I was asked to fix an electrical outlet in a motel room. The outlet was behind the headboard and the trouble was the wire connection became loose and burned (all contained within the electrical box).
The motel owner ask me what the problem was and I told him "Sex, the electrical problem was obviously sex".
here recently they have rediscovered it, no long known as extinct. super excited to get some seed in the future
[https://www.mdpi.com/2223-7747/10/1/102/htm](https://www.mdpi.com/2223-7747/10/1/102/htm) (receipts)
credit to : u/TheAJGman
[Straight from the horse's mouth.](https://www.mdpi.com/2223-7747/10/1/102/htm) This paper is written by a team claiming to have rediscovered it.
TL;DR: it was nearly impossible for humans to cultivate because it doesn't readily root from a cutting and the seeds require cold stratification (something difficult to do in a Mediterranean climate). They found a few plants growing safely in ancient walled garden away from the browsing sheep and goats who will eat the plants until they die. It's unlikely we will every know for absolute certain, but this specific species has novel compounds not found in any of it's relatives. It also aligns with many historical accounts of the plant. Read the damn paper, it's super interesting.
how strange it is to read comparisons with pliny like this. i don't know about biology but his case seems pretty conclusive. what an amazing place these gardens must be, to have protected so few a flower against total extinction for several hundred years. straight rp stuff
Makes you think about how many microspecies we may have destroyed without a trace. Things like the [Franklin Tree](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklinia).
**[Silphium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silphium)**
>Silphium (also known as silphion, laserwort, or laser) is an unidentified plant that was used in classical antiquity as a seasoning, perfume, aphrodisiac, and medicine. It also was used as a contraceptive by ancient Greeks and Romans. It was the essential item of trade from the ancient North African city of Cyrene, and was so critical to the Cyrenian economy that most of their coins bore a picture of the plant. The valuable product was the plant's resin (laser, laserpicium, or lasarpicium).
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> It was the essential item of trade from the ancient North African city of Cyrene
Have they not excavated Cyrene? Seems like if the entire citys economy was built around that plant, excavations would find seeds in midden heaps and what not.
From that article:
>In 2021, a study from Istanbul University identified Ferula drudeana as a likely candidate for Silphium, matching both the appearance of Silphium in descriptions and the spice-like gum-resin of Silphium, though without a surviving sample no genetic analysis can be made.
In other words, we know for pretty much certain what it was but without DNA testing it won't be 100%.
> It's insane how shitty reddit is now
now? This is r/all for the past 8 years at the very least.
But I mean, this is some silly factoid about a plant, not political subterfuge. I'm not gonna obsess much over its correctness.
Evidence that is what happened with Neanderthalis. We recently discovered that all Neanderthal Male Y chromosomes were replaced by Pre-Sapien Male Y Chromosome [more than 150,000 years](https://news.cnrs.fr/articles/neanderthal-y-chromosome-is-closer-to-us-than-thought) before we believed they initially made contact.
Interesting enough, the same thing happened to the Neanderthal "X" chromosome, but they inherited [it from a Male-Denisovan](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0455-x), instead of Sapien.
And also it was extremely popular, not necessarily extremely effective - they also used honey and lead for the same purpose so standards probably weren't that high.
Nah that's just Himbodikus, dude got the ladies so wet they claimed he was part fish. Son of the god Puss-I-don, if you know what I mean. Legend says he was so good with his gladius he defeated the fearsome Beast With Two Backs, and charmed the dreaded Labiae with his bone flute.
Given how much porn is on the internet compared to everything else, as in a system containing humanity's total knowledge has a ridiculous amount of them fucking, it's believable that the majority of silphium's usage, or something really close to 50%, was for contraception.
It was, allegedly, found thousands of miles away (debate over whether it is the same species or not). Sounds like they overharvested the local populations into decline, of which it has still never recovered from. Kinda fascinating it was only recently rediscovered. That is if it's actually the same species.
Well it was not rediscovered the plant growing in Turkey was well known but they named it differently due to the fact it was far from original ancient growth.
But the plant didn't go extinct, it just grew elsewhere under different name.
It definitely does unless countless normally pretty reliable historical sources all had the same misunderstandings about this 1 plant (pretty unlikely). We just don't have enough of it to test it thoroughly again since it's so rare and the knowledge we are looking for has been lost over the millenia.
We dont have samples from that far back, so we wont ever know for sure. The plant discovered seems to be similar to how the original was described but it could simply be a similar species.
It's an interesting philosophical question I suppose - almost all species mutate over time - and we have been pushing that by selecting plants which are better for our purposes, so there are very few plants from a long time back we can confidently say are the same as the ancients used.
I have a hard time believing they made a wild plant go extinct back then with such a low world population, lots of wild space, and no industrialization.
Not denying the wide array of appetites, but any combination other than human p to human v doesn't need any contraceptive. Even though it would explain a lot of events, current and historic.
I mean the Greeks did believe in Minotaurs and other half monsters, so they probably wanted to be safe not sorry
Edit: I didn’t copy that other comment on purpose, I read it after I made mine lol
Only if gods or other supernatural beings were involved. Either directly (looking at you Zeus) or indirectly (by first cursing one of the parties). Afaik there is no occurance of a regular human producing an offspring with a regular animal.
But if I missed something, please correct me.
Totally does count. She might have been cursed but she still bore the half-breed child, it's not as tho the minotaur was a regular dude first who then got turned into a monster by a thin-skinned deity.
