WoodScientist

Iron is the most advanced technology they know of, but you’re proposing we make them astronauts?

Honestly, that would be fucking hilarious to watch.

Ah. Different comment chain.

Here you go!

You find yourself compulsively drawn to woodworking.

I usually don't. I don't take a bath if I'm completely covered in dirt. The actual concentration of dirt or skin in the bathwater has to be incredibly low. I take a bath to relax, not to get clean.

Why wouldn't they be? I would assume that socks only go in the family sock basket after going through the washer/dryer.

My pop history theory is that it's a latent cultural memory of the Biblical tradition. Remember how Eve was cursed with the pain of childbirth after giving Adam the fruit? Western culture has a history of seeing women's pain as a result of this ancient curse. Now, I imagine few doctors today are explicitly thinking about the Garden of Eden when diagnosing patients, but the cultural memory remains, if greatly diluted and distorted.

That sounds like what I can do. Both the rumble and the clicks/ear popping.

You know, this is the live-action remake Disney needs to actually make. They own the rights to The Simpsons and Planet of the Apes. They could absolutely make a feature-length Planet of the Apes musical. And I don't want them to use the CGI apes like they use in the modern films. Bring back the 1960s makeup. If you're going to do it, do it right.

Land grabs are more common now than in the 19th century? That's just completely false. That was the age of Manifest Destiny and overt colonization by European powers. Conflicts like Russia's invasion of Ukraine are so notable because they are so rare in the modern era. Today, global powers are more about economic influence, trading relationships, and economic spheres of influence. Turns out it's a lot cheaper and more efficient to just trade with people than to pay for the huge expense of maintaining an old-fashioned colonial empire. Look at China. They're expanding their influence through their Belt and Road Initiative, not through outright conquest and imperial subjugation. Or look at the US trade and influence machines it built after WW2 like the WTO, the World Bank, etc. It is very very rare for the great powers to outright seize land anymore. The US doesn't need to conquer Congo and become responsible for its people in order to gain access to its resources. It can just cut a check for them.

And no, it really isn't the same government. The federal government in 2025 has an entirely different relationship with the US population than it did in 1867. Hell, the entire way the US conducts military and diplomatic policy changed after WW2 and the dawn of the atomic era. The US hasn't formally declared war on anyone since WW2, when previously it was the norm for every conflict. Programs like Social Security or policies like anti-drug laws would have been unfathomable to a US citizen in 1867.

And if you want to say it's the same people, it really isn't. We're not the same people we were then, culturally or genetically. Even just ethnically, we've had so many waves of immigrants that our ethnic admixtures have completely changed. That's to say nothing of how much our norms and culture have fundamentally shifted. Try explaining gender nonbinary people to someone from 1867.

Look, I get it. It's tempting to adopt the old world-weary saying that nothing is new under the Sun, but I don't see how one can possibly look at the monumental changes in global technology, history, and culture over the last century and a half and conclude that things are basically the same. If nothing else, the introduction of nuclear weapons fundamentally changed the way the great powers manage their affairs.

Yes, you can be incredibly pedantic and say that, "well, human nature is the same, so fundamentally nothing has changed." But at that point you might as well be arguing that the US and ancient Babylon are the same country.

The real solution to this is simple. You're a ship full of colonists dreaming of settling a new world, right? So go settle a new world! Ask the citizens of your target world for an FTL-capable spaceship, climb aboard, pick a new target further afield, and head off into the wild blue yonder. It seems that's the least they could do in such a situation.

I did like the gag where the robot didn't understand the boundaries of practical jokes and amputated someone's leg as a prank.