would feel pretty differently.
3. As far as I know there is no clearly separated Slavic anthropological type. Archaeological markers, that are supposed to be distinct for Slaves in early period are laughable (because they are not that distinctive at all). There remains case of languages.
I pretty much always disregard people who trying to talk about "anthropological types" anyway, especially those who constantly always over and over fail to see any difference between genes and language, total amateur shit. I can see we're agreed on that!
I don't think that's the case. I terms of military and strategy Mongols would be able to conquer Europe. And no environmental barrier big enough to be serious hindrance in their conquest existed. Yet the facts are that they hadn't conquerer Europe.
And as I pointed out the main reason they stopped was a random act of chance. And even most other theories are things like "They never wanted to in the first place" and stuff like that.
In their prime pretty much the only people who outright defeated the Mongols without some great luck and geography (like the kamikazi wins lol), was Egypt. -
@Monkey:
In their prime pretty much the only people who outright defeated the Mongols without some great luck and geography (like the kamikazi wins lol), was Egypt.
And the Delhi Sultanate.
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@cooldud_21:
And the Delhi Sultanate.
They had some heavy geography on their side. Crossing the Indus area is famously difficuilt.
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@cooldud_21:
And the Delhi Sultanate.
They had some heavy geography on their side. Crossing the Indus area is famously difficuilt.
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@Monkey:
They had some heavy geography on their side. Crossing the Indus area is famously difficuilt.
Haha, once you're through the Hindu Kush pass (where Peshawar is), it's flat plains to Delhi. It's so ridiculously easy to invade that the place has been invaded by:
- Aryans / ancient horsemen / whoever pillaged the Indus Valley civilization
- Alexander
- Huns (whose calendar is still followed in India)
- Hordes of Islamic invaders for four hundred years (700-1100) till they finally conquered Delhi
- Mongols
- Timur
- Mughals, couple of times
- Nadir Shah (Persian)
- Afghans
And that's just off the top of my head. Seriously, it's ridiculously easy.
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@cooldud_21:
Haha, once you're through the Hindu Kush pass (where Peshawar is), it's flat plains to Delhi.
There are other obstacles aside from topography you know, especially for horse based warriors.
1. Big ass rivers.
2. Thar Desert.- Alexander
- Huns (whose calendar is still followed in India)
- Hordes of Islamic invaders for four hundred years (700-1100) till they finally conquered Delhi
- Mongols
- Timur
- Mughals, couple of times
- Nadir Shah (Persian)
- Afghans
A good 75% of these borders (as you pointed out) don't go to Delhi. They kind of jumble up against the Indus area.
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@Monkey:
There are other obstacles aside from topography you know, especially for horse based warriors.
1. Big ass rivers.
2. Thar Desert.The rivers are very easy to ford. People two thousand years ago did that. Especially at places near where modern Peshawar is. The Indus doesn't really get big ass until the lower reaches of the Punjab, after the other rivers have, you know, flown into it. And no one crosses the Thar Desert to invade India lol. There's loads of land between the desert and the Karakoram.
A good 75% of these borders (as you pointed out) don't go to Delhi. They kind of jumble up against the Indus area.
I'm assuming you mean 75% of the list of invaders I listed didn't get to Delhi. Apart from Alexander, all of those guys reached Delhi.
One mistake I made, the Scythian calendar is followed in India (and Thailand, I think), not the Hunnic one. Different invaders, got confused. -
@cooldud_21:
The rivers are very easy to ford. People two thousand years ago did that.
But at what points. Also are they easy to ford when held by defensive armies on one side. In quick succession to boot, the big cluster of rivers is across from Punjab, the more singular river is across from the Thar.
Especially at places near where modern Peshawar is.
Peshawar is not in Punjab, it's not in the big complex of rivers. It's on the edges of the mountain ranges.
The Indus doesn't really get big ass until the lower reaches of the Punjab, after the other rivers have, you know, flown into it. And no one crosses the Thar Desert to invade India lol. There's loads of land between the desert and the Karakoram.
Think about the logistics off getting an army over like five large rivers in a row in a heavily fortified populated area, after having already traversed mountain ranges. This also means you have your back to the mountains and don't exactly have fantastic methods of resupplication.
