#nationstate

[digitalcreationsllc]

Iran Hit by Major Cyberattack Targeting Nation's Fuel Supply

Critical Infrastructure Security , Cyberwarfare / Nation-State Attacks , Fraud Management & Cybercrime Cyber Group Dubbed Predatory Sparrow Takes Responsibility for Widespread Attack Chris Riotta (@chrisriotta) • December 18, 2023     The Predatory Sparrow group has taken credit for an attack on Iranian gas stations on Dec. 18, 2023. (Image: Shutterstock) Gas stations across Iran abruptly shut…

View On WordPress

#attacks #Critical #cyber #Cybercrime #Cyberwarfare #Fraud #infrastructure #management #nationstate #security

[thatdiabolicalfeminist]

just to be completely clear, the amount of military power and political influence Israel has has NOTHING to do with its settlers being Jewish. Israel is a force for American & European interests in the region and they're just doing what America does and allows/encourages its close allies to do.

war crimes aren't considered war crimes when someone America finds useful is doing them. european and american pushback against anyone criticizing Israeli apartheid & genocide is 100% because these crimes are useful to American & European hegemony.

Governments that are deeply antisemitic, like France, aren't suddenly caring about Jewish people. Jewish people, persecuted the world over, don't hold some kind of hegemonic power outside of Israel.

The state of Israel and its attendant brutal treatment of the locals are both incredibly useful to the US, and American hegemony means we're expected to celebrate both.

not bc they're Jewish. this isn't a break in the pattern of western antisemitism and it's not evidence that antisemitism doesn't exist.

it's just like how you could get fired for saying shit against the US war in Afghanistan when i was growing up. it is 100% about US military and political interests (ok slightly western europe too but lbr)

#this widespread support has NOTHING to do w Israelis being Jewish apart from evangelicals wanting to use them as pawns for armageddon #the primary reason this is all being treated like it's ok is cuz it's useful to the usa #i feel like this post is going to bring terrible ppl into my inbox but i'm gonna leave it rebloggable for now #if our (US+EU) governments push back at all it will be because it stops being useful to us #either because Israel isn't doing this as quickly & efficiently as promised and it looks like Palestine might actually do some damage #or if it otherwise becomes too politically costly by causing too much tension between the US & other nationstates #either allies like Saudi or if states we aren't quite ready to have war w seem to be ready to throw down over it

[fatehbaz]

Endangered Indian sandalwood. British war to control the forests. Tallying every single tree in the kingdom. European companies claim the ecosystem. Spices and fragrances. Failure of the plantation. Until the twentieth century, the Empire couldn't figure out how to cultivate sandalwood because they didn't understand that the plant is actually a partial root parasite. French perfumes and the creation of "the Sandalwood City".

---

Selling at about $147,000 per metric ton, the aromatic heartwood of Indian sandalwood (S. album) is arguably [among] the most expensive wood in the world. Globally, 90 per cent of the world’s S. album comes from India [...]. And within India, around 70 per cent of S. album comes from the state of Karnataka [...] [and] the erstwhile Kingdom of Mysore. [...] [T]he species came to the brink of extinction. [...] [O]verexploitation led to the sandal tree's critical endangerment in 1974. [...]

---

Francis Buchanan’s 1807 A Journey from Madras through the Countries of Mysore, Canara and Malabar is one of the few European sources to offer insight into pre-colonial forest utilisation in the region. [...] Buchanan records [...] [the] tradition of only harvesting sandalwood once every dozen years may have been an effective local pre-colonial conservation measure. [...] Starting in 1786, Tipu Sultan [ruler of Mysore] stopped trading pepper, sandalwood and cardamom with the British. As a result, trade prospects for the company [East India Company] were looking so bleak that by November 1788, Lord Cornwallis suggested abandoning Tellicherry on the Malabar Coast and reducing Bombay’s status from a presidency to a factory. [...] One way to understand these wars is [...] [that] [t]hey were about economic conquest as much as any other kind of expansion, and sandalwood was one of Mysore’s most prized commodities. In 1799, at the Battle of Srirangapatna, Tipu Sultan was defeated. The kingdom of Mysore became a princely state within British India [...]. [T]he East India Company also immediately started paying the [new rulers] for the right to trade sandalwood.

British control over South Asia’s natural resources was reaching its peak and a sophisticated new imperial forest administration was being developed that sought to solidify state control of the sandalwood trade. In 1864, the extraction and disposal of sandalwood came under the jurisdiction of the Forest Department. [...] Colonial anxiety to maximise profits from sandalwood meant that a government agency was established specifically to oversee the sandalwood trade [...] and so began the government sandalwood depot or koti system. [...]

From the 1860s the [British] government briefly experimented with a survey tallying every sandal tree standing in Mysore [...].

