[HN Gopher] 3,200-year-old Egyptian tablet records excuses for w...
___________________________________________________________________
3,200-year-old Egyptian tablet records excuses for why people
missed work
Author : bryanrasmussen
Score : 324 points
Date : 2022-04-26 15:38 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.openculture.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.openculture.com)
| csours wrote:
| I had a back spasm episode a couple weeks ago. It led me to think
| about laborers taking off work throughout the ages. Interesting
| to see this now.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| 3200 years later... it would be nice if I could take time off to
| help when my wife is menstruating
| leephillips wrote:
| She can probably manage it herself.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| One in four women suffer pain severe enough to result in
| absenteeism from regular activities.
|
| > Menstrual pain is a very common problem, but the need for
| medication and the inability to function normally occurs less
| frequently. Nevertheless, at least one in four women
| experiences distressing menstrual pain characterized by a
| need for medication and absenteeism from study or social
| activities
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3392715/
|
| A common tongue-in-cheek joke among some women I know is that
| if men suffered from intense monthly pain this probably would
| have been cured 50 years ago. I suspect most men still
| minimize how debilitating mensuration is for many women.
| silentsea90 wrote:
| If it helps, the richest of men suffer from baldness,
| cancer etc and haven't "solved" it yet, but I agree with
| the take in that it might have made things better if not
| cured.
| blakesterz wrote:
| The original with ALL of the excuses is at the British Museum
| here:
|
| https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/Y_EA5634
| tomkat0789 wrote:
| Time off for illness! That's nice. I wonder if one of the HR
| scribes tracked the days every person took off in an analog ERP
| system. Scribes seemed important, maybe they outsourced the
| basics to contractors.
| jll29 wrote:
| SAP System/C(lay)
| ars wrote:
| Presumably they did not get paid on those days off.
| moffkalast wrote:
| > Year 40 Penduauu: month 1 of Spring, day 14 (DRINKING WITH
| KHONSU)
|
| "Khonsu, you have any good ideas?"
|
| "I have a bad one."
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| I suppose then Khonsu said "Here, hold my henqet"
| jonathankoren wrote:
| Suddenly, Moon Knight makes more sense
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Later on in the tablet, they refine it into "MAKING REMEDIES
| WITH KHONSU".
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| Interesting that the dates are "Month 3 of Summer, Day 24" etc.
| The curious bit to me being the enduring use of 4 distinct
| seasons, when there are obviously other ways to mark a year.
|
| Is anyone aware of a culture that did/does not have exactly 4
| seasons?
| Someone wrote:
| > Is anyone aware of a culture that did/does not have exactly
| 4 seasons?
|
| Ancient Egyptian :-)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_calendar:
|
| _"The ancient Egyptian calendar - a civil calendar - was a
| solar calendar with a 365-day year. The year consisted of
| three seasons of 120 days each, plus an intercalary month of
| five epagomenal days treated as outside of the year proper.
| Each season was divided into four months of 30 days."_
| aaronharnly wrote:
| So, a better calendar than ours :(
| shagie wrote:
| The Longest Year in Human History (46 B.C.E.) -
| https://youtu.be/fD-R35DSSZY gets into the "why the year
| we have is designed the way it is" ... though it takes 22
| minutes to get to that part.
|
| It wasn't really better as the 30 * 12 + 5 approach
| needed manual application of the + 5... which is what the
| new calendar was trying to avoid.
| drocer88 wrote:
| "There are just two seasons in the old Icelandic calendar:
| [...] summer and winter."
|
| https://icelandmonitor.mbl.is/news/news/2015/10/21/do_you_k
| n...
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| India (and nearby areas) famously used/uses 6 seasons. The
| Mayan Haab' isn't precisely a seasonal calendar, but each of
| the 20 'months' was used to much the same effect.
| divbzero wrote:
| Another phenomenon I've found curious is the cross-cultural
| definition of a week as roughly a quarter moon, and
| correlated names for days of the week. [1]
| Sunday Sun Solis Heliou Ri Yao Ri Monday
| Moon Lunae Selenes Yue Yao Ri Tuesday Mars
| Martis Areos Huo Yao Ri Wednesday Mercury
| Mercurii Hermou Shui Yao Ri Thursday Jupiter
| Iovis Dios Mu Yao Ri Friday Venus
| Veneris Aphrodites Jin Yao Ri Saturday Saturn
| Saturni Kronou Tu Yao Ri
|
| [1]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_the_days_of_the_week
| KSPAtlas wrote:
| Polish doesn't use those names, but a different system:
|
| Poniedzialek (lit. After not working) Wtorek (not sure)
| Sroda (also not sure) Czwartek (lit. the fourth) Piatek
| (possibly means drinking day?) Sobota (not sure) Niedziela
| (Not working)
| vxNsr wrote:
| Those all loosely resemble the Russian names, and as the
| other commentator noted "Sobota" sounds a lot like
| "Sabbath"
| divbzero wrote:
| 'Sobota' resembles 'sabado' in Spanish and might refer to
| the Sabbath?
| tsimionescu wrote:
| As far as I understand from the Wikipedia article, this
| practice has spread directly from Judaism (7 days) through
| Christianity through the Roman Empire (which renamed the
| days according to the planets/gods) to all of these places.
| It's not clear from the article if perhaps the Ancient
| Greeks had a similar system already - but otherwise, the
| Indians and the Chinese adopted this system from
| Roman/Hellenistic sources between the 3rd and 4th centuries
| CE, and other cultures around them adopted it from them
| slightly later.
| twic wrote:
| With some exceptions:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pawukon_calendar
| jhanschoo wrote:
| These are more jargon imports that came bundled with the
| 7-day week after the Romans, and then Europe, popularized
| it after adopting it. As an analogy, you don't hear many
| other ways of naming tea and coffee across cultures.
| thechao wrote:
| There's some ... but I think it misses two really important
| ones (and this is just off the top of my head):
|
| 1. The Romans had an eight day "week"; and,
|
| 2. The mesoamericans had a 260 day "week" (or, at best,
| interlocking 13 and 20 day "weeks").
|
| I think the 7-day week is more of a statement about how
| effective the Judeo-Christian culture has imposed a modern
| week on the rest of the world.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| >The Romans had an eight day "week"; and,
|
| The Beatles were Romans!
| jfk13 wrote:
| Apparently the Sami (Lapps) have/had 8 seasons.
|
| https://www.amazon.co.uk/People-Eight-Seasons-story-
| Lapps/dp...
| [deleted]
| piethesailorman wrote:
| I recently read about the Hindu seasons. Here is an off the
| cusp search result on the subject.
|
| https://www.learnreligions.com/the-six-seasons-of-
| india-p2-1...
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| It's common among many ancient cultures to treat equinoxes
| and solstices as events of great importance, as those mark
| the beginning of the season change, but not all regions
| experience seasons the same.
|
| Ancient Egyptians, while knowledgeable of astronomy, had only
| three seasons: Akhet (summer/heat), Peret (flooding, of the
| Nile) and Shemu (harvest). Notice the conspicuous absence of
| winter.
|
| https://egyptianstreets.com/2022/01/28/a-year-in-three-
| seaso...
| walrus01 wrote:
| In particular the traditional Persian new year (Nowruz)
| starts in spring, and is celebrated throughout central asia
| as far as Kazakhstan.
| layer8 wrote:
| The roman calendar started the year in spring as well
| with March (hence the names
| September/October/November/December are literally the
| 7th/8th/9th/10th month). The Greek apparently were all
| over the place with the year starting in
| summer/fall/winter depending on region/polis.
| devman0 wrote:
| I'd heard this was because July and August (for Julius
| and Augustus) were added later to the calendar and
| originally there were only 10 months that started with
| January.
| layer8 wrote:
| I believe those were merely renamed, and the original
| year was 10 months from March to December, with a
| nondescript "winter" period between December and March.
| Archelaos wrote:
| Up until 1751 the legal year (fiscal year) in England
| (and its North American colonies) started at 25 March
| (Lady Day).
| irrational wrote:
| Oh, when it snows in Egypt (which it does do on occasion)
| they definitely notice the conspicuous absence of winter.
