BBC changing history

[Berzerker]

Geryon lived past the (up to then closed up) med, though He was a three-headed hoplite, living on some island west of Spain, in the Atlantic. Herakles opened up the med to the Atlantic as part of his quest to kill Geryon and take some of his stuff.
Iirc the garden of the Hesperides was guarded by a dragon, or similar (?)

interesting myth, we know sea levels were much lower (up to ~400ft) during the ice age... And we know the Mediterranean rose enough when the ice melted to flood what was a fresh water 'lake' where we now find the Black Sea. So how low was the Mediterranean during the ice age? Was it closed off at the Pillar of Hercules (Gibraltar) or was the interchange of water greatly reduced?

 

[Hrothbern]

interesting myth, we know sea levels were much lower (up to ~400ft) during the ice age... And we know the Mediterranean rose enough when the ice melted to flood what was a fresh water 'lake' where we now find the Black Sea. So how low was the Mediterranean during the ice age? Was it closed off at the Pillar of Hercules (Gibraltar) or was the interchange of water greatly reduced?

the closure was 5-6 million years ago. The waterfall at refilling was 1km high !

If I read this article well, during ice age the waterflow from the Atlantic through the street of Gibraltar was at 27 meter deep, in the middle, roughly 10 cm per second. That is not much.
So, not much effect.
There was also a gravitational effect of the heaped Ice on the North and South pole, causing sea level there a bit higher. But I see no easy to find article in case that would have been estimated.
https://www.clim-past.net/7/161/2011/cp-7-161-2011.pdf

 

[Berzerker]

I'm familiar with the 5-6myo closure, they're claiming thats how wildlife from the continents ended up on islands, like how and why elephants shrunk down after becoming isolated kinda like the erectus hobbits of Flores. I dont know the depth of the straits at Gibraltar, but I imagine a drop of 400 ft would have had an effect.

well, in addition to a lower Mediterranean

 

[warpus]

The Nazis had a weird plan for the Medi...asdfhlkweth sea

Spoiler :

Only reason I mention it is because the above map shows what the sea would look like with dams in place

 

[Berzerker]

wow... just wow. But why? More arable land? I imagine coastal areas, especially near rivers, would be exceptionally fertile with all that run off and sedimentation.

 

[Akka]

It's nazi we're talking about. Some more lebenstraum probably.

 

[Hrothbern]

Why that arrow from Tunis to Cape Town ?

 

[Berzerker]

rail link

 

[Thorgalaeg]

wow... just wow. But why? More arable land? I imagine coastal areas, especially near rivers, would be exceptionally fertile with all that run off and sedimentation.

Bigger beaches. Imagine how many german tourists would fit in those 90 km wide beaches at the spanish med coast.

And as a secondary thing, to make the Sahara habitable using desalated mediterranean water iirc.

 

[El_Machinae]

I know more than I wish about SJWs.

Me too. I've complained about them here, even. But I wish to use it as a purjorative, not as a catchall. I reserve that term for either slactivists or for people who're accidentally harming the progressive agenda.

I know what it means. What I don't know is why not just say what it means (not white or not European) instead of coming up with yet another bizarre PC term that is solving some non-existing problem. You might even end up creating problems.

It's not bizarre, you just might not be in the same language zeigeist that Lex is. These things take time to propagate.

The languages of hate and inclusion shift and ebb with time. It's not fun trying to keep up. We know that there are some words for race that are hateful. There are others that are not acceptable, because they're seen as standins for the hateful words. So, as the racists keep co-opting dog-whistles, we find more and more words being excise from civil language.

There are absolutely SJWs that do the same thing, they'll take a perfectly reasonable word and then suggest that the word itself is a dog-whistle (or fast becoming one). This is a useful headsup, it just needs to be phrased in a way that's socially palatable. But they also go too far, in that they see dog-whistles everywhere and honestly deserve some pushback from proper progressives for being hennypennies. Sadly, it's the progressives that need to push back. People who aren't seen as on their team are just seen as haters.

I can't convince a White Nationalist to excise the Nazis from their ranks, only the people within the movement (who can discern the difference) can get this type of traction.

But, colloquially, "People of Color" is very much a centrist phrase up here in Canada. It's the language Zeitgeist. On paper, you can't tell why it's different from calling someone "colored", but it is.

 

[warpus]

Different history and culture, different acceptable and non-acceptable terminology

 

[Arwon]

Person of colour is a pretty common term here too. It's kind of made necessary by the existence of white hegemony. Need a term for everyone excluded by it.

 

[Lexicus]

Hey, in the interest of being less PC, can we refer to white people as mayo boys? Asking for a friend.

 

[EnglishEdward]

Once upon a time, in completing a census return, I ticked the other box and IIRC wrote in "mostly pale pink".

More seriously I have dificulties with the argument for authenticity in trying to match actors to historical roles.

There are certain roles that are particularly famous and actors aspire to play. e.g. MacBeth and Queen Elizabeth I.
I can see no reason why a dark skinned actor/actress can not play them. And I fancy being King Shaka shouting "impala".

I therefore support the BBC on this one.

 

[Berzerker]

I doubt the Shaka clan would fancy that

 

[W|M]

Hey, in the interest of being less PC, can we refer to white people as mayo boys? Asking for a friend.

 

[Thorgalaeg]

 

[Ryika]

Isn't 'Crackers' already the politically incorrect way of referring to the white devil?

 

[luiz]

@El Mac and below

Different history and culture, different acceptable and non-acceptable terminology

Person of colour is a pretty common term here too. It's kind of made necessary by the existence of white hegemony. Need a term for everyone excluded by it.

I don't doubt it's common, I doubt it's useful. If it just means not white or not European (which obviously is a non-offensive description) I don't see the point in coming up with yet another PC term just so we can flaunt our enlightened superiority over the backwards rednecks who use old terms.

I also dislike PC racial terms because they are 99% of the times invented by academics with very little real contact with the people they are describing. It's like the whole "Native American" nonsense. One day some white professor decided that "Indian" is offensive and we should all use "Native American". But "Indian" was and has remained the preferred term used by Indians themselves... So what problem exactly was this white professor solving? None, he was just creating a new one. Now the people unfamiliar with the always evolving PC lingo had another term to highlight their ignorance and supposed racism.

 

[Arwon]

Except in a place like Australia there's plenty of white-passing people with non-European ancestry (I know people with Persian, Lebanese, Malaysian, South African Jewish, and Indigenous Australian ancestries who generally pass for "white"), and there's plenty of people with European ancestry who don't necessarily pass for white (a Greek Cypriot workmate of mine has experienced racist abuse in the street along the lines of "go back where you came from" that had to have been based on skin colour).

The term person of colour captures precisely what it is intended to capture - the experience and condition of being a visible ethnic minority in white hegemonic society.

Then there's the whole thing where for decades, Greeks, Italians etc were officially regarded as not white in immigration policy in Australia for decades, and then after that suffered a long period of racial abuse and discrimination.... so "white" and "European" haven't always been comfortable synonyms here.

But "Indian" was and has remained the preferred term used by Indians themselves

I'd have thought this varied hugely by region and by which European language you're using. To my knowledge indio is a lot more accepted, common and self-applied in Brazil than in parts of the Spanish-speaking world and you can't necessarily assume it works the same as Indian in English. And of course I have no idea how people feel about indien in French Canada.