Cyrano4747 posted:

On the other hand, we missed out on an alternate timeline where you could see a hippo fight a bison on the banks of the Platte.

zoux posted:

Imagining our current feral hog problems, but with hippos

SeanBeansShako posted:

Nobody talks about the Hippo Burger in US Alt history novels.

ulmont posted:

Doublecheck River of Teeth first https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_of_Teeth

bob dobbs is dead posted:

... after crossing the darien gap, the nicaraguan highlands, the chiapan highlands, the sierra madre occidental and the chihuahuan desert?

quote:

In March 2023, it was announced that the Colombian government is proposing transferring at least 70 hippopotamuses to India and Mexico as part of a plan to control their population.

SlothfulCobra posted:

Hippos are dangerous, they're very aggressive, they terraform their environment so that they're an ecological nightmare, and a lot of locals like them as a tourist attraction so they get upset if you go out and shoot them. People trying to conserve the local environment have to stage elaborate capture and surgical sterilization operations.

SlothfulCobra posted:

Hippos are dangerous, they're very aggressive, they terraform their environment so that they're an ecological nightmare, and a lot of locals like them as a tourist attraction so they get upset if you go out and shoot them. People trying to conserve the local environment have to stage elaborate capture and surgical sterilization operations.

zoux posted:

Nessus posted:

Is it the good kind of terraforming like with beavers?

SlothfulCobra posted:

Hippos are dangerous, they're very aggressive, they terraform their environment so that they're an ecological nightmare, and a lot of locals like them as a tourist attraction so they get upset if you go out and shoot them. People trying to conserve the local environment have to stage elaborate capture and surgical sterilization operations.

Cyrano4747 posted:

Yeah, this poo poo is nuts. I can't believe they're bending over backwards like this with an invasive species. No one wants to take the things - they've talked to zoos etc. Trapping a hippo is a tall order, and there are already extremely successful breeding programs for them.

The answer is to kill them. It sucks, but they're doing far more harm to the environment as an invasive species.

SeanBeansShako posted:

What an age we live in.

Nenonen posted:

How do I kill the 30-50 introduced hippos that run into my yard within 3-5 mins while my small kids play?

Nessus posted:

Is it the good kind of terraforming like with beavers?

Nessus posted:

Is it the good kind of terraforming like with beavers?

Xiahou Dun posted:

I was just joking about this with someone who read some of the author's other books. It might be good?!??!?!?

Xiahou Dun posted:

I was just joking about this with someone who read some of the author's other books. It might be good?!??!?!?

Cyrano4747 posted:

Yeah, this poo poo is nuts. I can't believe they're bending over backwards like this with an invasive species. No one wants to take the things - they've talked to zoos etc. Trapping a hippo is a tall order, and there are already extremely successful breeding programs for them.

The answer is to kill them. It sucks, but they're doing far more harm to the environment as an invasive species.

Zhanism posted:

Most people have no idea how bad or dangerous these animals are. They see them in zoos and Disney films and think they are cute. Arent they are top man killer in Africa?

Zhanism posted:

Most people have no idea how bad or dangerous these animals are. They see them in zoos and Disney films and think they are cute. Arent they are top man killer in Africa?

PittTheElder posted:

So in the war of 1812, the British are famously impressing British subjects and executing deserters right? How are they determining who's a subject/deserter?

Vincent Van Goatse posted:

They usually didn't try too hard. That was the whole problem that the US had with it.

quote:

The last surviving muster book, July 1797, reflects the Hermione had a diverse crew, with about half of the crew born in England, and a fifth in Ireland. The remaining sailors were from Germany, Norway, America, Canada, Denmark, and Portugal. Two of the men were of African descent.[16] At least twenty of these seaman were Americans, "among them mariners from Charleston, Norfolk, Philadelphia, New York and Nantucket. " Of the twenty Americans aboard the Hermione a slight majority appear to have received bonuses for "enlisting" with a distinct likelihood that the remainder had been pressed."[17] As he had when in command of the Success Captain Pigot continued to impress seamen. Many of these men were "pressed" or forcibly conscripted from merchant vessels. For example six Americans were impressed on 4 July 1795 from the American merchant ship,Two Brothers. This led to a diplomatic incident and the intervention of the American Consul, Silas Talbot with their eventual release.[18] Seaman John Farrel of New York and Bosun's Mate, Thomas Nash, of Waterford, Ireland would both take significant leadership roles during the mutiny.[19]

A Festivus Miracle posted:

Well, the next few rulers after Suleiman fixed their succession problems by having their half-brothers strangled to death (or sometimes, their father would choose his heir and kill everyone else). It's a running theme that the Ottoman state generally navigated around possibly threats to the throne from rival claimants via murdering then on ascension to the throne. The first time that this lovely ritual doesn't play out, the Ottomans have a palace coup in favor of a weaker candidate to the throne, which sadly, goes a long way toward demonstrating the realpolitik surrounding the policy of fraticidal violence.

As for truly bad and or good, well. I think you would be insanely hard pressed to find any early modern figure of note that doesn't, at some point, get accussed of incest, dishonorable murder(because the distinction isreally important apparently), being a tyrant etc. The Ottomans on the whole were, on some points, actually much better than their Western contemporaries. It's probably the only state that you could argue had a de facto policy of religious tolerance through most of its existence.

midnight77 posted:

Just the whole concept of the Kafes and the failure to educate heirs is insane.

midnight77 posted:

I’m listening to a world undone about the first world war and was wondering. In the background section on the Ottomans, the author says a lot of things about how horrific the Ottoman rulership was after Suleiman the magnificent. Is his description of this accurate given that he says they were quite frankly, some of the worst people alive.

PittTheElder posted:

What kind of stuff is he talking about? The Devshirme is traditionally held up as one of the worst bits (if you're Christian anyway), but by 1914 it had been gone for two centuries, and if you're going to talk about that you have to confront the fact that the Ottomans are far from the only ones involved in slavery and quasi-slavery.

midnight77 posted:

He goes on a lot about the murder of heirs, their confinement without education, the harems, and the general drunkenness and debauchery of the sultans up to 1914. He mentions one sultan that would just shoot at random people from the palace walls.

Cyrano4747 posted:

Does he cite his sources?

I say this because something you have to really pay attention to with podcasters and youtubers is that they'll find a cool source, pull material from it, and not really analyze it beyond that level. Which, OK, you're edutainment and you lean more on the latter half of that portmanteau than the former. Still, it's something as a listener that you really have to question.

With the Ottomans in particular there is a lot of early-mid 20th century writing, especially in English, that can get problematically Orientalist. Take that dude allegedly shooting at random passers by from the walls. Is this a thing that really happened? Beats me, I know gently caress all about Ottoman history beyond the broad strokes and some crazy poo poo has happened all across the world. But what's the point of telling that story? What is he trying to tell us about the Ottoman empire? Is this some crazy departure from the norm, or illustrative of how things worked in general there? That kind of thign.

=

midnight77 posted:

Um, this is from "A World Undone" which is a WWI history recommended by this thread, IIRC. It's a published book. I have the audiobook version.

Cyrano4747 posted:

Oh, gotcha. See if you can get someone to pull the source from the print version, then. That will go a long way to answering your question.

edit: and no one is immune to that, you spot it a lot in books published by academic historians when they're making a side-point about something that they aren't an expert in.