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[Il Palazzo]

Pretty (not) sure all you'd have to do is blow up the moon. Once the deorbiting death hail finishes landing, survivors won't have to deal with the tide anymore!

You might want to blow up the Sun as well.

Anyhow, doesn't ordering back the tide work every single time? It just needs a moment to comply, especially if it's in a full swing.

[Max™]

Pretty (not) sure all you'd have to do is blow up the moon.

You're thinking huge, maybe we can do better...

You might want to blow up the Sun as well.

...hmmm, too huge, I think we need an energy input to keep the atmosphere from snowing out, but there may be something worth doing, because after all we have to do something, and this is something!

[Trekkin]

Don't you all remember your environmentalist slogans?

"Think globally, act locally."

The Earth is much closer than either the Moon or the Sun.

[Karnewarrior]

Great idea. Can't have tides if you don't have oceans.

[Greiger]

So lets take all the hydrogen out of the ocean water, and use that hydrogen to make hydrogen bombs and then use those hydrogen bombs to nuke the hell out of those leftover little bits of O₁ and salt still in what used to be the ocean.

[scriver]

Also this is your timely reminder that kings have been democratically elected for longer than they have been inherited. Nothing prevents monarchies from being democratic! Well, except the outvoted monarch, possibly...

Which monarchs are you refering to here?

I'm curious on this too.

In the majority of Europe's history, particularly the non-mediterranean western, northern, and eastern bits, kings were elected. Inheriting titles is a late, medieval custom, which likely grew into place at the same time as land titles grew from appointment to inheritance status. A few examples off the top if my head; Queen Margareta of Denmark and Norway was elected queen of Sweden, thereby forming the Kalmar Union. Gustav Vasa, who led the rebellion against the Danish king in 1520-something, was the last elected king of Sweden. In England, William the Bastard invaded the country and became the Conqueror because the Angles had elected Harold Godwinson* instead of him. Polish kings also used to be elected, and (though I cannot recall the name) their modem parliament is still named after their old election assembly.

In general, this all harks back to tribal customs and the propensity for tribes to form democratic and semi-democratic  government structures instead of the tyrannical might-makes-right barbararchies they are often portrayed as in popular culture. In places where the tribal customs remained stronger for a longer time, such as in the North, these democratic systems also remained in power longer.

*(lol autocorrupt wants his name to be Harold Cocaine)

[Sheb]

Calling those "democratic" is a stretch though. Most of the time, it was election by a few grandees, with the son of the previous monarch elected in almost all cases. The Poles are sort of an exception due to the way they decided who was noble. (All the sons of a noble were nobles, so in the end something like 10% of the population could vote).

[Kagus]

*(lol autocorrupt wants his name to be Harold Cocaine)

And God(winson)'s name is Smack, for some...

[SaberToothTiger]

The thing is with the king of Poland, he had less powers than, say, the president of the US. The seat was mostly ceremonial after 1700 and essentially nobody ruled the country. It was utter anarchy and to use the "Golden Liberty" as an example of a functional democratic system is hilarious. Democracy pulled one over Poland.

And, just as off topic, nobility was comparatively easy to bang into, because a child of any noble (regardless of gender) was a noble. This meant if you married an impoverished noblewoman, your kids would be noblity and they'd get the noblewoman's family coat of arms.

[Dorsidwarf]

The greeks had hereditary kings in the early period, before they turned to non-hereditary dictatorships and early republics, didn't they? Were the northerners electing kings before 1000BC?


also saying that poland was always a fake monarchy 'cause they had no real powers after 1700 is an interesting position given that that's in the period at which the power of monarchy was beginning to decline across europe (with the French revolution occuring at the end of it),

[Kagus]

Anyone catch the Bettie Scott hilarity in Detroit?

[scriver]

Calling those "democratic" is a stretch though. Most of the time, it was election by a few grandees, with the son of the previous monarch elected in almost all cases. The Poles are sort of an exception due to the way they decided who was noble. (All the sons of a noble were nobles, so in the end something like 10% of the population could vote).

