France sends troops into Mali

[The Dharma Bum]

Yeah if you think about about it it's only been half a century or so since those major colonial empires were disrupted by the world wars. WW I and II can be interpreted as a German attempt to play catch up in the post industrial age scramble for resources. They never really got their overseas colonies up and running like UK, France, and Spain did so they tried to capture them by force of arms. Japan and Italy were suitable allies because they were kind of in the same boat as far as being left out as the loot was divvied up in the world.

Hundreds of years from now this "post colonial" period could be seen as just a small interruption in the centuries long history of colonialism.

[Boris Johnson]

Or not. And you recognize that each 'age' has novel behavior.

[The Dharma Bum]

In some respects but a strong nation preying on a weak nations is not really novel. It seems like typical human behavior. When you interact with individuals they are friendly etc, but human activity in the aggregate is driven entirely by instinct, just like any other species, and a lot of that instinct seems to involve predation upon weaker groups of humans.

[The Dharma Bum]

[Spider]

Well...maybe we'll actually colonize space or something.

(And no, it doesn't count as colonization unless it involves settlers and exerting sovereignty over actual territory, convenient ideological redefinitions excluded.)

[Demosthenes]

[The Dharma Bum]

Colonization isn't necessarily bad. There's problems when there are already people living where you put your colonies, though. lol

In space, that won't be much of an issue for a while, if ever.

[The Dharma Bum]

[Gremlin]

War is cool!
Crack open a beer and show me some black and white cockpit footage of people getting blown the F up.

OoraH!

[exploited]

I prefer the night-vision aesthetic myself.