I would love if the government had a class people could take at 30, 40, whatever to catch me up on dinosaur lore updates and all the other shit i learned about in school
The Nordic countries have a longstanding tradition of state-run “folk high schools”. In fact, in modern economies where it is harder for unemployed middle-age people to find new work, and AI might cause unemployment in more sectors, this kind of state intervention seems like a good way to keep adults doing something enriching instead of doomscrolling or drinking all day.
The equivalent in america would be non credit personal enrichment courses at the community college. Though they specialize on a specific skill. Some are useful in daily life, others are hobbies. For a humorous example watch Parks and Rec season 2 episode 14.
Which makes me take back what I said. I wouldn’t mind if local government did it.
Sure, really just fired off my comment without much thought and obviously would suck in real life since it would be hijacked by politicians. Not wedded to the government part, kinda just pretending US gov capable of public services like this
When I was growing up in the 1980s, the government provided public services like this and more.
Somewhere along the way a government of the people, by the people, for the people, perished from the earth.
Not from just one ailment like trickle-down economics, but from a thousand cuts delivered retroactively by revisionist history, until even the youth became their own wardens, and hope was finally lost.
I’d be interested a concrete example of how you believe the 1980s was somehow different as far as government services today - and our course what country.
James Scott, in his book Against the Grain, offers an in-depth and nuanced exploration of the factors that led to the appearance of projects such as writing and irrigation channels in Mesopotamia as intensive agriculture gradually became the only possible means of sustenance. There was a lot more going on than a simple/linear intensification, and it was less cut and dry than the brief summary given of that development in this article would suggest.
Jennifer Pournelle's 2003 paper[1] presenting new evidence for the area's landscape in antiquity is also quite eye opening, as the presence of the coast further inland than was previously believed upended a lot of long-established notions about the development of civilization there.
Lots of interesting details around the beginning of writing systems but it seems to overdramatise the conditions and role of Sumer in kickstarting civilization as we know it?
> the original organized, literate, urban culture was produced by a far crueler and more challenging environment than either of those (Indus, Nile)
Egypt and the Nile don't seem particularly different as an environment. Dry desert with regular river floodings etc.
> The Sumerians invented kingship, priesthood, diplomacy, law, and war.
Of those, only law sounds like a legitimate priority claim, in the sense of having writen, thus fixed, laws rather than whatever the potentate of the day feels like declaring as being the law today.
I think most historical discoveries should be prefixed or suffixed with this because as we dig up more things we might learn that there was an even older writing system (in this case).
Fair point, I think it depends on the certainty. I am just about 100% certain Neil Armstrong was the first human to walk on the moon, so "first" makes sense. Hillary and Norgay were the first "confirmed" climbers of Everest. The "confirmed" part is needed because it is reasonable that others before them made it without evidence. I am open to the possibility a civilization had a writing system before the Sumerians, and the evidence has been destroyed or not found yet.
As an anecdata most of my friends believe that we know everything about ancient history. They are also very eager to hear about other parts of human knowledge to be progressing, for example AI models. Yet, when it comes to history they have this sort of static view.
Well, I can see how someone would naively think that was true, because only a fixed set of events have already happened in the past, so there is a correct answer.
I think it also stems from the way it is taught in schools, where there is a lot of focus on memorising dates and events etc, rather than on the process of actually deriving them from sources of questionable trust.
Also, the majority of focus in schools (in the UK) is on much more modern history and doesn’t really focus too much on the really ancient stuff and the extra difficulties that arise from learning about it.
it’s kind of odd though to think about a kiddo learning history as the evidence allows it to be unfolded.
they’re brand new to being a human, and even then they aren’t adult humans (i guess defined as such, post facto)
seems like our brains are craving hard structural information to establish requisite coherency once fully ‘weened off’ by our family unit. so things are taught in the traditional scholastic type of way first, and then introduced to more scholarly approach later, revealing who is behind the curtain in oz.
Our understanding of physical constants is based on empirical confirmation via multiple samples. They're still just probably correct, and we haven't confirmed the laws of physics are uniform across either time or space.
This whole concept is what the skeptical shorthand of "you can't prove a negative" actually means. You can show some instance or set of instances of something, but you cannot show that something is universally always true. The tentative nature of our ability to understand the world is the basis for why we use science to approximate objective reality.
There is literally another MOND article discussed in this very forum every week or so. All theories are provisional and based on finite evidence and general consensus. There is no such thing as empirical truth the way you imagine.
I think most of everything should be taught like this, especially from a young age. Too many people assume that other people already figured it all out, and never bother challenging facts or looking deeper. I think part of it is about not questioning authority, but it’s mostly about fear of the unknown.
In some corporate environments there is pushback against so-called “weasel words.” Which is fine to call out for contractual obligations, but it is ridiculous when used against an engineer being honest.
I once got reprimanded for explaining that “exactly once” is not possible in a distributed system, but I was going to do “at most once” and put some mitigations in place to handle most failure scenarios. Management was mad at me for not using more concrete language, even once they understood the problem.
I bring it up because I believe it is a result of whatever personality traits that got them in management to begin with. The same types of people manage schools and publications, and they would fight back against a pedantic nerd saying “as far as we know” because they don’t want to use weak language.
I don’t have a solution, but it has always been upsetting to me.
The way this innovation shaped communication and recorded history feels monumental. Truly a testament to how the need for practical solutions can lead to revolutionary advancements. A must-read for history enthusiasts!
The article misstates a few things in its opening.
Evidence so far indicates humans first settled into fixed colonies/cities around 45,000 years ago starting in eastern Europe. These people are referred to as neolithic, where as mobile units without a fixed geography are referred to as archaic. It wasn't until around 10,000 years ago that humans first civilized (around 8,000 to 7,000 BCE).
So this means people, the same mentioned in the article, civilized several thousand years before they had writing. The only real difference between neolithic settlements and civilization is governance and influence. Writing is beneficial, but influence can be accomplish through various means including: arts, religion, culture, organized military activity, and more.
It is also worth pointing that civilization was extremely unappealing to the uncivilized who first encountered it. The most immediate symptoms of civilization are social restrictions, class stratification, and loss of mobility of which all are essentially opposing aspects of freedom.
The 45,000 years ago number I referred to earlier comes from sources that are not online. Either way, the start of human settlement occurred on the Eastern European plain during the ice age, which is far before anything in Anatolia or Mesopotamia.
I've always wondered whether the Sumerians knew they were the first. Past empires, lost civilizations, and ancient artifacts have always fascinated us. The first museum emerges is Mesopotamia around 530 BC; the Egyptian obelisk installed next to the brand-new Colosseum in Rome was older then than the Colosseum is now; legends of giants and heroes of bygone ages are literary universals. We hunger for the past.
But the Sumerians were first. There was no glorious but crumbled past empire to inspire them. They figured out everything for the first time, and we know little about what they thought about it.
Now consider that humanity is likely the first in the Milky Way galaxy. We too have to figure things out for the first time, but on a grander scale. What will history think of us?
Sure. They had a creation mythos like everyone else. What they didn't have is evidence of a real precursor civilization to ground those myths. The classical Greeks could see Mycenaean ruins.
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