Don't know if this is the board for it, but I'm gonna ask anyway.
How would the world look in case of full-scale nuclear war? Like, China and Russia go to war with Western powers.
Picture the Eastern Front of WW2.
A very large amount of people have been dislocated from their homes, nobody is quite sure what's going on, there's widespread hunger, and civil defense authorities are just barely keeping the fabric of society together.
And given that modern military formations have extensive NBC protection, the nuclear exchange will likely happen in tandem with large scale conventional warfare.
It wouldn't be the end of the world, but it would definitely result in tens of millions of dead, possibly hundreds.
Most nuclear warheads will be concentrated on neutralizing the other side's nuclear assets or military targets rather than destroying cities, but the fallout from groundbursts will still ride the winds into populated areas and turn entire cities into dead zones.
everyone dies except the richest people & their families (our best & brightest they'll say) who will wait out the chaos stemming from a world wide societal collapse and emerge years later to a mostly barren wasteland.
Picture a hotdog bun.
I'm doing some research for a novel set in 16th century France, where the protagonist is a fictional chef similar to Taillevent. I've done some cursory readings into this- books about spices, fasting, international food influence, etc. Would you know of any particular texts that would be useful for writing about this time and place? I want to know more about
>Kitchen structure
>Societal structure
>Manners
>Poisoning
In particular but I'd be interested in reading anything you have to suggest.
I'm entirely aware that Taillevent isn't 16th c.
>>1215748
Question, what's the story about, like give me the broadest stroke about the plot you got down in your head.
>>1215762
A chef working for a minor- but still quite wealthy- noble who is morally compromised when he is offered a vast sum of money to poison a foreign guest of his lord.
Bump for interest
What does /his/ think of Adam Curtis?
Really enjoy his documentaries. I don't know that he's necessarily "right", but he presents interesting points
Brilliant. He's a bit like John Gray, but for documentaries
I enjoy his stuff a lot and a lot of the criticism he gets is from idiots who think there's something magical about video that makes it unethical to express an opinion using it. Essayists are allowed to have opinions, seemingly, but documentarians are violating some kind of sacred trust.
It's Memorial Day, so, in honour of that, let's post valiant men, battles, sieges, etc.
Pic related. One of the greats.
>>1215636
Pleb-tier.
Now, Nimitz, that was a great general/admiral.
>>1215636
Do they have to be American? Even so, here's one of my home state's heroes, John Stark.
>loses the Philippines
>one of the greats
Does correlation imply causation?
>>1215472
Define "imply"
Define "Does", "correlation", "imply", "causation" and "?"
>>1215481
imply
[im-plahy]
verb (used with object), implied, implying.
1. To indicate or suggest without being explicitly stated.
?
Why did Japan attack Pearl Harbour?
Americans like to talk about it as though they did it for shits and giggles but there has to be a reason behind it
Was it just the sanctions America had placed on Japan in oil and iron which adversely affected their economy or was it something else
The Japanese thought that knocking out the American pacific fleet would give them time to take what they wanted in Southeast Asia without America being able to intervene for a year or two. The US and Japan both had a strong interest in a lot of the same areas in the pacific, I expect that the Japanese figured that if they kept pushing their luck they'd cross the US eventually anyway.
The US recovered a lot more quickly than the Japanese counted on, and they were pretty pissed about the whole thing.
>>1215288
They knew a war with America was inevitable after embargo. They were never going to let the japs get away with war in China and if they attacked European colonies, America would join in. They were in a pretty desperate situation as either they could lose face internationally by withdrawing from China or attack Pearl Harbor which would give them a breathing space of 6 months or so. Of course Americans were never going to let the japs get away with it, so they were pretty much doomed.
>>1215288
Due to the oil embargo, Japan wanted to attack Indinesia, then a Dutch colony, to secure an oil source.
FDR had publicly guaranteed the Dutch right to their colonial possessions, and the Japs were rightly worried that an attack on the NEI would result in an American attack. However, they assumed any reprisal would be a short punitive expedition, not an all out war to eliminate them as historically occurred.
Pearl Harbor was thus attacked as a way of knocking out enough of the fleet to give the Japanese the advantage in the 6-24 month war they were expecting.
Are there any battles where one sides wins using completely only tactics. No battles where the winners outnumber the loser. Bonus points for battles where winners are outnumbered
>Pic unrelated
>>1215212
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannibal
most battles fought in italy he was outnumbered, his cavalry cucked most others, based but we all die one day
>>1215212
Look up Khalid ibn al Walid. The man was a monster of tactics, basically all of his early battles of islamic conquest were won on tactics alone.
>>1215212
The famous meme: Finland vs URSS? Finland didn't technically win, but it did in our hearts.
Was there anything similar in other cultures like the cult of Cybele, the Dionysian Mysteries and so forth? Like these wild orgiastic ritual gatherings for a god or goddess?
>>1214511
It's very hard to say for sure, because the accounts of pre-20th century historians tend to be fairly unreliable when it comes to sexual matters.
