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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)

#131

Post by SonOfLilit »

71bw wrote: post #129
Miraste wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Did they improve sanitation, irrigation, medicine etc.? They built a network of aqueducts that was the largest in the world for a thousand years. The plumbing and sewage systems they installed in their cities were so effective that some are not just intact, but in use, right now . There are plenty of negative points you can raise about the Roman Empire, but water systems aren't one of them.

>some are not just intact, but in use, right now. Thanks for giving me something to research at work. What query do you recommend I put into a search engine? "intact aqueducts italy" doesn't seem to help much

Why Italy? There are (inactive) roman aqueducts as far away as Israel

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

#132

Post by account42 »

flir wrote: post #57
verisimi wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> where you'll discover a bunch of family snapshots and party photos if you click around. Yes, lovely. The sort of site where private moments might be kindly shared by an individual. To be distinguished from the forcible asset stripping and loss of ownership (theft, really) that form the terms and conditions of a large corporate's ToS today.

I still think wikipedia hit those "this is my passion" sites harder than social media did. What's the point of building a site about widgets, when 90% of people are just going to hit the Widget page on wikipedia?

The point is to have a site that is not just going to be deleted because some permanently only jerk thinks Widgets aren't noteworthy enough.

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

#133

Post by inglor_cz »

wbl wrote: post #114
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…

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…

Watermills are pretty limited technology, though. It is advantageous to build them on rivers in hilly terrain, which is usually far from the seaports that are used for trade. Hilly terrain is also often agriculturally subpar, therefore you need to import food for the workers from the lowland, making the operation more expensive.

Finally, medieval watermills cannot produce heat, which is absolutely necessary for production of iron and steel. Which means that you cannot increase production of iron and steel beyond pre-modern levels, a major obstacle in development of technical civilization.

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

#134

Post by soyyo »

71bw wrote: post #129
Miraste wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Did they improve sanitation, irrigation, medicine etc.? They built a network of aqueducts that was the largest in the world for a thousand years. The plumbing and sewage systems they installed in their cities were so effective that some are not just intact, but in use, right now . There are plenty of negative points you can raise about the Roman Empire, but water systems aren't one of them.

>some are not just intact, but in use, right now. Thanks for giving me something to research at work. What query do you recommend I put into a search engine? "intact aqueducts italy" doesn't seem to help much

Start by expanding the countries in your search.

At its peak, the roman empire covered Europe, North Africa, and parts of Eurasia.

In Spain the most famous is the one in Segovia, it is incredibly well conserved, but not in actual use.

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

#135

Post by arethuza »

ihaveajob wrote: post #107
baud147258 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well, being part of the Roman Republic/Empire meant peace, even if it was enforced at the tip of a pilum. And the population under the Empire were more prosperous and numerous, so much that the collapse of the Empire in the West had long-lasting negative consequences (I'm mostly basing my opinion off this article: https://acoup.blog/2022/02/11/collections-rome-decline-and-f... )

Ok, but beside the aqueducts, orthography and lasting peace, what good were the Romans for us?

Dirty great walls - which some of us are on the "wrong" side of ;-)

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

#136

Post by graemep »

inglor_cz wrote: post #93
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…

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…

> slavery or something similar (serfdom etc.)

Serfdom is very different from slavery. Even slavery is not always as bad as Roman slavery.

Roman slaves could be legally killed, tortured and raped (even children). Serfs might not have fair access to the law but at least in theory they had recourse and society recognised mistreating them was immoral.

Serfs could (meaningfully) marry. They were tied to the land so could not be separated from their families and sold elsewhere.

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

#137

Post by inglor_cz »

graemep wrote: post #136
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…

> slavery or something similar (serfdom etc.) Serfdom is very different from slavery. Even slavery is not always as bad as Roman slavery. Roman slaves could be legally killed, tortured and raped (even children). Serfs might not have fair access to the law but at least in theory they had recourse and society recognised mistreating them was immoral. Serfs could (meaningfully) marry. They were tied to the land so could…

"Serfdom is very different from slavery."

And Mac is very different from a PC, but they are still personal computers that pack some computing power...

My wider point was about unfree labor in pre-industrial conditions. There were many serf uprisings in Central Europe, which indicates that being a serf was sometimes very hard to bear.

We are so used to free labor nowadays that we can't really imagine a world where the vast majority of the population is physically subjugated to some lords.

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

#139

Post by tim333 »

shahzaibmushtaq wrote: post #121
edm0nd wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From their X bio, Pakistan.

Yes, it is Pakistan.

Ha. Knowyourmeme.com has some Everybody Draw Mohammed Day stuff which might not go down well with the government there. I doubt they are worried about tanks.

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

#140

Post by ctchocula »

noahlt wrote: post #69

This entire deep dive is great. I feel compelled to call out this heroism: > 1st Lieutenant de Wispelaere had prepared the bridge for demolition ... De Wispelaere immediately pushed the electrical ignition, but there was no explosion... Wispelaere now left his shelter and worked the manual ignition device. Trying to get back to his bunker, he was hit by a burst from a German machine gun and fell to the ground, mortal…

There's a similar scene in "For Whom the Bell Tolls" by Ernest Hemingway.
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