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[Flying Dice]

Still the president we need righ-

"MANkind?!" [maximum overtrigger]

[Yoink]

Ended my last reading sesh mid-swordfight. O.o

[Arcvasti]

Not as bad as my biology teacher. Apparently women don't need men. Plenty if stored sperm to go around.

Don't even think you'd have to use that. I'm fairly certain there's some way to get a viable embryo out of just two eggs lizard-style, although dunno about how reliable it is. The main bottleneck would be trained docters and sufficiently advanced medical facilities.

[Flying Dice]

Plus, you know, the inherent inefficiency of spending a bunch of money, using all those research-hours on that instead of solving cancer or telomere shortening, building a bunch of infrastructure, and training a bunch of specialists in order to maybe do something as well as people can do fairly well using nothing but their own bodies.

[Arcvasti]

Plus, you know, the inherent inefficiency of spending a bunch of money, using all those research-hours on that instead of solving cancer or telomere shortening, building a bunch of infrastructure, and training a bunch of specialists in order to maybe do something as well as people can do fairly well using nothing but their own bodies.

Yep. Technically possible to do, but inefficient on large scales and of questionable usefulness. 's more the theoretical viability of it if we directed hella resources towards it.


Unrelated WTF:

At some point, I apparently started using 's to start sentences. I don't quite know why, but I think Frumple's to blame somehow.

[Lord Shonus]

Nah, all we need is a multitude of Alexanders and Temujins. History is of the cycle of people uniting, disuniting, reuniting, disintegrating, regrowing, extincting, replacing, rebirthing and so on

Then have the various groups led by Genghis Alexujin fight each other? That's just continuing what we're doing now.

Exactly, and each time civilization advances, each time lines of communication allow the reunification efforts to spread longer and last longer until the next Genghis Alexujins arrive

Look at Alexander, when he died what was his issue? His Greek veterans wanted to go home, moreover he had no way of controlling all of his distant lands. Same problem faced by his successors. That he didn't appoint a successor is also hilarious, they asked him who should succeed him and alexander was just all "to the stronkest" like a dickhead
Same issue with Genghis, lines of communication breakdown for his successors
Now? No issue for lines of communication. A world-conquering entity would only be as troubled as its popularity amongst its powerbase

You might want to look at the history of the Third German Empire, which would have dissolved into full-scale civil war upon the death of the ruler had it not already been crushed in battle. This nation is more commonly known as the Third Reich, and fell in 1945.

[overseer05-15]

Not as bad as my biology teacher. Apparently women don't need men. Plenty if stored sperm to go around.

Don't even think you'd have to use that. I'm fairly certain there's some way to get a viable embryo out of just two eggs lizard-style, although dunno about how reliable it is. The main bottleneck would be trained docters and sufficiently advanced medical facilities.

Naw it uses like bone marrow I think.

Nah, all we need is a multitude of Alexanders and Temujins. History is of the cycle of people uniting, disuniting, reuniting, disintegrating, regrowing, extincting, replacing, rebirthing and so on

Then have the various groups led by Genghis Alexujin fight each other? That's just continuing what we're doing now.

Exactly, and each time civilization advances, each time lines of communication allow the reunification efforts to spread longer and last longer until the next Genghis Alexujins arrive

Look at Alexander, when he died what was his issue? His Greek veterans wanted to go home, moreover he had no way of controlling all of his distant lands. Same problem faced by his successors. That he didn't appoint a successor is also hilarious, they asked him who should succeed him and alexander was just all "to the stronkest" like a dickhead
Same issue with Genghis, lines of communication breakdown for his successors
Now? No issue for lines of communication. A world-conquering entity would only be as troubled as its popularity amongst its powerbase

You might want to look at the history of the Third German Empire, which would have dissolved into full-scale civil war upon the death of the ruler had it not already been crushed in battle. This nation is more commonly known as the Third Reich, and fell in 1945.

That's because there was no setup for a successor. From what I can tell, Hitler never set something up because if Germany was going to win the war, it needed Hitler to survive, and if it lost [SEE:history]. Also, Hitler was trying to achieve apotheosis or immortality, I can't remember which, thus removing the need for a successor.

[Loud Whispers]

Nah, all we need is a multitude of Alexanders and Temujins. History is of the cycle of people uniting, disuniting, reuniting, disintegrating, regrowing, extincting, replacing, rebirthing and so on

Then have the various groups led by Genghis Alexujin fight each other? That's just continuing what we're doing now.

