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PaperclipPerfector  19d ago (text post)   30929 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 2, 2024

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it's a real thing

Yeah, real in that people make the claim. As @hydroacetylene pointed out, tons of people also claim descent from Muhammad. This lineage also has a wiki page, does that prove that it's "real?"

In China, it's real enough that the guy who was head of the Kong family in the 1930's was offered the chance to become Japan's puppet Chinese emperor (he wisely refused and fled) and later got to help draft the constitution for the Republic of China and was officially a senior advisor to the president of the ROC/Taiwan from 1948-2000.

I mean it was real enough that an occupation government thought it would be politically useful. I mean there are living descendants of Tsar Nicholas II who might be plausible heads of the Russian Empire. Whether or not they’re actually related is not nearly as important as that they’d be acceptable to the people of Russia and whatever power decides to put them on the throne. Claims to royal lineage are political claims and are thus vetted less through factual evidence than through the lens of acceptable political reality. If the Kong family were not seen as reliably pliant, the line would have been publicly discredited even if true.

A correction to point out, Nicholas II certainly has no legitimate living descendants, the communists killed all his family and the remains for all children were identified in and around the mine shaft (Anastasia's spurious survival is disproven). Current pretenders I think are descendants of Alexander III (father of Nicholas II) or Nicholas I (grandfather of Nicholas II).

Happy St. Nicholas (the bishop of Myra) Day all!

the guy who was head of the Kong family in the 1930's was offered the chance to become Japan's puppet Chinese emperor (he wisely refused and fled)

He knew that if King Kong came to Japan, Godzilla would surely follow.

Some of those guys are probably mythical, but I would expect that a lineage like that has had sufficient eyes on it over time that it's real. Obviously there's a chance of infidelity along the way, but that's almost missing the point in this context - it's clearly about who was recognized as the heir even if they were illegitimate.

I bet tons of guys claim descent from Confucius and it's bullshit, but that doesn't mean that every claim is bullshit.

Hell, my family claims descent from Jean Lafitte and tons of people I know claim descent from Washington, Lee, or both. Statistically, most of them are wrong, and nobody knows where Jean Lafitte went even if it isn't implausible that he retired to obscurity in southern Louisiana.

Claiming descent from illustrious figures is a cultural universal, I believe. No doubt people in England implausibly claim some incredibly diluted royal blood.

I am personally descended from William the Conqueror along with like half of England.

But the Romans essentially died out. Where is the line of Julius Caesar? Of the old patrician families? Gone, baby, gone.

Where is the line of Julius Caesar?

There were people who claimed it and their descendants are still alive today.

Julius's line died out with his children. But Augustus's line may survive; we don't have the information to know.

But the Romans essentially died out. Where is the line of Julius Caesar? Of the old patrician families? Gone, baby, gone.

How could one confirm this? Do we have ancient dna to run the analysis ?

Before modern sanitation cities were dens of disease and filth. They generally continuously took in population from the countryside.

The central and northern Italian countryside have strong genetic links to iron age Romans. They're basically the same people. We don't have records of the old patrician lines to modern times but I doubt they are actually extinct.

The central and northern Italian countryside have strong genetic links to iron age Romans

What do you mean by Iron Age Romans?

That would imply a time period before 700 BC when Rome was a village. Rome didn't expand into northern Italy until 250 BC at the earliest.

But yes, people who occupied the countryside of Italy in the Iron Age did not suffer subreplacement fertility and obviously remain extremely relevant to the genetic mix of Italy today, even if there was significant admixture from Germans (northern Italy) and Arabs (southern Italy).

Iron Age Romans would refer to the early republic or the monarchy, I'm guessing.

Yeah I doubt they are as well, OP seems over confident

They are functionally extinct in that their contribution to the gene pool is minimal.

Isn’t that true of almost any small group from back then? After a certain point genes get diluted to the point of nonexistence

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