• I Cast Fist@programming.dev
    68·
    4 months ago

    Party pooper here - https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/4923/was-this-quote-on-a-clay-tablet-about-unruly-kids-written-by-an-assyrian

    Quoting the answer from there:

    In summary:

    • I have not shown whether or not this is a quote from an ancient work.
    • I’ve shown that the quote, and its provenance has survived largely intact since the 1920s at least.
    • In particular, it has been traced far further back than Sir Isaac Asimov’s book (as suggested by others here).
    • However, I have shown it was not both Assyrian and from 2800 BC. It may have in Akkadian, a related language, from 2800 BC, but that is earlier than any references I found so I find it unlikely. It might have been Sumerian.
    • IMHO, given the dubious provenance of the source, a more likely scenario is that it is either a true quote, oddly translated, from a much later date, or invented in the early 20th Century.
    • general_kitten@sopuli.xyz
      29·
      4 months ago

      The bronze age collapse happened ~1600 years after that tablet was written, i guess that could count as an end of the world(that they knew)

  • kevindqc@lemmy.world
    37·
    4 months ago

    This is what some people on Fox News are saying because they saw drag queens at the Olympics. The end times are coming. 🙄

    Yes, the drag queens will destroy the world, not unfettered capitalism.

    • Scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.techEnglish
      8·
      4 months ago

      The goddamn frustrating thing is that it only happened because it’s normal and accepted in Europe. It’s only because of the bs puritanical culture war in the US that they think it’s somehow relevant to them. Haven’t even stopped to think that there are other cultures at the… Olympics

    • ours@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      4 months ago

      And of course, the best way to prevent this doom is more religion. That always works out so well…

      • Clasm@ttrpg.network
        2·
        4 months ago

        Especially when one of the loudest religions actively want to doom the world so that their sky daddy can show everyone else how right they were this whole time…

        • ours@lemmy.worldEnglish
          2·
          4 months ago

          Ah yes, I’m certain Jesus would want his “followers” to hasten the end of the fucking world. Wait a minute, didn’t have supposedly let himself be crucified to save us? And Christians consider his sacrifice something of a big deal.

  • Barzaria@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    271·
    4 months ago

    Or bodies are in a constant state of getting older and undergoing collapse. I think that believing in the good old days is a reaction to getting old. I think that believing in some golden past is it reaction to our own bodily degeneration. Fear of our mortality is a powerful force, and I think that a large amount of people externalize/project that fear onto their perception of society.

    • whotookkarl@lemmy.world
      20·
      4 months ago

      The end of the world hasn’t happened for everyone yet, but the world does end for some individuals every day.

      Reminds me of the poem the florist has in Grim Fandango that goes something like: it may be years, it may be hours, but sooner or later everyone pushes up flowers.

    • hand@lemmy.studio
      3·
      4 months ago

      Saving this comment. It’s a fantastic observation you’ve made, you convinced me.

    • Bob@feddit.nl
      2·
      4 months ago

      I think it’s more that you get taught the “right” way of doing, speaking, etc. and people are geared to dislike challenges to that idea until they learn to accept change. Another example would be people who’ve learnt how to do a particular task at work being shown a better way of doing it but having a niggling sense that the way they’d learnt first is ipso facto better.

  • janNatan@lemmy.ml
    18·
    4 months ago

    I’m currently reading “All the Knowledge in the World: A History of the Encyclopedia” by Simon Garfield. It mentions a similar thought held by some around the time of the creation of the Encyclopedia Brittanica. (Late 1700s, if I recall correctly)

    There were too many books, and they were being printed by just anyone. Who needs a really long dictionary, anyway?

  • Allonzee@lemmy.world
    131·
    4 months ago

    I understand the point. But it misses an extremely important factor: technology.

    Yes, humans have played pretend we were this world’s owners/masters since civilization began.

    But our toolbox is filled with tech that can literally reverse terraform the climate against us, and we’re using it with abandon and without restraint. Add to that AI, CRISPR derived bioweapons, etc. We’ve gotten to the point where we cobble together yet another means of world wide destruction every decade or two, and we all know we’re too stupid and selfish not to for the prospect of short term, individual gain.

    They were monkeys with spears and swords, a threat to rival monkey tribes, but in no way the entire species. We are monkeys with nukes and beyond.

    “It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity”

    -Albert Einstein

  • Etterra@lemmy.world
    112·
    4 months ago

    The difference is that we went from “the world as we know it” to “the entire world.” The planet is finite.