Exactly, and each time civilization advances, each time lines of communication allow the reunification efforts to spread longer and last longer until the next Genghis Alexujins arrive

Look at Alexander, when he died what was his issue? His Greek veterans wanted to go home, moreover he had no way of controlling all of his distant lands. Same problem faced by his successors. That he didn't appoint a successor is also hilarious, they asked him who should succeed him and alexander was just all "to the stronkest" like a dickhead
Same issue with Genghis, lines of communication breakdown for his successors
Now? No issue for lines of communication. A world-conquering entity would only be as troubled as its popularity amongst its powerbase

You might want to look at the history of the Third German Empire, which would have dissolved into full-scale civil war upon the death of the ruler had it not already been crushed in battle. This nation is more commonly known as the Third Reich, and fell in 1945.

>world conquering
>barely conquers anything
amplify your standards

[Flying Dice]

Plus, you know, the inherent inefficiency of spending a bunch of money, using all those research-hours on that instead of solving cancer or telomere shortening, building a bunch of infrastructure, and training a bunch of specialists in order to maybe do something as well as people can do fairly well using nothing but their own bodies.

Yep. Technically possible to do, but inefficient on large scales and of questionable usefulness. 's more the theoretical viability of it if we directed hella resources towards it.


Unrelated WTF:

At some point, I apparently started using 's to start sentences. I don't quite know why, but I think Frumple's to blame somehow.

Granted, it's one of several genegineering routes that should be pursued if we ever put together an apocalypse recovery suite, gotta cover as many bases as possible. Obviously a way to randomize DNA sufficiently to grow a (long-term) genetically viable population of test-tube babies from a genetically nonviable population of donors without inducing fatal mutations out the wazoo is first in this hypothetical exercise.

[Loud Whispers]

Granted, it's one of several genegineering routes that should be pursued if we ever put together an apocalypse recovery suite, gotta cover as many bases as possible. Obviously a way to randomize DNA sufficiently to grow a (long-term) genetically viable population of test-tube babies from a genetically nonviable population of donors without inducing fatal mutations out the wazoo is first in this hypothetical exercise.

I'm sure we could find a non-apocalyptic usage of random genetic engineering to discover genetic diseases and other shit like that

[overseer05-15]

Plus, you know, the inherent inefficiency of spending a bunch of money, using all those research-hours on that instead of solving cancer or telomere shortening, building a bunch of infrastructure, and training a bunch of specialists in order to maybe do something as well as people can do fairly well using nothing but their own bodies.

Yep. Technically possible to do, but inefficient on large scales and of questionable usefulness. 's more the theoretical viability of it if we directed hella resources towards it.


Unrelated WTF:

At some point, I apparently started using 's to start sentences. I don't quite know why, but I think Frumple's to blame somehow.

Granted, it's one of several genegineering routes that should be pursued if we ever put together an apocalypse recovery suite, gotta cover as many bases as possible. Obviously a way to randomize DNA sufficiently to grow a (long-term) genetically viable population of test-tube babies from a genetically nonviable population of donors without inducing fatal mutations out the wazoo is first in this hypothetical exercise.

If we got a quarter of all men in the world to donate to an apocalypse bunker, we'd have waayyy more than enough to create sufficient breeding population.

[Lord Shonus]

Nah, all we need is a multitude of Alexanders and Temujins. History is of the cycle of people uniting, disuniting, reuniting, disintegrating, regrowing, extincting, replacing, rebirthing and so on

Then have the various groups led by Genghis Alexujin fight each other? That's just continuing what we're doing now.

Exactly, and each time civilization advances, each time lines of communication allow the reunification efforts to spread longer and last longer until the next Genghis Alexujins arrive

Look at Alexander, when he died what was his issue? His Greek veterans wanted to go home, moreover he had no way of controlling all of his distant lands. Same problem faced by his successors. That he didn't appoint a successor is also hilarious, they asked him who should succeed him and alexander was just all "to the stronkest" like a dickhead
Same issue with Genghis, lines of communication breakdown for his successors
Now? No issue for lines of communication. A world-conquering entity would only be as troubled as its popularity amongst its powerbase

You might want to look at the history of the Third German Empire, which would have dissolved into full-scale civil war upon the death of the ruler had it not already been crushed in battle. This nation is more commonly known as the Third Reich, and fell in 1945.

