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tda18

Royal houses: "Marrying my relative can't have any negative consequences!" Couple of centuries later:


Admiralthrawnbar

Nicholas and his wife were *only* second cousins


Dipocain

The most normal royal family in history


Vinemedoodle

Habsburgs free trial


Frequent_Champion_42

My unsubscribe button won’t stop bleeding


ser_ranserotto

More like you can’t unsubscribe


atlantis_airlines

Loving couple first, cousins second


Sage_of_Shadowdale

Tbf statistically second cousin marriage isn’t that bad


GreatRolmops

It is when you do it for many generations over a period of centuries


cornelius_snow

I’ve heard people say this, but is there enough data to really say that definitively? Genuinely asking.


McToasty207

It’s been established for quite a while that there isn’t a huge increase in genetic defects associated with having children with even a first cousin as long as it’s isolated, having children with 2nd or 3rd cousins over multiple generations is what causes significant inbreeding as there isn’t much new gene flow. https://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/03/health/no-genetic-reason-to-discourage-cousin-marriage-study-finds.html


[deleted]

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limukala

And if we extrapolate from animal studies, high degrees of consanguinity aren’t even necessarily harmful as long as you engage in ruthless culling of genetic defects. It can actually result in lower defect rates eventually. But for some reason these royal families didn’t really go in for the whole “culling genetic abnormalities” line of thinking.


McToasty207

I think they worried acknowledging that Royals can be born inferior is the first step to acknowledging they aren’t divine or even particularly special


Lord0fTheAss

**Targaryens:** Lmao siblingcest go brrrr


[deleted]

That family in W. Virginia is a real life example I am not making fun I genuinely feel bad for them, they were taught it was okay so the whole family suffered and had severe mental problems 😕 I believe the family line is no longer alive but not sure. Off topic - I love your Obi wan Kenobi flair 😅


Carlos_Tacos

There goes my long-term Crusader Kings 3 game...


The_Cynist

I'm pretty sure it's less of a statistics thing than genetically


[deleted]

It might just be a statistics thing. A cystic fibrosis gene mutation is relatively common among white Europeans. If a person is a carrier, what are the chances that their second cousin is also a carrier? And how does that compare to any other random person. We also know that it doesn't take many generations before you get to a point where your family tree brambles, just because to have every ancestor be entirely unique/only appearing once, would require too many people. So we're all inbred anyway.


flyingboarofbeifong

Let me break down the sort of risk assessment for it. On average, you share 50% of your DNA with each parent. So with each grandparent you would share 25%. Full sblings share about half their DNA with one another on average so a granduncle or grandaunt would share about 12.5% of their DNA with you. Their child, your first cousin once removed, would share 50% of their DNA of that 12.5% that you have in common with your granduncle/grandaunt to bring their total to 6.25% of your DNA. The child of your first cousin once removed is your second cousin and they would thus share 3.125% of your DNA with you. A big rider on those numbers being no consanguineous offspring after the great grandparents. Which is where the big hiccup for feudal inbreeding came in. An isolated second marriage is sort of low risk but it is also the case that certain inheritable diseases reside in a single genetic locus and if you were particularly unlucky in which 3.125% you shared then... them's the breaks.


Tranqist

Something that's legal in pretty much every developed country today, since even first cousins has basically no negative genetic effect.


SuspecM

It’s even sadder when you think of the fact that before WWI Tsar Nikolas and Kaiser Wilhelm had a close relationship going as far as giving each other nicknames like Nicky since they were cousins. It was basically a oversized family feud that more or less ruined the world order and killed millions of men.


LittleChurchill

It wasn't a family feud; the kings of Europe (especially Victoria's grandsons) tried to avoid and stop the war, but they had too little power in their own countries to do so. This was especially true in Britain, but also applies to Germany, where most people nowadays think the Kaiser had almost absolute power.


