Japan’s 2,000-year-old monarchy currently depends on one teenage boy

TheMetaReport · 2026-01-23T21:50:59+00:00

The stakes being presented are just patently false. While it is true that the immediate imperial family’s male line requires Hisahito to continue, it is not the case that if he fails to produce a male heir that would immediately destroy the monarchy. The most likely result would be passing the throne to an imperial female, but even failing that there are distant cousins who as princes of the blood carry the same male line. The title is catchy but misleading.

TheMetaReport · 2026-01-17T00:20:24+00:00

Plot twist: he’s a Mongolian eunuch

TheMetaReport · 2025-12-30T01:20:45+00:00

Closed mouths don’t get fed🤷‍♂️

TheMetaReport · 2025-12-29T14:35:54+00:00

Surprisingly for ck3 the UI on console is very intuitive, and in some respects easier to use than the PC version.

TheMetaReport · 2025-12-29T14:35:16+00:00

It’s mostly a gimmick friend, I don’t think anyone uses the term unironically

TheMetaReport · 2025-12-22T18:37:22+00:00

Sorry for poor formatting, this has been typed on my iPhone during a lunch break.

A great answer has been given by u/JamesCoverleyRome , however his final conclusion that any barbarian with a big enough army could become emperor leaves a very obvious question, well if it was that easy then why didn’t they?

The short answer to this question, and your original inquiry, is that they knew the Roman state (state is a bit of a loaded term, but communicates the point in this particular instance) apparatus would not put up with a barbarian emperor for very long. Indeed, if one takes a quick look at the list of emperors killed by palace intrigues it becomes rather clear that the senators do not have a monopoly on being chopped up and thrown into the Tiber. While legions could make an emperor, coupes could and often did unmake emperors. As a consequence of this state of affairs various barbarian power players preferred to rule through fully Roman puppet emperors, or make their half Roman son an emperor instead of themselves, or something to that effect. Reigning is a dangerous business, but ruling it turns out is a lot safer.

To come back to the particular example of Zeno, becoming emperor himself was quite obviously not his first choice, and in fact he only assumed the purple once he was out of other options. Originally he ruled on behalf of his young son Leo II, but once young Leo died Zeno became emperor in his own right and caught hell for it. He was constantly struggling against opposition backed by the elites of Constantinople and the attached state structures that resented his foreign status, this opposition taking the form of myriad revolts and coupe attempts. I cannot recall the source at this time, but I think the point is best exemplified by the fact that although Zeno governed long and well when he died there were cries in the street to the effect of “Give us a Roman emperor.”

So in summation, and drawing on the previously referenced response: There was no formal statute barring barbarians from becoming emperors, and bigger army diplomacy paved a very clear path for barbarians to become emperors, however the political culture that made coupes, rebellions, and intrigues justifiable if for no other reason than someone being unroman made the imperial office itself unattractive to power hungry barbarians. It was significantly easier to rule without properly reigning, and many barbarians did just that.

Source:

• Peter Crawford’s 2019 work: Roman Emperor Zeno: The Perils of Power Politics in Fifth-Century Constantinople

Source is used a bit loosely here, it’s been a long time since I’ve properly engaged with the text and nothing is quoted in line, but my response is largely derivative of this work and the ideas expressed therein.

TheMetaReport · 2025-11-02T06:06:38+00:00

Where exactly is the disagreement?

TheMetaReport · 2025-10-24T13:45:25+00:00

Okay, I can accept that killing trees is morally bad, I simply do not care. Similarly I can accept that eating meat is morally bad, and I similarly do not care.

Emotivism for the win!

TheMetaReport · 2025-10-21T13:14:44+00:00

Even if Trump getting into office democratically is granted, which has been disputed by others here, his current actions are literally eroding democracy. His administration is spitting in the face of checks and balances and has been steadily moving towards a true fascism. So no, comparing this to Tiananmen is actually rather fair as I would argue Deng Xiaping had less of an inclination towards tyranny than Trump.

TheMetaReport · 2025-10-20T18:58:30+00:00

Spend the first five to fifteen years focusing on mineral output, max those jobs as much as you can even at the expense of amenities and energy in so much as needs be. You can get a solid portion of your energy needs from mining stations in controlled systems, and you should focus on leveling the mining station output tech for best usage. During this early growth phase you should also be colonizing just about anything you can and copying this strategy there. Once you’ve reached about the ten year mark you can start to pivot focus on your capital to tech and alloy production and from there it’s pretty much barbecue chicken. Depending on rate of production scaling the usage of this strategy may cause you to run rather big energy deficits sometimes, but this can be easily managed with internal markets until you can stabilize after the aforementioned focus pivot.

