08-23-2022, 01:19:06 AM
Anecdotes do not evidence make, Mordecai. Overwhelmingly, people who publicize accomplishments are better compensated for them. Those who do not, they are forgot within three generations at the peak unless they should start haunting somewhere or other out of spite...
Whereas the great scientists and leaders and inventors who publicize their knowledge and accomplishments are remembered for... ahhhh... far longer. Mind, I don't think I could name any any of you would know of, I am not from this plane, but I'm sure the behaviors of society-at-large still apply. To continue, they who speak of what they have done also get meaningful compensation and renumeration in their lifetime, which is... ahhh... better than trusting unnecessarily in some liar to catch you as you die to reward you for arbitrarily determined virtues. Oh, and it correlates with living longer and being happier. Unless you're an elf, in which case it correlates with being specifically stabbed to death, though that's probably a coincidence, considering that the age at which the elf dies on average does not change.
I am reminded of a poem that I heard once, and how people, including the author, seem to take the wrong message from the words. That one about the broken statue in the middle of the desert about some great ruler or whatever and how there's nothing else there and it's supposed to be an indictment of "ha this person thought they were great but they're dead now and their country does not stand"
But the fact is, it takes a VERY long time for stone to decay, a very long time for the desert to consume the ruins. This is many thousands of years, many tens of generations. Then this ruler is memorialized simply FOR how greatly their nation fell from its height? If you go in for the immortality by word, then this ruler was incredibly successful, and was right to pick such an epitaph upon their statue. If you do not, well, no doubt the ruler was renumerated and lived well in their lifetime, and most likely, their country endured far beyond their death, else the statue would have been destroyed as a symbol of dangerous nationalism from a newly subjugated people. In fact, it is likely the ruler's story outlived many gods. Ozhymahndiahz or whatever was correct. Look upon those works and despair, because all those who looked upon those works thus far have themselves been forgotten.
Whereas the great scientists and leaders and inventors who publicize their knowledge and accomplishments are remembered for... ahhhh... far longer. Mind, I don't think I could name any any of you would know of, I am not from this plane, but I'm sure the behaviors of society-at-large still apply. To continue, they who speak of what they have done also get meaningful compensation and renumeration in their lifetime, which is... ahhh... better than trusting unnecessarily in some liar to catch you as you die to reward you for arbitrarily determined virtues. Oh, and it correlates with living longer and being happier. Unless you're an elf, in which case it correlates with being specifically stabbed to death, though that's probably a coincidence, considering that the age at which the elf dies on average does not change.
I am reminded of a poem that I heard once, and how people, including the author, seem to take the wrong message from the words. That one about the broken statue in the middle of the desert about some great ruler or whatever and how there's nothing else there and it's supposed to be an indictment of "ha this person thought they were great but they're dead now and their country does not stand"
But the fact is, it takes a VERY long time for stone to decay, a very long time for the desert to consume the ruins. This is many thousands of years, many tens of generations. Then this ruler is memorialized simply FOR how greatly their nation fell from its height? If you go in for the immortality by word, then this ruler was incredibly successful, and was right to pick such an epitaph upon their statue. If you do not, well, no doubt the ruler was renumerated and lived well in their lifetime, and most likely, their country endured far beyond their death, else the statue would have been destroyed as a symbol of dangerous nationalism from a newly subjugated people. In fact, it is likely the ruler's story outlived many gods. Ozhymahndiahz or whatever was correct. Look upon those works and despair, because all those who looked upon those works thus far have themselves been forgotten.
I am the They who says it!