UNLESS, you are already situated in those mountains or on the other side (in Bactria for instance). The best outside conquerers of India have been peoples/states that were situated pretty much right next to it. Not folks from aways like Alexander or the Mongols.I'm assuming you mean 75% of the list of invaders I listed didn't get to Delhi. Apart from Alexander, all of those guys reached Delhi.
I'm being too vague on what I mean, check the maps. What you see on nearly every empire in question is that they stop there at best. That the traversal of that gauntlet means that just pouring into the rest of the subcontinent doesn't happened.
Let's go over it again.
Indo-Aryans: This is pure hypothesis, how they diffused their culture that is.
Alexander: Invaded into the Indus area before turning around.
Scythians: The ones who got into India occupied the Indus area and didn't penetrate much past that point.
Kushan: Same as Scythians.
Timur: Same as Scythians.
Mongols: Same as Alexander.
Various Muslim Entities that Didn't Make It: Thus my Point. Though I think one got like this goofy incredibly thin corridor of territory across the Ghenghis plain that probably only lasted a few years.
Until the one that did, the Mughals: One! One successful conquest of South Asia via the Afghan route!
Durrani Empire: Kicked the Mughals out of the Indus area but that's all they managed.
British: Did not come from the Afghan route. -
@Monkey:
Peshawar is not in Punjab, it's not in the big complex of rivers. It's on the edges of the mountain ranges.
I know where Peshawar is. It is seventy kilometres by road from the Indus. On the route conquerors use. Kabul -> Peshawar -> Rawalpindi -> Lahore -> Delhi. All the major rivers in Punjab are streams on this route, except two. The Indus is forded at Attock, the Jhelum at the imaginatively named town of Jhelum.
Kushan: Same as Scythians.
This guy had a regional capital at Mathura, south-east of Delhi, and his empire extended all the way to Patna.
You left out the Huns, or Hephthalites. This guy had his capital at Sialkot and his empire stretched into Northern India.
Timur: Same as Scythians.
Nope. He sacked Delhi.
Mongols: Same as Alexander.
Nope. They captured the Siri fort, which is in South Delhi now, before being beat back.
Various Muslim Entities that Didn't Make It
But they eventually did. This battle was fought 150km north of Delhi and resulted in the beginning of the Delhi Sultanate.
Until the one that did, the Mughals: One! One successful conquest of South Asia via the Afghan route!
Except they did it twice. Babur's son Humayun lost his entire empire to Sher Shah Suri and returned with the help of the Persian king, 15 years later, along the Afghan route, and defeated Suri's heirs to re-establish the Mughal dynasty.
Oh, and you also forgot Nadir Shah, the Shah of Iran, who sacked Delhi and took the Mughal treasures with him, including the Peacock Throne and the Koh-i-noor diamond.
Durrani Empire: Kicked the Mughals out of the Indus area but that's all they managed.
The Mughals were puppets in the hands of the Marathas by the time Ahmed Shah Durrani arrived. He invaded all the way up to Panipat, 90 km north of Delhi, where he defeated a huge Maratha army in the Third Battle of Panipat. He did not desire to take the throne at Delhi, which was his for the taking, so left, reaffirming the Mughal puppet Shah Alam II on the throne.
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Didn't Alexander get mutinied by his men before going for India because they realized how fucking painful it would be to deal with malaria, monsoons, the wildlife, the geography, and the natives at the same time.
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@Cyan:
Didn't Alexander get mutinied by his men before going for India because they realized how fucking painful it would be to deal with malaria, monsoons, the wildlife, the geography, and the natives at the same time.
Bwahahahahahaha.
Thanks, you made my day. -
@Cyan:
Didn't Alexander get mutinied by his men before going for India because they realized how fucking painful it would be to deal with malaria, monsoons, the wildlife, the geography, and the natives at the same time.
Keep in mind that they'd just had several hard battles with some of the smaller powers in the region and were hearing a lot of horror stories from their local allies about the military might across the Ganges. By that point, Alexander had only about ten thousand men with him and that was opposed by kings with armies twenty times that size or better. There are claims that Dhana Nanda had almost as many war elephants as Alexander had infantry.
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Mexico, the land of tacos and tequila
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@cooldud_21:
I know where Peshawar is. It is seventy kilometres by road from the Indus.
Seventy kilometers can be the difference between heaven and hell when it comes to geography lol. Distance is hardly what's at question.
I was only about 200 kilometers from the most hellish warzone on earth not so long ago. Eating fries in a diner with Chrissie while bored teenagers listened to Van Halen and yelled at other teenagers on bikes.