| LawnGnome wrote:
| The Noongar of south western Australia denote six seasons:
| http://www.bom.gov.au/iwk/calendars/nyoongar.shtml
| Lordarminius wrote:
| > Is anyone aware of a culture that did/does not have exactly
| 4 seasons?
|
| Sub saharan people (and many Asian), have two seasons, rainy
| and dry.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Every place with wet season maybe?
| tigerlily wrote:
| I once heard Canadians in Winnipeg joke there were but two
| seasons, Winter and Construction. I think this was in
| reference to road maintenance.
|
| In NZ these days I feel like we have two: Drought and
| Mudslide.
| sizzzzlerz wrote:
| L.A. boasts of three seasons: Drought, mudslide, and
| wildfire.
| pvarangot wrote:
| That's hilarious. I lived with a really cold winter and
| it's not only road maintenance. If you have to do some
| renovations at your place they sometimes also need to
| happen on "construction" season, even if it's inside a lot
| of construction workers go to other places in the winter.
| tragictrash wrote:
| I needed this today, thanks!
| Karawebnetwork wrote:
| "Sekki is the traditional way of expressing seasons in Japan.
| There are 24 sekki, including rikka (Li Xia , the first day
| of summer) in early May, shoman (Xiao Man , lit. "a little
| full" as in growing, waxing) in late May and boshu (Mang
| Zhong , lit. bearded grain) in early June.
|
| The 24 sekki can be further divided into three for a total of
| 72 shijijuni ko (Qi Shi Er Hou ) that last for about five
| days each. These subseasons include mugi no toki itaru (Mai
| Qiu Zhi ), or "the time for wheat has come," which lasts from
| May 31 to June 5, and kamakiri shozu ("the mantis is born")
| from June 6 to June 10. "
|
| https://japantoday.com/category/features/lifestyle/just-
| how-...
|
| The full list is here:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_calendar#The_24_sekki
|
| There used to be a maintained shared Google Calendar you
| could use that would display those in your agenda. While the
| names did not fit exactly with my local weather, it was
| interesting to give a name to small parts of the year. It
| felt very natural and intuitive.
| yowlingcat wrote:
| I love this. Ever since moving back into the wild from the
| city, it's been so nice to take notice of all the little
| "microseasons" you'll see inside a usual season. I took it
| for granted as a kid, but as an adult, it's nice to name
| and partake in the various parts of the year as you
| mention.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| From my perspective, anything regularly periodic in nature
| _is_ used to track time: the Sun (years, seasons, days, day
| /dusk) and Moon (months, weeks, King tides). Consider even
| the starfield (astrology: years, decades+).
|
| Four seasons makes sense in all of these contexts, and I
| hypothesize that there are a lot of patterns in nature that
| are well bucketed into 4 sequential, equal seasons. This is
| impossible for me to demonstrate, unfortunately. Also,
| division by by 4 and 12, a year into four seasons is like a
| month into four weeks. Weeks seem to me to be among our most
| subjective fundamental time unit.
|
| I see weeks as being the most arbitrary. I always like to
| imagine what life would be like if weeks were 3 days long. Or
| 11. I just love this topic.
| domino24 wrote:
| I always wondered what it would feel like to _not_ have
| weeks, or even years, but to live life in a continuous
| stream of days looking forward. I 'm not sure if we would
| feel a horrible lack of closure or accomplishment, or if it
| would make us more productive and forward looking and
| moving. I wonder how much of my life I waste just trying to
| close out a week/month/year.
| dotancohen wrote:
| > I always like to imagine what life would be like if weeks
| were 3 days long. Or 11. I just love this topic.
|
| I especially like that you chose prime numbers. A week
| composed of a prime number of days will remain the smallest
| indivisible group of days that a culture will have.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Agreed, glad you called this out! I was thinking about
| rambling about this, but this is a topic I can go on and
| on about, and I was already off to a slow start today...
| diroussel wrote:
| I was talking to a Jamaican primary school teacher once.
| She told me that the songs (Nursary rhymes) that they teach
| the kids are often based on old English ones ( like ring-
| ring-a-roses) but any reference to the four seasons have
| been mutated. Since in Jamaica they just have two seasons;
| wet season and dry season.
| throwawayboise wrote:
| Astronomically it seems to make the most sense, you have two
| solstices and two equinoxes dividing the year into four
| parts.
| 988747 wrote:
| How is "With his boss" an excuse?
| layer8 wrote:
| From the curator's comments: "[The] next most frequent
| [reason for absence] is being away with one's superior doing
| private work for him, a practice that was not forbidden if
| done in moderation."
| inglor_cz wrote:
| BREWING THE BEER is a good excuse, ngl.
| skylanh wrote:
| Potable water with nutrients, bioflavinoids, and antibiotic
| content is definitely an excusable reason.
| layer8 wrote:
| Presumably the boss received some of that beer.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Fetching stone for the scribe?
|
| Wrapping the corspe of his mother? Is that like "My grandma
| died?"
|
| Trouble with his eye - maybe all that stone dust.
|
| Strengthening the door - I wonder what door...
| jamesfisher wrote:
| cat excuses | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn
|
| 67 ILL
|
| 49 WITH HIS BOSS
|
| 17 BREWING BEER
|
| 13 WITH AAPEHTI
|
| 8 WITH THE SCRIBE
|
| 6 MAKING REMEDIES FOR THE SCRIBE'S WIFE
|
| 5 WRAPPING (THE CORPSE OF) HIS MOTHER
|
| 5 OFFERING TO THE GOD
|
| 5 HIS WIFE WAS BLEEDING
|
| 5 FETCHING STONE FOR THE SCRIBE
|
| 4 WITH KHONS MAKING REMEDIES
|
| 4 SUFFERING WITH HIS EYE
|
| 4 OFF ABSENT
|
| 4 HIS DAUGHTER WAS BLEEDING
|
| 3 WITH HOREMWIA
|
| 3 WITH HIS BOSS DITTO
|
| 3 LIBATING TO HIS FATHER
|
| 2 WRAPPING (THE CORPSE OF) HIS SON
|
| 2 HIS MOTHER WAS ILL
|
| 2 HIS FEAST
|
| 2 FETCHING STONE FOR QENHERKHEPSHEF
|
| 2 BURYING THE GOD
|
| 1 WITH HIS GOD
|
| 1 THE SCORPION BIT HIM
|
| 1 STRENGTHENING THE DOOR
|
| 1 OFFFERING TO THE GOD
|
| 1 OFFERING TO HIS GOD
|
| 1 OFF ABSENT WITH THE SCRIBE
|
| 1 MOURNING HIS SON
|
| 1 LIBATING FOR HIS SON
|
| 1 LIBATING FOR HIM
|
| 1 LIBATING
|
| 1 EMBALMING HORMOSE
|
| 1 EMBALMING HIS BROTHER
|
| 1 DRINKING WITH KHONSU
|
| 1 BUILDING HIS HOUSE
| thepasswordis wrote:
| Wow this really does tell a story. His mom and his son both
| died.
| wesleywt wrote:
| Who knew that Egypt was so progressive that guys can take off
| when their wife or daughter has a period.
| [deleted]
| the_af wrote:
| Maybe they, like in some Abrahamic religions to come later,
| considered women "impure" when they had the period, and
| this somehow translated to the men in the household? Wild
| speculation, of course.
| dhzhzjsbevs wrote:
| Calm down. It's just a PMS joke.
| pc86 wrote:
| No it's not
| MonkeyClub wrote:
| That's what I thought as well, though I would expect
| that'd appear in higher frequency - unless the bosses
| sent people to check.
