okokokok. so. nobel prizes. alfred nobel (dude who left his fortune to start the prize stuff) left them roughly 31 million SEK (c. US$186 million, €150 million in 2008) and because the organization responsible for managing the money of the nobel prizes is basically an investment firm they have grown that ~US$186 million… INTO $560 MILLION THEY’VE MADE MONEY

Something interesting I learnt today: A major difference between gun regulation in Australia compared to the U.S is that in Australia it is stated in law and in the U.S it is written into the constitution. Australia’s gun laws (as they are today) originated from the National Firearms Agreement (1996), after the Port Arthur Massacre.

This means that in Australia gun regulations are much easier to change and tweak over time as all it requires is a law to pass rather than an amendment to our constitution. This however IS the case in the U.S, where the constitution explicitly states that all Americans have a ‘Right to bear arms’. Since a full amendment is a much bigger deal politically than a simple change to a law (which happens all the time) it is a lot harder for the U.S to change its gun laws than it is for Australia.

This is one of the reasons the U.S, to this day, still has ridiculously loose laws around guns and firearms. It would be a massive deal for them to change this, much more than it should be.

I am actively researching WHY it is a bigger deal which leads me to actually try to figure out how Australia’s and the U.S government actually damn works but I’m going to save that for another post, probably later this week.

Anyway bye.

So to follow up on yesterdays post I learned some more about Australian republicanism and Australian government in general. First of all is that the defeat of the voice to parliament basically means that if a republic referendum was held right after and failed it would be a huge blow, 2 back to back rejections does not look good. I also found out that Australian Prime Ministers have no term limits like thr U.S does (also the U.S’s term limits only come from an ammendment, the 10th I believe). Just some random interesting facts to prove that learning dosent happen all at once and even small things can take days to begin to learn about. (im trying to add messages and morals to the end if these and i dont know if i hate or despise it) anyway thanks for reasint.

ALR so I just went down a rabbit hole on Australian politics, constitution and monarchy vs republic. There was actually a referendum on whether to become a republic in 1999 but it failed, mostly because of the model of republic that was presented (the president would be chosen by parliament rather than by popular vote). After the queens death albanese stated that, out of respect, he would not push a republic referendum until at least his second term if it occurs. So it is entirely possible that in the next few years we will have a referendum on it. The only thing it would actually do is signify that Australia is no longer tied, in any way to the UK and we are fully independent. The president probably wouldn’t have any real power but be more of a person that is supposed to personify the nation and act as a diplomat. Personally I am 100% in favour of a republic and monarchys just seem like a relic from the past. Either way there was a lot more to this discussion than I thought there would be (as with all things) and I hope you found this interesting.

TIL: Due to Taiwans obviously bullshit claim to the entirety of China, they also have to technically lay claim to mongolia, small parts of Russia and parts of half a dozen or so countries that border China. This is because the area they lay claim to actually originates from the previous Qing dynasty that both the ROC (Taiwan) and PRC (Mainland China) claim to be the successor to. Despite this Taiwan maintains not insignificant relations with mongolia and its all a big web of bureaucracy woven by Taiwan to not piss of China.

EDIT: uhhhh so a few months later and ive seen kinda conflicting sources on the actual status of taiwans and chinas claim over each other and mongolia so maybe just distigard this until i can get some actual sources and evidence lol

TIL: Even after German reunification and more than 90 years after ww1 ended, Germany still had to pay war reparations. They only paid the final amount in 2010! This meant that they were almost done paying and then the 2008 financial crisis hit, plunging them even deeper into dept and financial instability. A cruel twist of hilarious fate. Oh and Greece borrowed a shit ton from them so that didn’t help.

TIL: After the collapse is the Soviet Union, the British prime minister and French president were opposed to German reunification. They ‘feared’ that Germany would revert back to its imperial tendency’s and try to reclaim territory lost in WW2. This meant that in order to appease them, the new Germany had to agree to all of these treaties and amendments that basically set its borders in the most binding way possible. This still holds up today and I think it’s a really good example to show that the allies weren’t wholly good even after the war.

TIL: Australia’s economy is so centered around mining that you can put a graph of iron prices next to a graph of the worth of the Australian dolar it’s almost comical. As the global iron price goes up, so does the worth of the AUD! I think its both funny and interesting that a countries currency can be so dependant on one recource, I also wonder what this implies about Australias economy on the whole.

TIL: Israel has an ‘iron dome’ missile defense system that can stop 90-95% of all incoming missiles. It was developed in the 2000’s in cooperation with, you guessed it, the U.S and successful stopped its first missile in 2011. It works in all weather and is currently the best, most efficient and effective missile defense system in the entire world. It’s specifically designed for a smaller state like Israel but the U.S and many other countries have actually bought iron dome systems from Israel.

TIL: One of the ways Taiwan deters a Chinese invasion is by basically being the largest manufacturer of microchips in the world. This means that if the Chinese were to invade, basically the entire would would go ‘nu uh’ and intervene to allow the silicon to flow. The deterrent is therefore very aptly called Taiwans ‘Silicon Shield’.

TIL: Despite Berlin sitting inside of East Germany, during the cold war, the U.S, Britain and France all held areas in Berlin, seperate from their areas in West Germany. Suppose I should have thought of that sooner considering I hear the term east and west berlin just as often but I guess I always though they meant their country counterparts. Also it was called the Berlin wall lol, no idea how I missed this but you learn a new thing everyday.

P.S: Instead of writing a whole blog post every day I think I might try just writing something that I learnt every day and putting it on here. If I find something interesting I’ll still write about it though. Also it has been brought to my attention that I don’t know how to write TL;DR. I will be correcting this mistake from now on.