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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   1504 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for January 2, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I like interesting historical theories. Especially with an element of the fantastical. Ancient apocalypse series is full of them.

Another one I read somewhere was about how "dragons" might have been real. A large winged predator that was hunted to extinction at the end of the last ice age as they clashed with human populations.

Anyone have any fun ones they've read recently?

The one that I like a lot is Canopy Theory, which suggested that earth was surrounded by a layer of water (vapor) which might have protected against harmful radiation and increased air pressure at the surface, which could have allowed some types of creatures to grow larger than 'normal' and might explain the giant bugs, extra plant life, even dinosaurs.

Then some large interference (a sufficiently large asteroid strike?) broke the equilibrium and the water came crashing down in a short period of time, eventually settling under the surface and in the ocean basins.

Its sometimes proffered as a way to explain how so many cultures in antiquity had flood myths arising around the same time. Which would be wild since that implies it wasn't that long ago on geological timescales.

I suspect there was something stopping a lot of the radiation until pretty recently, I don’t see how European colonization of Africa and Latin America would have been possible otherwise. Maybe the ozone layer.

What does radiation have to do with colonization?

How’s a guy from England going to conquer Africa if standing in the sun for two hours gives him second degree burns, and doing that for a few years gives him cancer?

By wearing a hat.

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