Instead, an intricate system of classification was developed in an effort to maximise profits. By 1898, an 18-tiered sandalwood classification system was instituted, up from a 10-tier system a decade earlier; it seems this led to much confusion and was eventually reduced back to 12 tiers [...].

---

Meanwhile, private European companies also made significant inroads into Mysore territory at this time. By convincing the government to classify forests as ‘wastelands’, and arguing that Europeans would improves these tracts from their ‘semi-savage state’, starting in the 1860s vast areas were taken from local inhabitants and converted into private plantations for the ‘production of cardamom, pepper, coffee and sandalwood’.

---

Yet attempts to cultivate sandalwood on both forest department and privately owned plantations proved to be a dismal failure. There were [...] major problems facing sandalwood supply in the period before the twentieth century besides overexploitation and European monopoly. [...] Before the first quarter of the twentieth century European foresters simply could not figure out how to grow sandalwood trees effectively.

The main reason for this is that sandal is what is now known as a semi-parasite or root parasite; besides a main taproot that absorbs nutrients from the earth, the sandal tree grows parasitical roots (or haustoria) that derive sustenance from neighbouring brush and trees. [...] Dietrich Brandis, the man often regaled as the father of Indian forestry, reported being unaware of the [sole significant English-language scientific paper on sandalwood root parasitism] when he worked at Kew Gardens in London on South Asian ‘forest flora’ in 1872–73. Thus it was not until 1902 that the issue started to receive attention in the scientific community, when C.A. Barber, a government botanist in Madras [...] himself pointed out, 'no one seems to be at all sure whether the sandalwood is or is not a true parasite'.

Well into the early decades of twentieth century, silviculture of sandal proved a complete failure. The problem was the typical monoculture approach of tree farming in which all other species were removed and so the tree could not survive. [...]

The long wait time until maturity of the tree must also be considered. Only sandal heartwood and roots develop fragrance, and trees only begin developing fragrance in significant quantities after about thirty years. Not only did traders, who were typically just sailing through, not have the botanical know-how to replant the tree, but they almost certainly would not be there to see a return on their investments if they did. [...]

---

The main problem facing the sustainable harvest and continued survival of sandalwood in India [...] came from the advent of the sandalwood oil industry at the beginning of the twentieth century. During World War I, vast amounts of sandal were stockpiled in Mysore because perfumeries in France had stopped production and it had become illegal to export to German perfumeries. In 1915, a Government Sandalwood Oil Factory was built in Mysore. In 1917, it began distilling. [...] [S]andalwood production now ramped up immensely. It was at this time that Mysore came to be known as ‘the Sandalwood City’.

---

Text above by: Ezra Rashkow. "Perfumed the axe that laid it low: The endangerment of sandalwood in southern India." Indian Economic and Social History Review 51, no. 1, pages 41-70. March 2014. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Italicized first paragraph/heading in this post added by me. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism purposes.]

#a lot more in full article specifically about #postindependence indian nationstates industrial extraction continues trend established by british imperial forestry management #and ALSO good stuff looking at infamous local extinctions of other endemic species of sandalwood in south pacific #that compares and contrasts why sandalwood survived in india while going extinct in south pacific almost immediately after european conques #abolition #ecology #imperial #colonial

[haveyoureadthisscifibook]

vote yes if you have finished the entire book.

vote no if you have not finished the entire book.

(faq · submit a book)

#scifi #books #Providence #Max Barry #poll #every time I see Max Barry's name part of me is just like. 'Max Barry NationStates??' #result: no #l: English

[violasses]

I hate this map.

I think it's pretty clear when i ask for a map of the polities that existed before colonialism, what i am asking for—that is, a map immediately before the scramble for Africa, hell even before European partition of Ottoman North Africa, before all that Spanish and Portuguese port-colonies nonsense.

But this map cames and then laughs at you. It mocks you. It says sneeringly, "But what do you mean before colonization! A lot happened before colonization!" And, without saying it, it jeers that those uncivilized Africans could never possibly create a stable, distinctly bordered and centralized Westphalian state, and that the system WE put on them is obviously better than their own and that WE brought civilization to them and WE organized their nations better. *Look at all those overlaps!* It thought. That can't POSSIBLY stand in a modern Westernized state!

One of the things that the Scramble for Africa, the colonization of Siberia and Central Asia and the general advent of the European nation-state is the complete close-off of facilities of cultural and material exchange. The Eurasian Steppes and its Steppe Route is now divided in three different countries and the Sahara and the Trans-Saharan Trade Routes in 11, very unstable and very poor countries. The ancient Silk Road is in seven different countries and even the Spice Trade, the ancient Maritime Silk Road is guarded by 9+ countries. Every single one of these, countries or states or whatever you call them, has a heavily-guarded frontiers and even a single centimeter of lost land or a single bit of blurriness is unacceptable, unnatural and detrimental to the survival of a people.