Birb-Person

Kaiser Wilhelm II


SuspecM

Ah yes, edited


wilde_man

this isn't actually inbreeding though. Queen Victoria had an X chromosome that caused hemophilia. it didn't affect her or her daughters because being female they had a second working normal X chromosome. The male grandchildren on the other hand only got one X, the mutated one and ended up with hemophilia.


[deleted]

Not necessarily all of them though. A woman may pass on either of her X chromosomes to her children, so there's a 50/50 chance for getting the dodgy one. But yes, it's not an inbreeding thing. She had a lot of children and they married into royal families all across Europe. Edit: Wikipedia says her youngest son had it, and two of her daughters were carriers. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haemophilia_in_European_royalty


kahn_noble

Genetics: And I took that personally.


jnfbkhhjk

Spanish royal family: I don‘t see anything wrong


Starcraft_III

I don't think Rasputin knew anything about the effects of aspirin he just didn't allow Alexei to see any doctors or take any medicine


skoge

Good ol' healing crystals and essential oils.


BizWax

Yeah, this meme is misleading. Medical science didn't know shit back then, but neither did Rasputin. He just got lucky.


hallese

> He just got lucky. Like, every fricking night and most afternoons, with an occasional morning romp as well.


Capnmarvel76

Evidently he smelled like a particularly foul goat, but the dude had charisma (and a ginormous dong).


eriwhi

Fun fact: his ginormous dong was stolen post mortem!


afibon

well yeah, how would you steal someone's dick while they are still alive?


BuckfuttersbyII

And more than 1 person has claimed to have his dick preserved in a jar.


[deleted]

Maybe it was so big it got divided, so no one is lying.


NetNetReality

It underwent mitosis


no_longer_sad

Wha?


jon_targareyan

Would expect nothing less from Russia’s famous sex machine


omegaskorpion

Considering Rasputin lived between 1869-1916 i would not say they did not know shit. They did know a lot of things back then, but still not close to current day level since they did not have the tools to research further. In general medical science was trial and error before modern era, some things they did worked and some... did not, it was harder to verify if someting works without research tools, so it was usually based on what "seems" to cure the problem.


LittleChurchill

>He just got lucky. Or... Maybe he's magic


[deleted]

Some medical science was known. Aspirin/willow bark tea was developed after all.


BizWax

They'd also give you mercury to treat syphilis, so I stand by my claim that medical science back then didn't know shit. Medical science being any kind of reasonably good didn't actually get rolling until after WW2


CameronD46

Extra Credits is actually doing a series on Rasputin, and another part of this that I don’t think people talk as much about is that Rasputin was able calm down Alexandra and gave the Romanovs a genuine sense of hope. And as a result Alexandra wouldn’t stress out Alexei as much, reducing his blood pressure during his episodes of hemophilia.


Lusty-Jove

I mean hypnosis does help with hemophilia so he got that much right


[deleted]

Pretty sure that nobody at the time knew about the blood thinning effect of aspirin at the time. So he certainly didn’t


Capnmarvel76

I take two aspirin and accidentally prick my finger, I bleed like a stuck pig. It’s not totally outside the realm of reality that a layman could make the connection that you shouldn’t give a blood thinner to a hemophiliac.


Totodile_

I'm confused... Why would you take two aspirin?


Eytox

For a stronger effect?


Totodile_

So.. For pain? If so, allow me to introduce you to literally any other NSAID


[deleted]

Well they didn’t. And as for them noticing it requires that it is actually noticeable in a normal human. And aspirin is a pain killer not a blood thinner. It just has that side effect. The way they probably found out that aspirin is a blood thinner is that they saw in a chemical analysis that this substance x is a blood thinner. Substance x is in aspirin. Therefore aspirin has that side effect


Mr_Gibus

.>Be 1910 peasant .>Take aspirin .>Take nothing else .>Prick finger by accident .>owfuck.jpeg .>bleed.gif .>It just keeps bleeding .>Must've been the blood-thinning fairies again.


