this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2023
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[–] [email protected] 83 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"What if they misinterpret our fanfictions as the literal word of some god and start killing and enslaving each other over it?"

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Skip forward 1000 years to people worshipping Harry Potter and praying for him to save them from the dark lord

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR, POTTER. SAVE US FROM THE MUGGLES AND HE WHO SHAN'T BE NAMED.

[–] [email protected] 60 points 1 year ago (1 children)

When I was a teenager, an older friend told me how he learned in college history how the first Emperor of China wrote the language, made all these scientific discoveries, etc, etc. And I, knowing fuck all about Chinese history, was like 'you mean he killed all the historians and advisors, then burned all the libraries, so he could take credit, right?' My friend is like 'uhhh.....'

Yeah, so turns out that's pretty much how more recent readings of it say it went down.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

If by that you mean "He was about as real as King Arthur," sure.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Qin Shi Huang was as real as Julius Caesar.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

He's also not the person OP referenced.

The actual "first emperor of a unified China" being a different person than the mythological "First Emperor, tamer of rivers, maker of paper, big brained inventor of everything."

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

Wasn't he based on some truth or something?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

They're both cultural stories that were probably based on several actual historical figures at some point that were combined and mythologized over centuries.

Take Arthur. You could maybe find the origin of the character in some Celtic leader fighting the Romans, then as people retell stories he gets merged with a different guy, and then when the Anglo-Saxons invade new stories get added and repurposed etc etc and now the French hear about it and decide it needs a love triangle where the English king gets cucked by a French Chad Knight, boom, now you've got a medieval courtly love story from someone once talking about the time Athor'lescs'op once stole some Roman sheep.

The Yellow Emperor is the same thing. There probably was a Chinese warlord who paid for some irrigation ditches and wasn't too big of an asshole to the peasants, and another one later who built some libraries, so they're "based on a historical figure" but mostly the stories are just cultural myths that make good entertainment and maybe work as a morality play.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It's likely that people were selectively documenting information since the beginning of time.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes, but not necessarily maliciously. No one person, no matter how good they are at being objective, can possibly see and hear and experience everything. Most of what historians wrote down would have been second or third hand information at best.

I usually assume that there's a lot of telephone-game style information passing built into any written record.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

No one person, no matter how good they are at being objective, can possibly see and hear and experience everything.

Except Patrick Stewart.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That’s what basically all of history has been, honestly. Our problem (or salvation, depending on how you look at it) will be that everyone’s random opinion is archived and will be viewable by our descendants. Previous generations had the advantage that their most asinine, pigheaded, and ludicrous ideas were filtered by history, since the more serious minds didn’t record in documents how a sizable portion of us were the absolute worst.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Previous generations had the advantage that their most asinine, pigheaded, and ludicrous ideas were filtered by history, since the more serious minds didn’t record in documents how a sizable portion of us were the absolute worst.

You may be overestimating ancient writers and texts.

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

Perhaps. We have few examples of the daily ramblings of ancient peoples, though, and tend to view those times through the lens of the likes of Socrates, Homer, and Shakespeare rather than their insulting, bodily explicit graffiti or their tabloid fodder.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Okay but have you read Shakespeare? Or, for the Roman graffiti you referenced, Plautus? Or Suetonius if you want some good tabloid fodder? They're similarly crude, and while there is a much higher level of literacy and wordplay, it's... not that much different at its core. Even that graffiti, funny enough, has an example in the other direction - there are instances of graffiti in Pompeii which demonstrate a knowledge of classical literature amongst the urban masses.

My point in the end is simply that history is written by writers, and writers are not necessarily less insane, less gullible, or less prejudiced than the general population.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago

"We would have to develop some rigorous process to sort real facts a well as cause effect relationships to a precise degree of statistical certainty. We could base this process around experimentation with highly limited variables and/or large sample sizes, with rules and regulations on how data is recorded and edited, which would then be vetted by other peers of the field and industry with high scrutiny to filter out all but the best theories."

"What zero ungabunga does to a mofo."

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

People were selectively choosing facts to mold their own realities before writing existed. The volume of information didn't make that any worse.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Of course it made it better! Actually it is not the volume, but ability to share and the bad incentives for the companies to increase “screen time” of the users of social networks.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago

The earth is doughnut shaped and big ball doesnt want you to know about it.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Connect me to the matrix and give me a reality that fits my views, IDGAF if it's all fake but looks 100% real

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But I don't want to be Neo if he took the blue pill, I want to be Cypher if he got reconnected to the matrix with a life he chose of his own.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The robots probably wouldn't have actually done that

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You mean the slave masters would lie to their slaves? Surely not

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Do you lie to your batteries when you put them in a remote? These are machines, why would they waste cycles on lying when you're cooperating.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Exactly, why would I lie to you, you're co-operating.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Cypher would have had no way of knowing either way, so they'd probably just give him the "whatever is the most economical use of his battery life" option.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

France is… bacon?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Humans have always been able to do that, even without written language.

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

It's funny cuz that's how creatures brains already operate. Think of how many stimuli you're exposed to but ignoring right now. Right this very second. Like that thing over there. Yeah, that! You totally had full view of it yet you had limited awareness or perception of it! Just like the excess facts. We're built for filtering no matter what.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I think I'm broken because I have counted all the little popcorn studs of my ceiling multiple times and spend time focused on many other stupidly mundane piles of "chaos."

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Then at least they have the choice.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No, but without knowledge, you don't get to choose whether you believe reality or not. Reality is just hidden from you.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

The difference between seeking knowledge and seeking understanding is the application of context and nuance.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I reject your reality and substitute my own

- Funny TV-Man