this post was submitted on 26 Jan 2025
634 points (98.5% liked)

The Internet in Ancient Times

1198 readers
439 users here now

Welcome to the stone age... or the bronze age... or the iron age... heck, anything with an 'age' is welcome, except our modern age or any ages to come.

This is about what the internet was like thousands of years ago back when it all started. Like when Darius the Great hired mercenaries via Craigslist or when Egypt invented emojis.

CODE OF LAWS

1 - Be civil. No name calling, no fighting, keep your flint hand axes inside your leather pouches at all times.

2 - Keep the AI stuff to a minimum. It gets annoying and old fashioned memes are more fun for everyone.

3 - None of this newfangled modern 21st century nonsense. We don't even know what "21st century" means.

4 - No porn/explicit content. The king is sensitive about these things.

5 - No lemmy.world TOS violations will be tolerated. So there.

6 - There is no ~~rule~~ law 6.

Laws of justice which Hammurabi, the wise king, established. A righteous law, and pious statute did he teach the land. Hammurabi, the protecting king am I. I have not withdrawn myself from the men, whom Bel gave to me, the rule over whom Marduk gave to me, I was not negligent, but I made them a peaceful abiding-place. I expounded all great difficulties, I made the light shine upon them. With the mighty weapons which Zamama and Ishtar entrusted to me, with the keen vision with which Ea endowed me, with the wisdom that Marduk gave me, I have uprooted the enemy above and below (in north and south), subdued the earth, brought prosperity to the land, guaranteed security to the inhabitants in their homes; a disturber was not permitted. The great gods have called me, I am the salvation-bearing shepherd, whose staff is straight, the good shadow that is spread over my city; on my breast I cherish the inhabitants of the land of Sumer and Akkad; in my shelter I have let them repose in peace; in my deep wisdom have I enclosed them. That the strong might not injure the weak, in order to protect the widows and orphans, I have in Babylon the city where Anu and Bel raise high their head, in E-Sagil, the Temple, whose foundations stand firm as heaven and earth, in order to bespeak justice in the land, to settle all disputes, and heal all injuries, set up these my precious words, written upon my memorial stone, before the image of me, as king of righteousness.

founded 6 months ago
MODERATORS
 
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] DaddleDew 69 points 3 days ago (3 children)

What if dogs like to play fetch because watching you throw something is mindblowing to them?

[–] Klear 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I saw the frisbee getting bigger and bigger and couldn't figure out why it does that.

Then it hit me.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] toynbee 10 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I wish my dogs would play fetch.

As an adult, I've had three dogs. All three of them would chase the projectile, then stand next to it and stare at me or go on to their own activities. I'm pretty sure I've never had a dog successfully retrieve anything.

It makes the game a lot harder.

[–] FlyingSquid 2 points 3 days ago

I have had four dogs as an adult. Only the first one liked to play fetch. The other three have disappointed me and I have told them how they have let me down in this department more than once. They look at me like they don't understand, but they know. Oh yes, they know.

[–] [email protected] 78 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Then we taught the rock to think.

[–] PugJesus 43 points 3 days ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 37 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Rock is probably angry, going to punish man.

[–] rockSlayer 15 points 3 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 days ago

Yes we still keep pushing rock faster and faster.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] dual_sport_dork 62 points 3 days ago (2 children)

This is actually legit.

Human brains are very, very good at instinctively understanding parabolic trajectories. In short, we're evolved to be great at throwing stuff. Nothing else in the animal kingdom is as good at it as us, not even closely related primates like chimpanzees.

[–] Cypher 24 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Our shoulders are unique amongst extant apes, none of the others have the ability to throw the way we do.

Due to our shoulders and our muscles, which are excellent for fine motor control, humans are the ballistic experts of the world.

[–] LaLuzDelSol 3 points 2 days ago

Yeah I have always been amazed at the complexity of the shoulder joint. You basically have two concentric sets of muscles that do the same thing, but one is for power (the deltoid) and one is for precision (the rotator cuff). I'm oversimplifying but it is pretty unique and it's why humans are so insanely good with their arms/hands. Looking at other apes trying to hammer a nail for instance, there's no comparison.

