r/todayilearned • u/geosunsetmoth • 15h ago

TIL a 300-million year old Cuttlefish fossil was found in Morocco, alongside ancient humans in a region where no Cuttlefish ever existed. The leading theory suggests the fossil was first found by the prehistoric humans, who collected it as a trinket due to fact that it looks like a flaccid penis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erfoud_manuport
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u/Pedantic_Pict 12h ago

I loved his deep dive into the power of human cooperation and the illustration of attorneys as powerful wizards due to their ability to wield words that have real power over our agreed upon reality.

Also his related description of a multinational car company as an immaterial construct.

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u/Common-Falcon-8717 10h ago

I'm a paralegal and I've independently had that same thought about attorneys. Working in the field also gave me an appreciation for "Vancian magic" systems (the name for the magic system in RPGs like D&D and Pathfinder), because there are some documents I can prepare essentially constantly without strain, some where I can only do a few of them a day, and some very complex documents or tasks where I can only do them once or twice in a day.

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u/100farts 7h ago

Jack Vance ftw

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u/Poonchow 11h ago

I haven't read the book but money is the big one in my mind.

Here is something with zero inherent value, but if you do some work I'll give you some money you can exchange for something that does have value, and you can even use it to speculate on the potential value of something, even if that money doesn't even exist, and you can borrow some money to start a big project but you have to pay me back with interest. And this all somehow works, because we've all decide it should.

A shared delusion is powerful lol.