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Nick

Stock market chaos as China reveals secret snake oil refinery, threatening US snake oil monopoly.

The history of snake oil and its possible connections with Chinese traditional medicine is actually pretty interesting, but introduces a level of nuance that murders the joke: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_

en.m.wikipedia.orgSnake oil - Wikipedia

@Nickiquote US tech bros left flailing as existence of more than one ball leaves their "we're taking our ball and going home" strategy in tatters.

@Nickiquote damn! I've just used "snake oil" in a post! And I realise I must have stolen it from you.

Still there's enough snake oil to go around...

@patrickhadfield There is, I used magic beans before but the problem is that Jack’s magic beans *worked*.

@Nickiquote

Minor relief: The joke itself *never* meant actual medicine - however useless and fictional it might have been.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@Nickiquote i think the analogy here is more "chinese group publishes snake oil recipe, us snake oil companies in shambles"

@Nickiquote We have the best, the greatest snake oil. Everyone is saying it.

Literally just occurred to me that “snake oil” is probably oil made out of snakes rather than oil for lubricating snakes.

@dx it's actually for chasing them off, like mosquito spray. Reason there's such high demand is that all planes are coated with it for safety.

@dx Oil from Chinese water snakes has for centuries been used in Chinese traditional medicine to treat joint pain such as arthritis and bursitis. It has been suggested that the use of snake oil in the United States may have originated with Chinese railway laborers in the mid-19th century, who worked long days of physical toil. Chinese snake oil may have had real benefits due to its high concentration of the omega−3 fatty acid… en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_oi

en.wikipedia.orgSnake oil: Difference between revisions - Wikipedia

@Nickiquote

This should lower the price across the board. No more squeaky snakes!

@Nickiquote Their snakeoil is orders of magnitude cheaper and works just as well. Which is *hilarious*

@Nickiquote FYI: "Snake Oil" as a scam in the 19th century USA was entirely about selling fake Chinese medicine ingredients, one of which were literally snakes preserved in oil.

So in a very real way we're reenacting that history of the US product being a less good version of an already scammy Chinese product; but this time in reverse.

@Nickiquote Then there's the "snake oil" in Donizetti's opera L’elisir d’amore, sold by the quack "doctor" Dulcamara, a bottle of a cheap Bordeaux. Getting his customers drunk gave the "doctor" time to leave town.
In the opera, he doesn't have to: a strange turn of events even has Dolcamara wondering if the stuff actually works.

@Nickiquote
Does the existence of snake oil imply the existence of snake gas? 🤔

@godzero @Nickiquote
[Solid Snake has entered the TeamSpeak]

@Nickiquote "we need competition and meritocracy in order to succeed!"

*🐋 enters the channel*

Wait no, not like that :(