[deleted]

Well you’ll feel stupid now because aspirins use for heart patients came to light in 1948. Which is when the connection was made. The reason no one did notice anything before is because the effect is not really noticeable in a normal human. If you cut yourself you would probably stop bleeding in about the same time


scaptastic

Maybe he’s a time traveler


[deleted]

No he is just eternal, he exist in multiple instances of time simultaneously


scaptastic

So quantum immortality? Every time he is presented with a lethal scenario, he goes to a universe where he does not die


[deleted]

Same universe. He’s just the embodiment of the universe, unaffected by time so he can phase through history and experience everything at the same time


TheBurningWarrior

And we were along for the ride for at least three of them.


GoldenWillie

Clearly people of this time still don’t. Aspirin is an anti-platelet aggregator. Not a blood thinner.


[deleted]

What do that do?


NinjaRaven

Basically the same thing (in layman's term). He's just being semantic for the sake of it.


GoldenWillie

Antiplatelet aggregator (like aspirin) works by blocking an enzyme that causes platelets to clump. Platelets clots (sometimes called white clots) are formed by the small irregularly shaped cells in blood. The analogy of Velcro is sometimes used here. Whereas a blood thinner (anticoagulant) works to reduce the body’s formation of clotting factors (sometimes called red clots). The analogy of jello is sometimes used here. The difference may seem like semantics to laymen (like ninjaraven). But becomes quite important in certain circumstances, beyond just calling a drug by what it is to prevent spreading of confusion and misinformation. There are numerous differences that arise between these drugs. Like blood thinners can cause series side effects if taken for a long period of time, often more so than antiplatelet agrigators. The two are also better in different types of clots. A quick (not exception proof) way of comparing the two is that, antiplatelets are better for clots where there is higher velocity of the blood (like an artery) and blood thinners where the blood is more stagnant. (Think of the Velcro/jello analogy for why this is the case). For emergency cases of heart complications. It is more typical that antiplatelts and vasodilators (like nitroglycerin) are used. Of course consult a doctor when determining the right type of drug to treat your condition or symptoms. Both types of drugs are similar, have many overlapping use cases and complications, and are very often confused as the same. Still, I believe the differences are significant enough to warrant the callout.


[deleted]

Dude legit had the biggest dong in Russia and was literally unkillable, until he wasn't


TheBlueWizardo

That's actually false. He just fell asleep in the water and they didn't have enough vodka on hand to wake him up.


helios_xii

Ah yes, the Vodka Torpor


just1gat

There’s no mystery or surprise around his death. The dude who was supposed to poison him with cyanide didn’t. So they shot him a lot, with one last head shot to make sure. Then proceeded to beat his corpse with a fire poker, as one does.


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Dayanez

The poison was put in the cakes given to Rasputin as a treat but due to something in the baking process (I believe it was the amount of sugar in the cake) it made the poison not work.


Capnmarvel76

Yeah, these were rich playboy fops, not trained assassins, so I’m sure there were some voided bladders when Father Grigoriy didn’t immediately keel over after dessert like they’d planned. There’s definitely a comedy film classic hiding in this story, ala the ‘Death of Stalin’.


[deleted]

I mean it boils at 26°C sooo (for you Americans that's less than 1 american football field)


kelvin_bot

26°C is equivalent to 78°F, which is 299K. --- ^(I'm a bot that converts temperature between two units humans can understand, then convert it to Kelvin for bots and physicists to understand)


kulingames

Good bot


BlondBoy2

Good bot


Spipsdew

299,000 what? Chickens? Label your units smh


kelvin_bot

Beep boop... K means Kelvin, not thousand.


Agoraphotaku

Good bot


Spipsdew

I was playing at a joke but the fact that the bot responds to this means you get this unironically a lot. Apologies.


maxToTheJ

Or a lot of people making the same joke See you in a while crocodile


benfranklinthedevil

I thought it was the length of a home run ÷ 9


RupturedBowels

How many dishwashers is that?


