lennivelkant

Solid vitamin C is relatively stable, but it decomposes rather quickly when dissolved in water. Factors such as pH, temperature, oxygen, and the presence of catalysts (iron, copper) influence the decomposition process. The lowest rate of oxidation is observed at pH 3, where vitamin C solutions are the most stable. Raising the pH to 5 increases the oxidation rate by a factor of 2.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3510389/

The study uses particularly clean water (clean enough to be suitable for medical injections) with a pH of ~7.4. At that acidity and a temperature of 20°C (≈70°F), it takes about 95 days for the vitamin C to decay to 10% of its original concentration, or 28 days to reach 50%.

Normal drinking water has a pH of 6.5-8.5, but also contains a lot of other substances, which might increase the rate of oxidation. Given the potential time between treatment and consumption as well as the fact that people might boil it and increase the rate of decay that way, it's just not as economical to add ascorbic acid to the water supply if only a small percentage of it will ever reach the consumers.

Additionally, the exact dosage will be hard to control, leading to a risk of excessive side effects such as kidney stones. People with a specific enzyme deficiency may also suffer anemia as excessive doses.

Compare that to, say, lemons, whose juice has a pH of ~ 2.4 and renders the vitamin a lot more stable. If you want people to get a good intake of vitamin C, tell them to eat fruits and vegetables, preferably uncooked. The vitamin C dosage you'll get from that will hardly lead to megadoses, unless you eat such vast amounts that you'd probably get other problems anyway.

The reason fluoride is added is that it's quite stable, safe and effective, while also being fairly cheap.

Did George Lucas know that?

I don't know. There is a certain tendency in western media to overrepresent the significance of swords in pre-gunpowder combat (at least when they're not treating bows like they're guns and catapults like artillery).

On the other hand, with well-made swords often serving as a status symbol (due to being more expensive in terms of required material, labour and skill of the craftsman) it makes sense for the Jedi to wield them as a symbol of affiliation and the reputation that accompanies that affiliation. Everyone can buy a Blaster, but a Lightsaber?

Or maybe he just wanted to emphasize the mysticism around katanas.

It doesn't have to be either/or, I think both are plausible.

The amount of times I've gone "Oh wait, wasn't there an ACOUP post touching on that?" and found it is insane. It's a great exemplar of public science and I wish it – and projects like it for other disciplines – were more popular.

There’s plenty of one handed lightsaber usage.

The only one that I'm aware of that uses them exclusively one-handed is Dooku, and he's a bit of a special case. Otherwise, the cases I'm aware of switch between one- and two-handed strikes, which means they'd want their offhand free.

Ashoka famously dual wields.

Hence my point: Space Wizards can do that, but that still means there's no offhand free for a blaster.

I think it more like how some samurai considered firearms dishonorable.

Samurai did use bows and other weapons beside their sword, so it's not that they strictly adhere to one weapon like the Jedi seem to, but yes, Obi-Wan does describe it as "uncivilised", so that is an element as well.

Since you brought up the analogy, I'll point out that the Samurai diminished in power and importance as firearms spread, coming to a head with the Satsuma Rebellion that ended with their whole class being disbanded. To a degree, the Jedi being shot down by the newly formed professional army at the behest of the Emperor very much mirrors... well, the Japanese Imperial Army shooting down the Samurai that opposed the reforms (except the Jedi weren't even given the chance to oppose and rebel, which probably would have gone quite differently).

Well, considering that a slave could run upwards of 2,000HS, that difference is negligible. I wouldn't have known it by memory at all.

Not that I know of, but damn if I don't want that to be a thing now.

Grain seems to have run anywhere from 2-3HS per modius (a Roman dry measure, about 6.75kg) outside of really big cities with higher prices. A modius of grain is close to a week’s worth of food (around 22,500 calories) for an adult human[.]

https://acoup.blog/2025/01/03/collections-coinage-and-the-tyranny-of-fantasy-gold/

(But I agree that a slave for the price of a week's food would be gone in a blink)

One in-universe argument would be that you generally have more precision and striking force with two hands, as opposed to one-handing. This somewhat mirrors some of the "Longswords" that were designed to allow two-handed use, but could also be used with one. Using two weapons at once effectively isn't quite as easy in real life as it's made out to be in games and movies (not impossible, just harder to coordinate) but Jedi could obviously circumvent that issue by being space wizards.

Using a Blaster in the second hand would therefore sacrifice melee capabilities, where it seems their command of the force gives them a significant edge over most opponents.

Of course, the ranged capabilities might offset that, but I assume that, up to the Clone Wars, Jedi didn't often deal with a large number of ranged combatants. Where their reputation wasn't enough to deterr attacks, their premonition and weapon capable of deflecting shots will have dealt with most attackers, and if they're ambushed in close quarters the sword would be more useful too.

My reasoning here is that both protections and weapons usually evolve in response to evolutions in the other. If Jedi often enough faced fire so heavy that deflection alone wasn't enough and some kind of armor would have increased their chances of survival, I would assume they'd wear some (as you see it in the Clone Wars cartoons and the Old Republic games). Equally, if situations where a ranged weapon would have been desirable were a common occurrence, I would assume that the Jedi would eventually have adopted them.

Some degree of reluctance may be explained by religious adherence to their sacred weapon, such that they stuck with it even when the situations they faced evolved during the Clone Wars. Additionally, adopting new doctrines can take time even among less dogmatically rigid organisations.

As someone else replied, a survivor of the Jedi Purge did end up incorporating the Blaster into his arsenal. Without the Order's dogmatic constraints or a lifetime's worth of "This is what I've always been using", the barriers of acceptance are much lower. Compounding this, the new threat environment features professional, highly trained soldiers that – memes notwithstanding – are genuinely dangerous marksmen. Under the circumstances, expanding your arsenal beyond the traditional is the pragmatic choice of "uncivilised" survival over dogmatically pure death.

Or just stop your enemy's heart with your mind.

I have no source for this, but I believe there are some who can do that. It's just that focusing your force to reach deep into a living creature's body isn't quite so trivial to do in the middle of combat.

Or use your super-fast running abilities to jab a fork in your enemy's eye or something.

At that point, what's the advantage of the fork over the lightsaber? But I'd assume improvised weapons are a part of their arsenal too, it's just not as flashy as the bright lightsabers.

Sometimes, I wish the other 26 would just collectively agree to kick it out. It's not even a Trojan Horse at this point, just a wrench in the gears.

Also, to make sure there are no linguistic roots left over on your system that it might grow from again, add --no-preserve-root.

thank you fellow german taxpayers 👍

Glad to help! And if I ever need it, I know I can count on you too.

Von der Leyen is a member of the so-called "Christian Democratic Union" party, so yes, I'm pretty sure becoming the USA is the point. Christian Conservatives of a feather will flock together and all that.