I'll bring fucking receipts later when I have the patience to, but it is very important to remember: THE NAZI PARTY WANTED TO BE SEEN AS A LEGAL BODY WHILE PERFORMING ILLEGAL ACTIONS.
In 1923, they fucking humiliated themselves by launching a failed coup against the government and from that point on, they realised they will only be able to take power legally.
From the Night of the Long Knives to the development of the concentration camps, the Gestapo and Research Bureau, the extermination of minorities, and the murder of over 250,000 disabled people, everything the Nazi regime ever did was """legal""" by the written law.
And what do you know?
Government Censorship.
Privatisation of public services.
ICE.
Oil Corporations.
Mining Corporations.
Agribusiness.
Fast fashion.
Child labour and slavery.
IT SHOULD BE APPARENT THAT LEGALITY HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ETHICS.
The 1933 'Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service' was a piece of legislature passed by the Nazi party.
The law was, according to the Nazi party, meant to restore a competent civil service by removing 'incompetent' individuals. Individuals who just so happened to include their racial and political enemies, including Jews, Communists, and non-Aryans.
*Notably, this law prompted the emigration of famous scientific minds such as Albert Einstein.
Another light one today - but still, I find fossil water to be a fascinating concept.
Essentially, the simplest way to visualise fossil water is to think of something like oil, and then swap the oil out for water.
In a bit more complex terms, water enters an aquifer and - through various processes - that aquifer then gets cut off from the larger water cycle for a bit by the development of some sort of barrier, leaving the water sort of just... there... with no way out.
Do you think the water gets scared?
Anyways, the real reason fossil water is fascinating is because a lot of places actually depend on it, extracting it sort of like oil. This water is then used for agriculture and a bunch of other things. There's only a couple of problems with that.
You see, like oil, fossil water takes a really bloody long time to replenish (though, compared to oil, fossil water can replenish in like a couple thousand years, this is still an incredibly long time on the human level). Thus, fossil water is effectively finite.
Secondly, since this water has been sitting in the ground for like, a really long time, things like radioactive contamination can occur due to minerals seeping into the water and this can make it very hard to use because like - its not safe, y'know?
Thirdly, extracting fossil water means you just left a giant opening in the ground for other things to flow into. This may be freshwater, but it also may be contaminants dissolved in water or just sea water, which effectively destroys these reserves.
Geography/History Facts: 2 - More About Global Vaccinations!
Polio is a strange disease. Mostly impacting children below the age of 5, in around 75% of cases it is completely asymptomatic. Indeed, the permanent paralysis that the disease is often associated with - giving rise to the creation of the infamous 'Iron-Lungs' of the early 20th century - only occurs in about 0.5% of cases.
Now, these statistics may make the disease easy to dismiss, shall we say? If only 0.5% of cases actually cause such severe symptoms, than what was the big deal?
Well!
Firstly, polio has likely been present throughout all of human history, with symptoms of the infection - such as the withering of muscles - being observable in Egyptian carvings produced over 3,300 years ago. Meanwhile, its first clinical description was documented in 1789.
Long story short, it has been around for a long time and has had the opportunity to spread pretty much to every corner of the world.
Secondly, polio is highly infectious.
It is this second fact which makes it so dangerous. See, when you begin to experience the emergence of modern cities where lots of poor, malnourished people are crammed together without any real access to helpful medication, then you start seeing a lot of outbreaks which leads to lots of children dying simply because of how quickly it spreads. To take the example of New York in 1916, 9,000 people were infected and, as a result, 2,343 people died - most of them being children. Even amongst those who didn't die, many faced life-long disablement as a result of deformities caused by the disease.
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"By the mid-20th century, the poliovirus could be found all over the world and killed or paralysed over half a million people every year. "
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These mass outbreaks in the 20th century led to the eventual development of the 'iron lungs' by Philip Drinker and Louie Shaw. While these machines were technological marvels that helped preserve the lives of many children in a strange limbo, luckily these machines have become redundant.
Why, you ask?
Well, vaccinations, of course!
A breakthrough in 1949 saw the cultivation of poliovirus in human tissue, later allowing for the production of the first polio vaccine in 1953 by Jonas Salk. His formula would later be mass-produced by six pharmaceutical companies.
