I never understood banning nunchucks. They kind of ban themselves. If you've eve...

bluGill · 2026-04-15T02:56:43 1776221803

The reason is slaves needed a stick for rice - putting a chain between two stick sill works fine for rice work - but makes it a much worse weapon.

thaumasiotes · 2026-04-15T07:17:01 1776237421

That reasoning makes no sense. There was no significant production of rice by slaves.

But also, threshing flails were used outside of rice-growing regions.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/Battage_...

Considering that they must be hundreds of times more expensive than long sticks with no hinge, I would say the reason must be that they're better at threshing.

bluGill · 2026-04-15T13:17:14 1776259034

Slaves was probably the wrong term, my understanding is more like oppressed farmers as opposed to slaves?

In the end though, I'm not an expert. I'm repeating what people who seem to be experts have told me and it makes sense - but I can't judge who is an expert. (either you random hacker news commenter, or whatever other "expert"). I'll gladly stand corrected if anyone can show they really are an expert.

alterom · 2026-04-15T05:52:15 1776232335

>I never understood banning nunchucks. They kind of ban themselves.

I mean, that's a solid reason to ban them :-)

In countries where healthcare is socialized at least. As a cost-saving measure.

They're melee equivalents of footguns.

>If you've ever been a kid copying TMNT Michelangelo with home made nunchucks you've almost certainly smacked yourself in the face.

I've seen qualified users train with metal nunchucks as a kid in the early 90s.

Even then I thought, if I had those, I'd knock my own brains out so fast ಠ , _ ಠ

>Y'know what's martially better than two sticks with a string between them? A single big stick.

Also an order of magnitude safer for the user.

lazide · 2026-04-15T01:36:34 1776216994

Cuz ninja, of course.