For some reason it was exploding in popularity from the the 1900’s (as in the oughts, not the century) to 1930 in Finland.

It’s because everyone wanted to associate their kids with the English Queen Mary. Idk why. My Italian grandparents named all their kids after English royalty too.

This does raise the question “Does your age count when you’re in Valinor?”

Because it’s literally the undying lands. Are we really going to pull rank between two functionally ageless beings? Seems petty.

Christian Earth: 6000 years old

Middle Earth: 30,000 years old

Middle Earth wins again

But, it was a media event. It wasn’t “rigged”

You could gamble on it, which means there was money to be made courting suckers.

I’m sure the lion’s share of “rigged” proclamations were coming from folks who got baited into bad bets.

This but unironically. I’ve got a coworker who took vacation days to help build a temple up in Pennsylvania. He was incredibly proud of his contribution and happy to participate.

The idea that medieval peasants somehow had more free time than the average modern american still is absolute bullshit

Paleontologists will tell you otherwise. One reason you had all those giant cathedrals going up in the Medieval Era stemmed from the enormous excess labor just wasting around in between harvest seasons.

Agricultural surplus creates free time. It’s the whole reason why people opt for farming over hunter gathering.

There’s a staunch libertarian view on Lemmy, wherein people will advocate for personal liberty ahead of technological progress. The Country Mouse has it better than the City Mouse, because he can own a gun and drive a big truck and smoke weed without the neighbors ratting him out to the cops. The lack of basic amenities - subways and school systems and high speed internet and big medical centers - is worth the increased personal autonomy.

The “Serfs had it better” trope takes this to its logical conclusion. Rolling back the technological frontier 500 years is worth it, because the surveillance/police state and the corporate oligopoly even on the fringe of society is seriously that bad.

I don’t agree. But I can’t really argue against it. This is just a personal preference. Its not any kind of objective truth.

So you’re not really a serf if you’ve got plumbing? The labor relationship with your employers isn’t the issue?

The dark cowboy rides again.

Making all my toy cars out of plastic not because I’m cheap but because I’m authentic.

Read somewhere that it boosted Russian owned us steel mills somehow.

Given the degree of US sanctioning on Russia, I’m not clear what a “Russian owned US Steel Mill” is even supposed to look like.

I remember Japanese Manufacturer Nippon Steel is moving towards full acquisition of US Steel, the largest steel maker in the country. That has, at least in part, been driven by the threat of US tariffs. But this only further illustrates the problem. Foreign mega-corps gobbling up domestic industry do nothing to improve the US economy.

Don’t forget all the extreme weather eroding away the peninsula. I’m less worried about sea level rise over the next 50 years than I am of a 20’ storm surge happening over the course of a few hours.

I think any tariff that passes will have a swiss cheese of exemptions, because that’s just how the game is played in Congress.

Lobby hard enough and you’ll get your country excused one way or another.

Canada being the biggest trade partner would be prime for these.

It would be prime for Canadian ports, and for a host of middle men who get to launder trade goods through a legal loophole.

But that’s the real end game. Not domesticating manufacturing, but monopolizing channels for import/export.

Huge uptick in folks drinking 4 Loco.

Black Rifle Koffee

But (assuming a tarrif is something that can even pass) I imagine you’re going to see a swiss cheese of exemptions for favored countries. And these countries will become a back door for imports.

Expect all of your coffee to be mysteriously harvested from Canada.

Reminds me of those AI centers that drain the grid and suck up all the municipal water, only to run a fortune in PR about being Green.

As though using a Three Mile Island’s worth of electricity is doing the rest of the world a favor.

Thinking we’ll still have electricity for computers in 2034, and it won’t all be diverted to the AGI Factory at the center of town that handles all the meme generation/posting/aggregating is kinda optimistic.

Good news for Korea and Japan, I guess

No need to invade when their economy collapses internally and Beijing can step up to buy the whole island out from the bargain basement bin.

Unironically what we’re going to hear Trump say. But also, there’s so much money in imports, I can see this plan getting bottled up and strangled in Congress very easily.