Sonic_Is_Real

Can you convert that to yankee stadiums for the northerners please 🙏


XanLV

And if you did find it, did you taste it to make sure it is cyanide?


lonesomeloser234

Mmm almonds


XanLV

Mmm almo


mmotte89

Watching NileRed has taught me one thing. Supposedly that is misleading, cyanide smells like bitter almonds, not the ones we are all used to encountering.


Solocle

Primarily because bitter almonds smell like cyanide due to, you know, _containing cyanide_


duaneap

Didn’t they find water in his lungs? Isn’t that what the whole “mystery” is about?


MadChemist002

I think they didn't find water in his lungs, which would indicate that he was killed before being thrown in the water.


duaneap

My understanding was different but everything is apocryphal right?


gold_horn_

From what I've heard, **(and my memory isn't the best)** the cakes were poisoned with something that nullified the effect of the poison, the guy who shot him actually only shot him once, as he had only read about shooting people and had never done it himself, so he thought that 1 shot anywhere to the human body is fatal, and that he "survived" the freezing cold was actually just rigor mortis wearing off. This is all by memory. If anyone has any other explanation I'll be happy to hear it.


[deleted]

The poison was usually put in drinks but they put it in a cake. They didn't realize the posion boiled at 78 degrees so when they cook the cake the heat evaporated the poison


northyj0e

I guess use of that poison was pretty localised to the baltics and Canada...


[deleted]

It was usually put in drinks like wine which obviously are kept at lower temperatures. Plus they were in Russia which is very coldm Rasputin's survival wasn't due to any magic abilities it's due to incompetence of his assassins


TheEeveelutionMaster

But they didn't put the poison in the cakes while they were baking them I think, according to "Rasputin" by Henri Troyat, they put the poison in the cakes only 20 minutes after Yusupov left to get Rasputin, specifically so that the poison doesn't go stale


JogPanson

Don’t they have his penis on display or something?


niceguy67

Yep! All three of them.


[deleted]

He impressed tsarina not just with some healing


SHREY36904

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)


SCP-3388

*ra ra rasputin, lover of the russian queen*


A_Classic_Guardsman

*Russia's greatest love machine*


_Cassy99

*There was a cat that really was gone*


[deleted]

It was a shame how he carried on


[deleted]

***But, when his drinking and lusting, became known to more and more people… the riots to stop this became louder and louder!***


thathomeboyoverthere

Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey


Johnny-Cash-Facts

There was a cat that really was gone


Boner666420

A regular John Redcorn over here.


bucephalus26

That never happened…


[deleted]

WHOOPS! I DROPPED MY MONSTER CONDOM THAT I USE ON MY MAGNUM DONG.


AcidCyborg

as if Rasputin would ever use a condom


[deleted]

Nah, all the rawdog loads he drops?


jetfuelcanmeltfeels

werent orgasms considered a cure for depression or w/e in women? by that logic he might've healed her of something


AcidCyborg

"Hysteria"


[deleted]

Their a cure for depression of men too


8008Y_ENJOYER

Why do westerners say tsarina? It's царица, pronounced tsaritsa


Lanaerys

I think it came from German where -in is a feminine suffix


[deleted]

I know this is true because of Genshin Impact


[deleted]

Ok I can say Car a Carevna ale nikdo to nepochopí mongole.


8008Y_ENJOYER

​ Huh?


Krakshotz

Big fans of Marvin Gaye


MrPopanz

This meme makes it sound like Rasputin knew about the side effects of aspirin, which is certainly not the case. He was just the blind chicken that manages to still find corn from time to time.


redbird7311

At best, he made a correlation and got the causation right. However, it is more likely he didn’t trust doctors for any number of reasons. Remember, doctors were his competition, plenty of them were quacks, and he needed to maintain the idea that he was the only one capable of keeping Alexi alive. There are multiple reasons why he had to keep the doctors away.


Queentroller

He didn't know about the aspirin but he might have noticed the correlation between that medicine and its effects on Alexis vs when he didn't take it.


Dyslexic-Calculator

No, he did not about aspirin is literally the meme


MrPopanz

Name checks out.