Later, in 1955, Salk would be asked about who owned the patent to his formula for the Polio vaccine and in response he stated that:
"Well, the people, I would say. There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?”
(sidenote, this is a really cool take by Salk. I know very little about the guy but anyone who takes this approach to something which is beneficial to humanity as a whole is a cool person)
And while this vaccine was massively successful, it would be the later development of the oral polio vaccine by Albert Sabin that would allow for the WHO to begin a global campaign for mass-polio-vaccination - mostly because it is much easier to get a bunch of people to eat something than inject it straight into their veins, you know?
Anyway, you could say this vaccination programme was a massive success considering that *clears throat*:
-wild poliovirus type 2 was eradicated in 1999
-wild poliovirus type 3 was eradicated in 2020
-wild poliovirus type 1 only remains in Pakistan and Afghanistan, with cases constantly dropping.
So, all in all, this is fucking cool right? Like, I do hope that I'm not the only one that thinks this because this is just one of a handful of times we have completely ridden humanity of unnecessary suffering, at least for the most part. It makes me hopeful (: because we can really genuinely do some cool stuff as a species when we put our minds to it.
Thermohaline circulation is very important for our planetary health so before you pass this post because of the dumb nerd shit word in the title, let me explain.
So!
*cracks knuckles*
Thermohaline circulation refers to how the varying salt content and temperature of different regions of the oceans create currents that circulate the Earth's oceans. These currents look sort of like this:
Essentially, cold water sinks in polar regions because that water is colder and has a higher salt content (for a series of complex reasons to do with pack ice and some other stuff we don't need to get into right now). This increases the density of the water and thus the water sinks. This sinking of water creates a void which warmer, less salty water is drawn into from the tropics.
This is a VERY basic summary and the reason the currents on the map above are all funky and all over the place is because this is a highly complex process, the above explanation is just the rough notes on why these currents form.
Now that w have that established, let us get back to the important question: why the fuck is any of this important?
Well, I am glad you asked. You see, Thermohaline Circulation plays a key role in regulating our climate. Not only does it circulate warm and cold water - which plays a key role in rates of evaporation, thus rainfall and humidity, but also in just regulating air temperature and the amount of ice in the poles - but since water (cold water especially) also absorbs carbon (that thing which is in carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas) these paths of circulation also play a major role in storing away loads and loads of carbon in deep-ocean currents.
However, if you have been paying attention throughout this post (thank you by the way, means a lot) then you will realise that ocean temperature plays a very significant role in ensuring the stability of thermohaline circulation - like, it is in the name. 'thermo' and all of that. Returning to the point: given current trends depicting a generally warming global climate, it is quite likely that Thermohaline circulation will be increasingly disrupted if no actions are taken to prevent climate change. This will lead to a general breakdown in current global weather patterns and also an increasing amount of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere, exacerbating climate change since - y'know, as I said before cold water hold more carbon so if the water heats up well what do you know? More carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
How horrific (:
Sources:
I'm a bit too tired currently to attach sources and because this is a well-understood geographic phenomenon (rather than a more political or historical thing) I feel that a simple google search is literally all you need to substantiate this phenomenon.
Many of us are familiar with the memes about worded maths questions which have filtered through to all levels of our modern society. They're entertaining because they are often wonderfully ludicrous.
Well...
Below the cut is a worded maths problem which was put into a textbook that was meant to be used in classrooms to teach children during the reign of the Nazi party.
"Question 97: To keep a mentally ill person costs approx. 4RM* per day, a cripple 5.5RM, a criminal 3.50RM. Many civil servants receive only 4RM per day, white-collar employees barely 3.50RM, unskilled workers not even 2RM per head for their families.
a)Illustrate these figures with a diagram.
According to conservative estimates, there are 300,000 mentally ill, epileptics etc. in care.
b) How much do these people cost to keep in total at a cost of 4RM a head?
c) How many marriage loans at 1000RM each could be granted from this money?"
*RM stands for Reichsmarks, the currency of Germany at the time
Now, I hope everybody understands why this is some of the most vile shit to ever be put to paper. But if not, let us talk about it.