| naijaboiler wrote:
| they really are putting modern day US employers to shame
| spiralx wrote:
| A lot of those are related to death:
|
| 5 WRAPPING (THE CORPSE OF) HIS MOTHER 2 WRAPPING (THE CORPSE
| OF) HIS SON 1 EMBALMING HORMOSE 1 EMBALMING HIS BROTHER 1
| MOURNING HIS SON 3 LIBATING TO HIS FATHER 13
|
| and I suspect most of these:
|
| 8 WITH THE SCRIBE 1 OFF ABSENT WITH THE SCRIBE 5 FETCHING
| STONE FOR THE SCRIBE 2 FETCHING STONE FOR QENHERKHEPSHEF 1
| LIBATING FOR HIS SON 1 LIBATING FOR HIM 1 LIBATING 2 BURYING
| THE GOD 21
|
| and there's a bunch making remedies and/or looking after
| wives and female relatives:
|
| 6 MAKING REMEDIES FOR THE SCRIBE'S WIFE 5 HIS WIFE WAS
| BLEEDING 4 WITH KHONS MAKING REMEDIES 4 HIS DAUGHTER WAS
| BLEEDING 2 HIS MOTHER WAS ILL 21
|
| Some ones that seem work-related by the use of names:
|
| 49 WITH HIS BOSS 3 WITH HIS BOSS DITTO 3 WITH HOREMWIA 13
| WITH AAPEHTI 68
|
| Then there's some actual stuff the worker was doing - mostly
| brewing beer:
|
| 17 BREWING BEER 5 OFFERING TO THE GOD 1 WITH HIS GOD 1
| STRENGTHENING THE DOOR 1 BUILDING HIS HOUSE 25
|
| A few unknowns:
|
| 4 OFF ABSENT
|
| And finally the actual illness and injury, including scorpion
| guy!
|
| 67 ILL 4 SUFFERING WITH HIS EYE 1 THE SCORPION BIT HIM 72
|
| Seems that brewing and DIY were the only hobbies around -
| unless you count making remedies or embalming!
| james-skemp wrote:
| With his boss:
|
| It's a little buried (on mobile) but:
|
| > ... the next most frequent is being away with one's
| superior doing private work for him, a practice that was
| not forbidden if done in moderation.
| nyx_land wrote:
| > BURYING THE GOD
|
| Thousands of years later and yet who among us hasn't missed
| work to bury God?
| hprotagonist wrote:
| around here it's an annual day off.
| thom wrote:
| Big day for the guy BURYING THE GOD.
| probably_wrong wrote:
| I feel a connection to the guy who missed work "absent with
| the scribe". I know it was probably something important, but
| a scribe writing "that guy is excused, he was with me" makes
| me think of those times my boss took me for lunch and paid
| with the corporate card.
|
| (Of course, I'm assuming the scribe wrote this)
| marsven_422 wrote:
| [deleted]
| itsgrimetime wrote:
| Seeing the frequency of the days off and the reasons really
| humanizes these people that (at least I) just imagine as some
| alien beings that I had nothing in common with.
|
| Also there's just some that are funny given cultural norms
| today - I'm assuming it was more akin to taking bereavement
| leave, but imagining telling my boss I won't be working because
| I'll be drinking for 3 days is pretty comical to me:
|
| day 24 (LIBATING TO HIS FATHER), day 25 (DITTO), day 26(?)
| (DITTO)
| ______-_-______ wrote:
| I think "Brewing Beer" would be a perfectly acceptable excuse
| in a lot of these new hipstery startups
| kjs3 wrote:
| I have an employee who takes days off because he's
| developed his own brand of whiskey which is going on sale
| later this year. We aren't hipstery, or a startup, however.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| I'm thinking that this is a funeral ritual because his father
| passed away.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| > imagining telling my boss I won't be working because I'll
| be drinking for 3 days is pretty comical to me:
|
| Isn't that basically weekends? Anyway I think it would be a
| lot more acceptable these days if you get paid per day and
| you're replaceable enough to not Need to be at work every
| day.
| scoot wrote:
| Linked both below the image and in the third paragraph of the
| post, but there aren't many more excuses, just a lot of
| repeats, and the article gives more context then the curators
| notes at that link.
| Aardwolf wrote:
| Any idea what "WITH HIS BOSS" means in there? Is that also an
| excuse of absence, or is that what was marked when not absent?
| jlbbellefeuille wrote:
| "... On month 3 of Akhet, days 21-4, it seems that Pennub was
| off work because he was looking after the ill Aapehti. The
| most frequently recorded reason for absence is illness (over
| a hundred times), including 'eye trouble', and 'the scorpion
| stung him'; the next most frequent is being away with one's
| superior doing private work for him, a practice that was not
| forbidden if done in moderation..."
| drcode wrote:
| I guess it's like when you're the assistant to a movie
| studio executive and he/she asks you to wash their car for
| them.
| Aardwolf wrote:
| At the beginning of 'Inscription position: front', it looks
| like it was not done in moderation
| monocasa wrote:
| As they say: everything in moderation... including
| moderation.
| stevenwoo wrote:
| The British Museum link has it buried under curator's notes
| (have to expand it)- it means they worked directly for their
| boss on the boss' project.
| LanceJones wrote:
| We really are the same people. No measurable difference in IQ (as
| well as that can be "measured"). Only knowledge (some gained for
| us; some lost, too) and context are different. The tablet is a
| cool reminder of this.
| munk-a wrote:
| IQ is a pretty arbitrary measurement, but I think a modern
| yankee in egypt would indeed have problem solving skills beyond
| their peers. Our education, formal and social, is quite a rapid
| process in the modern world and we basically give kids a free
| ride until around 18 so that they can focus on education rather
| than being forced to do menial labour.
|
| I think that as physical beings we're pretty similar to our
| ancient selves (though maybe a bit worse off with all the PFAS
| and similar pollutants in our systems and the lack of immunity
| tuned to the environment) but our problem solving skills are
| tuned to a much more complex level of problem.
|
| Whether that level of problem solving is materially useful is a
| whole different topic.
| kansface wrote:
| I don't know the historical record for ancient Egypt, but I
| imagine we are way bigger and way smarter on average because
| of childhood nutrition and lack of parasites - see also,
| North Korea.
| munk-a wrote:
| Smarter feels like a bad word to use - I specifically
| dialed into problem solving because I think that's one
| place we can accurately differentiate but "smarts" is an
| incredibly broad concept. We're better at certain things
| because of specialization and long education but worse at
| other things because we're obviously not training our motor
| skills to do different things from birth - it's like folks
| who can skin mangos in a single cut, it can be learned but
| most of us aren't going to learn it.
|
| Ancient Egypt did have public schools and a semi-
| meritocratic scribe class so formal education was a thing
| which makes it easier to compare in contrast to areas that
| revolved entirely around apprenticeship like the more
| nomadic contemporaries would be.
|
| Also, we do have a much more balanced diet growing up but
| if we did travel back to ancient Egypt there might be
| dietary issues trying to maintain our extra mass - the lack
| of access to diverse fruits and vegetables might wreck
| havoc on our bodies... you can look to extreme contemporary
| diets for any evidence of that you'd like to see.
| cryptonector wrote:
| Well, lead poisoning levels have varied by region and time, and
| IQ definitely does vary with lead poisoning levels.
| lutorm wrote:
| Indeed. I find Marcus Aurelius' "Meditations" to be a
| particularly vivid proof of this. (Although I don't know what
| it's like to be Emperor of Rome, a lot of his concerns seem
| entirely commonplace today.)
|
| _Begin each day by telling yourself: Today I shall be meeting
| with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-
| will, and selfishness - all of them due to the offenders'
| ignorance of what is good or evil._
|
| Stellar everyday advice still today.
| qiskit wrote:
| > a lot of his concerns seem entirely commonplace today
|
| Because a lot of his concerns dealt with the human condition.
| That will never change.
|
| Other things that were commonplace in roman times - graffiti
| and dick jokes...
|
| https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/the-lewd-graffiti-
| of...
|
| Nihil novum sub sole.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > We really are the same people. No measurable difference in IQ
| (as well as that can be "measured").
|
| There is definitely IQ variation in the same society on a short
| timescale and between societies and the same time, during the
| time when we have been able to measure it; given what we know
| about the wide variety of environmental influences on IQ, it
| stands to reason that Egypt 3,200 years ago would have
| significantly different IQ average and distribution than a
| society from today, even if the genetic factors were exactly
| the same as in some modern society being compared. Sure, we
| can't directly measure that for a past society, but that
| doesn't mean it is roughly the same.
| swatcoder wrote:
| If people lived and thought and partied and slept, had
| friends, raised family, and weren't too miserable, I'm not
| sure how variations in IQ distribution really matter much?
|
| Maybe the metric captures something arbitrary about modernity
| -- and a community's conformance to it -- and not much
| meaningful about the people in other times and places.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > If people lived and thought and partied and slept, had
| friends, raised family, and weren't too miserable, I'm not
| sure how variations in IQ distribution really matter much?
|
| I was addressing a claim about the absence of differences
| in IQ, not a claim about whether differences in IQ are or
| are not important in the first place.
| swatcoder wrote:
| Fair!