>world conquering
>barely conquers anything
amplify your standards

Doesn't matter. The Reich set out to conquer most of the world (and did conquer almost as much as Alexander did), and if the Reich hadn't been technologically backward*, resource poor, and massively outnumbered, they would have succeeded despite their unstable political balance. The lack of collapsing empires in the modern world is due to the lack of empires period.


*Despite the reputation, German technology was generally a step behind the rest of the world in this time period. They had more advanced doctrine for using what they had (not least due to being on the receiving end of some very harsh lessons in the last war, and having to rebuild their military from scratch meant that they didn't have to overcome a massive "What we already have is good enough" stockpile of obsolete thinking like the Allies did. Despite this, most of their best equipment was copied from the Allies (at least conceptually), panic reaction to the Allies, or desperate embrace of concepts that the Allies had decided would take too long to make useful for the current war.

[Flying Dice]

Granted, it's one of several genegineering routes that should be pursued if we ever put together an apocalypse recovery suite, gotta cover as many bases as possible. Obviously a way to randomize DNA sufficiently to grow a (long-term) genetically viable population of test-tube babies from a genetically nonviable population of donors without inducing fatal mutations out the wazoo is first in this hypothetical exercise.

I'm sure we could find a non-apocalyptic usage of random genetic engineering to discover genetic diseases and other shit like that

Well, yeah, but funding for humanitarian medical pursuits (as opposed to profits) is scant enough as is. Better to focus on big problems (which might include such, natch) rather than weaseling out every nasty bit of genetic fuckery that plagues a relative handful of people (for so long as large-scale problems remain unsolved and funding remains limited).

Plus, you know, the inherent inefficiency of spending a bunch of money, using all those research-hours on that instead of solving cancer or telomere shortening, building a bunch of infrastructure, and training a bunch of specialists in order to maybe do something as well as people can do fairly well using nothing but their own bodies.

Yep. Technically possible to do, but inefficient on large scales and of questionable usefulness. 's more the theoretical viability of it if we directed hella resources towards it.


Unrelated WTF:

At some point, I apparently started using 's to start sentences. I don't quite know why, but I think Frumple's to blame somehow.

Granted, it's one of several genegineering routes that should be pursued if we ever put together an apocalypse recovery suite, gotta cover as many bases as possible. Obviously a way to randomize DNA sufficiently to grow a (long-term) genetically viable population of test-tube babies from a genetically nonviable population of donors without inducing fatal mutations out the wazoo is first in this hypothetical exercise.

If we got a quarter of all men in the world to donate to an apocalypse bunker, we'd have waayyy more than enough to create sufficient breeding population.

Assuming that the bunker stays intact, sufficient sperm and egg samples remain viable, and knowledge of the gene bank's existence and function is retained. Better to have multiple backups both in methodology and location. Automation would be good as well, if we got even weak AI good enough to into childcare working.

[Loud Whispers]

Well, yeah, but funding for humanitarian medical pursuits (as opposed to profits) is scant enough as is. Better to focus on big problems (which might include such, natch) rather than weaseling out every nasty bit of genetic fuckery that plagues a relative handful of people (for so long as large-scale problems remain unsolved and funding remains limited).

True, but wealthy countries like the USA can certainly afford to research into this stuff, even if only for the pursuit of pure knowledge (that could lead to undoubtedly profitable solutions to serious diseases or other crap, heck maybe even genetic engineering of medicines or foods)

Doesn't matter.

Yes it does, my criteria for world-conquerors explicitly demands world-conquering, otherwise they're just lame posers

The Reich set out to conquer most of the world (and did conquer almost as much as Alexander did), and if the Reich hadn't been technologically backward*, resource poor, and massively outnumbered, they would have succeeded despite their unstable political balance. The lack of collapsing empires in the modern world is due to the lack of empires period.

They got Belgium to Ukraine, gj what a wasteman empire fucking PORTUGUESE EMPIRE was larger
0/10 no world conquering, I want my Alexander Temujins to blob over the world's earth and seas, not languish larping in russian snows

[Silverthrone]

"Vell, zat is very unfair, Mein Herr, neither ze Portugese nor ze Greeks had to face enemies haxxing tanks. Or had zeir freund take an ill-fated schwing at Amerika.", gobbled the Gobbels-Ghost.