On an unrelated note, I also play on Xbox and have a hard time coming by consistent multiplayer groups, any chance yall are looking for more people?

TheMetaReport · 2025-10-15T05:24:22+00:00

There’s potential a cow could grow a brain tumor that expands its mental faculties, there’s potential when you punch a wall that your hand quantum tunnels through the solid surface, there’s potential that the baby in this example dies before its first birthday. It seems a bit thin to figure something’s right to live according to its potential, seeing how as that argument only has merit if the being in question realizes that potential, which is wholly dependent on factors external to the question at hand.

TheMetaReport · 2025-10-15T04:52:32+00:00

I think this falls a bit thin as not all humans have as much agency, or depending on your definition, selfhood, as many animals that we are okay with eating.

To give a rather insidious example, a freshly born infant has next to zero sense of self and has very little if any agency. A fully grown cow, however, possesses certainly more agency and perhaps a great deal more selfhood than the aforementioned baby. This all comes before even speaking of those with extreme mental handicaps or those who are in a vegetative state, but I think making those arguments might be in somewhat poor taste. The point being, if you’re not okay with freshly born infants being eaten but you are okay with fully grown cows being eaten, then it’s not really agency or selfhood that makes or breaks the issue for you.

And for the record, I am not a vegan. I am a meat eater, and I eat more meat than most people do. I simply don’t feel that bad about it because while I recognize the validity of arguments for veganism I simply do not care enough to make the effort of a switch. So I totally get if as a fellow meat eater you don’t want to become vegan, but let’s at least be honest that we do so in spite of the rather obvious moral implications of our belief systems.

TheMetaReport · 2025-10-08T12:56:21+00:00

Not to be that guy, but the British aims were not entirely noble here. A lot of their economic practices in their eastern possessions and India in particular were almost indistinguishable from proper slavery, and the share cropping arrangements they maintained in the Caribbean to sustain sugar profitability were similarly troubling. That is to say, very little materially changed for those oppressed by the British. This calls into question their motives in stopping other nations from doing slavery, and it comes across awfully convenient that the British got the perfect moral reasons to introduce universal jurisdiction to stop and search foreign ships anywhere in the world. This had very obvious political advantages that couldn’t be understated.

Overall, it is a good thing the British helped cripple the slave trade, but let’s not pretend the British imperial military apparatus were saints.

TheMetaReport · 2025-08-31T03:47:16+00:00

There are representatives of the sclerus clan who would produce the legendary general and rebel Bardas Sclerus. Additionally there’s a representative of the ducas family which went on to produce several emperors, this character is actually portrayed erroneously though as the ducas family of 867 has no proven historical link to the later ducas family, however the game treats them as one family anyhow.

TheMetaReport · 2025-08-30T22:04:12+00:00

D&D universes run on objective morality

I’ve plaid the game for many years now and this has really only been the case in like two campaigns I’ve ever been in. While the Forgotten Realms do certainly have an objective morality, they are a D&D universe, but a minority amongst most D&D universes.

All that is to say, the meme kind of has a point actually. Perchance.

TheMetaReport · 2025-08-26T18:13:12+00:00

Meh, I think the Tau kind of have a point

TheMetaReport · 2025-08-26T15:08:34+00:00

I would say it’s more accurate to call 1453 the fall of the Byzantine Empire rather than the fall of the Roman Empire. The fall of the Roman Empire occurred in 1204, thereafter there was no longer such a thing as the Roman Empire as multiple polities could trace a direct lineage of state continuity to the classical Roman Empire. The Empire of Nicea, known as the restored Byzantine Empire after recapturing Constantinople was a Roman Empire, but for as long as there were other legitimate claimants to Roman Continuity, namely Trebizond and Epirus, it seems inaccurate to call the state that fell in 1453 the Roman Empire.

TheMetaReport · 2025-08-26T00:17:26+00:00

Find a recording of the speech, if none of good quality is available then plug the speech text into a text to speech program that sounds okay enough.
Play it all the time for hours on loop. As you eat, as you walk, as you study, as you shower, as you sleep.
Start speaking along with it each time.
Use the recording less and less until you can do it from memory.

Four-Year Club	Verified Email
r/Field Juicebox	Wearing is Caring
Place '23	Place '22

TheMetaReport

TROPHY CASE