The question is very intentionally designed to leave an imprint in the person solving it, priming them to eventually accept certain political ideologies.
Initially, the question lists how much it costs the government to care for individuals of different groups per day. That part - for the most part - has no true agenda. Those are statistics. However, when we place those numbers into the context of the next sentence it becomes very apparent that the question is intentionally making an ideological statement. Specifically, about how 'unfair' it is that 'all these upstanding people like civil servants are making so little while the government gladly throws away money into the hands of the 'useless leeches' of society'. The question may not overtly state that, but it certainly implies it.
When it comes to sub-questions 'b' and 'c' the message is even more clear. The question is asking the student to consider the idea that 'all this money being put towards "useless" individuals within society could be put to much better use. So, why are we giving it to them?' Once again, none of this is being overtly stated, yet a hypothetical student - young and pliable as they still are - leaves this question with an imprint upon their minds. They have been presented with a series of statistics and questions which are purposefully engineered to create the idea within them that there are individuals within society who are 'drains' on the economy.
Also, another element we should consider regarding this example is how easy it is to shape things which should be objective - like mathematics - into a part of a larger political agenda. Mathematics is literally numbers and calculations - learning about it should have no political baggage attached to it. Yet, anyone with a bit of skill, thought, and sufficient motive, can warp even the objective into becoming another way to push a political agenda.
Now, what is the worst part of this all in my opinion?
Even in the modern day, sentiments such as those expressed within this question wouldn't be that out of the ordinary for many people to make. Think about it - and I really do mean think - how often have you heard people express sentiments along the lines of 'anyone who is on benefits is a drain on public resources'?. Even if not in your personal life, you have almost certainly heard it somewhere on the news and such.
These talking points and ideologies that led to the creation of the above question are very much alive and actively putting the existence of already struggling individuals within society into peril.
So, I just want people to remember, that no one is a 'drain' on society or 'stealing money from those who deserve it' by being on benefits. A society is defined by how it treats its weakest and most vulnerable and if we cannot find the empathy in our hearts to look after such people and provide them the opportunity to not only exist but to thrive, then we have seriously fucked up.
Everyone has a right to existence.
The problem isn't the person on benefits, its the companies and governments trying to squeeze every ounce of profit and value out of you.
Sources:
Helen Brocklehurst, Who’s Afraid of Children? Children, Conflict and International Relations, Ashgate Publishing, 2006, p. 72.
Geography Facts: 8 - The Responsibility to Protect
The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) states that all members of the international community have an obligation to protect populations from the "mass atrocity crimes of genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity."
This 'Responsibility to Protect' is based off of 3 distinct pillars of logic:
"Every state has the Responsibility to Protect its populations from four mass atrocity crimes: genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing."
"The wider international community has the responsibility to encourage and assist individual states in meeting that responsibility"
"If a state is manifestly failing to protect its populations, the international community must be prepared to take appropriate collective action, in a timely and decisive manner and in accordance with the UN Charter."
These pillars make it abundantly clear that there are limits to how much sovereignty a country can exercise.
However...
While this principal is highly important to enforce to prevent crimes against humanity across the globe, its employment has come under a heavy amount of criticism - particularly due to many (justifiably) viewing it as another method of imperialism alongside it not truly holding all members of the international community to a high standard in preventing crimes against humanity.
The 2011 intervention in Libya by the UN has often been criticised as not being motivated by a desire to protect but rather a desire to change the unstable regime of the country due to the geopolitical value of Libya to Europe.
At the same time, the 'Responsibility to Protect' has been blatantly ignored in the Israeli genocide of Palestinian civilians. Why has the R2P been ignored in this case? Well, most likely because the existence of an allied state of Israel is in the best interest of the Western powers of the world. Thus, why should they intervene?
Overall, the R2P doctrine - while being a valuable precedent for international law - is currently nothing but a tool to be used by neo-colonial powers to exert control across the globe. Particularly, this control is exerted in struggling, resource-rich countries in regions such as Africa and in the Middle-East. Meanwhile, nations such as China, Russia, North Korea, and even the USA, can violate human rights without being held accountable due to their influence in Global Politics.
By 2027, the current Labour Government in the UK plans to reduce the foreign aid budget to 0.3% of Gross National Income - the lowest level since 1999.