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Well, IQ tests given in the 1930's and 40's(?) had the results
| re-scaled today, and the average IQ was 70.
|
| Note, that we're all trained today in taking IQ tests. E.g. one
| question asked "There are no Elephants in Germany. Munich is in
| Germany. How many Elephants are in Munich?" with possible
| answers of 0, 1, 2, 12.
|
| Back then a layman might think "Munich is a big city; I bet
| there's one or two in the zoo there!" and answer 1 or 2.
| Because they didn't understand it was a logic question and
| there is an expectation when taking IQ tests that common sense
| is not being tested.
| naijaboiler wrote:
| IQ tests measure something, but it sure isn't intelligence it
| is measuring
| robbedpeter wrote:
| This is incorrect - iq has risen steadily with improvements in
| nutrition, public health, and medical science. It's mostly
| plateaued over the last 50 years, but it's evident that pre-
| industrial / pre-rnlightenment humans had a much harder life,
| including things that suppressed potential at an almost global
| scale.
|
| We may see additional gains if there are globally adopted
| pedagogical improvements in both childhood education and
| standard parenting.
|
| Our genetics are the same, but our quality of life is radically
| better, and that allows us greater potential.
| jotm wrote:
| It might've actually dipped for everyone born during the
| decades leaded fuel was used. But that's on a base/general
| level - education would outweigh that.
| staunch wrote:
| That's probably closer to the truth but doesn't seem like the
| whole story. Modern environments are very _different_ but it
| seems a stretch to claim they 're always (or even often)
| _better_.
|
| We're usually comparing modern populations to industrialized
| populations that lived nothing like ancient populations.
|
| It seems plausible that _some_ ancient populations might 've
| had sufficient nutrition (particularly Egypt at various
| times) and lower pollutants (less lead, for example), and
| maybe come out net ahead in terms of average general
| intelligence.
|
| Would be fun to know if anyone has come close to answering
| these questions, but it seems like a challenging problem.
| dylan-m wrote:
| > This is incorrect - iq has risen steadily
|
| In particular, we recently invented this peculiar notion that
| one can boil intelligence down to a number :b
| imoverclocked wrote:
| ... and somewhat more recently, we are able to apply
| Goodhart's law.
| [deleted]
| LudwigNagasena wrote:
| I am pretty sure people used to call others stupid or
| intelligent even in Ancient Egypt. Quantifying that measure
| is not really such a huge leap.
| jhanschoo wrote:
| We know we can quantify intelligence as in IQ because it is
| what we call aptitude in several tasks (e.g. pattern
| recognition, short-term recall), and we've found that they
| are correlated, and aptitude in those tasks is measurable
| (e.g. ability to recognize pattern and time taken, ability
| to recall and time taken). If intelligence as in IQ wasn't
| as transferable as it is we would be calling them different
| things. For example, intelligence as in IQ and being
| knowledgeable are different aspects of the popular notion
| of being intelligent or smart.
| vt85 wrote:
| avgcorrection wrote:
| Alien: Hey.
|
| HNer: Hey.
|
| Alien: Our mutual research shows that we have roughly the same
| IQ.
|
| HNer: My brother!
| dotancohen wrote:
| > The tablet is a cool reminder of this.
|
| I'm sure that some folks happen to be browsing HN on a tablet.
| zem wrote:
| it's sad how the framing of these as "excuses" rather than
| "reasons" for missing work has been pushed by the blog post (the
| original article did not use the word), and blithely accepted.
| egberts1 wrote:
| Pop-up Blocked by OpenCulture's own Pop-Up JavaScript.
|
| Running Firefox on iOS in portrait mode.
|
| Turning phone around to landscape still rendered me unable to
| press any button much less read the pop up. Only got words like
| "ad-blocker".
|
| Nope, not running any ad-blocker.
| prepend wrote:
| I had similar behavior. I think sites assume that if any of
| their 20+ trackers and load-ins don't load then the user is ad
| blocking.
|
| At least they let me close out of the pop up and read the page.
| mitchdoogle wrote:
| Doesn't mobile Firefox have built-in adblocking?
| egberts1 wrote:
| If you can call the built-in SafeBrowsing,an ad blocker,
| yeah.
| jklinger410 wrote:
| I love that the men take a day off because their daughters or
| wives are having their period.
| adwww wrote:
| I wonder if that's because they were unclean by association, or
| did they just have to do practical stuff like cook / go to the
| market / make hot water bottles?
| davemtl wrote:
| We're effectively looking at somebody's notebook from 3200 years
| ago. Makes me wonder what our descendants would think if they
| were looking at our old notebooks and random text files in the
| next 3200 years.
| TruthWillHurt wrote:
| "Apparently the people of the 21st century had a short
| attention span as they could only focus on 10 things that would
| change their <something>.."
| karsinkk wrote:
| This article just appears to quote most of the content from the
| original[1]. It'd be better if the original was in the front page
| instead.
|
| [1] https://mymodernmet.com/ancient-egyptians-attendance-record/
| jbandela1 wrote:
| As an aside, a lot of people are joking about the pyramids.
| However, 3200 years ago is 1200 BC which is New Kingdom. The
| pyramids were built in the Old Kingdom. When these workers were
| complaining, the Great Pyramid was already 1000 years old.
|
| (The bosses probably talked about how back in the day when their
| ancestors built the pyramids, workers were much tougher and
| dedicated)
| chrononaut wrote:
| As I find always interesting, we are as far to the Romans in
| history as the Romans were from the construction of the
| pyramids.
| kogus wrote:
| Cleopatra was closer to the moon landings them to the
| building of the pyramids!
| jetbooster wrote:
| She can't have been that far away, didn't she live in
| Egypt? I'm fairly sure the moon is always further away
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| I will read this comment as being intentionally, and
| gloriously, deadpan comedy.
| ducttapecrown wrote:
| I'm pretty sure the poster above you is referring to the
| differences between the number of letters in the
| following words: "CLEOPATRA" is closer to "MOON LANDING"
| than "THE BUILDING OF THE PYRAMIDS".
|
| Actually its the distance in time.
| Ancalagon wrote:
| I think the question was sarcastic
| pchangr wrote:
| Lived from 69 to 30 BC according to Wikipedia...
| definitely closer to th moon landing .. by almost a
| thousand years..
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Actual discussion on basketball show Inside the NBA
| (paraphrased) from memory:
|
| 'John Glenn died today, an American hero.'
|
| 'How long is that flight to the Moon? It doesn't look
| that far.'
|
| 'What's further from New York, Los Angeles or the Moon?'
|
| 'If we go outside right now, I can't see California, but
| I can see the Moon.'
