What Were Ancient Greco-Roman Curse Tablets?
history.com13 points by speckx 4 days ago
13 points by speckx 4 days ago
It seems to redirect based on location, and the article cannot be accessed
That link forcefully redirects me to different site: https://historytv.pl/
Despite me blocking scripts, mind you.
It redirects me to www. hearstnetworks .com
Probably some kind of error 451 monetization fallback
Curse Tablets are early LLM skills?
> Archaeologists have recovered more than 1,500 of these historic hexes that were secretly directed at rivals
If only we had the ancient greco-roman newspapers archived so we could check and see if any of the hexes worked
Probably not, given that "Statistical Inquiries into the Efficacy of Prayer" by Francis Galton in 1872 found that, spoilers, royalty does not live longer despite the presumably millions of subjects praying for their health and longevity. From this we might go out on a limb and guess that a negative prayer for external results fares no better than a positive prayer for external results. It may, however, be prudent not to mention such failures to the CEO when they want you to recite the corporate mission statement from memory.
Another question might be why it took until 1872 to run the numbers, unless there's a clay tablet somewhere that documents similar results.
Well, I haven't seen Eucherios the charioteer win any races recently, so...
The hex-manufacturers owned the newspapers. Therefore all modern, right-thinking people agreed that hexes are serious business.
Return the slab.
Or suffer my curse.
> The idea behind curse tablets is that my situation will improve if I can ‘bind’ somebody, make them unattractive, ineffective in speech, make their chariot wheel fall off
hmm, well, has anybody tried it? binding a curse on lead sheet to make a chariot wheel fall off?
everyone that manifests, or prays, or wishes become enamored with their chosen concept when a tangentially related improbability occurs that they retroactively assign to their wish. the predictive quality is zero but the retroactive attribution feels good, and the failures are attributed to yourself for not manifesting, praying or wishing hard enough - or building a value system more congruent with the metaphysical framework.
I’m curious why they fell out of disuse? Just the fall of the roman empire?
Seems like a resurgence in magical thinking could make these really popular. There is a high chance that all religious and magic beliefs were made more palatable to appeal to broader populations, so the “true” version would seem both archaic and lost to time, there is demand for hints at what may be the true thing.
they should have been betting on that. Poly-market style. With high-enough bets.. improbability may suddenly reduce..