
What flesh eatest thou? A missing child and a suspicious meat pie in 1645 - pepys
https://manyheadedmonster.wordpress.com/2015/06/01/what-flesh-eatest-thou-a-missing-child-and-a-suspicious-meat-pie-in-1645/
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tjradcliffe
"Global Crisis" ([http://www.amazon.com/Global-Crisis-Climate-Catastrophe-
Seve...](http://www.amazon.com/Global-Crisis-Climate-Catastrophe-
Seventeenth/dp/0300208634/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1433228609&sr=8-1&keywords=global+crisis))
is a good history of the world-wide climate-driven castastrophe that occurred
in the 1600's, which may have killed as much as 1/3 of the human race.

The Little Ice Age was not a good time to be alive, because human economies
are tuned up to be optimal in the current climate, whatever it happens to be,
and when things change suddenly it takes a generation or two for people to
adjust, and since food and other resources are in short supply the natural
"solution" the problem is to take up arms and kill people and destroy things,
because there is really no better way to ensure a return to surplus conditions
than by obliterating the means of production.

There were fairly widespread reports of cannibalism, and although some--like
this one--may have been baseless (because it is based on nothing but a gut
feeling, and the epistemic utility of our organs of digestion is limited at
best) it's pretty clear that it did happen on multiple occasions in both China
and Europe.

~~~
Hermel
According this a recent paper ([http://www.voxeu.org/article/myth-europe-s-
little-ice-age](http://www.voxeu.org/article/myth-europe-s-little-ice-age)),
Europe's little ice age is a myth.

~~~
ars
The existence of the little ice age has become a pawn in the arguments about
global warming.

I don't know enough about the topic to say what the truth is, but I can tell
you that arguments for and against it have little to do with the little ice
age itself, and everything to do with belief for or against global warming.

Here is one conservative report on the subject:
[http://www.wnd.com/2009/12/119745/](http://www.wnd.com/2009/12/119745/)

~~~
lawlessone
"I don't know enough about the topic to say what the truth is"

Thanks for confirming for those of us that were not sure.

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Jacqued
Interestingly enough, the story about the barber who killed strangers to be
baked into his neighbor baker's pies also exists in Paris, in the rue
Chanoinesse. There's no specific motive to the crimes, but it's clear that the
baker sold said pies. What makes this funnier / ironic is that this shop is
located near Notre-Dame, in a neighborhood that used to be reserved to members
of the clergy. The baker thus made some of them unwitting cannibals.

It is said to have happened in 1387 and is described in a 1612 book.

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fit2rule
This proclivity towards cannibalization is a real tragedy of we the human
species, and it of course has its effects on software.

Often times one might find a customer of software who simply doesn't
understand the way the system works, or is to be constructed, and they become
suspicious of what they are being sold.

Other times, its quite possible to 'eat ones own dog-food' and be fed back a
refactored version of an asset they already owned, if not controlled properly,
albeit slightly cooked up.

From the customers perspective, it is perfectly reasonable to experience a
plethora of these kinds of cannibalistic effects. If you get it on your plate,
to save the project: invite the customer to the table. Software system
implementation and usage, constructed though a meat pie, are key factors in
success, its true, but if your customer does not at least have one finger in
the tray, they won't know how fine it tastes. Educate your customer on
software systems and why things are, not just that they are, take care of the
bad smells with thorough enlightenment, and voila .. dinnertime.

~~~
plesiv
Trolling or a sophisticated bot?

~~~
nightpool
Trolling/confused/off-topic. seems to have other credible non-bot-like
comments

~~~
fit2rule
Hint: if someone else is being eaten, in reality or as a social-
construct/bearing-metaphor, it is cannibalism. True enlightenment means we're
both meat. Or, not.

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thret
A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift, mentioned in the article, is well worth
reading.

It is a gruesome and utterly deadpan joke.

~~~
bitJericho
It's quite funny. I didn't know what I was reading when I read it, so I didn't
catch on until he suggested he should have a statue in his honor lol.

