The very many questions-not-worth-their-own-thread question thread XXII

[Borachio]

So, here's a cashew, right?

And here's a human fetus.

And here's a chick embryo.

So, what's the deal? Should I eat cashews, or not?

 

[Farm Boy]

Spoiler :

So, here's a cashew, right?

And here's a human fetus.

And here's a chick embryo.

So, what's the deal? Should I eat cashews, or not?

An orange or banana would probably be healthier, but sure go for it!

 

[Angst]

Aborted human fetuses would make interesting bourgeois delicacies. I'd wholeheartedly advocate that. With the impending technology of near-immortality at our hands, they may even buy themselves a longer lifespan too and have us drones feed them with our droppings of despair. Who wouldn't want to live in such a world? I'd pay a lot of money to be able to tell my grandkids that at one point, we actually used books and didn't eat our offspring.

 

[Farm Boy]

With the impending technology of near-immortality at our hands

I think people have thought this for a very long time. I doubt we are remarkably and suddenly right this time.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Hey I just noticed I am the starter for both the questions thread and raves thread. Has anything like this happened before?

 

[ace99]

Aborted human fetuses would make interesting bourgeois delicacies. I'd wholeheartedly advocate that. With the impending technology of near-immortality at our hands, they may even buy themselves a longer lifespan too and have us drones feed them with our droppings of despair. Who wouldn't want to live in such a world? I'd pay a lot of money to be able to tell my grandkids that at one point, we actually used books and didn't eat our offspring.

Tasty!

 

[_random_]

Is it possible to use private browsing on Opera Mobile? If so, how?

 

[Dachs]

So, what's the deal? Should I eat cashews, or not?

No, give them to me.

Alternative comparison to a cashew:

Spoiler gross :

---

Answers to questions posted on my wall about the Eurasian War timeline (linked in my sig):

In your alternate history (which btw is excellent, its like reading a history book; that's supposed to be a compliment) I have questions about two things mainly:

(1) The behavior of the Ottomans in delivering an ultimatum to Russia. What madness possessed them? Even backed by an alliance with the British and French and having an emboldened CUP leadership I'm finding it hard to buy. Ottoman involvement in World War I was forced on them as you said by the Russians and the behavior of the British and French and economic issues over the capitulations and their debt. In this scenario I know you have the parallel to Austria-Hungary but I'm not sure the assassination by an Armenian would be enough to make them go and demand territory. Something they must have known the Russians would never accept. In this scenario why do the Ottomans face the same impetus for war?

Thanks, by the way.

The parallel with Austria-Hungary was more conscious and deeper than you know. Of course the CUP government did not believe that the Russians would yield Kars. Like the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia in OTL, it was designed to provide the Empire with a pretext for war. Its contents are therefore almost irrelevant.

But the other question: why did the Ottomans embark on war? Again, the parallels with Austria-Hungary suggest themselves, but there are even more parallels with the Ottoman situation of OTL. In 1914, the British and Russians were supplying and supporting insurgent forces in Ottoman territory itself, had fought a few border clashes in the Sinai and Armenia, Russia had built up a division-sized force of Armenian irregulars armed with Russian firearms, and the British had shipped a division of the Indian Army to Kuwayt (and then "compromised" by "withdrawing" it to Bahrayn), pointed menacingly at the Shatt al-Arab and southern Ottoman Iraq. The Royal Navy had instituted a blockade of the Ottoman Mediterranean ports.

Things really haven't changed much for the better in TTL. Russia is still supporting an insurgency in Armenia. The Russians might be connected to the assassination of an Ottoman minister. While the Ottomans' position vis-a-vis the British is somewhat improved, they face German and Austria enmity in its place. In addition, there are elements of Ottoman internal politics to think about. One way the CUP could cement its revolutionary government was a quick external war, something I tried to allude to in the account of Enver's actions.

And finally, one must remember that wars are not generally based on rational calculations and comparisons of strength. The Ottomans, like the Austrians in 1809 or 1914, recognized that defeat was possible in the war, even likely. But they believed that they could overcome that obstacle because they had to, if that makes sense.