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaSrQy-aju8
|
| There's another video where they have a guest with a
| science background and they ask about this theory.
| Remember that you live in a bubble, one where most people
| don't know sh-t about basketball.
| dleslie wrote:
| > (The bosses probably talked about how back in the day when
| their ancestors built the pyramids, workers were much tougher
| and dedicated)
|
| They likely didn't.
|
| The Egyptians recorded many things, including excuses for
| missing work, with incredible detail. They never once recorded
| how they built the pyramids.
|
| Either religious/spiritual/ritualistic reasons prevented them
| from doing so, or they didn't build them. Either way, they
| didn't record it and probably didn't speak of it.
| [deleted]
| gregcrv wrote:
| This is not true. https://www.history.com/news/egypts-oldest-
| papyri-detail-gre... There are plenty or records about the
| pyramid constructions, it was also proven that they were
| built by a paid voluntary workforce rather than slaves like
| most people believe.
| dleslie wrote:
| Well hey, that's news to me, and utterly fascinating!
|
| Thank-you.
| lumost wrote:
| Alternately, the records were simply stored in a place that
| was destroyed or we haven't found yet.
| dleslie wrote:
| A sibling comment to yours has noted a recently-discovered
| Papyri that details some scant information about quarrying
| limestone for Khufu's pyramid.
|
| https://www.history.com/news/egypts-oldest-papyri-detail-
| gre...
| istinetz wrote:
| I appreciate the guts to seriously bring up ancient aliens on
| hackernews.
| dleslie wrote:
| I don't support that theory at all, and didn't mention it.
| I even gave a completely reasonable explanation why they
| might not want to discuss it.
| zw123456 wrote:
| I had a fever so my Mummy made me stay home.
| conanite wrote:
| > But how well would it fly if you were to plead the need to
| feast, to embalm your brother, or to make an offering to a god?
|
| Vacation, funerals, religious holy-days?
| djmips wrote:
| True but it would be funny to actually use those terms in your
| time-off request.
| reaperducer wrote:
| Me a few months ago: "I need to take a PTO day tomorrow."
|
| Boss: "What for?"
|
| Me: "It's P."
|
| She never asked again.
| mnw21cam wrote:
| Please Turn Over?
|
| (I'm guessing you mean Private Time Off?)
| welfare wrote:
| It means Personal Time Off, essentially any time an
| employee has a paid day off work. (There's also unpaid
| PTO)
|
| Basically paternity / maternity leave, sick leave,
| vacation, jury duty, bank holiday, or whatever else is in
| the company's PTO policy...
| scoot wrote:
| "P."?
| typon wrote:
| I read that as "period". My female coworkers always have
| to make excuses when they're having cramps - outright
| saying "i have period cramps" is still a little awkward
| when you're talking to a male manager
| vaidhy wrote:
| Personal as in PTO is personal time off
| jakeva wrote:
| Where I work the P in PTO means "paid"
| xeromal wrote:
| Pretty sure it's Paid Time Off at least here in the US
| reaperducer wrote:
| No, it is "Personal." To differentiate from other types
| of paid days off that we get. (Bereavement, religious
| holidays, etc...)
|
| And I'm also in the U.S.
| xeromal wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paid_time_off?wprov=sfla1
| reaperducer wrote:
| Citing Wikipedia doesn't negate the fact that my company
| calls it "Personal." And since I wrote the original
| comment, I'm probably more familiar with my company's
| terminology than Wikipedia.
| xeromal wrote:
| Ah, just making sure you meant your company and not the
| US. Glad we reached an agreement.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Both terms are used with identical meaning referring to
| shared leave pool instead of separate vacation and sick
| leave ("annual leave" is sometimes used for this purpose,
| but sometimes, e.g. federal service, equivalent to
| "vacation"); IME (which may not be representative) _paid_
| is somewhat more common than _personal_ for the shared
| leave pool.
|
| Confusingly, _paid_ time off (with the same abbreviation)
| is _also_ sometimes used in the more obvious sense
| encompassing _all or most_ paid leave (including some or
| all of things like bereavement, company /public holidays,
| paid time for administrative shutdowns, etc.)
|
| (All of this is in the U.S.)
| dkrest wrote:
| I assume it's the Pi day.
| [deleted]
| rpmisms wrote:
| I do this. Recently took some time off for Pascha (Russian
| Easter), and made a portion of the request in Old Church
| Slavonic
| 988747 wrote:
| >> Pascha (Russian Easter)
|
| Feels funny to read this. Always thought that Pascha was a
| Jewish holiday, which was later eclipsed by Easter (The Last
| Supper that Jesus had with his disciples was them celebrating
| the Pascha)
| rpmisms wrote:
| Jews call it Passover now. I could call it voskreshenie if
| you like.
| ecpottinger wrote:
| Excuses, Beer and Wife problems.
|
| 3,200 years and we still have the same complaints. :)
| brightball wrote:
| The more history I read, the more I realize this is true.
|
| Technology changes but people don't.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Too bad evolution doesn't install basic learning as part of
| the default system. Humans at this point should just be a new
| container being launched with a default level of software
| pre-installed. Would we be more advanced as a species if we
| didn't have to constantly teach each new instance 1+1=2 so
| that each new instance already new multiplication tables from
| 1 to 25 type of thing?
| progre wrote:
| Instead we are booted with old useless drivers like
| "Recognize snake"
| dylan604 wrote:
| What we really need is a method to boot into extended
| memory mode. Restricting memory usage to just 10% is a
| bit restrictive.
| naijaboiler wrote:
| we do have collective memory that outlives us. It is called
| culture
| throwaway383jf wrote:
| This is pleasantly surprising how ancient times valued women.
| Atleast they acknowledged the value women brought day to day
| lives. Looks likes only during the 600's A.D women were more
| oppressed.
| Saint_Genet wrote:
| The great thing about being a senior is that you can use hungover
| as an excuse for missing meetings. I wouldn't have dared that at
| the beginning of my career
| thisisnico wrote:
| This really just depends on where you work
| Saint_Genet wrote:
| My OP is obviously a bit of a joke, but if an employer expect
| their employees to be perfect and never ever screw up, I'd
| contend that they're not worth working for.
| tiborsaas wrote:
| Just show up and say you were testing solutions late :)
| aqme28 wrote:
| You should probably avoid using that too often, or being pretty
| apologetic about it. Especially if you forbid your juniors from
| using it as an excuse.
| GoblinSlayer wrote:
| Why embalming your brother won't fly well as an excuse?
|
| Original: https://mymodernmet.com/ancient-egyptians-attendance-
| record/
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| Anubis ate my homework!
| blacksqr wrote:
| Talk about going on your permanent record...
| esaym wrote:
| Inscription translation:
|
| Huynefer: month 2 of Winter, day 7 (ILL), month 2 of Winter, day
| 8 (ILL), month 3 of Summer, day 3 (SUFFERING WITH HIS EYE), month
| 3 of Summer, day 5 (SUFFERING WITH HIS EYE), day 7 (ILL), day 8
| (ILL)
|
| Amenemwia: month 1 of Winter, day 15 (EMBALMING HORMOSE), month 2
| of Winter, day 7 (OFF ABSENT), month 2 of Winter, day 8 (BREWING
| BEER), month 2 of Winter, day 16 (STRENGTHENING THE DOOR), day 23
| (ILL), day 24 (ILL), month 3 of Winter, day 6 (WRAPPING (THE
| CORPSE OF) HIS MOTHER)
|
| Inhurkhawy: month 4 of Spring, day 17 (HIS WIFE WAS BLEEDING)
|
| Neferabu: month 4 of Spring, day 15 (HIS DAUGHTER WAS BLEEDING),
| day 17 (BURYING THE GOD), month 2 of Summer, day 7 (EMBALMING HIS
| BROTHER), day 8 (LIBATING FOR HIM), month 4 of Summer, day 26
| (HIS WIFE WAS BLEEDING).
