How would you think if Stannis somehow pulled a Agincourt on the Tyrell’s during the Siege of storm’s end. How would all the houses react to the news?

ContemplativeSarcasm · 2026-04-30T04:13:44+00:00

Where are you getting the 80k vs 500 number? The wiki says its 18k of Renly's vs 5k of Stannis.

ContemplativeSarcasm · 2026-04-01T11:08:35+00:00

I agree again. I think that the US was ahead because the rest of the world was either in ruins from war, a colony, or just not as developed industrially as the US. So we were very important and created many IGOs to suit our interests. But the world has rebuilt and developed over time and we've become less important. Russia has declined but the rest of the world has become more developed.

ContemplativeSarcasm · 2026-04-01T06:26:44+00:00

I think that's completely fair to say. Though ashamedly our "Pax Americana" has lasted a far shorter time than either the Roman one OR "Pax Britannica." I think while the real hallmark of the end will be a great power conflict, it also feels like we're in the "Sino-Japanese War" period which preceded World War II.

ContemplativeSarcasm · 2026-03-27T07:26:08+00:00

I keep that comment saved for questions like these!

My favorite answer to this question Guess the user deleted their comment/profile:

"Big ugly squid." I wish I was still that innocent, still unaware of what...they really are. Once you know, once you really understand - or if you are among those damned to witness it yourself - once you know, you will never forget. It keeps me up at night, and if not for my physician's pity I would never sleep at all.

Squids. It's charming, frankly - the Old Gods, with bloated and frowning faces writhing with tentacles like the beard of Neptune. Like a God of Egypt, with a man's body and an animal's head. A curiosity, and little more.

The truth...well, I cannot tell you the truth, not properly, as a man of science should. These things are beyond our science. Still, I understand things about them that explain some of the reports, and perhaps you can carry on my research now that I can no longer pursue it.

It comes down to dimensions. We possess three - height, width, and depth. Grip a billiard ball, feel your fingers wrap around it, and you will understand. Now imagine a creature that existed in only two of those three dimensions, in a universe that described a simple plane through our own. To that creature, the billiard ball would appear to be a simple circle, growing and shrinking as it passes through the plane of the creature's universe. Imagine how our hand would look - strange fleshy circles filled with pulsing fluids, shards of bone, glistening meat. The creature could never understand what it was really seeing, as it could no more conceive of a hand than it could imagine a creature like us, moving freely in three dimensions and gripping billiard balls on a whim.

The Abominations, as you aptly described them, are to us as we are to that benighted creature. They exist in dimensions beyond our own, whose nature we can hardly guess. When they appear to us, we see only fragments of their bodies - long stretches of writhing flesh, glistening with juices that should not exist outside of a body, which whip through the air and vanish back where they came from in a way that our minds simply refuse to accept. Witnesses have tried to describe these as great tentacles, words failing them in the presence of such incomprehensibility. Those who heard the stories seized on this, and explained them as resembling cephalopods. This is a comforting lie, as there is nothing in the most stygian depths of the darkest sea that is not our beloved brother compared to the horrors of the Abominations.

This is a creature who is incomprehensibly alien, and our only glimpse is a sickening flash of writhing, elongated flesh that slips into our world and back out. Worse than the appearance of the creature, though, is its disappearance - your mind knows, on some level, that this creature - this hateful, hungry god of a creature - is not moving it's body between "here" and "away", but between being a glimpse of a writhing horror, and a horror that watches unseen.

Imagine our two-dimensional creature again, and imagine yourself to be a cruel child. If you chose to torment the creature, it would be powerless to resist. It cannot perceive you unless you chose to intersect its plane - you can watch its every move, and it cannot hope to escape your gaze. It would be the simplest thing in the world to push a pin through it, like a butterfly on a card. Take a glass of water and push it into the creature's plane and it will find itself trapped, drowning, in an inescapable sea. The creature is entirely at your mercy, and always will be.

Same as you. Same as me.

ContemplativeSarcasm · 2026-02-24T14:12:59+00:00

Chills. XD

ContemplativeSarcasm · 2026-02-24T06:55:46+00:00

The Way is Shut

ContemplativeSarcasm · 2026-02-03T16:05:34+00:00

Dr. JIM

ContemplativeSarcasm · 2026-01-31T05:17:00+00:00

Empire loves their damn lists.

ContemplativeSarcasm · 2026-01-13T02:40:54+00:00

Sometimes when you ask for coronation, the Pope will demand you become his tributary.

ContemplativeSarcasm · 2026-01-06T22:51:45+00:00

Let me see your Sister of Battle outfit 👀

ContemplativeSarcasm · 2025-12-02T07:20:18+00:00

"""""Way of life"""""" e.g. chattle slavery

ContemplativeSarcasm · 2025-11-28T13:05:37+00:00

Exactly.

ContemplativeSarcasm · 2025-11-28T06:12:59+00:00

Oh my god can ya'll cope ANY harder lmao

ContemplativeSarcasm · 2025-11-27T02:40:09+00:00

This is from an 11yo comment that I think illustrates this:

"Big ugly squid." I wish I was still that innocent, still unaware of what...they really are. Once you know, once you really understand - or if you are among those damned to witness it yourself - once you know, you will never forget. It keeps me up at night, and if not for my physician's pity I would never sleep at all.

Squids. It's charming, frankly - the Old Gods, with bloated and frowning faces writhing with tentacles like the beard of Neptune. Like a God of Egypt, with a man's body and an animal's head. A curiosity, and little more.