That is a reactionary mindset. It's backwards and it's primal, emotional, and very, very fascistic. It's the concept of the Lebensraum, but internationally accepted, the concept of an autocrat's monopoly on violence but in a nice little pretty dress.

It's awful. We need to get rid of it.

#colonialism #anarchy #anarchism #decolonisation #decolonization #nationstates #africa

[pranksterhowl]

@nationstates-and-pokemon

“Z..z..z... Z..z..z...” -

Most of the time Howl ends up sleeping when placed inside the ball; it’s quite comfy and nice for him.

#nationstates-and-pokemon #pranksterhowl #mimikyu #pokemon #askblog #nintendo #gamefreak #SM #SV #clefairy #pikachu #cozy #redraw #artwork #illustration #fanart #ghost pokemon

[archliches]

love the dreams i have when i go back to sleep after waking up. had one where all these demons and angels were on a dark ride showcasing great human achievements and failures. the demons were constantly jeering and heckling and the angels would get all upset whenever there was something "bad". one demon hopped off the cart to start messing with the exhibits and found a 2003 MacBook and tried to google "scary pictures" to freak out the angels - it didn't work very well and the demon was all pissed off but when the ride rounded the corner the angels freaked out anyway bc it was a Computer.

#i think the whole 'demons and angels' thing was probably bc so many ppl have been talking about the new good omens #also google wasn't working v well for the demon and it said something to the effect of 'ugh this google shit SUCKS i don't understand how #they end up holding a small island nationstate/polity in the antaractic circle in the 23rd century AD!!' #i say stuff

[gaycactusscoundrel]

Since other people talk about websites I never use on here (AO3 and Twitter, respectively) I want to give you an update on a site you probably never use: NationStates. I just restarted playing it a few weeks ago after many years of absence, and, well, a disc has apparently been rendered nearly entirely usely and the whole site has been down for a week straight with no clue as to when it will be back up. My favorite part is that the stuff that's non-functional is stuff I don't even use; the text editor for messages and the revord of these trading cards that I don't really see the appeal of.

Thank you for coming to my pointless ramble

#NationStates #Original post #Text Original

[digitalcreationsllc]

Top Ukrainian Mobile Operator Kyivstar Hit by Cyberattack

Critical Infrastructure Security , Cyberwarfare / Nation-State Attacks , Fraud Management & Cybercrime Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Is in Washington David Perera (@daveperera) • December 12, 2023     The Kyivstar logo displayed in Kherson, Ukraine in February 2022 (Image: Shutterstock) Ukrainian telecom operator Kyivstar was the target of a cyberattack that knocked internet access…

View On WordPress

#attacks #Critical #Cybercrime #Cyberwarfare #Fraud #infrastructure #management #nationstate #security #Ukrainian

[chubby-aphrodite]

nationstates update: i've enacted anti-disciminatory measures regarding mentall illness/disorder in the workplace, i've given my top soldiers meth, and ive mandated the inclusion of measures for online data storage/transfer in their will in the event of an account holder's death. just a normal day really

#fae talks #nationstates

[deqdyke]

Cw: race, genocide denial, antiblackness

Just working through some thoughts after seeing the millionth annoying "Are x group white? Discuss" tweets.

Honestly I think like 90% of discourse around race and whiteness in leftist spaces could be solved by people saying "I don't know that history well enough". Like, people when they discuss race, have these competing internal desires to treat race as solely defined by current social standings, and also point to historical oppression as evidence. Neither works. If you go purely by current social standings, then we have absolutely nothing to build off of besides personal lived experiences. I've met Italians who have had old white people call them wops. Does that mean Italians aren't white? Are Polish people not white because of the existence of anti-polish sentiments? Are Russians not white because of how often they're portrayed as villains? Are Armenians white universally bc of the Kardashians?

But then if you base it entirely off history, then you have to accept that no Jewish person has ever attained whiteness. That race is a permanent and immutable aspect of someone's character - something that just... That's just racial ideology, same as it ever was.

The reality is whiteness is nebulous and difficult to pin down because it serves a social function. It needs to be fluid, but it needs to justify itself by appearing as if it's immutable. It also props up European nation-building myths. Like, if the question is "Are Italians white" the question should be "Well, who's an Italian?". Who's a Russian? I know Black Russians, and Black Ashkenazim. Is the understanding they're somehow less part of those groups due to their Blackness? Because I know they would take serious issue with that. Romans (as in, Italians from Rome) are a core part of the Western nation-building myth. You can't exclude them from whiteness without whiteness collapsing. But Sicilians were ruled by North African Muslims for hundreds of years - they're noticeably darker, and their culture is distinct. So Sicilians were denied whiteness, and they were used as a scapegoat for xenophobic sentiments during waves of Italian immigration. When they had sufficiently assimilated, then suddenly Sicilians were "Italians" and Italians are white, so Sicilians are white. So you've now managed to redefine whiteness across an era of immigration to build white unity and maintain a white supremacist majority.

