For those who haven’t seen:

https://youtu.be/QuQbus0xfhk?si=rj-XjaOhCt-evltR

Don’t get me wrong the song is chock full of campy charm. But I have to ask how did this wind up getting made and made in this way? Like what on Earth possessed some music producer to say—“people want a musical summary of The Hobbit and they want Leonard Nimoy to headline it. And it must be preserved on film.” As far as I can tell it was not tied into any other derivative IP from Tolkien. And Tolkien was alive when this came out! Any idea what he thought of this project either before or after?

I’ve been reading a lot about steppe nomads recently and I’ve seen the claim that Mongol riders would have to wrap their torsos in yards of silk tightly to keep their internal organs in place over long rides.

If this is true have any other horseback cultures had to do similar things? Like an American cowboy on a cattle drive for example?

If so, what are some examples or specific sins that were beyond penance? And also, can you give examples of specific historical sinners who were unable to save their souls?

Thank you :)

Discovering things like valerian root, ginko, ginger, makes perfect sense, given enough time and randomness someone sick will ingest it, become better and word of mouth will start to spread.

But then there's things I just reasonably cannot comprehend - how they were even considered to be mixed in the first place, let alone prepared in such oddly specific ways, applied or ingested, and then found to have medicinal properties. Like this I saw earlier, a book containing a recipe for an eyesalve made of vine, garlic, leeks, and bile from a cow’s stomach. Then it has to sit for exactly nine days in, specifically, a brass bowl. A test from 2015 showed it had a similar effect to modern antibiotics.

Like, how does that even happen?

Had a conversation with my mother while she was cooking oxtail, about how it was $100 for a single pack since it’s a luxury. I go “Crazy how it’s a luxury now, you know the history right?”

She just nods. “Tough meat that white people didn’t have the patience or know-how to properly cook down.”

That made me think, back then. My ancestors probably didn’t have much free time, and slave masters weren’t that concerned with our health and wellbeing, even if it lead to us working harder for them. So a lot of our cooking culture revolved around shit we could find in the soil or leave slow roasting over the day or even overnight until we were able to come back to it.

The oxtail in particular. The toughest, least flavorful part of the animal that they threw at us like trash because they felt wasting it was a sin (But owning humans wasn’t 🤔)

Did slave masters behave like class A school bullies everytime slaves tried to arrange a proper meal for themselves or did they just not care?

Did they provide food for “Better performance” or “Upkeep”? Did they copy or learn from it? Did they force us to eat a certain way for our sake or theirs? What kind of jobs could I have gotten that revolved around feeding/maintaining slaves if I were born white and educated back then?

I’m asking for all of the Americas. United States, the Caribbean, etc.

But If you’d like, feel free to delve into other instances of slavery. Like Roman slavery, Slavs, South Africa, Vikings, etc. in fact I feel there’s more records on those than this.

Wondering if Hitler/the Third Reich ever experienced any kind of public protest like the United States is currently seeing against the Trump admin or if this is a wholly American response to the perceived concentration of power?

This was something that I have questioned for a while as I see different photos of American soldiers without some equipment that they carried to the Invasion of Normandy. For example, their brassard on their arm that determined whether there was a poison gas attack, or, their rubber M7 gas mask bag that was over their chest. Where, and how did they end up ditching the equipment after the invasion to carry onto the rest of the campaign. Or did they not?

Originally, 'Social-Democracy' was a big term for early revolutionary socialism and people like Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin were members of a Social Democratic Party. Then it seems after WWI the meaning changed to be something more like Democratic Socialism today, where they wanted to destroy capitalism and make their countries socialist. Sometime between there and now, they've moved even further to the right and basically have become captured by capitalism -- arguably sometimes just liberal so that if an early SPD 'reformist socialist' saw a modern social democratic party they'd be shocked. Why did it keep moving right?

I've always wondered how you would be able to prove your identity and therefore your claim to land, property etc before you had pictoral records of what people actually looked like. For example, if you went off to war and came back after X number of years, how could you prove you were you, especially if there was no one left to recognise you....

There’s a common perception when reading the Talmud that ancient Jewish courts, particularly the Sanhedrin, strictly enforced Halacha with an iron fist, including capital punishment and that the Israelite kingdom or government, at least in some historical period were completely under the influence of "Halacha."

The Talmud (Makkot 7a) also states that despite their power, a Sanhedrin that executed even once in 70 years was considered extreme. Some sages went further, arguing that if they were in charge, no one would ever be executed.

However, it is possible that this lenient opinion may be the result of the Sanhedrin never having absolute power or that the Jewish ritual laws were not taken that seriously as it is documented in the Bible and later historians that:

• It was limited by Jewish kings, who sometimes overruled it.
• It was subject to Roman rule, which denied it the right to carry out capital punishment.

