this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2024
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The Internet in Ancient Times

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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 Hammurabi, the protecting king am I. I have not withdrawn myself from the men, whom Bel gave to me, the rule over whom Marduk gave to me, I was not negligent, but I made them a peaceful abiding-place.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.

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[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world -2 points 3 months ago (2 children)

What if you can't find more than 800 million farmers?

[–] d00ery@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Then there's a problem. However we somehow manage to employ a few billion people currently.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Those few billion people are currently not paid the same as an accountant to do much more demanding work.

[–] d00ery@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

~~We're talking about food production.~~

I misunderstood you. Have more people doing farm work, that way we have enough food and individual farmers don't have to work so hard

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world -1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

But what if you can't find enough people to do farm work? A lot of people work on farms now because they don't have much of a choice. And if you could do easier work but be paid the same as you would on a farm, why not take advantage of that?

[–] d00ery@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

We already have people working lots of hours doing jobs they might not want to do.

The question was could we reduce the number of hours people work and still have enough food

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world -1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I thought everyone was also going to be paid equally.

[–] d00ery@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world -1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The comment chain before you entered into it:

With modern farming, 10% of the people can now produce enough food for everyone. And if everyone had equal income instead of the top 1% syphoning off half the wealth, we could globally support a middle class lifestyle by everyone working 20 hours a week, the same amount that hunters and gatherers “worked”.

https://lemmy.world/comment/11628981

So equal pay was already part of the discussion before you joined it.

[–] d00ery@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

We chase money because this equates to goods and services. Well there's a huge excess of money being produced and horded.

This excess production is a result of ... work (plus machinery, efficiency improvements etc).

So if we reduced the numbers of hours worked we'd reduce this excess.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world -1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Once again, if everyone is to be paid equally, as has been established, why would most people choose to do physically demanding jobs?

[–] d00ery@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

It's really not my argument. I'm saying we can work fewer hours.

However since you insist on bringing up the point of pay equality, under the current system, how can you justify the following discrepancies:

Why should a fireman risk their life for $56k? https://www.indeed.com/career/firefighter/salaries

Or a teacher who's bringing up the future generation get just $36k? https://www.indeed.com/career/teacher/salaries

Whilst a web developer gets nearly double for sitting on their ass? https://www.indeed.com/career/web-developer/salaries

Why does a plastic surgeon earn $100k more than an oncologist (who is, I'd argue, much more likely to save save a life) https://www.forbes.com/advisor/in/education/doctor-salary-in-us/

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world -1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The only one of those that is hard physical labor is firefighter and it is not the consistent physical labor of farm work. Have you ever even been on a farm?

[–] d00ery@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

Lol. Congrats on the laser focus there.

I'm going to leave you and your farm workers, ditch diggers, miners etc, to it.

[–] volodya_ilich@lemm.ee 3 points 3 months ago (2 children)

300 years ago 90% of the planet were farmers. Surely you can find enough people.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Not if everyone is paid the same. Why do hard farm work if you don't have to?

[–] volodya_ilich@lemm.ee 5 points 3 months ago

That's exactly why the number of farmers keeps reducing under capitalism. In socialism, you can get to democratically decide how much people are paid depending on the actual needs of the economy.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world -2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

300 years ago, people were forced to farm for a lord.

So are you suggesting a return to feudalism?

[–] volodya_ilich@lemm.ee 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

No, mate, I'm obviously not suggesting a return to feudalism. I'm suggesting that if humanity needs more people allocated in agriculture, it should allocate more people in agriculture.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world -3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Allocate? People should be forced to farm?

You're right, that's not feudalism, that's slavery.

[–] volodya_ilich@lemm.ee 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Allocate doesn't have to be through violence, it can be through incentive. If farmers made twice as much as stock traders and worked 30h a week there would be plenty more.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world -2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It was already established at the beginning of this conversation by the person who started this chain that everyone would have equal pay.

[–] volodya_ilich@lemm.ee 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I'm not that person, I reject equal income for every job.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 0 points 2 months ago (1 children)

If you want to change the subject in the middle of a conversation, you might say so ahead of time.

[–] volodya_ilich@lemm.ee 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Just say you have no arguments and you'd rather cry about poor farmers who work so hard without actually providing any solutions

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world -1 points 2 months ago

Has ordering someone to say something over the internet ever worked for you? Because you seem to think it will this time.