Peshawar is not in Punjab, it's in the edges of the mountains.On the route conquerors use. Kabul -> Peshawar -> Rawalpindi -> Lahore -> Delhi. All the major rivers in Punjab are streams on this route, except two. The Indus is forded at Attock, the Jhelum at the imaginatively named town of Jhelum.
I get that this is easy to write off in modern days, but getting horsemen in large numbers over rivers is a big big deal. Rivers are natural borders and obstacles, even basic ones.
Does this look like a troublesome river to you?
No, it probably doesn't.
Funny thing is it more or less formed the northern borders of the Roman Empire for the duration of their height of power. That's the Danube.
It really seems like you've obsessed over the wrong point of my point.
We're not arguing about DID X GET TO POINT Y ON THE INDIA SCALE.
We're arguing about "Is it tough to invade India via the Afghan route".
You are scoffing at rivers mattering to old armies (when they did), and acting like examples of armies enduring the geography, meant the geography doesn't matter (armies that did not manage much past that point aside from pretty much only the Mughals)
Which is sort of like arguing that someone surviving an 8 story fall means that 8 story falls are no big deal and can be written off.
Is this not what you're doing? Because it sounds an awful lot like what you're doing. -
Well, some (not all) of those obscenely rich people are responsible for a majority of the funding that goes into non profit foundations, research for diseases, and other philanthropic engagements. Some of these programs fund those bums on the streets.
True true. But what i've always noted is that they always give money to causes elsewhere.
They rarely seem to focus on cleaning up in their own backyards.
The Big Issue is a PR initiative in Britain where corporations take on social responsibility to aid those in need. They've offered Homeless people help in getting a job and have also created a program where they fund and supply schools with food so that the students can eat breakfast everyday.
That sounds lovely. Wish more companies back home did that as well
Rich people give back and yes they do have hearts.
I'm sure they do. But it would be fun to know what's the proportions are betwenn taking and giving
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@wolfwoof:
I'm sure they do. But it would be fun to know what's the proportions are betwenn taking and giving
Well… I can't deny that there are those that do rob the public. (Richard Ney wrote on the whole Wall Street scandal that happened, but I don't feel like getting into all that)
I'd say an earnest investor or entrepreneur doesn't really take money. If anything they create their own avenues and also help produce new ones for others.
One big question that people seem to ask "What are they doing with all that money?" Well some re-invest it so they can make more dreams and ideas manifest. Elon Musk is a great example, whose spent his multi millions of building space crafts and other related projects for the benefit of space exploration. He's even gone broke on some occasions. Howard Hughes is also another great example of a filthy rich man risking it all on the birth of a certain creation (in his case movies and airplanes).
So it's not as if all rich people are storing their money away just for the sake of depriving the world of some cash. They use money to build opportunities.
LA LA LAAAAAA. LA LA LA LA!(-Dearly Beloved)
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@Monkey:
The Hungarians are so European because they were surrounded by y'know, Europeans. If they'd assimilated the locals in a more isolated place instead of dead center in the joint it may have looked pretty different. But I made the point that they aren't THE exception, the Turks for instance. Hell the Turks even created a separate Slavic ethnicity with the Bosniaks. There's other examples around the world too.
Not really nomads, but certainly hill peoples coming down into lowlands in heavy migration and assimilating the lowlanders heavily is a central theme in Southeast Asia.
Mon got assimilated by the Burmese. And pretty much all of Thailand and Laos used to be Khmer territory, now they just exist in a rump state with Cambodia.That's interesting. I think I'm going to research Eastern Asia more.
@Monkey:
Hmm, I just assumed you guys would be really cynical about it considering that the Russians were at the height of their Pan-Slavism, also treating the Poles in their territory with special contempt and disregard. I guess though Austrian/German Poles would feel pretty differently.
Don't forget we used to have country consisting of more than one Slavic language nations. There were some plans of uniting Slaves under Habsburg rule. And later on, after WWII the idea of Slavs played the role in defending against Germans claims for parts of our land. (And you could get extra funds for your research when you told them you're to research Slavs).
@Monkey:
I pretty much always disregard people who trying to talk about "anthropological types" anyway, especially those who constantly always over and over fail to see any difference between genes and language, total amateur shit. I can see we're agreed on that!
