• egrets@lemmy.world
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    21 hours ago

    In case anyone’s wondering, the response is made up. The editorial that the OP excerpt comes from is also fantastical and totally unsupported by any accounts that I can find, but for the sake of context, it continues:

    He buried a quantity of beans in mud, let them remain there for a few weeks, and then retrieved them. He noted their resemblance to human fetuses, thus convincing himself of the intimate relationship between beans and humans. To eat a bean would therefore be akin to eating human flesh. Equally, to crush, smash, or dirty a bean would be to harm a human. Thus the very strict rule to abstain from beans.

    Just to restate this, that article is not verifiable or based on reliable accounts, and it cites no sources.

    No one really knows why the Pythagoreans didn’t eat fava beans. Historical speculation from a few sources includes:

    • farts are bad
    • beans are bad for your health
    • beans cause bad sleep
    • they’re basically animals, in the same category as meat and eggs
    • temple mystics advise not to eat them
    • they’re the same shape as the universe
    • they’re the same shape as genitals
    • they’re used to cast votes, and you shouldn’t associate with politicians
    • Pythagoras just didn’t like them
    • just don’t, okay
  • Uriel238 [all pronouns]@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    16 hours ago

    According to Thomas L. Heath (1861–1940), no specific attribution of the theorem to Pythagoras exists in the surviving Greek literature from the five centuries after Pythagoras lived. However, when authors such as Plutarch and Cicero attributed the theorem to Pythagoras, they did so in a way which suggests that the attribution was widely known and undoubted.Wikipedia

    Schrödinger’s Pythagorean theorem.

    • matlag@sh.itjust.works
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      3 hours ago

      I was thinkkng the same:
      “Earth is flat” (Pythagore knew it wasn’t)
      They use chemtrail to turn you [whatever]”
      “Give all the money to the rich, it will trickle down!”
      “Vaccines don’t work”
      The list goes on

  • gandalf_der_13te@feddit.org
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    24 hours ago

    thank you for this excellent-quality shitpost.

    if i had to guess, the people in antiquity were obsessed with the kidney as the “source of life” or sth. the reason was that the kidneys are around the womb area so they were thought to give off some kind of fluid that makes the child grow or sth. iirc.

    • rockSlayer@lemmy.blahaj.zoneM
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      23 hours ago

      I mean they went the wrong direction, but I’d say our body’s filtration system is a decent thing to call the “source of life”

      • LePoisson@lemmy.world
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        23 hours ago

        Honestly, I think you could call almost all of our organs the “source of life” using that barometer. Not to say you’re wrong, just that it’s kind of crazy how many things have to keep on keeping on inside of us to simply do the bare minimum of staying alive.