|
| Paser: month 1 of Winter, day 25 (LIBATING FOR HIS SON), month 1
| of Summer, day 27 (BREWING BEER), month 2 of Summer, day 14
| (ILL), day 15 (ILL)
|
| Pakhuru: month 4 of Summer, day 4, day 5, day 6, day 7 (ILL), day
| 8
|
| Seba: month 4 of Spring, day 17 (THE SCORPION BIT HIM), month 1
| of Winter, day 25 (ILL), month 4 of Winter, day 8 (HIS WIFE WAS
| BLEEDING), month 1 of Summer, day 25, 26, 27 (ILL), month 2 of
| Summer, day 2, day 3 (ILL), month 2 of Summer, day 4, day 5, day
| 6, day 7 (ILL: erased),
|
| Neferemsenut: month 2 of Winter, day 7 (ILL)
|
| Simut: month 1 of Winter, day 18 (OFF ABSENT), month 1 of Winter,
| day 25 (HIS WIFE WAS ... AND BLEEDING), month 4 of Winter, day 23
| (HIS WIFE WAS BLEEDING)
|
| Khons: month 4 of Spring, day 7 (ILL), month 3 of Winter, day 25
| (ILL), month 3 of Winter, day 26 (ILL), day 27, day 28 (ILL),
| month 4 of Winter, day 8 (WITH HIS GOD), month 4 of Summer, day
| 26 (ILL), month 1 of Spring, day 14 (HIS FEAST), day 15 (HIS
| FEAST)
|
| Inuy: month 1 of Winter, day 24 (FETCHING STONE FOR
| QENHERKHEPSHEF), month 2 of Winter day 8 (DITTO), month 2 of
| Winter, day 17 (OFF ABSENT WITH THE SCRIBE), month 2 of Winter,
| day 24
|
| Sunero: month 2 of Winter, day 8 (BREWING BEER), month 2 of
| Summer, day 2 (ILL), day 3, day 4, day 5, day 6, day 7, day 8
| (ILL)
|
| Nebenmaat: month 3 of Summer, day 21 (ILL), day 22 (DITTO), month
| 4 of Summer, day 4 (DITTO), day 5, day 6 (DITTO), day 7, day 8
| (DITTO), month 4 of Summer, day 24 (ILL), day 25 (ILL), day 26
| (ILL)
|
| Merwaset: month 2 of Winter, day 17 (BREWING BEER), month 3 of
| Summer, day 5 (ILL), day 7, day 8 (ILL), month 3 of Summer, day
| 17 (ILL), day 18 (WITH HIS BOSS)
|
| Ramose: month 2 of Winter, day 14 (ILL), day 15 (ILL), month 2 of
| Summer, day 2 (MOURNING HIS SON), day 3 (ILL)
|
| Bakenmut: month 2 of Winter, day 7 (FETCHING STONE FOR THE
| SCRIBE)
|
| Rahotep: month 1 of Winter, day 14 (OFFFERING TO THE GOD), month
| 4 of Winter, day 25 (HIS DAUGHTER WAS BLEEDING), month 2 of
| Summer, day 5 (WRAPPING (THE CORPSE OF) HIS SON), day 6, day 7,
| day 8 (DITTO), month 4 of Summer, day 7 (WITH THE SCRIBE), day 8
| (WITH THE SCRIBE)
|
| Iierniutef: month 2 of Winter, day 8 (OFF ABSENT), month 2 of
| Winter, day 17 (WITH THE SCRIBE), month 2 of Winter, day 23
| (ILL), month 3 of Winter, day 27 (WITH THE SCRIBE), day 28 (OFF
| ABSENT), month 4 of Winter, day 8 (WITH THE SCRIBE), month 1 of
| Spring, day 14
|
| Nakhtamun: month 1 of Winter, day 18 (BREWING BEER), month 1 of
| Winter, day 25 (WITH HIS BOSS), month 2 of Winter, day 13 (WITH
| HIS BOSS), month 2 of Winter, day 14 (WITH HIS BOSS), month 2 of
| Winter, day 15 (WITH HIS BOSS), month 2 of Winter, day 16 (WITH
| HIS BOSS), day 17, day 18 (WITH HIS BOSS), month 2 of Winter, day
| 24 (WITH HIS BOSS), month 3 of Winter, day 25 (WITH HIS BOSS),
| month 3 of Winter, day 26 (WITH HIS BOSS), month 3 of Winter, day
| 27 (WITH HIS BOSS), day 28 (WITH HIS BOSS), day ... (WITH HIS
| BOSS), month 4 of Winter, day 8 (WITH THE SCRIBE), month 1 of
| Summer, day 16 (SUFFERING WITH HIS EYE), day 17 (SUFFERING WITH
| HIS EYE), month 1 of Summer, day 25 (ILL), day 26, day 27 (ILL)
| month 3 of Summer, day 21 Nakhtamun (WITH HIS BOSS)
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| Not surprising.
|
| How many people have stressful jobs and overbearing bosses who
| would kill them if things weren't done just right? And when they
| come home, all they want is to eat dinner, watch TV, and sleep.
| Should any problem happen to interrupt that, they explode.
|
| Go read the story of Potiphar and Joseph in the Bible.[0] Say
| what you will about it being real or not, that story is thousands
| of years old, and there are still people just like Potiphar
| today. You think bosses demanding perfection each time is a
| modern innovation? We have so much knowledge and rights, surely
| we must be so much better than people who lived thousands of
| years ago? We have better toys and are more prosperous, but we're
| still the same.
|
| [0]
| https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+39&vers...
| sleepdreamy wrote:
| We're very much the same animals. If you need a testament, just
| go drive on any major east coast highway in the morning. People
| rage, go get ahead maybe 5 feet. Saving what, fractions of a
| second?
|
| We are animals, the same animals we were 3,200 years ago. Just
| fancier toys this time around. Serfdom is still largely intact,
| just a different flavoring this time around.
| clamprecht wrote:
| Up too late reading Pharoah News
| PeterWhittaker wrote:
| Lines like this always make me think HN needs a laugh reaction.
|
| Heck, in this case, guffaw or snort spit-take.
|
| (I am still chuckling each time I read it, and I've read it 5
| times.)
| drfuchs wrote:
| FTFY: "Phake News"
| shimonabi wrote:
| I don't get why some missed work for "wife bleeding"?
| rcMgD2BwE72F wrote:
| Because they cared?
|
| Could be https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysmenorrhea, who knows.
| aksss wrote:
| Some cultures consider(ed?) the women unclean or cursed during
| this 'period' of time, and all in their vicinity. Some cultures
| had the women go live in separate huts for the duration[1]. It
| could very well be that custom dictated that he not show up to
| work during this time because he was also considered unclean.
| Note that he also missed time when his daughter was bleeding.
| Only speculation, but it's not a stretch to assume that there
| was social norms dictating how women interacted with society
| during menstruation, and by extension members of their
| household.
|
| sauce:
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_and_menstruation#By_re...
| robotburrito wrote:
| I guess these guys were not contingent workers for big pyramid.
| They actually get PTO lol.
| tomohawk wrote:
| There's probably another one talking about how _this_ generation
| has had it harder than any other generation and its just _too
| hard_ to get ahead.
| OnlyMortal wrote:
| My crocodile ate my papyrus
| FullyFunctional wrote:
| why not link to the original source:
| https://mymodernmet.com/ancient-egyptians-attendance-record/
|
| @dang?
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| I feel sorry for the poor guys who never missed a day of work and
| gave their all to building that damn pyramid, 3200 years later
| nobody even knows who they were.
| adamsmith143 wrote:
| I hope the parallel of SWEs working for Mega-Billionaires is
| not lost on the HN crowd.
| [deleted]
| me_me_mu_mu wrote:
| Build software to ~harass~ track warehouse workers.
|
| "Anyone can learn to code bruh"
|
| 170k base + 300k RSU "man I can't afford anything in [high
| COL area]"
|
| "Therapy is really useful y'all"
|
| - average SWE
| salmonfamine wrote:
| So what's the alternative? Move to a LCOL area, get a worse
| job, and watch as inflation turns it into a HCOL area?
| amanj41 wrote:
| Don't really think SWEs are being taken advantage of the same
| way other employees at successful tech companies are. (Coming
| from the perspective of an SWE)
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| My vote for most taken advantage of is the on-call Ops
| people. Salaries sometimes half that of the SWEs, expected
| to be woken up at 3am, interrupted all day by "urgent"
| requests ("I can't connect to the server I need access
| _now_ " -> "whoops it was my SSH key"), responsible for the
| product running 24/7, respond immediately to security
| incidents ("patch this asap"), stay up overnight for
| maintenance or deploys to legacy systems, act as de-facto
| architects, expected to be experts on virtually all
| technology.
|
| Wouldn't be surprised if one dude in Texas working
| 60+hrs/week is singly responsible for every Tesla in the
| country continuing to get remote updates.
| hulitu wrote:
| It's backup day, so i'm pissed off. Being the BOFH
| however, does have its advantages.
| adamsmith143 wrote:
| Didn't mean that in general but there is a strong
| undercurrent of bootlicking and overworking oneself for
| little or no reward on HN.
