ForestBoard

Kuraiva wrote:

Nation-states is literally the...

Chance for ordinary people to declare a micro-nation and not be arrested by the respective Governments they enforce their territory onto

Although we are treated as if we always existed, but are just emerging onto the world stage, rather than as if we just popped up out of nowhere.

Rakavo wrote:

This probably refers to Sealand:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand

Yeah, they did literally get invaded that one time. Crazy stuff. I'm blanking on who made it, but there's a great video on YT going through the whole base, and they talk about that there a bit. Nothing but respect for those guys, and I hope they don't get smacked by British law enforcement.

But I guess that's what happens when you post up on a military platform in international waters. I've looked this up, and there's like 6 micro-nations pretty close to me, none of which have had similar experiences. I guess it's not as lucrative when the nation is within the territory of military-having country.

Shoutout Jutsa for inspiring me to make a season flag instead of doing my homework.

Siornor wrote:

Shoutout Jutsa for inspiring me to make a season flag instead of doing my homework.

In all fairness I wouldn't have changed it were it not for seeing Imperial states of duotona - although I absolutely had this flag ready since last Halloween.

(Jutotechtonia's and Zouveland's even longer, Xemt's (which is its normal flag) most recent made, and all other puppets remain altless seeing as a good few have placeholders anyway.)

Edit: Oh forgot to mention: That's a very nice Halloween flag, I might add. xD

Prusmia wrote:

Oh thank you for reminding me, I need to make a spoopy flag for Halloween!

Gimme like 5 minutes...

edit2: Also approve of this one. xD

Siornor wrote:

Shoutout Jutsa for inspiring me to make a season flag instead of doing my homework.

Jutsa wrote:

In all fairness I wouldn't have changed it were it not for seeing Imperial states of duotona - although I absolutely had this flag ready since last Halloween.

Edit: Oh forgot to mention: That's a very nice Halloween flag, I might add. xD

edit2: Also approve of this one. xD

Prusmia wrote:

Oh thank you for reminding me, I need to make a spoopy flag for Halloween!

Gimme like 5 minutes...

Halloween Flag Gang!

Rakavo wrote:

This probably refers to Sealand:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand

You are probably right. I kind of knew about this (there is a movie about a micro-nation near Italy) and I looked up similar cases. However I more or less forget that German and Dutch mercenaries were involved in this particular case. To be honest I am not really sure how I feel about micro-nations. In my opinion depending on the available technology including logistics and telecommunications the optimal governance structure and governmental size varies......but micro-nations definitely ain't it. Almost all micro-nation most often even for the most basic (modern) needs depend on other (friendly) much larger nations. On the other hand "union of states" like the EU but also the U.S., China, Russia and even the U.K. have gotten so big that it has become too complex to "govern" the interests of all the people involved adequately and efficiently and they often seem to be more pre-occupied with consolidating or expanding their "power" base than promoting the common good. Personally with todays technology I think about 5 to 10 million people would be a good "size" for a nation.

Ownzone wrote:

To be honest I am not really sure how I feel about micro-nations.

Eh, they're mostly just a harmless novelty, by my understanding. Almost none of them have any legal precedent for being sovereign, so all of the long lasting ones are aware and able to skirt by because it'd be too much effort for law enforcement to do anything. So they get to have their fun making flags, documents, art, and just whatever they want, and as long as they don't try to smuggle things or cross international borders with an invalid ID, they are fine with me, as well as the country they're in.

The other type of micro-nation would be one where people try to do illegal things. Basically sovereign citizen stuff. I don't think law enforcement would tolerate that behavior, so they probably don't stick around. Unless it's tax evasion. I could see someone getting away with that.

The former is totally fine imo, since it's mostly just a way to join a community of like-minded people. The latter I'm against, but I don't think those happen often. It feels easier to just move to Curacao. Either way, it's an expression of anarchism, which is a mixed bag of ideologies. I've a streak of it in me, but the kind where everyone has rights protected by the international community rather than a national government, and you can live where you want to (more U.N. and less national power type of stuff, so tangentially related). So it's not an issue unless they make it an issue in my opinion.

I have joined the Halloween flag club. The new look definitely doesn't have anything to do with internal events though. There are no zombies in Window Land.

Einswenn wrote:

And my question is: do people really vote for them? Do people start supporting the far right out of desperation or they just don’t learn history?

Novian Republics wrote:

TL:DR: Yes, it's desperation born out of a perceived lack of alternatives.

Thanks Novian Republics for an inside view of the Swedish situation.

I feel we should avoid the assumption that everyone who votes for regressive parties is a bad person while remembering that some of them genuinely are. As someone helpfully put it, it's far from true that everyone who voted for Brexit is a racist, but all the racists voted for Brexit.

In a US context, many people seem to feel a sense of relief that the Trump years are over and it's back to business as usual on the Clinton/Obama/Biden model. This overlooks the fact that 8 years of that model left a significant proportion of the electorate in a place where voting for a celebrity whose stated purpose was to break stuff for the hell of it looked like a better idea. Going back to the politics that caused that alienation isn't going to bring stability.

