Bay 12 Games Forum

Considering how nearly all of Europe didn't know that North America even existed for most of the last 2000 years, I find it hard to imagine how any idea would be able to be conveyed around the globe.  Today, that can happen in minutes.  While you are correct in assuming that I am no historical scholar, this still seems like a significant difference to me.

Let's imagine your bad idea was posted online in English. In China, it would only be accessible by "fewer than 10 million Chinese, or less than 1% of the population, [who speak conversational] English."^[1] Before Europeans dabbled in America, there were only between 50-100 million Native Americans.^[2]

This means that today there would be roughly 1.4 billion people in China alone who would likely not be able to access the original English. Now imagine if the bad idea was a tweet in Irish...

So yes, an idea could be spread across the globe in minutes (assuming everyone had access to the internet/smartphones, which is itself a problematic assumption). But there are certain natural barriers to comprehension and understanding, whether linguistic or even cultural. A tweet saying 'relax, dude' from a Californian would be interpreted in a vastly different way from its intent by, say, a Tibetan monk.

Arguably, from ancient times until even the 1800s it may have been easier to convey ideas. The educated elite who wrote letters, treatises, pamphlets, books etc. almost exclusively wrote in or understood either Latin/Greek throughout Europe and the Middle East. Granted, it wouldn't take minutes to get from Ireland to Istanbul. But once it did, it would be fully understood, copied, talked about, (and possibly declared heretical, hah).

To conclude: ye olde communication might have more steps than it does today. But it still allowed one person to shake the world.<sup>[3]


[1]</sup>https://www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide/english-levels-in-china.htm
^[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_history_of_the_Indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas#:~:text=Population%20figures%20for%20the%20Indigenous,of%20100%20million%20or%20more.
^[3] Or, at least, the subsection of the world capable of receiving, understanding, and caring about the message.

Yea, the controversy surrounding easily publishable material has existed since at LEAST the printing press. Notably with the pamphlets etc.

But there's an argument to be made that letters (single sheets of paper/parchment, easily copied and composed) filled a similar role even before then.

Congrats, None! That's by far the best thing.

More likely the Hand.

But, to needlessly clarify, my hair edges on black. Not red.

Aber ich habe nur seit fünf oder sechs Monate Deutsch gelernt, und ihre Eltern und Großeltern sprechen nur ein bisschen Englisch. Einige von die Leute da, gar nicht Englisch sprechen 


.....

Yea it's entirely possible that I just butchered the German language.

But thanks LW 

Apparently her aunts are super keen to meet me because I'm super hot............ which I wish she hadn't told me, cause now it's gonna feel slightly awkward ahah

Vielleicht irgendwann 

The irony is we're both really tall, so any offspring would not in any way be considered 'Dwarfy Ones.'

Spoilers for the Toymaker episode ahoy.
XXX

It does mention that there was a 'myth' that this occurred before. Either Gallifreyans could occasionally bigenerate, or the Doctor in a pre-memory wipe incarnation already did it (be interesting if that were where the Master came from, eh?)

Besides this, I don't know if 'reproduction' is strictly the right word. We know the Doctor reproduced in a presumably more conventional manner (resulting in his granddaughter), so it's not the biologically available form of reproduction.

Furthermore, would cloning be more accurate? The Doctor's Daughter was only so-called because she wasn't 100% Doctor. The new Doctor is entirely Doctor.

I also remain uncertain as to the mechanism of this regeneration. Did the Doctor asexually split in a mitosis-like situation - - - or did the regeneration somehow drag the 'future' doctor into the present through some timey wimey stuff? We could still see Tennant die and regenerate into whatshisname.

After all, this newest doctor says he's only so bouncy because Tennant worked through his issues. This strongly implies he possesses future knowledge.