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What is the origin of the lake tank image that has become a meme? (2021)

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Re: What is the origin of the lake tank image that has become a meme? (2021)

#111

Post by dredmorbius »

vardump wrote: post #22
hayleox wrote: post #9

> The photo was taken about coordinates 50.29092467073664, 4.893099128823844 near modern Wallonia, Belgium on the Meuse River. Great writeup, but I did have a little chuckle reading "it was taken about near here", followed by coordinates precise enough to identify a single atom. https://xkcd.com/2170/

Going to be a different atom once you walk near. Or temperature changes, the wind blows, and so on. We’ll need to give each atom a unique ID. That would solve the problem.

No man steps into the same 14-digit-precision geocoördinate twice.

Re: What is the origin of the lake tank image that has become a meme? (2021)

#112

Post by alexey-salmin »

astrange wrote: post #110
alexey-salmin wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. If the only kilowatts at your disposal are the ones that you, your slaves and your horses can digest, you cannot just upscale the production of goods (or anything else) arbitrarily. The whole economy is bottlenecked on production which is bottlenecked on energy supply. Increasing the demand when supply is the problem would only make things worse. However once you're burning coal (or harness the wind in case of…

I would say that inventing new technologies is one of the things that isn't possible when you've enslaved the inventors and made them farmworkers. I mean, making them do research might work. That's a command economy, aka actually existing communism. Should be able to invent the waterwheel and crop rotation. I do think it's hard to invent antibiotics and the Haber-Bosch process, and without that you are still in a Mal…

Well yes, but how is this even relevant to the conversation? No one says innovation thrives with slavery. The point made is very simple, it's about commandable energy and EROI in particular. No amount of antibiotics can change that.

Re: What is the origin of the lake tank image that has become a meme? (2021)

#113

Post by eru »

astrange wrote: post #100
inglor_cz wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a pre-industrial agricultural society, slavery or something similar (serfdom etc.) tends to be widespread, as human and animal muscles are the only reliable and ubiquitous source of energy. Humanity only really started getting rid of unfree backbreaking work by adopting steam engines. 300-400 years ago, most of us forists here would be unfree people working the fields in unfavorable conditions, with maybe 5 per ce…

It's not that pre-industrial society causes slavery, it's closer to the other way round. If you're pre-industrial then everyone has to do farm work, yes, but slavery is /economically inefficient/ because the slaves don't provide demand (since you don't pay them) and don't grow the economy. This is why economics was called "the dismal science" - economists told people to stop doing slavery and the slaveowners called t…

You are right that slavery is economically inefficient and that economists were one of the fiercest crusaders against slavery etc.

However: lack of demand is not a problem. People can create any amount of total nominal demand for basically free, as long as you have access to a printing press. (And with some minor caveats that's generally true in a gold standard setting, too.)

And even without that: your argumentation would suggest that as long as the slave-owners lavishly spend the money they save on wages, the economy would do just as well as without slavery. That's not the case; have a look at the arguments of the very economists you mention.

Re: What is the origin of the lake tank image that has become a meme? (2021)

#114

Post by wbl »

alexey-salmin wrote: post #108
astrange wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that pre-industrial society causes slavery, it's closer to the other way round. If you're pre-industrial then everyone has to do farm work, yes, but slavery is /economically inefficient/ because the slaves don't provide demand (since you don't pay them) and don't grow the economy. This is why economics was called "the dismal science" - economists told people to stop doing slavery and the slaveowners called t…

Nope. If the only kilowatts at your disposal are the ones that you, your slaves and your horses can digest, you cannot just upscale the production of goods (or anything else) arbitrarily. The whole economy is bottlenecked on production which is bottlenecked on energy supply. Increasing the demand when supply is the problem would only make things worse. However once you're burning coal (or harness the wind in case of…

From 1000-1700 there was increasing wealth in Europe not through serfdom intensifying (but see Poland) but through increased trade, fishing, agricultural improvements and culminating in the steam engine. Watermills were medieval inventions.

Smith's pin factory has no steam engine. Nor did Slaters mill which created US industrialization. Steam required institutions to grow, institutions that had created growth earlier.

Re: What is the origin of the lake tank image that has become a meme? (2021)

#115

Post by lazide »

erehweb wrote: post #105
graemep wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that comedy is frequently not factually accurate. Roman Imperial contributions? Was Roman wine better than pre-Roman wine in that region? Did they improve sanitation, irrigation, medicine etc.? Rome was an oppressive slavery based society. Then what about the Spanish Inquisition sketch? It keeps repeating "fanatically devoted to the Pope"" The Spanish inquisition was an arm of the Spanish monarchy, at…

The "what have the Romans done for us" sketch is partly about Rome, but largely a disguised defense of the British Empire.

Indians have a love/hate relationship with the British because it really is an apt comparison.

India (as in the country) literally would not exist without the British. They were right assholes (to put it mildly), but compared to the other colonial powers, actually did leave a somewhat useful legacy. And weren’t that rapacious compared to many others (cough Belgium, Spain).

As to how much, if any, that justifies anything is up for debate. But Indians would generally hold that debate in English, because it works.

Re: What is the origin of the lake tank image that has become a meme? (2021)

#116

Post by jojobas »

shahzaibmushtaq wrote: post #14

I haven't seen the lake tank image being used as a meme anywhere, except now or maybe I have to explore the world of memes some more. Hats off to all who helped each other find this once lost story from history.

You're not getting your BM degree, not with that attitude.

Re: What is the origin of the lake tank image that has become a meme? (2021)

#117

Post by tomcam »

legutierr wrote: post #3

This feels like a ghost of the internet of the 1990s. This writeup deserves its own website, something with minimal CSS, where you'll discover a bunch of family snapshots and party photos if you click around.

http://lileks.com/bleats/index.html

Re: What is the origin of the lake tank image that has become a meme? (2021)

#118

Post by PittleyDunkin »

mxfh wrote: post #34

Since Know Your Meme doesn't give the reference for why it's a lake , maybe not everybody is familiar with british lore: The mythical Lady of the Lake : Probably best known via Monthy Python: Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony. In short: She teaches Lancelot art…

Sorry maybe I'm dense, but what does the lady of the lake have to do with this image aside from a body of water being present?

Re: What is the origin of the lake tank image that has become a meme? (2021)

#119

Post by PittleyDunkin »

BurritoAlPastor wrote: post #84
mxfh wrote: post #34

Since Know Your Meme doesn't give the reference for why it's a lake , maybe not everybody is familiar with british lore: The mythical Lady of the Lake : Probably best known via Monthy Python: Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony. In short: She teaches Lancelot art…

Note that, at least in Thomas Malory’s telling, the arm holding Excalibur out of the lake is not the Lady Of The Lake, who is nearby on the lake. The arm holding Excalibur is neither named nor explained.

Is Thomas Malory of some kind of significance?

Edit: he was apparently one of the primary fanfiction authors of the english tradition

Re: What is the origin of the lake tank image that has become a meme? (2021)

#120

Post by kristianp »

astrange wrote: post #102
Rebelgecko wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they training on StackOverflow?

StackOverflow and Wikipedia are the main things they trained on. These days they have more custom content written for them.

Written by people employed by outlier.ai and similar.
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