It’s the experience everywhere. I’m surprised that even in more religious, Muslim-majority Malaysia and Brunei, half of young adults are single. It’s the growth of a well-educated middle class in the rest of the world who know better, as well, than to follow the old tradition of being married for the sake of being married and having kids. And being more well educated means more people are also likely to think twice about marrying. Female empowerment is also one of the contributing factors in birth rate decline. These are all compounding factors not just one.

Literally what happened to our grandparents and parents after World War 2. And then the subsequent generation will grow up in abundant wealth, developing a greedy attitude and cause corruption, resulting in social angst which will be exploited by demagogues. Then a new system emerges which promises a better life, but that system breeds yet another spoiled generation that will cause corruption which yet again causes social upheaval that will be exploited by ambitious individuals.

Rinse and repeat.

Netflix movies are pretty crap for doing these because we ourselves are to blame. I admit I have done this couple of times while watching movie or TV at home.

Reality

The Empire Strikes Back is definitely not a kid’s movie in my opinion. The Return of the Jedi is more kiddie because of Ewoks.

Even as a child when I first saw Phantom Menace, I thought it was off. Maybe I would have rated the film lower if it weren’t for the fun pod racing segment and the fight with Darth Maul. I think the Star War prequel trilogy excel more on the editing and choreography of action scenes than actual story telling and drama.

Unpopular opinion for the cinephiles, it would be Stalker by Andrey Tarkovsky for me. It’s overrated and it’s just a bunch of guys talking. I wouldn’t have mind the philosophical talks if it weren’t for the pointless long shots that spanned for minutes. And it is not even clear if there is actually supernatural, or scifi or none of those.

I don’t know, part of believing in religion is doublethink. Many religious will say “just don’t think about it” when presented with contradicting information. That’s why religion encourages suppression of free thinking.

Chinese base is in Philippines with Philippine governments permission!

Really? I thought The Handmaiden’s Tale is inspired from when the theocrats took over Iran and suppressed women’s rights? And depending who you ask, Iranians are not white.

That explains about my work laptop. I swear that I clicked shutdown before I went on two week Christmas holidays!

Removed by mod

Are you from that part of the world? Are your fishermen being driven away by Chinese navy despite having centuries long friendly relations with Chinese fishermen? Did Philippines allow China to set up base within their maritime shores? Did you guys actually ask Vietnamese and Filipinos apart reading pre-prepared script?

The American bases are there out of the hosting countries’ permission. Weird that tankies never mention what Vietnam and Philippines think of the Chinese navy bullying their fishermen, or China not leaving the shoals that is within the 200 nautical mile from Philippines, despite the International Court of Justice ruling that China’s presence in that shoal is illegal. But you know, got to keep flipping the script as an NPC…

Weird that you did not address South China Sea…

She’s a good actress tbf. I’d watch the movie if it got good reviews though.

Techno-feudalism, ladies and gentlemen.

Except it’s definitely a chatspeak.

With mods, the M1911 I got from Joshua is my signature gun! It killed Legate Lanius in just a couple of shots!

The Nazis remilitarized which spurred short term economic growth, which was then used to pay for the extremely generous social welfare benefits to the Germans, who were appreciative of this because they were deeply traumatised by hyperinflation of the Great Depression. But this excessive government spending is turning the German wallets inside out; and the plunder of conquered nations gave Nazi Germany some needed cash injection to keep their economy going. If you don’t believe me, look up Hjalmar Schacht, Hitler’s economic minister, who warned the fuhrer that the state’s finances were nearly out in the late 1930s. Schacht’s savvy financial acumen had kept the Nazi German economy running longer than it should have been. He was dubbed the “dark wizard of finance”, partly because his confiscation of Jewish assets, before the war, yielded the Nazis much needed finances.