Similarly, a lot of valid criticism can be directed at the European Union. It functions largely to protect the interests of its free market from the threat to profit of social and environmental concerns and in many cases makes low level localised decision making difficult on the grounds of being anticompetitive. The way Greece in particular was treated was horrendous. If we fall into thinking that any hostility to the union can be equated to ignorance or xenophobia then we limit the possibility of much needed change. Worse, if we create a false binary between the status quo and racism then more and more people who are simply disillusioned will find that it's only the racists who are speaking to their concerns. That won't end well.

This lurch to the right experienced across the western world since 2008 isn't the problem, it's a symptom of the deeper problem we're not talking about.

Ruinenlust wrote:

Dear British friends, is it possible that somehow Liz Truss sucks even more than BoJo did? I see that they're reneging on the tax cuts, so hopefully the currency and the markets stabilize and don't start dragging down the rest of the European or American economies. At any rate, though, the political angle for Liz Truss and the Conservatives seem to be in a bad way, with Labour way up in the opinion polls.

Don't even get me started. FYI they aren't so far reversing the tax cuts as a whole, just the proposal to scrap the top 45% tax rate on earnings over £150,000. That has symbolic value, and trashing the economy to give handouts to the already rich is obviously not a good look, but it's far less expensive than the cut to the general tax rate that's still going ahead and there's been no change on the decision to cap energy bills using public funds rather than new taxes on energy producers, meaning the whole country is still literally subsidising fossil fuel corporations. It remains to be seen whether this symbolic change of tack is enough to placate the markets or whether their issue is with the largely unchanged bottom line and the general air of economic incompetence.

Ao diplomatic mission wrote:

We of the AO have sent an embassy to y'all.

Welcome. Of course you could have posted that from home since, unlike Antarctic Oasis, we allow our friends to contribute to our discussions via their embassy.

Verdant Haven wrote:

The policy to check isn't the CLEP center, but rather your school itself. Make sure they will accept the results at the current point you are in your education career, and will give you the class credits you need for good results, so you don't waste your money. College Board will gladly take your cash whether your school accepts the test for credit or not.

I have a page on the uni site that says clearly that passing CLEP will count for the specific pair of classes I need. Also confirmed if it counts for my maximum units with my counselor and online as I think I already said. Only way the school can screw me over is by saying they're flatly lying to my face or if they suddenly change the policy for credit before I can take the test, which would just be an insane bout of unluckiness. If it weren't for the limitation, I'd just sweep them at CC, but this might be easier anyway since it's just a pass/no pass boolean, so I only need to get enough points to pass, anyway.

Verdant Haven wrote:

As far as "maximum units" at universities, that's usually "maximum number before we start charging extra." Generally if you overload, they'll be sending you a bill at their per-credit rate for the overage (can be from a couple hundred to a couple thousand per additional credit), and it likely won't be something that financial aid or scholarships cover. Talk to your registrar for policy details though - no doubt they can provide specifics. Based on that 144 number, you'll be looking for what's probably called something like the "over 18" or "beyond 18" rate.

My school makes no mention of an extra charge. Even though it's based on units, all of the solutions are based on years, curiously: "Extension of the graduation date is by appeal only and may be restricted to courses required for the degree." Likewise, the appeal is only for extending the graduation date, but some other online/unofficial sources do say units still matter, so I figure it's both, although technically I'm not extending my graduation beyond any significant value since I would be graduating in 3 years but am now graduating in 4. Assuming I don't fail any courses, I graduate perfectly on time and only cap out on units in one semester if I don't shove any to summer (doesn't please my finances though, it's $1.5k to do it¹, so I'd rather not unless I feel a strong need for it²), although considering my malaise with CALC AB ending with even a B and my stress with Yearbook, I'm pretty sure I'd probably overwork myself and have to catastrophic withdraw before I fail. Regardless, these are the parameters of the schedule game I'm playing, so I'll just have to be careful where I psuh.

1. I could probably look into scholarships and the like, but they're of limited variety for me since I'm middle-class/STEM/writer without a phenomenally deep worldly pursuit, pre-existing links, things like that. That doesn't mean I don't want to do anything good — that's at least part of the reason why I didn't just do computer science or finance — but I'm not planning actively for it, either. Regardless, I can save a bit by taking them in the same summer, but the arrangement of the 3 classes I need don't neatly arrange themselves like— wait, I could just see if other courses I need are available and just slot in another so I don't have to do my second summer, which has me at a combined $3.5k for tuition and obligatory fees versus the $3k to do it all in one summer.
2. Funny thing: apparently two of the math courses I need, Probability and Statistics and Mathematical Statistics, have been offered in sessions 1 and 2 respectively over the past two Summers. I doubt a pass on the first course would be acknowledged in time to count for the second course because it's literally a span of less than a week and I register in Spring, but it's hilarious to think I could speedrun my requirements like that if my school allowed me.

Schedule math is fun. It feels like a game.

edit: did my research, most of the courses are perfectly aligned to prevent me from doubling down in a singular summer session, but there's an async course I can take that I do need and that's been consistently offered, so it's possible.
second edit: it's fine as long as they don't go to ireland this year. the fact i can say that is the most bizarre bet i've had to take so far

How do I get the:

"The tax rate is 26.7%, but even higher for the wealthy"

For my nation?