So my hunch is that in the collective Jewish memory, there was never a time when Jews saw ritual infractions being punished by execution in a real, functioning Jewish state. This may be the source of the above liberal attitude toward capital punishments as the Sanhedrin never had absolute power combined with strict adherence to "Halacha."

Does this interpretation hold up?

Previous discussions I've seen on the topic (terrain, society, lifestyle, etc.) were more about why European strongmen couldn't field armies of mounted archers. I'm more curious on the individual level. Even if Western European strongmen couldn't field an army of mounted archers (or had to operate in terrain where it wouldn't be conductive to that kind of army), they clearly could muster up some number of mounted troops, and use them in battle despite the terrain. These mounted troops also lived a lifestyle that encouraged hunting on horseback. So why didn't they fight in battle as mounted archers?

So, I went to a HandsOff rally yesterday. Posted about it. A semi-prominent "leftist" account called them, pejoratively, "liberal counterinsurgency". It reminded me of what little I know about antifa forces in Spain, with infighting between the anarchists & communists. My only knowledge of this comes from Homage to Catalonia, so appreciate any sources that would help.

I'm currently reading Oscar: A Life, by Matthew Sturgis and one thing I'm curious about is how someone like Wilde, living alone or with a roommate after graduating Oxford, got food.

As a broke bachelor myself, I have to go grocery shopping a couple times a week, then cook and do the dishes every day. That takes a considerable portion of my time. I cannot imagine Wilde doing the same and still having time for attending a litany of social/cultural events, reading, writing poetry, theatre plays, updating his wardrobe, etc. I know most of those soirées served food but surely that wasn't happening every single day.

So how did people like him do it? Were they just eating out at restaurants and allowing their debt to grow?

I recently watched a documentary on the boshin war and from what I gather both sides wanted to modernize and made use of modern firearms. And both sides claimed to also be protector's of japan traditional culture and values. So what where they fighting for?

My understanding of the situation may be wrong, but it is this: FDR was incredibly popular. Nevertheless, he failed in his attempts to defeat conservative, anti-New Deal members of the Democratic party in the primaries of 1938. Why didn't Roosevelt's popularity allow him to convince voters to oust opponents within his party?

Stories and myths and fantasy has a fixation with some character/person using a specific sword as theirs and with swords passed down for generations (eg. Valyrian Swords from GoT). While I understand that swords were greatly cared for and maintained by their users, swords should become un usable after some time, rt? because of use (you can't just keep on sharpening it can you).

How long did this take? Did they create a completely new sword and started using that? Did they use a different sword/ had multiple swords so that their "special" heirloom sword wouldn't get too damaged? Did they just reforge the sword into the same shape to keep the sword looking as it did before?

Smoot-Hawley Tariff of 1930 decreased both imports and exports, and exacerbated the economic downturn. Did that lead to increased trade between countries other than US? Or did it decrease trade globally, impacting economies all around the world?

Are there any clear time periods where this shift is observable, and how did it go in different cultures? Are there any cultures today that still see fatness/shapeliness as a positive feature rather than how much of the modern world has coveted skininess? I'm not reaching for a "fat good/skinny bad" argument but I'm just curious how, when, and where this shifts in perception occurred.

A lot of shows that I’ve seen will have the underdog protagonist “heroically” feign surrendering to an enemy in order to get the upper hand in an ambush. I’ve even seen it done on a show for children.

This is odd to me because perfidy is an actual war crime under international law. I’ve tried to look up what legal consequences this action would bring the perpetrator(s), but I can’t seem to find many cases where someone was officially accused of this in a trial, and I haven’t seen any convictions of it.

Has anyone been tried and convicted of perfidy? And is there a reason that it’s treated so lightly in popular culture?

I'm really curious about what life was like during the Edo period and would love to hear your insights. Here are a few questions to spark the discussion (feel free to increment):

Everyday Life: What was daily life like for people across different social classes? How did the experiences of nobles, samurais, and commoners differ?

Control and Stability: How do you think people felt under such strict social control that nonetheless brought about a sense of peace?

Nobility's Role: What role did the nobles play in this society? In what ways did they leverage their privileges to influence both politics and culture?

Childhood Experiences: What was it like growing up during this period? What kind of education and experiences shaped the lives of children?

Culture and Work: How were cultural traditions and daily labor practices expressed? What were some of the key customs and work routines?

Worldview: How much did people know about the outside world, and how did that shape their beliefs and behaviors?

And of course, to please the popular imagination, spare information about about swordsmen too

Best regards