| amanj41 wrote:
| fair enough
| FredPret wrote:
| Wouldn't call the typical SW career "little or no reward"
| adamsmith143 wrote:
| Sure 300K TC seems impressive relative to the Barista you
| buy your Latte from but it pales in comparison to the
| amount that people like Zuckerburg, Musk, Bezos, etc have
| increased their wealth in the past 2 years for example,
| which is on the order of 10s of Billions. You are far
| closer to the homeless you guy step over on the way to
| Twitter HQ than to Jack Dorsey and sure if you deliver a
| great result this quarter maybe you'll make 400k next
| year but it's all relative.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| You're only closer to the homeless guy with a completely
| naive take on the utility of money.
| adamsmith143 wrote:
| Can you check my math?
|
| 0 -> 1M -> 10B
|
| Not sure how far away from 10B 1M is. Maybe you can help
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Yes, that is the naive take on the utility of money that
| I was talking about.
|
| By your logic Sergey Brin is closer to the homeless man
| you step over on the street than he is to Elon Musk.
| Which would be a silly thing to say.
| FredPret wrote:
| It's not relative. 300k buys you a fantastic life. You'll
| never be in the 0.1% with a job vs owning assets, but
| these jobs are amazing by any measure, and a world away
| from being poor.
|
| The very rich having astronomical amounts of money has
| zero negative effect on the day to day of the middle
| class - we don't have a limited money supply.
|
| You may say it buys them outsized influence, but media
| companies will always have owners, whether they be
| hectomillionaires or billionaires or whatever.
| adamsmith143 wrote:
| >The very rich having astronomical amounts of money has
| zero negative effect on the day to day of the middle
| class - we don't have a limited money supply.
|
| I think this almost completely false. Elon Musk just
| bought Twitter and could drastically change a major point
| of interaction for hundreds of millions of people. The
| Koch Brothers spend billions to influence, to great
| effect, the laws that are passed in the US. These
| examples are not rare. The economy is almost zero sum,
| certainly since the 70s the top percentiles have been
| taking a larger portion of the pie even considering the
| growth of the pie.
|
| But anyway I think the general point is that is that even
| by working yourself to death you only increase your
| income or net worth by small numbers while someone like
| Elon Musk can 10x it over the same time period.
| FredPret wrote:
| How could you possibly think the economy hasn't grown in
| real terms since the 70's?
|
| Almost every consumer item is vastly better and cheaper.
| Middle class lives are luxurious in the extreme compared
| to then.
|
| Who cares if 100 people at the top are getting more
| rewards faster, does it actually make your life worse?
| No. Only if you are jealous and mean-spirited does Musk's
| quarter trillion dollars bother you.
|
| In fact, these people tend to invest in things that lead
| to further improvement.
|
| Furthermore, if Twitter bothers you that much, go on
| Parler.
| Shugarl wrote:
| Are you actually comparing regular SW engineers to the
| wealthiest people on the planet ?
| omnicognate wrote:
| "Billionaire" doesn't need a prefix yet and it'll certainly
| be a while before we get any megabillionaires, aka
| quadrillionaires.
|
| Probably not long before we start having megamillionaires,
| aka kilobillionaires, aka trillionaires though. Elon Musk's
| around a quarter of the way there.
| adamsmith143 wrote:
| Not that there's a definite standard but someone worth over
| $100B feels Mega to me.
| omnicognate wrote:
| I was joking about mega conventionally meaning a million
| of something [1]. I agree it's certainly "mega" in the
| informal/Aussie sense.
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_prefix
| OJFord wrote:
| Nobody (in English at least) uses SI prefixes for
| currency though?
|
| PS1M (happens to have the same shorthand, but) is never
| called 'a megapound'.
| cardiffspaceman wrote:
| Megapound sounds like something one of Eric Idle's Monty
| Python characters would have said. But back then it would
| have only been possessed by the guy who paid Lennon and
| McCartney.
| genewitch wrote:
| I sometimes say gigadollars (or gigabucks) when i want my
| [captive] audience to understand i am talking about an
| unfathomably large amount of money. I use SI prefixes a
| lot because i grew up with both computers and simple
| circuit-building, and still use computers and now radio.
|
| I also prefer to see $1mm to $1M, and i'm not even
| French!
| jrockway wrote:
| I'm sitting on a comfy chair in a climate controlled
| apartment eating a cheeseburger that someone else made for me
| and brought to my house, while a machine washes my clothes
| and I read some discussion on the Internet during a paid
| lunch break. I'll take this over manual labor any day, even
| if someone else is getting richer than me.
| screenbreakout wrote:
| I worked for a week manually preparing a lawn for my mum ,
| was dead tired but my mind rehashed the book I was reading,
| among other things....most of the time though I don't work
| at all and take a minimal sum of money to live in a cheap
| country while looking after my kids and occasionally
| tending a huge garden and watching wondering about the
| world working itself to death for something they can
| continuously print more of... at least I contribute
| minimaly to the problem, I love non forced manual labor
| it's very Zen , you should try it someday, like making your
| own vegetarian cheesburgers I'm sure it'll seem all the
| tastier for not having used some underpaid soul to
| perpetuate the destructive fast food industry....
| sizzzzlerz wrote:
| Said nobody on their death cot ever, "I wish I'd spent more
| time carving hieroglyphs down at the Pharoah's tomb!"
| jbandela1 wrote:
| > Said nobody on their death cot ever, "I wish I'd spent more
| time carving hieroglyphs down at the Pharoah's tomb!"
|
| That actually may not be true. Pharaoh was a religious
| figure, considered to be god on earth. He was also the
| embodiment of Osiris, the god of the afterlife, and
| Egyptians' conception of the afterlife was linked to Pharaoh,
| and their prospects for the afterlife were linked to how
| close they were to Pharaoh. Thus just like it would not be
| unheard of to hear someone say on their deathbed that they
| wished they had gone to church more, etc, there were probably
| people on their deathbed who wished they did more for Pharaoh
| (including spending more time carving hieroglyphs for his
| tomb).
| avgcorrection wrote:
| Such ridiculous, delusional devotion is for the clergy. The
| whip is for the slaves.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| I figure the carving hieroglyphs might be a pretty middle
| class job.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| Right. When I read that my first thought was that there
| had to be a pretty big bunch who rolled their eyes and
| muttered under their breath but sighed and did what they
| were supposed to do just to get along.
| cardiffspaceman wrote:
| Or, "I wish I'd spent more time soaking up scorpion stings so
| the tomb got built on time and under budget."
| aksss wrote:
| My time-travelling archeologist self in another reality
| would prefer watching this in action rather than the Jira
| ticket/corporate values/KPI grind, given a choice. Though
| as a worker, I'm sure I'd prefer being a cubicle slave to
| being a pyramid day laborer.
| unnouinceput wrote:
| You can translate this to modern world. "I wish I'd spent
| more time arguing with strangers on internet"
| agumonkey wrote:
| Suddenly carving feels like quality time
| paxys wrote:
| "I wish I had closed more Jira tickets and had a bigger
| impact on my org's KPIs"
| politelemon wrote:
| I wish I had espoused the values that my company announced
| on their social media (after their 3rd rebrand).
| lalos wrote:
| At least those pyramids are still standing, but most software
| projects that are not open sourced end up completely wiped out
| of history in probably less than 20 years.
| aksss wrote:
| Data retention of carving limestone > charging silicone.
| slavik81 wrote:
| > But the iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy,
| and deals with the memory of men without distinction to merit
| of perpetuity... Herostratus lives that burnt the Temple of
| Diana, he is almost lost that built it... Who knows whether the
| best of men be known? Or whether there be not more remarkable
| persons forgot, than any that stand remembered in the known
| account of time?
|
| ~ Sir Thomas Browne, Hydriotaphia (1658)
| alx__ wrote:
| If I learned anything from the tablet, is that I should let my
| friends use me as excuse for getting out of work.
|
| > DRINKING WITH KHONSU
|
| Legend
| _moof wrote:
| The pyramid won't love you back.
| sva_ wrote:
| Maybe we don't know them individually, but we're still thinking
| and talking about them after all this time, because of what
| they've built.
| timcavel wrote:
| KineticLensman wrote:
| > to embalm your brother
|
| If I'd used that excuse at my old work it would probably have
| triggered a 'difficult conversation' with my line manager.
