I can't say that I'm a great coder, but I learned from ZZT and Megazeux back in the early-mid 1990s. No idea if something like that would work today, though, and both ZZT and Megazeux seem to be stagnant at present...
Experience is a good teacher. Dalrymple remarked on this in _Utopias Elsewhere_ -- how it sometimes seems that every society has to learn that Communism won't work the hard way.
> My observation about conservatives on this issue has been that they become defensive when they hear "conservatives have caused global warming with their capitalism, and the only solution is to repudiate the entire conservative world view".
Indeed. Things get particularly ludicrous when you hear people saying that Communism or something like it is the only way to avoid damaging the planet; there was no pollution like Communist pollution, and the Left was hostile to the first Earth Day -- it felt too much like Hitler.
I've heard the expression "watermelons" applied to a lot of this: people who are Green on the outside, Red on the inside.
> what we learned from the unrest that the U.S. faced during the Vietnam war era.
That the counterculture and the Communists were actively trying to make us lose a war? The author of this discusses real problems with the US -- situations like Guatemala, where we backed a feudal aristocracy, or Iran, where we set the country back considerably by helping overthrow Mossadeq -- and not just conspiracies carried out by our enemies.
Thinking about the meaning of "empire", I wonder if it would've been better for the US to have made various outright annexations after WWII. Not having to deal with an independent local government, or with self-interested local elites, makes things clearer and easier; the US's interventions in El Salvador or Guatemala would've been significantly less nasty if they had begun with annexation and the extension of domestic policies like EITC, Social Security, and property tax...
Far though I may be from supporting that counterculture, we lost almost 10X as many troops fighting in Vietnam - many conscripted - than in the middle east, and we hadn't suffered any attack from that part of the world on the scope of 9/11. I was not alive during the Vietnam War, but it's been my distinct impression that its critics saw our involvement there as straight military-industrial complex imperialism, fueled by the same kind of propagandistic nationalism / fear of the "other" the author discusses. I don't see what substantially new perspective the author is raising.
I can't speak to Latin America, but I recall that General Patton upon the 3rd Reich's surrender in Berlin wanted to quickly broker peace with a friendly German government so that he could press on eastward to Moscow and put an end to the Soviet Union while it was in a weakened state from the failed German invasion. Historic counterfactuals sure are interesting to think about.
Microsoft's sponsoring Mono now, and they've always been pretty benevolent towards game companies, especially with how seriously they take backwards compatibility. I wouldn't worry too much, at least not at this point.
What I'm most surprised by is their straw-man alternative: "unalterable traits or unattainable pedigree," _in 2017_.
"I say, Langley, HBR is pure bosh. They've no respect at all for proper breeding, and their attitude towards Mr. Spencer's impeccable theories is shocking, really."
You'd think they'd disparage education, money, and connections, instead of inborn character and aristocratic bloodline... (Unless, of course, you _do_ need education, money, and connections, and they want some safer strawman to knock down.)
Speaking as a Catholic, I have no idea how people can break a treaty and think they're fighting for God. Isn't He traditionally called to witness that treaties will be kept sacrosanct?
Jay's Treaty (1794, with Britain) - https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Jay%27s_Treaty mentions God once, in a parenthetical note "If at any Time a Rupture should take place (which God forbid) between His Majesty and the United States ..." Otherwise, no mention of God.
Treaty of Tripoli (1786) - https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tripoli doesn't call on God. This is the one which (in the English text ratified by the US Senate) famously says "As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries." It is therefore unlikely to call on God as a witness.
Where do you get your idea that treaties traditionally call on God as a witness?
EDIT: I looked for non-US treaties, but couldn't find the text for the Treaty of Aix-La-Chapelle or the Treaty of Åbo, which were the first I looked for. I then chose British treaties:
Treaty of Seville ("between the Crowns of Great Britain, France, and Spain, concluded at Seville on the 9th of November, N. S. 1729") - https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Seville . That one has "In the Name of the most Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, three distinct Persons, and one only true God." and is made between "THEIR most Serene Majesties the King of Great Britain, the most Christian King, and the Catholic King". Otherwise, no mention of God as a witness to ensure the peace.
The closest I found was in the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) - https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Peace_and_Friendship_Treaty_o... has many references to God, including "But if (which God forbid) the disputes which are composed should at any time be renewed between their said Royal Majesties". The text "God forbid" was also used in two clauses regarding what happens should a royal not having children in the line of succession, so even this isn't quite the same as a "witness that treaties will be kept sacrosanct".
It's not difficult to imagine an alternate history in which the nazis did a little better and the allies a little worse, in which the end result was a ceasefire and peace - which would see the allies recognise the legitimacy of the nazi state, based on, exactly, it's possessions at the time of the ceasefire.
Come to think of it, possession by the red army was exactly how eastern Europe ended up vassals to USSR after WW2.
I'd always heard "Europeans", not "European people"; if Google is just confused (and I wouldn't rule it out -- look up "Goofle Translate"), I think it's because "European people" is a pretty rare semantic construct.