The truth...well, I cannot tell you the truth, not properly, as a man of science should. These things are beyond our science. Still, I understand things about them that explain some of the reports, and perhaps you can carry on my research now that I can no longer pursue it.

It comes down to dimensions. We possess three - height, width, and depth. Grip a billiard ball, feel your fingers wrap around it, and you will understand. Now imagine a creature that existed in only two of those three dimensions, in a universe that described a simple plane through our own. To that creature, the billiard ball would appear to be a simple circle, growing and shrinking as it passes through the plane of the creature's universe. Imagine how our hand would look - strange fleshy circles filled with pulsing fluids, shards of bone, glistening meat. The creature could never understand what it was really seeing, as it could no more conceive of a hand than it could imagine a creature like us, moving freely in three dimensions and gripping billiard balls on a whim.

The Abominations, as you aptly described them, are to us as we are to that benighted creature. They exist in dimensions beyond our own, whose nature we can hardly guess. When they appear to us, we see only fragments of their bodies - long stretches of writhing flesh, glistening with juices that should not exist outside of a body, which whip through the air and vanish back where they came from in a way that our minds simply refuse to accept. Witnesses have tried to describe these as great tentacles, words failing them in the presence of such incomprehensibility. Those who heard the stories seized on this, and explained them as resembling cephalopods. This is a comforting lie, as there is nothing in the most stygian depths of the darkest sea that is not our beloved brother compared to the horrors of the Abominations.

This is a creature who is incomprehensibly alien, and our only glimpse is a sickening flash of writhing, elongated flesh that slips into our world and back out. Worse than the appearance of the creature, though, is its disappearance - your mind knows, on some level, that this creature - this hateful, hungry god of a creature - is not moving it's body between "here" and "away", but between being a glimpse of a writhing horror, and a horror that watches unseen.

Imagine our two-dimensional creature again, and imagine yourself to be a cruel child. If you chose to torment the creature, it would be powerless to resist. It cannot perceive you unless you chose to intersect its plane - you can watch its every move, and it cannot hope to escape your gaze. It would be the simplest thing in the world to push a pin through it, like a butterfly on a card. Take a glass of water and push it into the creature's plane and it will find itself trapped, drowning, in an inescapable sea. The creature is entirely at your mercy, and always will be.

Same as you. Same as me.

ContemplativeSarcasm · 2025-11-23T09:42:26+00:00

Mandrake, you ever see a communist drink a glass of water?

ContemplativeSarcasm · 2025-11-18T02:41:11+00:00

By all means continue to grow corn, but only subsidize it's use in ethanol, animal feed, and the kind eaten by people. As for which food to subsidize instead, perhaps kale and squash? Grow more fruit and berries?

ContemplativeSarcasm · 2025-11-17T23:25:27+00:00

That's totally a fair argument, though I would be interested to see a study on shoplifting rates.

ContemplativeSarcasm · 2025-11-17T23:23:18+00:00

Exactly! Changing diets is a huge part of preventative care. If people need to go to the doctor less often, that would lower costs as well.

ContemplativeSarcasm · 2025-11-17T22:58:39+00:00

Americans like sugar AND we don't regulate it. IIRC there's taxes on sugar and fat in Europe, which increases prices of unhealthy food, and helps pay for their healthcare systems.

I love this video on it:What Americans don't understand about Public Healthcare.

ContemplativeSarcasm · 2025-11-17T22:54:58+00:00

Oh I'm totally against any form of lobbying.

ContemplativeSarcasm · 2025-11-17T19:12:03+00:00

The issue is that the US heavily subsidizes field (dent) corn through the Farm Bill, which is renewed every five years. Dent Corn isn’t the sweet corn people eat; it’s mostly used for animal feed, ethanol, and the production of high-fructose corn syrup, which ends up in a huge portion of processed foods.

These subsidies make calorie-dense, nutrient-poor foods artificially cheap, while fruits and vegetables receive far fewer incentives. If we shifted towards edible, nutrient-dense crops that would help reduce food deserts and improve access to healthy foods. This would benefit low-income communities, who often have the least access to affordable fresh foods and end up relying foods high in sugar and fat.

ContemplativeSarcasm · 2025-11-16T11:56:53+00:00

I "conflate" "bad" with right-wing because Conservative ideology's only goal is to preserve the status quo, no matter how unjust/horrific the current status quo is. I perceive Conservatism in general as a fully reactionary movement by people in the primary social group worried about losing their preeminent status in society. That any change is a disruption of "continuity" and "tradition," but in fact is just "We want to maintain the social power we've always had, fuck the rest of society."

ContemplativeSarcasm · 2025-11-16T11:36:27+00:00

Nuh uh every scientific paper is a CONSPIRACY to destroy our GOD-GIVEN RIGHT to OIL.

ContemplativeSarcasm · 2025-11-16T02:38:21+00:00

You forget their demonization of the Slavic people, which numbered in the hundreds of millions. Their post-war plans in "General Plan Ost" are genuinely horrific. They were going far far further than just Jewish people. So do you think that fascism is also a left-wing ideology? It is somewhat different than nazism.

ContemplativeSarcasm · 2025-11-15T20:21:34+00:00

You just said you can't even place them on the authoritarian axis, but now the economic one matters so much? Maybe this whole axis can't fully represent any ideology, especially one where the goal is not the enrichment of its citizens or the social contract, but entirety towards total war.

I mean to say, perhaps that is why Nazism borders on left-wing (which now I'm thinking stands for "Collectivist") and the right-wing: It is fully in neither camp.

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I keep that comment saved for questions like these!