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> You drank after work with the folks you worked with (in west this is a no no for many good reasons)

In the West, this is a conventional thing that many people expect.

Probably an American equating "the west" with the US and Canada.

I never experienced this in the US. I did experience this in Germany, Sweden, and the UK.

Yeah, in the UK this is incredibly common. Drinks after work were at least a weekly thing, sometimes even a nightclub.

Yes. And in some places it would be drinks during the workday, if the pub was close enough for a lunchtime pint.

Definitely. In one of my previous companies, we'd sometimes do sprint retros in a nearby pub, drinks on the company tab.

in Germany this is also extremely common. I really don't know what the commenter means by the west, I'd assume after office drinking is also normal in the US?

It's less common, because most people have to drive home from work in the US.

> You drank after work with the folks you worked with (in west this is a no no for many good reasons)

It's like you've never been to a Western country`

I live in the US - and drinking with staff of different levels is tricky for a number of reasons. Inappropriate behavior broadly defined is not tolerated, and drinking is already in that category in many California and east cost areas. Public transit / jitney's etc are not great so a lot of folks drive to work and back which makes drinking harder.

Your right - I should have said US (and maybe just progressive areas).

Or maybe just the particular companies you work for. At many companies I've worked for, and many others I haven't, drinking with coworkers happens often enough that many they have regular official happy hours at bars.

> There is a story (probably made up - please fill in correct details) that a group "conquered" one of the islands (maybe Saba?). They took over whatever building, raised whatever flag. And everyone just ignored them. They eventually left.

I would guess it made up, because when people conquer stuff, they tend to have actual material goals and need. Starting from basic - their army needs to eat. The way you get that food is to take it from people who are there. They need wood and what not, if you are the armed one, you force local population to get it for you. When people used to run from incoming armies, it was not for fun. It was because the armed men tend not to ignore you.

The miracle there is not island people ignoring incoming people. The miracle there is the supposed conquerors being content with raising flag, without trying to take actual benefit from it. I guess in some rare situations they would conquer thing for trolling/emotional purposes, but generally the goal is control and things.

Do you really think all wars are rational, resource-driven pursuits? How about Falklands, what Argentina planned to extract there? Steal the rocks and tax the 300 sheep? Or Russia with Crimea, whose ownership value is enormously negative?

All it takes is one moron with delusion of grandeur.

Wars are expensive, that is first thing. Second, soldiers need to eat right now and where do you think food used to come from? Army "living off the land" was a thing, because supplying them was difficult and who cares. The land armies passed through used to be pretty destroyed after.

> Russia with Crimea, whose ownership value is enormously negative?

Russia does not see expansion of own territory as negative value. Also, Russians are very much making changes in Crimea.

Unlike 'seeing', negative economic value is objective. Suffering sanctions for occupying a region that was traditionally heavily subsidised is negative value.

1 To distract the population by stirring up nationalism / appealing to "machismo" 2 OIL

Indeed, countless wars were started for the most idiotic reasons imaginable, see 'war of the bycket'

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Bucket

Did you read what you linked to? It says that the war wasn't actually started to due to the bucket, but the taking of a castle.

Pretty reasonable cause to start a war I could imagine, back then.