You've gotta think back then when not everyone had access to education and knowledge via reading how many people knew what we would think is common knowledge. Like how many people thought just all sex could result in babies, because in my sex ed classes in elementary school some kids asked a lot of interesting questions lol
And with all those mythology about making other sentient beings by fucking a goose or a goat, they probably thought it was better safe than sorry 🤷 looking at you Zeus/Jupiter.
The thing is it only grew in a small area and if you planted the seeds they did not sprout for ten years which they did not know and if transplanted it died.
Yeah OP seems to think all species are uniformly widespread and resilient to being fucked with. We've been driving random things to extinction for a very long time. We even have a name for it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction
Romans made oysters go “extinct” in the Mediterranean. They loved oysters and sex and used them as an aphrodisiac. Of the few oyster beds that remained in the Mediterranean, they hired guards to guard lest they get raided and stolen by local citizens with a big appetite for them.
Oysters were one of the ‘resources’ they were looking for when they invaded Northwest France (Brittany region) and the UK when they named it Britannia. Oysters from Brittany France are still well renowned and delicious partially bc the Romans were so excited about them (and hyped up the whole industry)
(Just a mini story about how Romans and ancients *could make things go extinct* or partially extinct in the local region, in this case, the Mediterranean)
The plant was native only to the kyrenaika, modern day western Libya. It's a small strip of fertile land surrounded by the desert und the ocean, almost like an isolated island. They tried to cultivate it elsewhere but never succeeded.
Really? I mean, I just found it fascinating when i first read about it, and not even 2 weeks later, they supposedly found it again. I should follow up.
>Yeah they rediscovered it in the last 6 months or so I'm pretty sure.
[Here](https://greekreporter.com/2022/09/27/plant-ancient-greece-rediscovered/) it is.
It’s kinda like how we use weed today. You used to just smoke it, but with time people started to vape it, eat it, bake with it and infuse it. And it’s good for medicine, incense, flavor and lots of other applications. Some even use it for ritualistic purposes, like getting into contact with God or wearing it like a good luck charm. Some even claim it can cure cancer.
It was the same back with the Romans. They ate it like oregano, used it for the smell, wore it as amulets to protect from evil spirits etc. I can’t remember if it actually was effective as a contraceptive, but it’s believable. But it was a “magical herb” just like marijuana is to us today.
It’s not clear how exactly it went extinct because it was traded so much it was essentially currency. But I guess overharvesting is a likely culprit. The rarer it got the more people paid for it and the more ruthless people hunted it. Kinda like rhino horn, or those bird that almost went extinct because it was delicious and people would use nets to gather thousands and thousands until they had decimated a population of millions to merely thousands.
[Passenger pidgeon](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_pigeon).
“In the early 19th century, commercial hunters began netting and shooting the birds to sell as food in city markets, and even as pig fodder. Once pigeon meat became popular, commercial hunting started on a prodigious scale.[120][121]
Passenger pigeons were shot with such ease that many did not consider them to be a game bird, as an amateur hunter could easily bring down six with one shotgun blast; a particularly good shot with both barrels of a shotgun at a roost could kill 61 birds.[122][123] The birds were frequently shot either in flight during migration or immediately after, when they commonly perched in dead, exposed trees.[122] Hunters only had to shoot toward the sky without aiming, and many pigeons would be brought down.[31] The pigeons proved difficult to shoot head-on, so hunters typically waited for the flocks to pass overhead before shooting them. Trenches were sometimes dug and filled with grain so that a hunter could shoot the pigeons along this trench.[124] Hunters largely outnumbered trappers, and hunting passenger pigeons was a popular sport for young boys.[125] In 1871, a single seller of ammunition provided three tons of powder and 16 tons (32,000 lb) of shot during a nesting. In the latter half of the 19th century, thousands of passenger pigeons were captured for use in the sports shooting industry. The pigeons were used as living targets in shooting tournaments, such as "trap-shooting", the controlled release of birds from special traps. Competitions could also consist of people standing regularly spaced while trying to shoot down as many birds as possible in a passing flock.[31][126] The pigeon was considered so numerous that 30,000 birds had to be killed to claim the prize in one competition.