Anthropological typology has it's limitations, it's useful sometimes, in cases where population are very distinctively different from one another, but now we can research genes, and that's more reliable. Of course genetic material has to be preserved, but it is in most cases, where the bones are preserved enough to make anthropological analyses. From What I know Slaves don't have genetic markers specific for them. We have traces of older, at least neolithic population of this area and traces of various peoples migrating through lands, where Slavic languages are spoken. Yes, that includes various steppe tribes, but those tribes were non-Slavic.
@Monkey:
And as I pointed out the main reason they stopped was a random act of chance. And even most other theories are things like "They never wanted to in the first place" and stuff like that.
In their prime pretty much the only people who outright defeated the Mongols without some great luck and geography (like the kamikazi wins lol), was Egypt.That explanation is not sufficient. Sure it explained why Mongols withdrawn at that particular moment in history, but it doesn't explained why they hadn't conquered Poland (and successively Europe) little bit later (since it seems that they could military wise). After all we did nothing to turn the tables.
But you're right Mongols were serious threat, it's just, from Poland perspective, in comparison with all the other shit we've be through history they just seem not that important.
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@Monkey:
Seventy kilometers can be the difference between heaven and hell when it comes to geography lol. Distance is hardly what's at question.
In the huge subcontinent, it is not. Especially, when the seventy kilometres is plain ground to the Indus. Panipat is 90 km north of Delhi and all the victors of the battles fought in Panipat had an easy day's ride to Delhi.
Peshawar is not in Punjab, it's in the edges of the mountains.
The North-West Frontier Provinces are a very recent British construct. Peshawar was always contested between the Afghans and the Punjabis and changed hands frequently. And I brought the city up because of it's proximity to the Indus, and the fact that it formed the basis of countless invasions in India, not because of it's historic membership in the Punjab.
I get that this is easy to write off in modern days, but getting horsemen in large numbers over rivers is a big big deal. Rivers are natural borders and obstacles, even basic ones.
I don't think you get it. The Mongols, the point where the discussion started, knew how to ford rivers. They invaded Indo-China and also crossed the Tigris and the Euphrates. The route I pointed out above has two major fording points, Attock for the Indus, and Jhelum for the Jhelum. The rivers are quite easy to ford at those locations, except during the monsoons.
It really seems like you've obsessed over the wrong point of my point.
We're not arguing about DID X GET TO POINT Y ON THE INDIA SCALE.
We're arguing about "Is it tough to invade India via the Afghan route".And I pointed out nine armies (Kushans, Hephthalites, Mohammad Ghori, Mongols, Timur, Babur, Humayun, Nadir Shar, Ahmad Shah Durrani) that succesfully invaded India on the Afghan route. Getting to Delhi was an arbitrary marker to constitute successfully not getting bogged down in Punjab.
You are scoffing at rivers mattering to old armies (when they did), and acting like examples of armies enduring the geography, meant the geography doesn't matter (armies that did not manage much past that point aside from pretty much only the Mughals)
Nope. I meant the rivers that the Mongols would have faced in an invasion of India would not be any more difficult than the rivers they crossed in getting anywhere else. And all the armies I pointed out in my last post did something significant! The Kushans and Mohammad Ghori also established empires in India; Timur, Nadir Shah, and Durrani made successful raids, sacked Delhi, butchered thousands of Hindus, and looted and pillaged the countryside, stole national treasures, before returning satisfied and satiated. In fact, apart from the Mongols, almost everyone in the list I made above succeeded in defeating the armies from Delhi (or beyond) against them.
Which is sort of like arguing that someone surviving an 8 story fall means that 8 story falls are no big deal and can be written off.
Is this not what you're doing? Because it sounds an awful lot like what you're doing.Or is it what you want to believe I am doing?
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So we'll be having our elections next week and everyone's on edge on whether a repeat of 4 years ago will happen with the senseless violence doesn't help that the same guy who was a the centre of the previous post election violence is already saying that the elections are going to be rigged.
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One big question that people seem to ask "What are they doing with all that money?" Well some re-invest it so they can make more dreams and ideas manifest. Elon Musk is a great example, whose spent his multi millions of building space crafts and other related projects for the benefit of space exploration. He's even gone broke on some occasions. Howard Hughes is also another great example of a filthy rich man risking it all on the birth of a certain creation (in his case movies and airplanes).
So it's not as if all rich people are storing their money away just for the sake of depriving the world of some cash. They use money to build opportunities.