This reduction carries on a pre-existing trends from the previous Tory government which reduced the foreign aid budget from 0.7% of GNI to 0.3% of GNI.
However, this latest reduction in the foreign aid budget comes as a result of a desire to increase defence spending. This is - honestly - a ridiculous justification considering that in 2023, the UK spent £15.3 billion on foreign aid and that only composed 0.58% of Gross National Income. Reducing the aid budget to 0.3% of GNI would only give the UK government an extra £6.1 billion to work with. This reduction would barely finance 1/20th of the previously discussed refurbishment of the UK's nuclear submarines.
So, the domestic benefit of reducing the aid budget is practically negligible when it comes to the stated purpose.
Yet the public seems to support this shift, as Jenny Chapman said in an interview with the Guardian, "...the truth is that the confidence that the public once had in this agenda has faded...". Going by her word, it appears that the issue of public support is one that stems from a lack of understanding of what the UK actually does with its foreign aid and the positives/benefits it brings. While it is valid to criticise the way the 'Global West' provides aid (being nothing more than a continuation of the idea of the 'White Man's Burden) the aid itself is arguably vital.
Now to all the people who think the UK providing foreign aid is bad actually and doesn't benefit the nation, let us take a look at the damage this £6.1 billion reduction would cause both to the UK and the world:
For every £1 the UK puts into organisations such as the World Bank, it gets a return on investment worth £10 due to the improved socio-economic wellbeing of the globe.
To quote Save the Children, "Cutting aid does not make the world safer. Poverty, conflict, and climate disasters don’t stay contained. They lead to more displaced people, increased instability, and bigger threats to international peace - including for the UK. Slashing aid makes the world less safe."
Clinics and medical facilities will be shut down across the globe at a time when 1 in 11 children need life saving assistance - do these children not have the right to live?
Behind the USA, the UK and the Netherlands were the largest providers of aid for family planning programmes. As Elizabeth Sully (principal research scientist at the Guttmacher Institute) stated, "This loss of funding means that the rights, dignity and lives of people around the world, particularly women and girls, are even more at risk.”
UK is turning its back on communities facing poverty, conflict and insecurity...damaging its credibility on the global stage. Soon, no one will want to associate with the UK in the developing world.
These shifts in foreign aid budgets are not actually being used to re-examine the system of aid that currently exists in which dependencies are created within countries on loans from the high income world.
We are simply taking away the only lifeline many countries suffering crisis are experiencing rather than making any progress in promoting self-reliability.
Nations such as China are rushing in to fill the gaps left by the withdrawal of European and American aid in continents like Africa - as stated by Ed Davey, leader of the Liber Democrats. (not to say that China is any worse than the 'Global West' in how it provides aid but still, if we are looking purely from the perspective of the UK this will be a massive blow to the nation's soft diplomatic power which, considering the state of its military, remains its only viable means of remaining influential in global politics).
Thus, it should be evident that the UK cutting it's foreign aid is a terrible thing to do. Not only is it arguably immoral, but it is also something which compromises the international interests of the country. Therefore, I want to ask people - does it seem like a good idea to be moving away from providing international aid and instead using the thin pickings of funds taken from such programmes to instead create weapons of war.
...
I hope pretty much everyone can agree with me on this: PEOPLE DO NOT WANT WAR.
After the shitshow that was Russia's attempted invasion of Ukraine turned World War I re-enactment, it should be obvious that no matter how many guns the government tries to produce, there will not be enough people willing to conscript and use them.
As of 2024, Singapore had one of the world's highest GDP/capita of 90,600 USD.
Currently, the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) ranks it's public sector as being the 3rd least corrupt country in the world.
It is a nation that is incredibly business-friendly and economically prosperous.
At the same time, it's 'political environment remains overwhelmingly repressive' according to Human Rights Watch, with freedoms of expression and rights to assembly being heavily restricted.
The passing of the 'Online Criminal Harms Act' in 2023 has been highly critiqued since it granted the government the ability to censor the internet which it has since used to restrict opposing viewpoints and enforce compliance.
Government workers and supporters of the workers have routinely argued that it has been this restriction of freedoms that have permitted the nation to achieve such massive economic successes.