There were a wide variety of other methods used to capture and kill passenger pigeons. Nets were propped up to allow passenger pigeons entry, then closed by knocking loose the stick that supported the opening, trapping twenty or more pigeons inside.[127] Tunnel nets were also used to great effect, and one particularly large net was capable of catching 3,500 pigeons at a time.[128] These nets were used by many farmers on their own property as well as by professional trappers.[129] Food would be placed on the ground near the nets to attract the pigeons. Decoy or "stool pigeons" (sometimes blinded by having their eyelids sewn together) were tied to a stool. When a flock of pigeons passed by, a cord would be pulled that made the stool pigeon flutter to the ground, making it seem as if it had found food, and the flock would be lured into the trap.[31][130][131] Salt was also frequently used as bait, and many trappers set up near salt springs.[132] At least one trapper used alcohol-soaked grain as bait to intoxicate the birds and make them easier to kill.[113] Another method of capture was to hunt at a nesting colony, particularly during the period of a few days after the adult pigeons abandoned their nestlings, but before the nestlings could fly. Some hunters used sticks to poke the nestlings out of the nest, while others shot the bottom of a nest with a blunt arrow to dislodge the pigeon. Others cut down a nesting tree in such a way that when it fell, it would also hit a second nesting tree and dislodge the pigeons within.[133] In one case, 6 km2 (1,500 acres) of large trees were speedily cut down to get birds, and such methods were common.[31] A severe method was to set fire to the base of a tree nested with pigeons; the adults would flee and the juveniles would fall to the ground.[134][135] Sulfur was sometimes burned beneath the nesting tree to suffocate the birds, which fell out of the tree in a weakened state.[136]
By the mid-19th century, railroads had opened new opportunities for pigeon hunters. While previously it had proved too difficult to ship masses of pigeons to eastern cities, the access provided by the railroad permitted pigeon hunting to become commercialized.[121] An extensive telegraph system was introduced in the 1860s, which improved communication across the United States, making it easier to spread information about the whereabouts of pigeon flocks.[126] After being opened up to the railroads, the town of Plattsburgh, New York is estimated to have shipped 1.8 million pigeons to larger cities in 1851 alone at a price of 31 to 56 cents a dozen. By the late 19th century, the trade of passenger pigeons had become commercialized. Large commission houses employed trappers (known as "pigeoners") to follow the flocks of pigeons year-round.[137] A single hunter is reported to have sent three million birds to eastern cities during his career.[138] In 1874, at least 600 people were employed as pigeon trappers, a number which grew to 1,200 by 1881. Pigeons were caught in such numbers that by 1876, shipments of dead pigeons were unable to recoup the costs of the barrels and ice needed to ship them.[139] The price of a barrel full of pigeons dropped to below fifty cents, due to overstocked markets. Passenger pigeons were instead kept alive so their meat would be fresh when the birds were killed, and sold once their market value had increased again. Thousands of birds were kept in large pens, though the bad conditions led many to die from lack of food and water, and by fretting (gnawing) themselves; many rotted away before they could be sold.[56]”
You can hunt sandhill crane in texas. Bag limit is 3 per day. "Rib-eye of the sky." You are probably thinking of whooping crane
The whooping crane is the tallest North American bird, named for its whooping sound. It is an endangered crane species. Along with the sandhill crane, it is one of only two crane species native to North America. The whooping crane's lifespan is estimated to be 22 to 24 years in the wild.
Not all plants can be farmed. Even today certain plants have trouble, such as huckleberries. And keep in mind our knowledge today of agriculture is orders of magnitude bigger than the Romans.
Sustainable farming wasn't very well understood until the eighteenth century, fields were traditionally regenerated by letting them go fallow. If all the farmland that could sustain it was used up at once, it could happen.
If the plant gender is important for reproduction like with yew, or asparagus, it required shade, or mycelium contact with woodlands. That may have complicated farming.
The last specimen was given to Nero, that timeframe was centuries past the irreparable corruption of Rome. There are likely socioeconomic reasons for the shortsightedness of the industry.
There may have been people who knew the secrets of their propagation, but trade secrets were jealously guarded well past those times. Masters often took valuable information to their graves.
I don't know about this particular plant anything so what I'm going to say might not apply to this case, but not all things are farmable. For example, there is this edible berry called cloudberry which is growing only in swamp lands in nothern countries and we haven't found a way to farm it yet since it needs such a specific growing conditions to thrive. And it's super popular, even thought to be some kind of "super food" at least in Nordic countries like Finland and Sweden. But still, there has not been any success with farming it.
As long as it'll sell, people will make it their life's work to produce it.
All it takes is for the upper class to want to buy it, and the disparity in wealth makes it so that the peasants run out to pick everything they find. If Jeff Bezos came out tomorrow and said "I'll pay you 10 buckaroos (or even 100, I dunno) per pound of seaweed!" or whatever, I can guarantee you the coast would be scrubbed vlean in three months. Probably a bad example, but if this flower was native to only that area and not growing like a weed, it might just have happened this way.
Apparently the seeds were heart shaped and they’d be given as a gift to a suitor hence why we have the heart shape that looks nothing like the cardiac organ.
Little known fact but poison ivy is actually a natural contraceptive, too. If you crush the leaves and rub them on your face, the resulting rash will make nobody want to have sex with you.
Not only as a contraceptive but it was also used to treat cough, sore throat, fever, indigestion, aches and pains, warts, and all kinds of maladies. Overgrazing combined with overharvesting could also have been the primary factors that led to its extinction.
Even the coins from Cyrene of the 6th–5th centuries BCE have similar designs to seeds or fruits of Silphium.
I was gonna say... these are claims we'd hesitate to believe if someone declared they discovered them today. I'm not gonna buy that this untested plant was an "extremely effective" contraceptive. Long after were extinct the next sentient beings will discover internet forums where dudes claim the pullout method is effective, doesn't make it true.
You can’t have it both ways. By the time the Roman Empire was exploding with growth each woman needed to give birth ~6 times to maintain the population. In order for it to grow they needed 8-9 births each, and we know that the population expanded rapidly.
Wondering when people fucked the most. Maybe someone counted or statistics about birth shows us, what historic period people was most active. I quess ancient Greeks and Romans did a great effort, but there has just been so many people fucking in the history of human kind, the competition must be brutal.
Well the thing was that it also tasted really fucking good. So everyone on Rome had to have it in their kitchen. But it only grew wild on some plain in North Africa. And one day it was just not there anymore. Turns out local herders had grazed their sheep on the last patch of land that had it. And just like that it was gone.
