Ancestors

Written by Kris on 2025-01-20 at 09:01

Illiterate Management

I recently listened to

https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/611-ancient-dms/

Ancient DMs

This episode of 99% PI is about cuneiform and the ancient Assyrian kings. We seem to have found and deciphered a lot of clay tablets from Nineweh, giving us a unique insight into the daily lives and communication of the Assyrian empire (and the empires it conquered).

There was one passage that was of particular interest:

But Esarhaddon’s illiteracy is one of the things that has allowed us to know so much about the Assyrians today. Determined that future kings would not be stuck in his position, Esarhaddon likely is the one who ensured that his son, Ashurbanipal, learned to read and write from an early age. Ashurbanipal became a true lover of letters, even writing his own poetry.

There is an earlier passage in the podcasts that talks about omens, and how the king was not really in a position to ignore omens, because about everybody around also believed in omens.

In a way, that is what current management and politics are in, as a state of mind – they need to exist and regulate a world that they do not understand, they have no model of, and in which they are not fully functional. They need to rely on scribes and priests, nah, sysadmins and "management consultants", to interpret the omens to them, and then try to make rules and laws, nah, management decisions, based on that.

They can't decide which priest is trustworthy, and which one has been bribed and works for a third party. They have no metrics for anything.

And that is why proper education is crucial, and why there is a generation gap, 30 years or more of delay, between new stuff actually becoming mandatory in school and politics slowly adjusting–but the world changes faster than this by now.

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Written by Dr. Christopher Kunz on 2025-01-20 at 09:06

@isotopp Coincidentally, I recently learned the word "cuneiform" from an impromptu lecture given by an archaeologist.

His name was Henry Jones, Jr., and he seemed very fluent in cuneiform, reading and simultaneously translating while standing in a dimly lit Egyptian tomb.

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Toot

Written by Kris on 2025-01-20 at 09:10

@christopherkunz Why was there cuneiform in an egyptian tomb?

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Descendants

Written by Dr. Christopher Kunz on 2025-01-20 at 09:14

@isotopp It could also have been a dimly lit Vatican catacomb or a dimly lit Vatican archive.

In the game, there are some collectibles ("artefacts") that, when picked up, trigger a voiceover along the lines of "what is this doing in Egypt?!" or "This shouldn't be here!".

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Written by slowtiger on 2025-01-20 at 09:39

@isotopp @christopherkunz Because they archived their correspondence with other countries.

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