Still sounds a little selfish for a handful of men to pool millions upon billions on what they want and not what people around them really need.
But y'know this is probably just value dissonance due to my socialist upbringing.
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@wolfwoof:
Still sounds a little selfish for a handful of men to pool millions upon billions on what they want and not what people around them really need.
Well it's not really selfish and for two reasons:
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The projects that they re-invest in are usually projects that were created for the purpose of helping the greater good. Musk's re-invests his millions into space exploration, Hughes re-invests his millions into airplanes, Bill Gates re-invest his millions into advances in technology and personal computers.
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Nothing wrong with trying to use money to manifest a dream. In many cases that's how society prospers in the first place. From the dreams and ideals of another.
LA LA LAAAAAA. LA LA LA LA!(-Dearly Beloved)
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^That's an honorable thing.
But investing in Mercedeses still seems a bad idea.
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^That's an honorable thing.
But investing in Mercedeses still seems a bad idea.
Yeah but that's not something that's just exclusive to the rich. People in my neighborhood buy those cars. Hell, people who have no business buying such cars do so anyway.
Besides there are cases where millionaires actually drive regular cars and wear regular clothes.
LA LA LAAAAAA. LA LA LA LA!(-Dearly Beloved)
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Yeah but that's not something that's just exclusive to the rich. People in my neighborhood buy those cars. Hell, people who have no business buying such cars do so anyway.
Besides there are cases where millionaires actually drive regular cars and wear regular clothes.
I mean investing the tax-money to buy Mercedeses which they switch the following year for new ones.
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I mean investing the tax-money to buy Mercedeses which they switch the following year for new ones.
Yea but that's only talking about some of the wealthy (in many cases politicians).
I'm speaking about the entrepreneurs (businessmen and businesswomen who didn't start off rich) who came up with an idea to make society better, or wanted to generate their own wealth.
LA LA LAAAAAA. LA LA LA LA!(-Dearly Beloved)
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Yea but that's only talking about some of the wealthy (in many cases politicians).
I'm speaking about the entrepreneurs (businessmen and businesswomen who didn't start off rich) who came up with an idea to make society better, or wanted to generate their own wealth.
Yeah, politicians.
I have no problem with rich people actually. Most of the time, they give a lot of their money to charity and I envy them for that. I hope I'll be gaining enough to be able to donate to children/animals/anything that deserves it.
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Personaly I never understood the appeal of cars. I mean they just don't look appealing to me, and certainly not enough to spend millions on (in local currency), that's for sure.
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Well it's not really selfish and for two reasons:
- The projects that they re-invest in are usually projects that were created for the purpose of helping the greater good. Musk's re-invests his millions into space exploration, Hughes re-invests his millions into airplanes, Bill Gates re-invest his millions into advances in technology and personal computers.
Well that's all fine and good and i hope that's a common thing for the top percent to do. But that's kind of what i mean when i say they invest it in places far away ( in this case the future) and rarely in the day to day life of the community and it's little people. For example if you pour millions or even billions into projects that are beneficial for the future you do good yet you've probably got families in the same city who can't feed their kids or pay their medical bills. What the hell kind of priorities are those. It's all a bit hush now the decision makers have decided that you aren't worth prioritizing when compared to this fabulous new invention.
lol i'm more of a commie than i ever imagined
- Nothing wrong with trying to use money to manifest a dream. In many cases that's how society prospers in the first place. From the dreams and ideals of another.
Not at all. I wish the self-made man as much chance to enjoy the fruits of his labours as the next guy.
But it's all about proportions to me.
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@No:
Personaly I never understood the appeal of cars. I mean they just don't look appealing to me, and certainly not enough to spend millions on (in local currency), that's for sure.
As long as a car works that's all I care about.
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@No:
Personaly I never understood the appeal of cars. I mean they just don't look appealing to me, and certainly not enough to spend millions on (in local currency), that's for sure.
Yeah never got into the whole car thing either. But i suppose i'll need to get one eventually.
Preferbly one that runs on tap water:ninja:
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This post is deleted!
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I'm not that into cars either, but when I see a really nice looking one, I stop and check it out again till it rolls down the street.