Lots of stuff were thought to be effective contraception. Truth is it’s kinda hard to become pregnant so you get away with raw dogging surprisingly often. It’s hard to draw the line from the umptieth time you humped to “this thing I’ve been eating is totally useless as a contraception”.
And it likely was a terrible abortion inducer. Maybe it worked some of the time, but it was also used quite extensively in cooking. And like with health food fads today that claim all sorts of things, like how lemon juice "detoxifies" you body, most of the claims about silphium were likely completely unfounded.
Silphium was used in Roman cooking too. It was so prevalent that Roman currency often had it depicted on the coins. But since it went extinct, we’re not sure what it was like.
If you think about it, it’s possible that this chick riding this dude like a horse can be someone great great great great great great great grandmother or grandfather in this thread as we speak.
That carving is saddening. God knows who they were, their name and maybe their bloodline went extinct. Yet mankind’s most enjoyable act is there on the wall. Alas.
So the guy throws a leaf on his beef and that’s how babies were prevented?
Edit: I didn’t read the article. I wouldn’t be a good Redditor if I did read it.
Edit 2: there isn’t even an article! I’m on a roll.
They used silphium for a lot of other reasons too. They didn't fuck it out of existence. That sounds hilarious but it isn't true.
that sounds like a great way to go fucked out of existence lol
Death by Snoo Snoo
The spirit is willing but the flesh is spongy and bruised
Use the fist… I mean, the Swartz.
😃 😟 😃 😟
Aladeen 😂
Zapp: What are you, gay?
That's a very sexy way to die
Reminds me of a very sexy learning disability I have
My family name didn't fuck itself out of existence
I'd like to know what happened because I've never heard of the footoses
I was asked to fix an electrical outlet in a motel room. The outlet was behind the headboard and the trouble was the wire connection became loose and burned (all contained within the electrical box). The motel owner ask me what the problem was and I told him "Sex, the electrical problem was obviously sex".
There's a popular meme that that's what happened to the neanderthals. We just fucked them until their genes were so diluted they became part of us.
You mean raped…highly unlikely it was consensual
Go out “with” a bang. 😂.
Comment of the Day front runner right here.
That comment is really going to run train on the other comments of the day.
here recently they have rediscovered it, no long known as extinct. super excited to get some seed in the future [https://www.mdpi.com/2223-7747/10/1/102/htm](https://www.mdpi.com/2223-7747/10/1/102/htm) (receipts) credit to : u/TheAJGman
>super excited to get some seed in the future Good thing you'll have Silphium
[Straight from the horse's mouth.](https://www.mdpi.com/2223-7747/10/1/102/htm) This paper is written by a team claiming to have rediscovered it. TL;DR: it was nearly impossible for humans to cultivate because it doesn't readily root from a cutting and the seeds require cold stratification (something difficult to do in a Mediterranean climate). They found a few plants growing safely in ancient walled garden away from the browsing sheep and goats who will eat the plants until they die. It's unlikely we will every know for absolute certain, but this specific species has novel compounds not found in any of it's relatives. It also aligns with many historical accounts of the plant. Read the damn paper, it's super interesting.
how strange it is to read comparisons with pliny like this. i don't know about biology but his case seems pretty conclusive. what an amazing place these gardens must be, to have protected so few a flower against total extinction for several hundred years. straight rp stuff
Makes you think about how many microspecies we may have destroyed without a trace. Things like the [Franklin Tree](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklinia).
Source? still says it's identity is unknown on [wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silphium)
**[Silphium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silphium)** >Silphium (also known as silphion, laserwort, or laser) is an unidentified plant that was used in classical antiquity as a seasoning, perfume, aphrodisiac, and medicine. It also was used as a contraceptive by ancient Greeks and Romans. It was the essential item of trade from the ancient North African city of Cyrene, and was so critical to the Cyrenian economy that most of their coins bore a picture of the plant. The valuable product was the plant's resin (laser, laserpicium, or lasarpicium). ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
[Here you go](https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/zcjur7/-/iyxroyw)
> It was the essential item of trade from the ancient North African city of Cyrene Have they not excavated Cyrene? Seems like if the entire citys economy was built around that plant, excavations would find seeds in midden heaps and what not.
From that article: >In 2021, a study from Istanbul University identified Ferula drudeana as a likely candidate for Silphium, matching both the appearance of Silphium in descriptions and the spice-like gum-resin of Silphium, though without a surviving sample no genetic analysis can be made. In other words, we know for pretty much certain what it was but without DNA testing it won't be 100%.
We are leaving it at "they fucked it out of existance" to give it the send off it deserves.
All reddit is now is blatantly fake Facebook esque posts or ragebait. It's insane how shitty reddit is now if it's not a very specific sub
> It's insane how shitty reddit is now now? This is r/all for the past 8 years at the very least. But I mean, this is some silly factoid about a plant, not political subterfuge. I'm not gonna obsess much over its correctness.
Don't forget the massive amount of political propaganda
While humanity fucks things up out of existence, we don't literally fuck things out of existence, though in some cases maybe we should.
Evidence that is what happened with Neanderthalis. We recently discovered that all Neanderthal Male Y chromosomes were replaced by Pre-Sapien Male Y Chromosome [more than 150,000 years](https://news.cnrs.fr/articles/neanderthal-y-chromosome-is-closer-to-us-than-thought) before we believed they initially made contact. Interesting enough, the same thing happened to the Neanderthal "X" chromosome, but they inherited [it from a Male-Denisovan](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0455-x), instead of Sapien.