[–] jaybone 3 points 3 days ago

But if you put them in a zoo, they will learn to throw feces.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Shardikprime 27 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Wait till they learn about the infinite food glitch

[–] [email protected] 23 points 3 days ago (1 children)

What? You bury food in the ground and more food comes out? You expect us to believe that?

[–] Shardikprime 12 points 3 days ago

Fucking incredible I know

[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Humans are fucking unfair man. They win in so many different ways. You're smaller than me? Lemme yeet this rock. You're bigger than me and running away? It's cool, I'll catch up later; you'll pass out before I do. You're bigger than me and running towards me? Sweet, I just turned this rock and stick into a pair of claws that would make a lion blush, and my homies all got em too.

Oh yeah and those plants we all eat? I figured out how to make more of them! And I told all my friends how to do it to, because we have LANGUAGE!

And then before long they're all "see that big shiny rock in the sky? Yeah, I pissed on it"

[–] [email protected] 28 points 3 days ago

The rocks used animal husbandry to get us to move them around

[–] someguy3 27 points 3 days ago (5 children)

I thought it was spears. Guess it could be rocks. I threw a pinecone at a magpie to shoo it away and I think it broke his brain to see something coming at him like that.

[–] marcos 25 points 3 days ago (3 children)

You have to start somewhere. And that somewhere certainly wasn't multi-part stick-rocks throwables with complex mechanical movement amplifiers.

[–] Skullgrid 12 points 3 days ago (1 children)

multi-part stick-rocks throwables with complex mechanical movement amplifiers.

I looked at the post, and for a while the only part I saw was "Amplifiers"

[–] marcos 6 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)
[–] Skullgrid 5 points 3 days ago

Neat.

My comment was more about "electric guitar word found! Disregard the rest of the sentence."

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] rockSlayer 8 points 3 days ago

Rocks make pointy stick, but pointy rock on stick even better for throwing!

[–] FlyingSquid 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I threw a pinecone at a magpie to shoo it away

Don't do that to a corvid. They remember human faces and they let their big families know about it too.

https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/grudge-holding-crows-pass-on-their-anger-to-family-and-friends

[–] someguy3 3 points 2 days ago

Good they learned to stop pecking at my siding.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

What are these 'spears' you talk about? All this modern nonsense.

[–] GreenAppleTree 4 points 3 days ago

Ehh, it's just a fad. The long-stick bubble is gonna burst soon. Just you watch.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago

Pfft, Imagine needing anything more than your bare hands and the ability to perspire.

Endurance predator FTW!

[–] [email protected] 23 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Imagine how crazy it'd be if you found a way to attach a STICK to the rock and make the rock sharper...

[–] [email protected] 36 points 3 days ago (1 children)

you're never gonna believe what my buddy Ungabung just made...

[–] [email protected] 21 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I remember at some museum they said it took about 10.000 years for pre-humans to move from sharpening one side of a stone to sharpening both sides.

We went from using sharpened stones to landing on the moon in the same timeframe.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 3 days ago

So here's the thing: we don't know that, really. If we find a spear that has one side sharpened and it's dated 40,000 bc, then we find another spear and both sides are sharpened dated 30,000 bc, it may appear that way... But we literally have a vague guess at best. If 1 million years from now an archeologist finds a kitchen knife and concludes that in the 2000's we were still figuring out double sided knives, then they would be hilariously wrong.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

First it was the the thicc asses (for long running & creepy stalking), then came the biceps & shoulder combo.

I bet we first developed such unique throwing abilities just to fling our poop further.

(Similarly, I actually think we bred our thicc butts to twerk better.)

[–] Shardikprime 4 points 3 days ago

I like big paleolithic butts and I cannot lie

[–] FlyingSquid 8 points 3 days ago (1 children)

As a capuchin monkey myself, I am happy just throwing feces, thank you.

[–] AngryCommieKender 4 points 2 days ago

Username does NOT check out.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Some years later...

GUYS! GUYS!! HOLY SHIT YOU WON'T BELIEVE!!! I threw a rock, it hit another rock and there were these sparks!!

[–] Moc 10 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Careful that tech is a slippery slope to world destruction

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 days ago

Next you know, you throw a rock and it starts to think!

[–] otterpop 8 points 3 days ago

I feel like posting Aesop Rocks song on the subject is obligatory here: https://youtu.be/T7jH-5YQLcE

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago

Technology bad

load more comments
view more: next ›