“What if they misinterpret our fanfictions as the literal word of some god and start killing and enslaving each other over it?”
Skip forward 1000 years to people worshipping Harry Potter and praying for him to save them from the dark lord
OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR, POTTER. SAVE US FROM THE MUGGLES AND HE WHO SHAN’T BE NAMED.
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.
If by that you mean “He was about as real as King Arthur,” sure.
Qin Shi Huang was as real as Julius Caesar.
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.”
Wasn’t he based on some truth or something?
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.
It’s likely that people were selectively documenting information since the beginning of time.
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.
No one person, no matter how good they are at being objective, can possibly see and hear and experience everything.
Except Patrick Stewart.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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This is right below your post
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/ea0e5ae9-9538-4416-bcdb-d98704945f57.jpeg
People were selectively choosing facts to mold their own realities before writing existed. The volume of information didn’t make that any worse.
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.
The earth is doughnut shaped and big ball doesnt want you to know about it.
France is… bacon?
Connect me to the matrix and give me a reality that fits my views, IDGAF if it’s all fake but looks 100% real
Literally bluepilled
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.
The robots probably wouldn’t have actually done that
You mean the slave masters would lie to their slaves? Surely not
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.
Spoken like a machine…
Exactly, why would I lie to you, you’re co-operating.
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.
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.”
Humans have always been able to do that, even without written language.
Source: Poorly Drawn Lines – Knowledge
Then at least they have the choice.
Reality cannot be chosen.
No, but without knowledge, you don’t get to choose whether you believe reality or not. Reality is just hidden from you.
The difference between seeking knowledge and seeking understanding is the application of context and nuance.
I reject your reality and substitute my own
- Funny TV-Man
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with all that’s going on in the world these days I think webcomics are still the worst thing plaguing humanity.
It’s weird because this one doesn’t even have a joke. It’s just stating a bad thing. You could literally sub in any current concern:
“We should extract oil to create motor vehicles”
“What if those motor vehicles create pollution?”
“Shut up”.
I thought the joke was him being selective by saying shut up
Say that again after reading Scoob & Shag.