| tlavoie wrote:
| I dunno, you probably get some sort of bereavement time off.
| Also, personal death care involving families seems to be
| creeping back somewhat.
| dylan604 wrote:
| When my mother passed away, I had just moved across country
| to start a new job just 6 months earlier. Even though I was
| still such a new employee, they allowed for paid time off to
| handle things for much longer than I would have expected. I
| was shocked and very appreciative of that. My previous
| employer would never have considered something like that
| which was one of the many reasons I left.
| tlavoie wrote:
| Indeed, that's a good sign. I had a client much like your
| former employer, when my father was terminally ill. That
| engagement got completed, but there would not be another
| with them.
| [deleted]
| gcheong wrote:
| It would probably be a difficult conversation for anyone today
| if they're the one doing the embalming.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| You could have explained that embalming is one of your hobbies
| and you just finished an embalming course at one of the MOOCs.
| Companies should support personal development.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| I used to live in a scorpion-rich environment and can attest that
| a sting should disqualify one from manual labor for a day. I
| found that every time I was stung though the effects were less
| and less. The last time I was stung was a minor nuisance at most.
|
| I would advise, if you find yourself living with scorpions, to
| check your shoes, by shaking them out, before putting them on.
| kodah wrote:
| Wrap the opening to your shoes in socks. That let's them get
| air and keeps critters out.
|
| Source: kept camel spiders, scorpions, and mice out of my
| boots.
| gcheong wrote:
| My family lived in Texas for a time when my sister was younger
| and she stepped out of the shower one day and was stung on the
| head by a scorpion that was in her towel. Hearing that story I
| was certainly very vigilant, even paranoid perhaps, about
| checking my shoes and such when we went to visit family there
| when I was a kid.
| dylan604 wrote:
| When I was 4, my parents built the house where I grew up.
| Back then, it was out in the country. For the first year at
| least, some of the wildlife wasn't ready to admit the space
| they occupied was no longer theirs. Scorpions were one of the
| longest hold outs, as they were constantly making their way
| inside. According to my parents, I was four so don't really
| remember, but I was very good at chasing them without getting
| too close to get stung. I'm assuming the parental units told
| me they would sting and I'd get hurt/ouchy/etc. Guess I
| actually listened.
|
| The checking shoes by banging them is just muscle memory now.
|
| Now, I like to use blacklights to find them at night.
|
| </pointlessAnecdote>
| sethammons wrote:
| A buddy grew up in Mexico. When he was 10 or so, he pissed on
| a wall and got stung in just about the worst place
| imaginable. I don't live around scorpions and now I keep an
| even larger distance between me and peeing-surfaces lol
| dotancohen wrote:
| If he would have been just about 6 years older, he might
| have convinced one of the adolescenta how critical it is to
| suck the venom out.
| beeforpork wrote:
| The exact way of getting stung by a scorpion while peeing
| would be most interesting -- I honestly cannot imagine the
| exact mechanics. A bee, a wasp, OK, I can imagine. A
| scorpion cannot fly, so how did it get so close?
| Hendrikto wrote:
| I guess the scorpion must have been on the wall.
| reustle wrote:
| Who pees that close to a wall though? Yikes
| anon23anon wrote:
| how often are you peeing on walls on why?
| tomrod wrote:
| When we had scorpions, we got barncats. They took care of
| scorpions, snakes, and a few other critters that are pests when
| mixed with humans.
| inopinatus wrote:
| Look on the bright side; now you can go in against a Sicilian
| when death is on the line.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| My nieces grew up in Oklahoma. Mom would come home and
| sometimes there was a drinking glass somewhere in the house
| with a scorpion trapped under it. The kids (5 or 6yo!) would
| casually capture them in this way so Mom could deal later.
| tuskan wrote:
| Check the clothes you are about to put on as well.
| chungy wrote:
| I lived in the Mojave and the scorpions there aren't really
| that much of a threat. Scorpion stings are akin to common bee
| stings and don't really impact your ability to labor or
| threaten you in any serious way, except if you have allergies.
| agumonkey wrote:
| There was a recent YouTube video on how this process was used
| in horses to anti venom.
| reaperducer wrote:
| I second the shoe-shaking ritual. Even if you keep your shoes
| inside. When I lived in the desert, the neighbor had work done
| in his yard, and every scorpion from his property moved into
| mine.
|
| One day I found the cat eating a scorpion in the living room.
| Rushed him to the emergency cat vet place, and was told that
| cats aren't bothered by scorpions or their stings. But don't
| make crunchy, meaty scorpions part of a regular diet.
| praptak wrote:
| It makes sense, there are like 100 species of scorpions in
| the regions where house cats were first domesticated. Cats do
| hunt scorpions which probably scored them some extra holiness
| points with the ancient Egyptians.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Dogs also hunt scorpions. Dogs are not immune to scorpion
| stings, they're just ignorant.
| noneeeed wrote:
| Dogs seem to hunt pretty much anything. I wonder if we've
| bred out the understanding of what is and isn't edible in
| dogs, but not cats? Or perhaps its a social thing that
| wild canids teach their young?
|
| Half the dog owners I know have some story of their dog
| catching a hedgehog or something equally inedible, but
| the worst that seems to happen with cats is their prey
| fights back a bit harder than they expected and they get
| a rat scratch.
| xen2xen1 wrote:
| Dogs were bred / created to keep their owners safe, not
| themselves. That seems to track. I've lived several
| places I'd not live without a dog alarm or three, so I
| can't say I'm not grateful.
| D-Coder wrote:
| My experience with Labrador Retrievers is that they will
| eat anything, on the assumption that if it doesn't agree
| with them, they can always puke it up at 3AM.
| dogbountyhunter wrote:
| I live a block off the salt marsh here on the coast and
| mine'll hunt after Fiddler Crabs[0] until they get
| pinched on the snout.
|
| The mutt learned and the Lab just keeps on going after
| them... strange creatures, dogs are.
|
| [0] - https://www.dnr.sc.gov/marine/mrri/acechar/speciesg
| allery/In...
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| I believe the technical description of a Labrador
| Retriever is "dumb as a box of rocks."
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| the vets here in Arizona say that of course cats are
| vulnerable to stings, but people claim that cats are "immune"
| because they heard it from someone else, not a vet.
|
| Anyway, the veterinarian told us that cats are generally so
| fast to notice and slap the shit out of scorpions that they
| kill scorpions...without being stung.
|
| One of our feline family members got stung and let out a big
| OWWWWWW then was licking her paw for quite some time, and
| this was a bark scorpion. Other times she's slapped them to
| squish them.
| cryptonector wrote:
| Insert cat-reading-newspaper-thinking-I-need-to-get-myself-
| a-cat.png meme.
| stevenwoo wrote:
| I found a small scorpion in my shoe (it moved and caught my
| eye) that was just inside my air conditioned apartment in
| Austin, Texas.
| smitty1110 wrote:
| I learned the same lesson after dealing with a black widow
| infestation. It's a an easy habit that saves a lot of personal
| suffering.
| tezza wrote:
| Locusts ?
|
| Nile turned to Blood again ?
|
| The Wrong Type of Fire followed by the Wrong Type of Brimstone ?
|
| Frogs blocked the way ?
|
| Not enough sunlight for 3 days?
|
| Family Bereavement.
|
| Loss of Hebrew assistants
| jwally wrote:
| Really is kind of a circuitous solution for an all powerful
| deity, no?
|
| Moses: um...lord, we're kind of tired of being slaves. Could
| you look into that?
|
| Lord: Ok! I'll issue 10 plagues of increasing discomfort until
| Pharaoh breaks!!!
|
| Moses: Couldn't you just teleport us to the promised land or
| something. These guys are jerks, but do you need to kill their
| kids?
|
| _lightning crashes_
|
| Moses: OK OK! Point taken. We'll do the plagues...
| dylan604 wrote:
| Don't forget that the $promisedLand was already inhabited, so
| you have to kill every man, woman, child before you can have
| it. What's that? More questioning my authority? Let's see if
| 40 years in the desert strengthens your faith.
| gibspaulding wrote:
| That time we listened to a bush and ended up wandering
| around the desert without a clear exit strategy..
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