Yeah, but if we're being picky and saying "it's not a democracy unless everybody is allowed to vote", Athens weren't democratic either, the US wasn't a democracy until whenever women and/or black people were allowed to vote (whichever was layest) and Switzerland wasn't a democracy until like the 90's when the last Canton gave women suffrage. Would I call them a modern democracy? Of course not. Were they democratic systems of their time? Yes, I would say so.

You are also forgetting that the further back you go, the looser the boundaries of nobility go. "Landed gentry", and the distinction between in and unlanded nobility, is a notion that grew over time - in the early medieval days and earlier, nearly all nobility was unlanded by default, and land titles were appointments that were not inheritable.

This continued to be true for areas such as the North that never went feudal. In Sweden, for example, where 99,99999% of all people were free men, the distinction between nobility and commonry was very ceremonial.

The thing is with the king of Poland, he had less powers than, say, the president of the US. The seat was mostly ceremonial after 1700 and essentially nobody ruled the country. It was utter anarchy and to use the "Golden Liberty" as an example of a functional democratic system is hilarious. Democracy pulled one over Poland.

And, just as off topic, nobility was comparatively easy to bang into, because a child of any noble (regardless of gender) was a noble. This meant if you married an impoverished noblewoman, your kids would be noblity and they'd get the noblewoman's family coat of arms.

The greeks had hereditary kings in the early period, before they turned to non-hereditary dictatorships and early republics, didn't they? Were the northerners electing kings before 1000BC?

We are unable to know it because of the lack of historical accounts, of course. All we can do it extrapolate backwards from later accounts and guess on how far back it went. The almost universal appearance of such customs in Germanic cultures seems to suggest that they at least precede the Germanic migrations.

[SaberToothTiger]

also saying that poland was always a fake monarchy 'cause they had no real powers after 1700 is an interesting position given that that's in the period at which the power of monarchy was beginning to decline across europe (with the French revolution occuring at the end of it),

I never said that Poland was a fake monarchy. I said that the king had no real power. I say that, because he couldn't do shit without the approval (or silence) or literally every single noble in Poland. Considering polish nobles were absolutely and ludicrously corrupt and took bribes from other monarchs to veto any proposals presented to the Sejm. Poland would be more accurately described as a noble republic than a monarchy.

Also it is cheesy to say that in 1700 all throughout Europe monarchy had been declining. The century gave rise to Prussia, which fought against reforms until the 19th century and even then was more of a military dicatorship than constitutional monarchy, entrenched the Tsarist autocracy which only ended in 1917, and in France Louis XIV had still ruled with absolute power. It was only after the Napoleonic wars concluded that monarchies were pushed towards more and more democracy.

[scriver]

Sorry, I forgot to actually write my answer to this in my post above, so I'm making a new post instead of editing it in:

 

The thing is with the king of Poland, he had less powers than, say, the president of the US. The seat was mostly ceremonial after 1700 and essentially nobody ruled the country. It was utter anarchy and to use the "Golden Liberty" as an example of a functional democratic system is hilarious. Democracy pulled one over Poland.

I'm not referring to the 18th century alone, I am referring to the very institution of the Sejm and the use of it to elect the ruler. If what my meagre recollection is correct, the Polish Assejmbly was instituted in the 12th-14th century, and was that time a direct development of the tribal assembly which, akin to the Nordic things, also had the duty of electing a ruler. Iirc, the same tribal assembly custom that in Poland became the Sejm became in Novgorod a city state republic. Like with Germanians, democratic assemblies are for Slavic cultures a custom that precede recorded history.

[SaberToothTiger]

The assembly you speak of had been no tradition I know of. The election of kings was established only in the 16th century with the election of Henry de Valois as king. Before that, there was no election whatsoever, and the lands were divided between the sons of the ruler. The previous conventions were set up only to get approval from either the Holy Roman Emeperor or the Pope.