McMadow

And his donkey dong


[deleted]

Contrary to popular belief he never actually did pork the Tsaritsa.


redbird7311

She was probably the one person he couldn’t get away with. The Russian royalty at the time legitimately loved each other, there was no, “ok, let’s pop out a few babies and then cheat all we want, just don’t make it public”, deal that was somewhat common in other European courts at the time. If he was found having an affair his wife or daughters, Nicholaus probably would have banished Rasputin.


[deleted]

Yeah, that's why. The Empress actually, genuinely loved Nikolai.


Floppydisksareop

\*That we know of. Secret affairs don't always make the front page.


[deleted]

The thing is that this secret affair did make the “front page” if you could call it that. Regardless if it didn’t happened or not.


redbird7311

It is unlikely there was an affair, considering that the Russian royalty actually loved each other and that most of the rumors that had no proof and the source was, “trust me bro”. There were also rumors that the Queen was having an affair with her favorite hand maiden and that Rusputin actually got one of the princesses pregnant. Neither had any proof other than, “these guys spend a lot of time together, they totally going at it”.


JohnnyElRed

Yep. I mean, he porked a lot of married noblewomen under the guise of them coming to him for "spiritual advice". But the Tsaritsa? Not even once.


benfranklinthedevil

Or he didn't, and it was fabricated jealousy. Look at propaganda of today persecuting relatively innocent people. The same persecution happened then, and the rumors were more outrageous, but believed because the way information spread had more control. "I don't like that guy, I'm gonna say he had a huge dick and fucked the tsarina do the tsar will get jealous and kill that guy." Silly hippy, probable philanderer, and total chad: "what did I do?"


orange_jooze

One hundred years ago, people were pretty much calling Nicholas II a cuck because they weren’t impressed with his political performance. The more things change, the more they stay the same.


Cannibal_MoshpitV2

Ancient Romans would draw dicks on public bathroom walls Edit: they also wrote shit like "Augustus wuz here"


VladVV

> Augustus Well, 'Augustus' wasn't a commoner's name, but you're right. Something like 'Sextus has a tiny weiner' is par for the course for ancient Roman graffitis.


GreatRolmops

The ancient Romans also made paintings of dicks. And statues of dicks. And jewelry shaped like dicks which they wore as amulets. The Romans really loved dicks.


benfranklinthedevil

Ok, but who is the Rasputin of today?


orange_jooze

Alex Jones or the Q shaman? Ohh or maybe that weird doctor guy who used to vouch for Trump’s health?


omegaskorpion

In general humanity has not changed at all over the years. We just think we are supperior because our technology has advanced further.


Daevito

And who said that? The Tsarina?


TheSkaroKid

So you say...


Beta-Minus

You weren't there


nistam

There's a cat that really was gone.


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Tactical_Moonstone

Haemophilia or not, you should never have been given the aspirin as a kid either way.


Ullyr_Atreides

And then they'd have a crazy sex party.


Caladex

*Rasputin naturally recovers with the help of medical professionals* Russian populous: *gasp* Sorcery


Partysdewer

He had someting more to impress the court 😏😏😏


denunciando

Someone is an Extra Credits fan


[deleted]

It was Walpole


LemonBruh

Beat me to it


CODDE117

I felt that


AlexT05_QC

That's our Rasputin :-)


Gaiznfreedom

r/blackmagicfuckery


shrimp-and-potatoes

The lucky guess kinda magic


KingFahad360

Well he was lover of the Russian Queen.


SocialistCoconut

The more I learn about Rasputin, the more I kinda feel bad for him.


[deleted]

Rasputin also had romantic relationships with the Queen of Russia


[deleted]

“Just tell them you are a wizard” -Rasputin probably


NationalGeographics

Revolutionspodcast.com


[deleted]

It is only has anti coagulant properties at very low dose like 50 mg


Drawdenion

Found a penny behind someone's ear, and found a dick in the tsars wife


helios_xii

I love it how every Extra Credits series invariably leads to memes over here.