Either sexuality would be downplayed (or ignored altogether) as something indecent to discuss, or the sexual antics of the ancients would be exaggerated to make them seem more exotic or barbaric. Doubly so where religion is involved
>>1214511
Temple prostitution among the Sumerians
https://youtu.be/2GFaN9-1iz0
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incident_at_Antioch
>be in Judea in the 1st century
>Jews are in a crisis, all kinds of weird prophets arise that aim to reform Judaism
>Jesus comes around and forms his own sect
>we have no reliable sources on what he preached, but it must have been quite radical, because the Romans arrested and crucified him
>his disciples, all practicing Jews carry on his cause to reform Judaism
>romanized Jew called Paul comes along, starts to co-opt the movement
>he never met Jesus in person, just claims to have had a vision
>"you guys, if we want or company, I mean faith to be succesful, we need to branch out and start preaching to pagans."
>"turns out that the goyim don't like the idea of circumscision and not eating pork, let's get rid of that, trust me, I have spoken to Jesus in a vision, that's what he would want"
>Paul starts to teach his interpretation of Christianity to gentiles
>Peter, James and the other disciples finally have a big falling out with Paul in Antioch, with them wanting to keep Jewish laws and just stay as a Jewish sect
>Paul leaves and starts to preach his version of what Jesus said
>Peter and his pals are all killed by Romans during the Jewish wars.
>the theology of those who actually knew Jesus is lost for ever
>Paul's version of Christianity spreads
The Bible is basically built on Paul's teachings, but we know that the people who actually knew Jesus in person (Peter and James) disagreed with him. How can people justify in believing in what we today know as Christianity, when it's a fact that even the original disciples of Jesus disagreed with it?
>tfw we will never find out what the authentic Jewish Christian faith was like.
>>1214260
>he never met Jesus in person, just claims to have had a vision
Why do we take this guy seriously but not Mohammed or Joseph Smith.
>>1214260
Jews demanded j the c pinned or they would chuck jewy tanty, quite the spectical.
Paul is escorted out of jew town by roman cohorts then later disappears in to witness protection
>>1214267
the other disciples apparently didn't take him seriously. it must have been frustrating for them to see him convert a lot of people to what they thought of as a misinterpretation of Jesus' message.
Have you or are you tempted to take any of those genetic tests that pinpoint your ancestry, /his/? Have the results given you an interest in the history of any particular group or changed your outlook on your own identity?
>>1214007
I have had interest in doing so, yes. On my mother's side, the most we know is my great grandfather is from the northern coast of Spain. On my father's, we hear stories of potential Dutch ancestors who immigrated to Ecuador.
I'd certainly like to know more, but I've heard very mixed things regarding these tests.
>>1214007
not interested with muh heritage, its just a clusterfuck.
>>1214012
To me the main problem is the price, but I'd like to get one when I'll have some money to spare. As an Eastern Euro with somewhat turanic features I'm especially interested in possible mongol ancestry.
Did Jesus Christ choose his fate?
No, free will doesn't exist.
If you're asking from a Christian perspective, Jesus is God the Almighty, so yeah.
>>1213849
>My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
What do you think?
>visit Orthodox monastery with friend
>talk to one of the younger monks in his 20's about Marxism, and he is already familiar with it
>apparently very educated
>ask him, "So, are monks lumperproletariat, or bourgeoisie?"
>he says, "Which ever is the most wretched and sinful, I am that."
>mfw
>>1213602
It sounds like you feel intellectually intimidated
>>1213602
False modesty is disgusting.
He may have not been educated from birth or teens in a good school or religious school, the latter of which used to have the best education, i'm not sure anymore. So you can't blame him.
>very educated
is a broad term.
But you have to remember monks like normal people also go through their own spiritual and personal struggles and journey like anyone else. 1 monk isn't a representation of every monk.
cavaliers or roundheads?
>>1213269
Cavalier.
>>1213269
don't know about this. learning time.
R O U N D H E A D
Fuck your divine right
Can we talk about Sassanid Empire?
What was their culture like?
What was their system like? Did it have some similarity with feudal Europe?
How influential was it?
Why did Arabs conquer it so easily?
Do modern Iranians see it in a positive light?
>Why did Arabs conquer it so easily?
It had been at constant war with the Byzantines
That's also why the muslims had so little difficulty with them, too.
>>1210773
Yeah but most of population of their empire was Zoroastrian. Conquests of Roman land were helped by the fact local population wasn't really on good terms with Constantinople.
Why did Zoroastrians accept Muslim rule so easily? Were there any major revolts?
Bump.
What is the objectively best thing that you can do now to become the best of yourself?I think its probably to study philosophy math and art.
>>1210559
What is the best of yourself? I think I'm meant to be a clown.
>>1210559
>best of yourself?
What the fuck.
>>1210568
>>1210569
Whats so hard to get about it?Its obviously that these 3 subjects,actually 4 with science are the most important things that we should focus on as they help us with logic,abstract thinking and creativity.Nothing else matter at least that's my opinion and I doubt someone can even refute it anyway.
