I so badly want a source for this.
It’s in the picture, just read the tablet
I read the tablet and it's more about the quality of copper ingots delivered than the general decline of civilization.
I don't know where the best quality copper ingots could be found in Ancient Mesopotamia, but I've definitely learned not to bother dealing with Ea-nāṣir!
Found Nanni's Lemmy account.
There’s a lot of references to this, but it looks like there’s not a known source. Interestingly, the first reference to this tablet was from 1908. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/10/22/world-end/
So it's a fake story from 1908
It's annoying that they referenced several times the quote appeared since the early 1900s, but didn't take a single step to determine if such a thing was written down in a museum in Istanbul.
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.
Oh man if it is Akkadian and not Assyrian then it ruins the whole joke!
It was never over 🤯
We are so back 😎
it being over is over
I don't see a problem viewing our current predicament a post apocalypse
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)
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.
Gotta keep the smoke screens as thick as their viewers' skulls, lest they see through it
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
And of course, the best way to prevent this doom is more religion. That always works out so well...
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.
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.
Man that game is a damn masterpiece
Saving this comment. It's a fantastic observation you've made, you convinced me.
It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of the Asyrian Empire.
Maybe it never began
Mesopotamia has fallen, billions must die.
Same as it ever was...
Letting the days go by...
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?
And nobody wants to work anymore!!!
children no longer obey their parents? mf you have no idea what is to come
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
His favourite movie was probably Idiocracy
The difference is that we went from "the world as we know it" to "the entire world." The planet is finite.
big frosted miniwheat
Important
i've heard that quote attributed to socrates. you tellin me he ripped off another motherfucker?
Yeah, no, the 80s and 90s were the fucking best.
BC?
Edit: As in "B.C." no "because"
No Italian rebel crisis, no more Cato, no more independent Pompeii, Julias Ceaser got married, this Cicero guy really knows how to argue. So much better than the 70s.
It's a tale as old as time, just like the "noone wants to work anymore" tale.
Proof? What is "book" a modern translation for, also?