(2) The German commitment to China. I understand with Russia onside the Trans-Siberian is open and Russian troops are already fighting for the Qing. That's understandable. But did the Germans really have such great interest in China to send soldiers and commit to such a degree? I suppose that with the Eastern front non-existent, it wouldn't have been so difficult to spare troops. Still seems odd since China was tangential in World War I and Germany barely contested those colonies.

The German commitment to China almost wholly piggy-backs off of the new Russian agreement. With St. Petersburg an increasingly strong friend and ally, German industrialists and military figures view the Trans-Siberian Railway as their version of OTL's Berlin-Baghdad line: a route for facilitating German commercial exploitation of China and even Russia. It is also, conveniently, an avenue along which troops and supplies can also be sent east.

Furthermore, Germany's holdings in Shandong are no longer isolated. In OTL, Germany possessed a major sphere of influence there, centered on the treaty port of Qingdao. Several thousand German nationals lived in that area, backed by a not insignificant military force (for which many of those nationals were in fact reservists). It was only captured by the Japanese in OTL because a) the Japanese 'cheated' by violating Chinese neutrality on their approach march and b) it was completely isolated and could not be reinforced. Germany's interest in China was never marginal and continued to be sustained into the early 1930s in OTL (see e.g. the career of Oberstlt. Max Bauer); in TTL, that interest is now backed by the means to keep it secure.

Dispatching actual soldiers there as advisors is of course a bit of a major step. The comparison here bears more resemblance to the OTL Spanish Civil War than to anything else. (In the original timeline that I adapted for this, the comparison was even more explicit, with China being referred to as the Entente's and League's test-bed for military theory and technology.) Even so, the Germans did not take it lightly, with considerable infighting within the ranks of the army (the Moltke-vs-Falkenhayn arguments) and in the Reichstag (over the so-called "China credits") before the expeditionary force was finally sent. There are also shades of the German response to the Righteous and Harmonious Fists here as well: the FAZ explicitly compared the Republicans to the Boxers and claimed they were out to eradicate the foreign concessions (which had enough truth to it to be plausible).

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

No, give them to me.

Alternative comparison to a cashew:

Spoiler gross :

Spoiler :

Well, if you squint a bit, it sort of looks like a cashew.

 

[Joecoolyo]

Hey I just noticed I am the starter for both the questions thread and raves thread. Has anything like this happened before?

Every once in a blue moon I build a serial thread empire.

It tends to crumble very quickly though, especially if its capital is the Rants thread.

 

[W|M]

I once had both the Rants and Raves threads IIRC.

 

[Arakhor]

Tasty!

Kronos had appalling table manners and was very undiscerning about his food.

 

[_random_]

I remember bobbtjoe had Beatles-themed rants and raves threads simultaneously. That was before the thousandth post rule though.

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

Tasty!

It's like they don't even remember that Kronos canonically swallowed his children whole.

You can't ignore canon!

 

[Borachio]

Hey I just noticed I am the starter for both the questions thread and raves thread. Has anything like this happened before?

Go for it, aimee! Get the entire set. I can't see why anyone would object.

 

[Arakhor]

It's like they don't even remember that Kronos canonically swallowed his children whole.

No, no. That's the bowdlerised version for people with dentures. That picture is the real deal, man!

 

[Borachio]

Hang on. Hang on. Kronos is the God of time, right? How can he not swallow his children whole?

 

[Arakhor]

Kronos/Cronus was the youngest of the Titans, who castrated his father Ouranos/Uranus with an obsidian sickle and then threw his testicles into the sea, from which it is said that Aphrodite arose from the resulting sea-foam. His name means 'time' in Greek and he was associated with Saturn, the Roman god of agriculture, but Cronus was 'only' a Titan and had no specific mastery over the flow of time itself.

 

[ace99]

Uranus told him that his children would overthrow him like Cronus had, so Cronus ate all his children until Zeus escaped and forced him to vomit them up. Then they fought a war and the Titans were supplanted by the Olympians.

Greek gods > Monotheism

 

[Arakhor]

You missed out the bit where Rhea (Kronos's sister-wife) substituted a large stone for the baby Zeus and Kronos swallowed the stone wrapped in swaddling clothes without even noticing his newly lithovore diet.