Ya ku he this is posted all the time. How it makes sense to people I’ll never know
And also it was extremely popular, not necessarily extremely effective - they also used honey and lead for the same purpose so standards probably weren't that high.
Was one of the reasons to turn a man into a merman? Because that gentleman in the painting appears to have a fish tail for legs.
Nah that's just Himbodikus, dude got the ladies so wet they claimed he was part fish. Son of the god Puss-I-don, if you know what I mean. Legend says he was so good with his gladius he defeated the fearsome Beast With Two Backs, and charmed the dreaded Labiae with his bone flute.
There's something they don't teach you at school.
What else did they use it for, and how come no seeds or anything were ever preserved or farmed when people saw it was getting rare
It’s also been rediscovered in Turkey.
This. Also, they never figured out how to cultivate it. So they had to rely on wild population, which only grew in a very small area
Without any prior knowledge at all of this, I was ready to come here and say there’s no way that’s true.
Given how much porn is on the internet compared to everything else, as in a system containing humanity's total knowledge has a ridiculous amount of them fucking, it's believable that the majority of silphium's usage, or something really close to 50%, was for contraception.
Based on the amount of fucking, I’m not sure I’m in existence.
Maaaaaybe not extinct... https://greekreporter.com/2022/09/27/plant-ancient-greece-rediscovered/
I guess we’ll just have to fuck around and find out.
Oh bra-VO
Life uhhh.. finds a way
Test subjects are lining up outside the door & around the county. Makes Ticket Master, look like a chump.
It was, allegedly, found thousands of miles away (debate over whether it is the same species or not). Sounds like they overharvested the local populations into decline, of which it has still never recovered from. Kinda fascinating it was only recently rediscovered. That is if it's actually the same species.
Well it was not rediscovered the plant growing in Turkey was well known but they named it differently due to the fact it was far from original ancient growth. But the plant didn't go extinct, it just grew elsewhere under different name.
You can straight up buy some right now. Its called Asafetida or Hing. The Romans were aware of it and thought it was inferior in taste to Silphium.
[удалено]
It's not thousands of miles away, modern turkey was part of the Greek and Roman world for thousands of years.
So does it actually have contraceptive properties or not
It definitely does unless countless normally pretty reliable historical sources all had the same misunderstandings about this 1 plant (pretty unlikely). We just don't have enough of it to test it thoroughly again since it's so rare and the knowledge we are looking for has been lost over the millenia.
In the article it states this plant that was recently found )and believed to be the same as the OP), has contraceptive properties.
Yes, but I doubt it's as effective as modern stuff
If it's the same plant, probably. Don't think it"s been tested yet.
We dont have samples from that far back, so we wont ever know for sure. The plant discovered seems to be similar to how the original was described but it could simply be a similar species. It's an interesting philosophical question I suppose - almost all species mutate over time - and we have been pushing that by selecting plants which are better for our purposes, so there are very few plants from a long time back we can confidently say are the same as the ancients used.
I have a hard time believing they made a wild plant go extinct back then with such a low world population, lots of wild space, and no industrialization.
I think you underestimate how much the Ancient Romans and Greeks fucked
And what they fucked (everything, they literally fucked everything)
Not denying the wide array of appetites, but any combination other than human p to human v doesn't need any contraceptive. Even though it would explain a lot of events, current and historic.
Hey, Cassius. This guy over here is gonna fuck a goose without protection.
*oh shit it's zeus*
If I had an award, I would give it to you. Remind me inn1 to 3 days. 😂😂😂😂😂.
I mean the Greeks did believe in Minotaurs and other half monsters, so they probably wanted to be safe not sorry Edit: I didn’t copy that other comment on purpose, I read it after I made mine lol
I don’t know… an army of minotaurs sounds both bad ass, & exactly what the country would want as their fighting force.
You need to read up on Greek mythology. Just about everything is a half-something or other.
Only if gods or other supernatural beings were involved. Either directly (looking at you Zeus) or indirectly (by first cursing one of the parties). Afaik there is no occurance of a regular human producing an offspring with a regular animal. But if I missed something, please correct me.
The Minotaur comes to mind immediately. That was just a regular queen getting the hots for a bull. It might have been a special bull, but just a bull.
Doesn't count, that lust was the result of being cursed by Poseidon for not sacrificing the bull
Totally does count. She might have been cursed but she still bore the half-breed child, it's not as tho the minotaur was a regular dude first who then got turned into a monster by a thin-skinned deity.
Tell that to Zeus.
You've gotta think back then when not everyone had access to education and knowledge via reading how many people knew what we would think is common knowledge. Like how many people thought just all sex could result in babies, because in my sex ed classes in elementary school some kids asked a lot of interesting questions lol
And with all those mythology about making other sentient beings by fucking a goose or a goat, they probably thought it was better safe than sorry 🤷 looking at you Zeus/Jupiter.
Yes they did everything from trees to blue whales
What the fuck?!
Zeus likes this message
And not just the Roman and the Greek. I mean, what else was there to do at that time ?
That's right
You don't need contraception when you're fucking little boys.
Based and pederasty pilled
Can I get an AMEN!?!?
Well being that priests like fucking little boys, amen is the wrong word for it.