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@wolfwoof:
Well that's all fine and good and i hope that's a common thing for the top percent to do. But that's kind of what i mean when i say they invest it in places far away ( in this case the future) and rarely in the day to day life of the community and it's little people. For example if you pour millions or even billions into projects that are beneficial for the future you do good yet you've probably got families in the same city who can't feed their kids or pay their medical bills. What the hell kind of priorities are those.
That's not fair to burden entrepreneurs with supporting all the families and poor people in their city just because they have money. Especially when you have people like this who feel entitled to take from the government:
There are a lot of entrepreneurs who started off from scratch (financially) and they worked hard to get where they are.
Also, how should the rich give money to their cities and to who? I mean.. name me some options and chances are there are some that already do the things (in their cities let me add) that you will list.
Not at all. I wish the self-made man as much chance to enjoy the fruits of his labours as the next guy.
But it's all about proportions to me.
People work for their money. If you want more money, then work. If hard work doesn't get you there, then work smarter. There are always exceptions though, but for the most part there are not.
LA LA LAAAAAA. LA LA LA LA!(-Dearly Beloved)
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That's not fair to burden entrepreneurs with supporting all the families and poor people in their city just because they have money. Especially when you have people like this who feel entitled to take from the government
Nobody should force anybody. What i hope for is more of a realization that you don't have to look far to find good causes
There are a lot of entrepreneurs who started off from scratch (financially) and they worked hard to get where they are.
And these guys by the virtue of having lived that kind of shitty life should be sympathetic to their plight no?
Suppose that there are those who feel that if they could do it everyone else is lazy for not doing it though
Also, how should the rich give money to their cities and to who? I mean.. name me some options and chances are there are some that already do the things (in their cities let me add) that you will list.
Well they could always donate a fund or a grant that uninsured patients who are in way over their head can apply to
Could do the same with housing/renovations, food outlets, schools etc, ain't like it's hard to give away money.
But i realize that this is pretty much a utopian pipe dream. But still it's nice to dream sometimes^^
People work for their money. If you want more money, then work. If hard work doesn't get you there, then work smarter. There are always exceptions though, but for the most part they are not.
There really should be a series of jokes that go an American and a Scandinavian walk into a bar and have an aneurysm over each others way of life lol
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@wolfwoof:
Nobody should force anybody. What i hope for is more of a realization that you don't have to look far to find good causes
Here's the first thing. You don't have to go far to find good causes, but what if someone wants to use their money to help a cause that they're interested in helping? Sure there are people living on the street, but what if someone wanted to contribute to a Breast Cancer Foundation instead?
Well they could always donate a fund or a grant that uninsured patients who are in way over their head can apply to
1) The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation donates money for many healthcare research efforts. They donate money to causes that healthcare alone is still unable to solve.
Could do the same with housing/renovations, food outlets, schools etc, ain't like it's hard to give away money.
2) Ray Lewis' Family Foundation is specifically catered to children from low income household.
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In fact, on Xmas, all of the Baltimore Ravens took out children to allow them to buy gifts.
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3) In 2010, Mark Zuckerburg donated $100 million dollars to New Jersey schools.
4) In 2012, David Einhorn donated initiated in a charity (bringing in $1 million of his dollars himself) to donate to an organization City Year (an organization that aids public schools).
And that's only naming a few… just a few!
LA LA LAAAAAA. LA LA LA LA!(-Dearly Beloved)
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Here's the first thing. You don't have to go far to find good causes, but what if someone wants to use their money to help a cause that they're interested in helping? Sure there are people living on the street, but what if someone wanted to contribute to a Breast Cancer Foundation instead?
I imagine that if your the kind of obscenly rich guy we're talking about you wouldn't have to make an either or choice.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation donates money for many healthcare research efforts. They donate money to causes that healthcare alone is still unable to solve.
2) Ray Lewis' Family Foundation is specifically catered to children from low income household.
!
In fact, on Xmas, all of the Baltimore Ravens took at children to allow them to buy gifts.
!
3) In 2010, Mark Zuckerburg donated $100 million dollars to New Jersey schools.
3) In 2012, David Einhorn donated initiated in a charity (bringing in $1 million of his dollars himself) to donate to an organization City Year (an organization that aids public schools).
And that's only naming a few… just a few!
It's a good start. Pool enough of that together and you could eradicate alot of poverty.
Still a pretty funny scenario where one guy actually holds the power over 100 million in spending money. I think that's like a third of my countries GDP lol
But that's a pretty good topic. Where on the socialist to capitalist spectrum are your respective countries?
