this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2023
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Memes

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[–] JusticeForPorygon@lemmy.sdf.org 34 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe evidence points towards the pyramids being built by paid workers, and I think some even got to be buried in their own smaller pyramids

[–] PolandIsAStateOfMind@lemmy.ml 26 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Correct, except smaller pyramids, those were also for the kings only, workers building pyramids had their own cementaries iirc.

But knowledge of this fact actually makes this meme even more relatable - the people in it were closer to wage slaves like us.

[–] Zerush@lemmy.ml 25 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Correct, conditions of the workers of the Pyramids and Temples

-8 h per day, 6 days a week

-Free housing, food and a small garden for themselves and their families

-Medical assistance and care in sick leave due to illness and accident.

-Exempt from paying taxes

-Care and assistance for the old ex-workers.

(better than today in most countries)

Slaves (mostly prisoners of war and criminals) were naturally also used, but only for basic jobs and assistance. The Pharao knew very well that if he wants a job well done, he cannot get it with slaves and in poor conditions, but with well-cared and happy professionals.

[–] ShimmeringKoi@hexbear.net 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

God damn, they got better healthcare than I do five thousand years later.

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[–] nik282000@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So uhh, anyone building pyramids today?

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[–] Wage_slave@lemmy.ml 21 points 1 year ago

gets rewarded with more work for working so hard

[–] UlyssesT@hexbear.net 18 points 1 year ago

The most pathetic bootlickers don't even have dreams of owning a pyramid and just want to whip downward at their fellow pyramid makers.

[–] Casmael@geddit.social 6 points 1 year ago

Interestingly, I think the current consensus is that the workers who built the pyramids were not slaves, but rather ‘volunteers’ or ‘citizens’ who worked during the farming off-season. The ancient Egyptians didn’t use coins at this point, but the workers seem to have been housed in a kind of workers settlement near the site and paid in beer, bread, and grain.

Capitalism can suck my famous balls however

[–] ThePac@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 year ago

I'm somewhere between the whipper and the whipee.

[–] NENathaniel@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 year ago (10 children)

Okay hate on capitalism, fair enough

But equating it to literal slavery like we've had in the past (and still have in some parts of the world) seems problematic to me

[–] explodicle@local106.com 26 points 1 year ago (10 children)

"Experience demonstrates that there may be a slavery of wages only a little less galling and crushing in its effects than chattel slavery, and that this slavery of wages must go down with the other."

— Frederick Douglass

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[–] reverendsteveii@lemm.ee 10 points 1 year ago

we’ve had in the past

we definitely still have slavery in America. Like, in America. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of companies that outsource their slavery to other countries and then ship the product here so we can pretend it's not made by slaves, but plenty of companies skip the middle man and just use slaves here

[–] BorgDrone@lemmy.one 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

What literal slavery? The pyramids weren’t built with slave labor.

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[–] neptune@dmv.social 5 points 1 year ago

The whip makes the joke that they are slaves but it's believed it was mostly wage earners build the pyramids. The joke still stands though. I mean it's a fucking mausoleum. Wasting societies resources for a vanity project. The irony of his statement holds either way, as a wage laborer or a slave.

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