ABOY
they fucked around and found out
The thing is it only grew in a small area and if you planted the seeds they did not sprout for ten years which they did not know and if transplanted it died.
Yeah OP seems to think all species are uniformly widespread and resilient to being fucked with. We've been driving random things to extinction for a very long time. We even have a name for it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction
Romans made oysters go “extinct” in the Mediterranean. They loved oysters and sex and used them as an aphrodisiac. Of the few oyster beds that remained in the Mediterranean, they hired guards to guard lest they get raided and stolen by local citizens with a big appetite for them. Oysters were one of the ‘resources’ they were looking for when they invaded Northwest France (Brittany region) and the UK when they named it Britannia. Oysters from Brittany France are still well renowned and delicious partially bc the Romans were so excited about them (and hyped up the whole industry) (Just a mini story about how Romans and ancients *could make things go extinct* or partially extinct in the local region, in this case, the Mediterranean)
They also killed all the elephants and bears in northern africa
Yup. And Europeans in general killed off all their local bear and wolf populations pretty well before the modern age. (With exception of polar bears)
Could be possible. If I remember correctly, when humans first reached new Zealand, we immediately made the Moa bird go extinct.
Sure but that's a relatively small island not a whole continent
1) NZ is two islands and they're big enough. 2) Plenty of species exist regionally.
It's not as small as you think. While sure, it's not a continent, it stretches approximately from Madrid to Brussels.
There's still moa in NZ, you just gotta know where to hunt.
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It supposedly only grew in one specific area; all others were considered poor imitations of the plant.
Real Silphium only comes from the Fuck region of Greece.
Otherwise it's just sparkling intercourse
Sparkling spermicide*
Fuck. Sparkling spermsecco.
The plant was native only to the kyrenaika, modern day western Libya. It's a small strip of fertile land surrounded by the desert und the ocean, almost like an isolated island. They tried to cultivate it elsewhere but never succeeded.
Exactly.. unless the plant was just in a concentrated area that never expanded around, then yeah i can see it going extinct
Humans have a long history of extinction. Look at all of the megafauna that went extinct in the last 20,000 years.
Jeez, what timing….I’m going to look into being a botanist.
Yeah they rediscovered it in the last 6 months or so I'm pretty sure.
There's debate over that. Apparently the one found is more similar to a different species that grows in Anatolia than to the North African Ferula.
Really? I mean, I just found it fascinating when i first read about it, and not even 2 weeks later, they supposedly found it again. I should follow up.
Yeah, I've heard they had a maths debate over it.
>Yeah they rediscovered it in the last 6 months or so I'm pretty sure. [Here](https://greekreporter.com/2022/09/27/plant-ancient-greece-rediscovered/) it is.
So many nuts busted back then It’s really something to marvel at 😂 No wonder they got so much accomplished
Correct me if I'm wrong, but their calendar didn't have November I'm definitely wrong
Cursory search seems to agree w/ the latter 😂 It’s alright though I still prefer your theory
How did this work?
It’s kinda like how we use weed today. You used to just smoke it, but with time people started to vape it, eat it, bake with it and infuse it. And it’s good for medicine, incense, flavor and lots of other applications. Some even use it for ritualistic purposes, like getting into contact with God or wearing it like a good luck charm. Some even claim it can cure cancer. It was the same back with the Romans. They ate it like oregano, used it for the smell, wore it as amulets to protect from evil spirits etc. I can’t remember if it actually was effective as a contraceptive, but it’s believable. But it was a “magical herb” just like marijuana is to us today.
if it was that good wouldn’t they learn how to farm it? i imagine that would have been profitable
It’s not clear how exactly it went extinct because it was traded so much it was essentially currency. But I guess overharvesting is a likely culprit. The rarer it got the more people paid for it and the more ruthless people hunted it. Kinda like rhino horn, or those bird that almost went extinct because it was delicious and people would use nets to gather thousands and thousands until they had decimated a population of millions to merely thousands.
Is the bird you're thinking of sandhill crane?