Terrorist attacks within the Sahel now make up over half of all global deaths from terrorism.
As discussed in my previous post food insecurity within the Sahel is a prominent problem. Yet, it is one that is - nevertheless - only being made worse by the ever-increasing number of conflicts in the area. These conflicts are primarily incited by the rapid rise of terrorist organisations such as IS and the TTP within the area, the number of deaths being attributed to attacks by these groups reportedly increasing by 90% over the last few years.
However, the Sahel was not always in such a dire state. Since 2015, the Sahel has seen a 658% increase in deaths from terrorism. This figure depicts that up until 5-10 years ago, the region was (relatively) stable.
The primary cause behind this rapid growth in conflict and terrorism is a combination of:
Counter-terrorism in the Middle-East forcing the exodus of jihadist organisations into other, less-policed regions.
The exploitation of ethnic tensions by such jihadist groups.
The countries within the Sahel being already highly divided and politically unstable region after a series of 6 coups taking place since 2020.
The region is highly profitable as a route for drug trafficking.
The Sahel is the northernmost region of Sub-Saharan Africa, spanning 10 countries and nearly 6,000 kilometres. This region is homed to over 350 million people.
According to several estimates, some of the countries within the African Sahel are the ones experiencing the most severe levels of food insecurity around the world
At least 10 million people suffer from acute hunger
1 million children under the age of 5 suffer from life-threatening malnutrition
"In 2023, about 45,000 people suffered catastrophic levels of hunger in the Sahel"
The threat of a changing climate, results in the increasing the frequency of droughts and floods. This is only further threatening food security of the region.
Furthermore, these shortages are causing an increase in high-intensity, unsustainable agriculture, further degrading the area and driving up food prices.
Much of the climatic change impacting the area is being caused by the unsustainable practices of industrialised countries.
In the aftermath of World War I, the European and American public largely did its best to forget about those who had been facially disfigured by the conflict.
Though those with missing limbs were still viewed through a rather uncomfortable lens - the provision of prosthetics in the USA being based off of a desire to make people look 'normal' and 'whole' rather than helping the disabled - it was the facially disfigured who arguably suffered the most (if you can put a value to suffering, that is).
In services of remembrance, the facially disfigured were not allowed to take part.
During their recovery in specially set up hospitals meant to keep them isolated from the public, benches in the nearby area would be painted blue so as to notify people that there would be men around with facial disfigurement, granting them the option to avoid them and their viscerally disturbing presence.
Yet, despite them being pushed to the shadows of society, post-war pacifist movements utilised images of the traumatised and disfigured to push their messages.
Thus, even when they were acknowledged, it was as an object of disgust rather than people.
World War I is a really gruesomely interesting conflict when you think about it. This war, essentially, was the first time in history that major industrialised powers went to war with one another, revealing the many horrific ways in which men can die but - more importantly - the many horrific ways in which men can survive these things.
By the time of the First World War, developments in chemical warfare, machine guns, and artillery shells did present a colourful menagerie of ways in which a man could die. Yet, at the same time, improvements in surgical technology meant that people could survive previously grievous wounds. Usually, this came with severe scarring or missing limbs - but right now we are talking about those with facial disfigurements.
Now, the treatment of these people was outright inhumane.
Specialised hospitals meant to treat the disfigured were established by men such as Harold Gillies. These places, arguably, understood the need to properly address the mental trauma done by the facial wound while also providing proper plastic surgery.
Yet, at the same time, it can be argued that most of the time these 'treatments' were more concerned with keeping the public comfortable rather than properly protecting and treating the disfigured men.
Do some more reading if you are interest, but just as my two cents on this topic:
I think this is best taken as a lesson on the need to treat people as fundamentally human no matter what they have been through. This may be an obvious message to take away from all this, but genuinely, even in the modern day many people with facial disfigurements are treated with disgust and discrimination for no logical reason other than a knee-jerk - and un-confronted - revulsion.
Currently, the UK is working on the first steps to upgrade its Trident submarines - which are a part of its nuclear deterrent.
This could cost £250 billion.
Meanwhile, 18% of the UK population was living in absolute poverty as of 2024.
