13 Comments
User's avatar
Bandit's avatar

"Read the 4,000 year old complaint."

(Haven't read it yet, but...) I'm going to laugh about that sentence all day!

It won't accept my email address! 😔😢😭 I can't read it! 😡🤬🤬🤬

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Rat's avatar

NatGeo asking for an email? weird, works fine for me, maybe my ad blocker deals with it;

there's also a Guinness World Records article: https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/537889-oldest-written-customer-complaint

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Bandit's avatar

Not angry with you. Angry because some places don't acknowledge my email address. I don't know if they have an aversion to gmail or what, but that's all I've got.

Thank-you VERY much for another route to the letter! He sure told him, didn't he?! 😂

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Dave Wise (Neoteric Wood Art)'s avatar

"undiluted wine impairs your ability to operate a donkey"

You just described the Harris campaign in one sentence.

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Rat's avatar

Wasn’t my intention but perhaps some truths are evergreen. :)

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Tricheco's avatar

Tortured syntax from sanctimonious midwit control freaks does have a long ignoble history.

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PFC Billy's avatar

Hey, that Hammurabi scribe's syntax wasn't THAT bad!

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Tardigrade's avatar

Thank you Rat, I just spent too much of my morning in the r/ReallyShittyCopper rabbit hole.

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EFS's avatar

The Plain Language Act was signed into law by President Obama in 2010. I imagine it lost priority in 2017, and may be lost to posterity this time around.

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certifiably Roger W. Former's avatar

A question inspired by this post: can private merchants of very old time be the originators of government?

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PFC Billy's avatar

Government origins are generally ascribed to specialists in religious practices and the (formerly temporary) "big men", leaders chosen more or less by public acclaim in tribal societies for particular crises such as wars, invasions or natural disasters, some of whom decided NOT to step down after the event they had been chosen to lead for ended.

Of course, merchants will buy & sell ANYTHING if they can see a profitable angle, so quickly got their hands in too-

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certifiably Roger W. Former's avatar

You seem to be saying that at first there was some sort of election, which is so depressing. Humans never will never step out the error of democracy because they are naturally democratic. SAD!

More seriously now, merchants love security and predictability. They also love war and big contracts. Religious people do the opposite: they foment insecurity so that people learn to deal with the problems of life. They also love it when something unexpected happens, because then people go to them to seek guidance. And many religious people abhor war and trading weapons and slavery: there is a certain notion that most infantry in all history was composed of slaves.

So, due to all this, I think merchants have more incentives to invent Government than shamans or priests or monks.

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PFC Billy's avatar

You have a hypothesis. Going to test it?

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