That video is much more compelling. Like most things, it will take some clever editing and compelling narrative building to actually become popular. The Quartz video that was posted here lacked all of those things and came off as a bit hum-ho.

That was exactly what I was worried about as well. Only when you've actually watched people build roads and bridges by hand do you come to appreciate the sheer amount of labor input it requires.

Reminds me of this afternoon ;-)

Living and working in rural southeast Asia for so long takes the shine off of all this a little bit. I'm now much more envious of well-maintained roads, having four seasons instead of three, and clean national parks.

I've seen the Armored Skeptic take him down several times... pretty convinced that is some religious, right-wing nuttery at work through and through

well, based on the stamp in the top left, some wonderful beings from the great state of Alabama

Actually, when it comes to the evolution of language, being wrong en masse does tend to make you right - eventually.

Well, that's what happens when you have weak internet skills.

Adblock, RSS feeds, realizing that Facebook is not a news site and self-control really go a long way towards avoiding this downward spiral.

Right! Because if there is one thing we know about China, it is that power is not concentrated in the national government. And when it comes to communist governments, you can almost always be certain that there is not an outsized number of civil servants.

The problem is that you think that you get to decide where the starting line is. The path you are pointing down requires taking in the totality of history, not using some arbitrary point that is within living memory

For example, when do you think this started?

Was it with the Arab Spring and Assad's put down of the revolution? Maybe the invasion of Iraq in 2003? Perhaps when Iraq invaded Kuwait? When Libya bombed the plane at Lockerbie? The 6-day war? The establishment of the state of Israel? British Colonialism in the Middle East? The Crusades? The Battle of Yarmouk in 636?

Trying to find a singular, root cause is not how you end a conflict. That is done through humanizing your enemy, recognizing the futility of your efforts, finding alternative means to meet your needs, compromising and forgiving.

(source: MA in conflict resolution and 5 years of peacebuilding work)

You mean yesterday?

Cracked ribs and a punctured lung, but awake and alert at the hospital.

Also, perhaps, the world's least discerning butcher. I don't really consider this butchering although it is certainly common in South and SE Asia. Taking a chicken and hacking it into 100 pieces with all of the bone and cartilage and meat mixed together takes no skill and results in pieces of chicken that are only useful for soups and curries.

I'm fine with your other points, but you really think there are not working, funded refugee camps in Turkey?

An_Aerial_View_of_the_Zaatri_Refugee_Camp.jpg

http://sheldonkirshner.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Turkish-refugee-camp-for-Syrians-e1413585834309.jpg

http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Photo/_new/pb-120411-syria-refugees-ps2.photoblog900.jpg

Are they amazing? No, but I've never stepped foot in a refugee camp that was (and, yes, for the record I have visited several). Compared to the 30-year-old jungle camps on the Thai-Burma border, these places look pretty well outfitted. They clearly have the infrastructure, support and funding to serve the populations that are there.

What they don't have is the economic infrastructure to allow for good, rewarding work for these refugees. Of course, that is generally the situation for every refugee population. The biggest difference here is that some Syrian refugees have the financial resources to reach Europe whereas most refugees in other parts of the world don't.

I put very little stock in these personality tests. In particular, I don't trust them because they only describe whatever personality you have in positive, flattering terms - a trait/tactic very similar to horoscopes. Of course you will like the result if you are being compared to Shakespeare and told that you are among the most brilliant minds in the known universe.

So the MBTI's practical use is overwhelmingly unscientific, and it's often criticized for this. Criticism ranges from the pragmatic fact that neither Jung nor Myers and Briggs ever employed scientific studies to develop or test these concepts, relying instead on their own observations, anecdotes, and intuitions; all the way to charges that your MBTI score is hardly more meaningful than your zodiac sign.

Seriously, what the f*** are those?