Already, as of 2016, Kate Hudson (the general secretary of The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) stated in an interview with the Guardian that:
“£205 billion of public money is a huge amount. Pouring it into a nuclear weapons system that experts say could be rendered obsolete by new technology is hardly a wise choice. Far better to spend it on industrial regeneration, building homes, tackling climate change or meeting our defence needs in usable ways.”
Currently, she is being proved right.
Firstly, much of the upgrades to the UK's arsenal of Trident submarines would take 40-50 years to be completed, by which point the 'upgraded' technology will likely have become obsolete.
Secondly, the UK's 'Infrastructure and Projects Authority' recently published a report which has deemed the upgrade project 'unachievable' in its current form, being nothing more than a drain on public funds.
Thirdly, the UK is facing a massive issue in terms of its budget, with severe cuts to foreign aid, discussion around cuts to vital benefits, and just a general rising number of people living in deprived conditions.
I remember reading a Tumblr post a while back that was talking about how we don't often acknowledge a lot of subtle things, like policies pushing for better air quality, which may have saved our lives.
So, I would like to ask you a question: Has your life been saved by a vaccine?
The answer should be yes.
In fact, the answer may be more than just yes. Vaccines are likely the very reason many of us exist at all.
See, it has been estimated by the WHO and other public health institutions that global vaccination programmes have saved more than 150 million lives just in the last 50 years.
For reference, the world's first vaccine (the Smallpox vaccine) was initially tested in 1796 by Physician Edward Jenner - over 220 years ago.
As many people may know, this ultimately culminated in the complete eradication of wild smallpox by 1980 after an extensive inoculation programme being mobilised by the WHO, saving the billions who had been inoculated or benefitted from the herd immunity, alongside an innumerable number of people yet to be born who would never have to suffer from it. Just think about that. In less than three centuries we, as a species, managed to eradicate a disease that had killed 300 million people in the 20th century alone, decimated the indigenous population of the Americas, and broke families apart, and managed to ensure that not a single person would ever have to suffer from it ever again and not a single relative or friend would ever have to bury someone as a result of this disease. In all honesty, it feels insane and yet, it is true. A step towards the often-imagined utopic future where humanity is disease-free.
So, I encourage you to sit and think for a moment about how many lives vaccines may have saved over those two hundred and twenty years and how many of those lives were likely your very ancestors.
Overall, the global literacy rate has been gradually increasing.
As of 1976, only 66% of the global population was literate. However, a of 2023, this had increased to 87%.
Good right?
Well, there is more nuance below the cut.
Despite one of the 'Millennium Development Goals' being the achievement of 'Universal Primary Education', providing basic literacy and numeracy skills to all people, globally, over 750 million people still lack basic reading and writing skills.
Out of these 750 million, every 2 out of 3 (about 500 million) are women, depicting a massive gender gap regarding literacy skills.
This sucks for several reasons:
Literacy is a highly valuable skill for EVERYONE. From rural farmers being able to read the instructions on things like fertilisers or people being able to read employment contracts, providing basic literacy is a path out of poverty for million of people across the globe.
Literacy increases safety. One of the primary causes of Nesquik's 'Baby-Killer' formula was a lack of literacy among the people provided with the formula. While this does not remove culpability from Nesquik, the fact that very few people could read the instructions combined with a lack of access to safe drinking water meant that people simply could not properly use the formula.
Equality in education is crucial to sustainable development. Closing the gender gap in literacy and education benefits the entire community since it can enhance economic efficiency, make policies and institutions more representative, and improve development outcomes for the next generation.
As discussed in the article below, despite producing enough food to feed all 8 billion+ people on the planet there are. nevertheless, 733 million people who go hungry every day.
Here's what you need to know about world hunger in 2024 and 2025, including facts, figures, and progress to Zero Hunger.
Unfortunately, this number is only increasing - not just as a result of population growth but also as a result of the changing climate, increasing the frequency of droughts, contributing to desertification, etc... alongside conflict and economic difficulties.
Overall, the situation sucks. In a world of industrialised farming and mass global container shipping you would expect that we would be getting to a point where people's needs are being more consistently met.
Give the article a read if you want to learn more and even if you don't, it is worth a read. Many of us likely have heard about such issues but don't know the details.