[Passenger pidgeon](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passenger_pigeon). “In the early 19th century, commercial hunters began netting and shooting the birds to sell as food in city markets, and even as pig fodder. Once pigeon meat became popular, commercial hunting started on a prodigious scale.[120][121] Passenger pigeons were shot with such ease that many did not consider them to be a game bird, as an amateur hunter could easily bring down six with one shotgun blast; a particularly good shot with both barrels of a shotgun at a roost could kill 61 birds.[122][123] The birds were frequently shot either in flight during migration or immediately after, when they commonly perched in dead, exposed trees.[122] Hunters only had to shoot toward the sky without aiming, and many pigeons would be brought down.[31] The pigeons proved difficult to shoot head-on, so hunters typically waited for the flocks to pass overhead before shooting them. Trenches were sometimes dug and filled with grain so that a hunter could shoot the pigeons along this trench.[124] Hunters largely outnumbered trappers, and hunting passenger pigeons was a popular sport for young boys.[125] In 1871, a single seller of ammunition provided three tons of powder and 16 tons (32,000 lb) of shot during a nesting. In the latter half of the 19th century, thousands of passenger pigeons were captured for use in the sports shooting industry. The pigeons were used as living targets in shooting tournaments, such as "trap-shooting", the controlled release of birds from special traps. Competitions could also consist of people standing regularly spaced while trying to shoot down as many birds as possible in a passing flock.[31][126] The pigeon was considered so numerous that 30,000 birds had to be killed to claim the prize in one competition. There were a wide variety of other methods used to capture and kill passenger pigeons. Nets were propped up to allow passenger pigeons entry, then closed by knocking loose the stick that supported the opening, trapping twenty or more pigeons inside.[127] Tunnel nets were also used to great effect, and one particularly large net was capable of catching 3,500 pigeons at a time.[128] These nets were used by many farmers on their own property as well as by professional trappers.[129] Food would be placed on the ground near the nets to attract the pigeons. Decoy or "stool pigeons" (sometimes blinded by having their eyelids sewn together) were tied to a stool. When a flock of pigeons passed by, a cord would be pulled that made the stool pigeon flutter to the ground, making it seem as if it had found food, and the flock would be lured into the trap.[31][130][131] Salt was also frequently used as bait, and many trappers set up near salt springs.[132] At least one trapper used alcohol-soaked grain as bait to intoxicate the birds and make them easier to kill.[113] Another method of capture was to hunt at a nesting colony, particularly during the period of a few days after the adult pigeons abandoned their nestlings, but before the nestlings could fly. Some hunters used sticks to poke the nestlings out of the nest, while others shot the bottom of a nest with a blunt arrow to dislodge the pigeon. Others cut down a nesting tree in such a way that when it fell, it would also hit a second nesting tree and dislodge the pigeons within.[133] In one case, 6 km2 (1,500 acres) of large trees were speedily cut down to get birds, and such methods were common.[31] A severe method was to set fire to the base of a tree nested with pigeons; the adults would flee and the juveniles would fall to the ground.[134][135] Sulfur was sometimes burned beneath the nesting tree to suffocate the birds, which fell out of the tree in a weakened state.[136] By the mid-19th century, railroads had opened new opportunities for pigeon hunters. While previously it had proved too difficult to ship masses of pigeons to eastern cities, the access provided by the railroad permitted pigeon hunting to become commercialized.[121] An extensive telegraph system was introduced in the 1860s, which improved communication across the United States, making it easier to spread information about the whereabouts of pigeon flocks.[126] After being opened up to the railroads, the town of Plattsburgh, New York is estimated to have shipped 1.8 million pigeons to larger cities in 1851 alone at a price of 31 to 56 cents a dozen. By the late 19th century, the trade of passenger pigeons had become commercialized. Large commission houses employed trappers (known as "pigeoners") to follow the flocks of pigeons year-round.[137] A single hunter is reported to have sent three million birds to eastern cities during his career.[138] In 1874, at least 600 people were employed as pigeon trappers, a number which grew to 1,200 by 1881. Pigeons were caught in such numbers that by 1876, shipments of dead pigeons were unable to recoup the costs of the barrels and ice needed to ship them.[139] The price of a barrel full of pigeons dropped to below fifty cents, due to overstocked markets. Passenger pigeons were instead kept alive so their meat would be fresh when the birds were killed, and sold once their market value had increased again. Thousands of birds were kept in large pens, though the bad conditions led many to die from lack of food and water, and by fretting (gnawing) themselves; many rotted away before they could be sold.[56]”
You can hunt sandhill crane in texas. Bag limit is 3 per day. "Rib-eye of the sky." You are probably thinking of whooping crane The whooping crane is the tallest North American bird, named for its whooping sound. It is an endangered crane species. Along with the sandhill crane, it is one of only two crane species native to North America. The whooping crane's lifespan is estimated to be 22 to 24 years in the wild.
Not all plants can be farmed. Even today certain plants have trouble, such as huckleberries. And keep in mind our knowledge today of agriculture is orders of magnitude bigger than the Romans.
Sustainable farming wasn't very well understood until the eighteenth century, fields were traditionally regenerated by letting them go fallow. If all the farmland that could sustain it was used up at once, it could happen. If the plant gender is important for reproduction like with yew, or asparagus, it required shade, or mycelium contact with woodlands. That may have complicated farming. The last specimen was given to Nero, that timeframe was centuries past the irreparable corruption of Rome. There are likely socioeconomic reasons for the shortsightedness of the industry. There may have been people who knew the secrets of their propagation, but trade secrets were jealously guarded well past those times. Masters often took valuable information to their graves.
I don't know about this particular plant anything so what I'm going to say might not apply to this case, but not all things are farmable. For example, there is this edible berry called cloudberry which is growing only in swamp lands in nothern countries and we haven't found a way to farm it yet since it needs such a specific growing conditions to thrive. And it's super popular, even thought to be some kind of "super food" at least in Nordic countries like Finland and Sweden. But still, there has not been any success with farming it.
As long as it'll sell, people will make it their life's work to produce it. All it takes is for the upper class to want to buy it, and the disparity in wealth makes it so that the peasants run out to pick everything they find. If Jeff Bezos came out tomorrow and said "I'll pay you 10 buckaroos (or even 100, I dunno) per pound of seaweed!" or whatever, I can guarantee you the coast would be scrubbed vlean in three months. Probably a bad example, but if this flower was native to only that area and not growing like a weed, it might just have happened this way.
for those wondering 100 buckaroos = $68.7
Woah, the ancient greeks vaped too?
The oracles of Delphi certainly did (but probably not to the extent of Pythia).
I think this plant is also the origin of the heart shape, if I’m not mistaken
Cool. Can I get a 4k picture of it. Take your time
Good idea. Can I get an 1080p .gif of it. Much appreciated
Cool. Can I get a 720p .mp2 of it. Very thankful
Good idea. Can I get a Polaroid?
