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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   1156 thread views

Transnational Thursday for March 7, 2024

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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I am also aware of the urge some readers of this post will doubtless feel to start talking about "magic soil" or the like.

Ok, internet search was no help here - what does "magic soil" mean?

Yeah, sorry, @ArjinFerman is correct, though I've certainly seen both versions. "Magic dirt" is a shorthand way of criticizing arguments that seem to be about places when they should be about people, on account of there being nothing magical about the specific dirt people live on.

I think "magic dirt" is the more common usage, but it might not yield any results since it's a term used by deplorables. It's a sneering term for how some people think our elites look at assimilation - if you bring, say, a million Syrians to Germany, they'll become culturally indistinguishable from Germans just through osmosis / occupying the same approximate location / the magic dirt will make them German.

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