ahh the ancient Egyptian dream
this post was submitted on 19 May 2025
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I mean abuse begets abuse.
Most people are more concerned with riding the wheel to the top than they are committed to breaking the wheel.
Which makes them suckers.
Birth lottery is most of it. They let a few exceptional tokens through, enough to keep the fantasy alive.
I consider being a grind culture warrior true believer to be considerably dumber than a lottery ticket addict
I see what you’re angling for but that’s an overstretched comparison. Grind culture warriors get paid at the end of the week.
I wouldnt call destroying my body in exchange to live one more week getting "paid" as much as it is a sacrifice. The people buying lotto are just kinda Saying fuck it, if I'm going to die I might as well keep trying to see if I can hit a jackpot before then.
Although not mummified, they had been buried in mudbrick tombs with beer and bread to support them in the afterlife. The tombs' proximity to the pyramids and the manner of burial supports the theory that they were paid laborers who took pride in their work and were not slaves, as was previously thought. Evidence from the tombs indicates that a workforce of 10,000 laborers working in three-month shifts took around 30 years to build a pyramid. Most of the workers appear to have come from poor families. Specialists such as architects, masons, metalworkers, and carpenters were permanently employed by the king to fill positions that required the most skill.
Just like today, most of us are "not slaves" and many even take pride in being exploited.
It still happening, it is a tricky balance. Simplifying the situation to the following makes reasonable.. if you have a gold mine that generate 1 million coin a day, and you have a population of 1 million, and you secure jobs such as mining, tools makers, home builders, farmers, governor, and military. But you end up with a 300,000 people or families with no jobs.
If you gave every person a coin a day, then people who work harder or risky job will figure they better not work and enjoy life, so it would make sense to start making useless projects to keep people employee and restore some sort of balance.
The issue when the balance is exploited like what happens in modern governments.
We're too far in the other direction where it doesn't matter how hard you work, any advantage you can eek out is so miniscule as to be the inconsequential because like 10 people own half the assets in the entire country...
There is no issue with rewarding work with luxury while still providing everyone with the necessities to survive - such as a basic home and food.
Besides, you can reduce unemployment by just reducing working hours. 40 hours per week is way too much frankly. Why not 30 or even 20? That way everyone has more free time which results in better health and more productivity.
People would have time to debate political issues. Their job wouldn't take the biggest part of their life so they wouldn't link their identity with their job. Social customs would change so that the people who should work 40 hours for the benefit of all prefer other jobs. Scarcity of applicants would also shift the power towards the employees for wage negotiations.
It's possible and could improve society massively, but too risky for the current business owners to implement on their own.
Yes the first thing to cut out is the "unearned income".
Higher income linked to real work / productivity is unlikely to be as big a problem unless the higher paid/skilled workers start gathering market power and controlling stuff (unearned income like a monopoly premium).
But the original thought experiment seems cart about horse to me - the work and product comes first, coins come along second to make it easier to specialise and trade.
then people who work harder or risky job will figure they better not work and enjoy life
No. People enjoy the feeling of being useful. They want to contribute.
Speak for yourself. If I could afford to not work I absolutely wouldn't work.
studies on UBI shows that to be a pretty uncommon stance.
So, if your food and housing was taken care of you would just stare at the ceiling all day?
I might, if that's what I felt like doing that day. The first thing I'd do would be to sleep for a year.
Of course not. I'd probably spend most of it hiking or pursuing other leisure activities. Things can be fun without being useful.
Absolutely. I can live without working but I do bc I want to be able to do those extras, the sense of accomplishment, as well as socialization.
There's a difference between not being employed and literally doing nothing.
If you don't know what to do with yourself when you're not being literally told what to do for the majority of your week, that's a you problem.
Pyramids were most likely not built by slaves. They were communal projects.
We need something like the pyramids today. Communal projects that show the strength of the community.
This is a weird take. The Pharaohs proclaimed themselves to be literal gods on Earth and ancient Egypt was probably the furthest thing from am egalitarian society you can imagine. Yes, the workers who built the pyramids were skilled laborers and were paid but they were literally building giant tomb-temples for their god-kings while other people nearby were starving when the Nile flooded in a bad way. It's like saying Donald Trump should commission a giant pyramid for himself to be buried in and we should all be happy to work together on building it.
It's not the same because the president doesn't represent society in a democracy in the same way.
For Egypt, the pharaoh was the thing that made Egypt. Kind o like the Dalai Lama or Jesus, the pharaoh was the son of horus, the incarnation of the principle of ruling. I am not an expert but I would say that the pyramid was built for that principle and not the person itself, whereas Trump has a Trump tower to make himself known.
If it isn't Trump but e.g. Taylor Swift, I could imagine fans to build something for her, e.g. her next stage set, if she offers to provide food and housing.
For democracy though, society should build something that doesn't celebrate one person but the community. E.g. China has a day when every citizen plants a tree. When you see the effect after some years, you can feel the transforming power of the community.
Exactly this.
Although not mummified, they had been buried in mudbrick tombs with beer and bread to support them in the afterlife. The tombs' proximity to the pyramids and the manner of burial supports the theory that they were paid laborers who took pride in their work and were not slaves, as was previously thought. Evidence from the tombs indicates that a workforce of 10,000 laborers working in three-month shifts took around 30 years to build a pyramid. Most of the workers appear to have come from poor families. Specialists such as architects, masons, metalworkers, and carpenters were permanently employed by the king to fill positions that required the most skill.
IMHO the comic still applies to the present. Heck, even more now I read that.
Just one article about the work conditions: https://africame.factsanddetails.com/article/entry-190.html
It could be that building the pyramids was not the regular job of the laborers. It was a communal experience like going to burnig man.
Society would be different if there would be one project that everybody builds together. It would be as unifying as a big war, without the disadvantages of a war.
The image in the post and the text suggest exploitation and slavery
Bro is holding a whip
How far back do you think worker protections go, specifically in the context of punishment?
Strapping (beating someone with a leather strap... Sounds familiar here) was common in factories in the 1800s.
You didnt have to be a slave to get beat/whipped/more.
If you whilstblow at some places, it won't be a whip
Especially an aerospace company it would seem.
Yeah get up to date on your Egyptian history OP/s
shakes fist
Would have gotten away with it if they did Assyrians building ziggurats. It's not hard guys ffs