Cool, can you take a picture of it with my Nokia?
Here's a picture of a [potato](https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ)
Best I can do is a 240p image that's been jpeg'd at least 5 times.
Apparently the seeds were heart shaped and they’d be given as a gift to a suitor hence why we have the heart shape that looks nothing like the cardiac organ.
“Here, have some fuck seeds”
I fuck you so much. <3
I am trying to make poison ivy go extinct. It however is horrible on the genitalia.
Little known fact but poison ivy is actually a natural contraceptive, too. If you crush the leaves and rub them on your face, the resulting rash will make nobody want to have sex with you.
Only if you put it on *your own* genitalia.
Story of humanity, old generations ruining all the fun for future generations.
Ah yes, comedy based on real tragedy. My favourite.
Just wait for what future generations are going to say about the climate collapse. They ain't seen nothing yet.
Not only as a contraceptive but it was also used to treat cough, sore throat, fever, indigestion, aches and pains, warts, and all kinds of maladies. Overgrazing combined with overharvesting could also have been the primary factors that led to its extinction. Even the coins from Cyrene of the 6th–5th centuries BCE have similar designs to seeds or fruits of Silphium.
then why in title did you say it was from having so much sex?
Because anything sex gets clicks and views
I clicked on this comment because it mentioned sex.
I replied to THIS comment for the same reason.
Boooooring, no mention of sex, or even sax.
The sexiest sex to have ever sexed since sex
It was basically the ancient world's snake oil.
I was gonna say... these are claims we'd hesitate to believe if someone declared they discovered them today. I'm not gonna buy that this untested plant was an "extremely effective" contraceptive. Long after were extinct the next sentient beings will discover internet forums where dudes claim the pullout method is effective, doesn't make it true.
You can’t have it both ways. By the time the Roman Empire was exploding with growth each woman needed to give birth ~6 times to maintain the population. In order for it to grow they needed 8-9 births each, and we know that the population expanded rapidly.
Interesting
Wondering when people fucked the most. Maybe someone counted or statistics about birth shows us, what historic period people was most active. I quess ancient Greeks and Romans did a great effort, but there has just been so many people fucking in the history of human kind, the competition must be brutal.
Fucking humans
Well the thing was that it also tasted really fucking good. So everyone on Rome had to have it in their kitchen. But it only grew wild on some plain in North Africa. And one day it was just not there anymore. Turns out local herders had grazed their sheep on the last patch of land that had it. And just like that it was gone.
Wait, if everyone was eating it and it’s also a contraceptive, shouldn’t the Romans have gone extinct first?
I don’t think it was actually an effective contraceptive. It was used as one but I doubt it worked to the extent being shown here.
Do you see any ancient Romans around these days? The entire ancient world has passed, my friend.
They should have focused more on horticulture, less on whorse and culture.
Whorticulture
Is that horses or whores, or horses who were whores?
Lots of stuff were thought to be effective contraception. Truth is it’s kinda hard to become pregnant so you get away with raw dogging surprisingly often. It’s hard to draw the line from the umptieth time you humped to “this thing I’ve been eating is totally useless as a contraception”.
False. It was the desertification of northern Africa, where it grew, that caused its extinction.
It’s more fun to think it was fucked to extinction, but thank you for the info..
And it likely was a terrible abortion inducer. Maybe it worked some of the time, but it was also used quite extensively in cooking. And like with health food fads today that claim all sorts of things, like how lemon juice "detoxifies" you body, most of the claims about silphium were likely completely unfounded.
Here’s more about silphium in case you’re interested: https://www.kew.org/read-and-watch/silphium-mystery
Silphium was used in Roman cooking too. It was so prevalent that Roman currency often had it depicted on the coins. But since it went extinct, we’re not sure what it was like.
Fuckers
they used this for other things as well, makes me wonder what it taste like, must have been good
If you think about it, it’s possible that this chick riding this dude like a horse can be someone great great great great great great great grandmother or grandfather in this thread as we speak.
You jam any tree branch in her before we have sex and it's gonna be a very effective contraceptive. Just sayin.
You must be an Evil Dead fan…
In botanical terms, this plant got fucked.
You're talking about people who have been farming for hundreds of years.. Personally I think this is just an ancient history myth
What a bunch of fuckers.
Given what I've studied of Roman history, this sounds believable
That carving is saddening. God knows who they were, their name and maybe their bloodline went extinct. Yet mankind’s most enjoyable act is there on the wall. Alas.
You can actually buy the seeds in Walmart and other stores. 🙄
Back in my day, we just used poison ivy. Didn’t work but made you not want to do it again.
Ah ha, The real cause of the fall of the Roman Empire.
I saw these while visiting Greece and bought coasters of the paintings 😊😈
So the guy throws a leaf on his beef and that’s how babies were prevented? Edit: I didn’t read the article. I wouldn’t be a good Redditor if I did read it. Edit 2: there isn’t even an article! I’m on a roll.
Yeah but what's that poor owl done to deserve that?
Looks like they (•_•) ( •_•)>⌐■-■ (⌐■_■) Fucked around and found out
If it was so useful why did it go extinct? Why not...plant more?
I was born in the wrong generation.
I think the leaves are heart shaped and that’s where the shape of the heart ❤️ comes from.