White Fascism is self-destructive and suicidal because it maintains rigid immutable boundaries and requires constant expansion, which means eventually whiteness WILL be a minority. Liberalism upholds whiteness by redefining whiteness over time to maintain a White social majority. When whiteness needs to be mutable, there needs to be a population that can be used as the scapegoat. (Which is also why anti-Blackness is a core component of White supremacist racial ideology - it functions as a permanent fixed class to pivot other groups' whiteness around).

That's how it functions in America. But the rules of whiteness ARE mutable, and they change based on time and region. So the question of "Is x person white" really depends on time AND location, and how their identities exist in relation to nation-building myths. And it reaches a point where asking a question like "Are Armenians white?" or "Are Balkan Muslims white?" or "Are Jews white?" stops being useful, because the point shouldn't be to reify race, it should be to point out that people who fail to fit neatly within these national racial narratives are the best possible example to show how Whiteness contradicts itself. Is an Arab white? Is a Jew white? Is a North African white? It depends, when, where, and who are we talking about?

#this was prompted by the billionth annoying arab #posting about how al anfal was about purging whiteness from thr middle east #like my brother in Allah you ARE THE MAJORITY HERE #you are the whiteness here #we'll both be not white in Louisiana but you'll still have the money and backing of Arab nationalism #and if you fail and Kurds somehow form a nationstate we will inevitably become the whiteness of that state #and also like one of the most famous Kurds in history was a Black man freed from the Arab slave trade #you did it because your nationalism fails to account for the falsity of racial ideology #and you need to justify your continued existence and power #This is also why I've stopped really fully IDing as Kurdish bc like #im Shabak and a Kurdish Jew #both things ive seen the KRG fail to account for #so even if Kurdistan somehow becomes a nation state my family will still be SOL and stranded #also I only touched on it but it does need to be made clear that antiblackness is a core part of white ideology #even in supposedly post-racial ideologies like Anzaldua's Mestizx ideology #Blackness is positioned as something that needs to be solved to resolve the contradictions in post-racial nationalisms #the only people who have given me kindness about my complex familial history in the US are other nationless minorities and Black folks #and being allowed to sit in on an Anakarta reading group changed my life #if anyone is curious for more about the discussion of racial construction in the Middle East #read Nesting Orientalisms and The White Turkish Man's Burden #this is basically just me processing how coexist with my experiences + the knowledge I've gained from loved ones #also if anyone has issues with anything I've said here feel free to DM me but dont reblog this #I'm def open to discussing things and having my understanding corrected or challenged #but if you do it via reblogs ur getting blocked lmao

[lakesbian]

alec vasil dress-up doll time (pajammies, normal outfits, fancy boy clothes). he would be so good at living in grayscale world

#ok back to my nationstates and then pact time. very exciting things on nationstates today #i wouldve done some aishas too but picrews which can capture her scene queen essence are rare #anyway take notes on how alec vasil fashion works. in case you ever need to know.

[mushroomsoupofficial]

Okay I was just doing some google searching for something I'm writing and I stumbled into nationstates.net and at first I was really confused because I didn't know what I was looking at but now I'm so intrigued???

#text #mushroomsoupstorytime #nationstates

[ordingdrublene]

Join Greater Drublene

That's right I founded A fucking region.

Join it lest he be cowards.

#nationstates #Ording Drublene #USSoOD #USSOOD #united socialist states of ording drublene #Greater Drublene

[mindrat]

NationStates

is a cool concept and all (make your own country, figure out how to avoid the zombie plague, hoard uranium, etc.), but eventually you stumble upon the politics threads, which are basically the same twenty people arguing to brick walls about abortion.

On the bright side, one often stumbles upon such absurd discussions as whether ice age bunkers will be collectively owned in the climate apocalypse.

#nationstates #climate apocalypse #tf is the point of raiding #nationstates is mechanically not suited for the roleplaying that intensive users want from it

[pranksterhowl]

@nationstates-and-pokemon

“My dear friend, last spring was a bit slow but it eventually picked-up by the end... Currently the kind mailman informed me of the letter getting mixed up but I’m glad to received it. Hopefully this upcoming Spring comes with a lot of good things for us! And I am glad you found a new companion! Hope you both embark in amazing journeys!” -

#nationstates-and-pokemon #pranksterhowl #mimikyu #cherrim #pokemon #artwork #askblog #illustration #gamefreak #nintendo #art #sorry I took long #hope this is good! #Thank you again