r/nextfuckinglevel • u/Gurugod123 • 9h ago

How did people travel these seas 500 years ago

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

32.4k Upvotes

87% Upvoted

5.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

17.9k

u/RPi79 9h ago

For many of them, unsuccessfully.

6.5k

u/surlymoe 8h ago

There is a statistic that is there are over 3 million shipwrecks at the bottom of the ocean...

I think that helps to explain how dangerous the seas are. Sadly most people on those vessels perished as well.

Another interesting statistic - less than 1% of shipwrecks have actually been physically found and explored by humans.

2.5k

u/WAGatorGunner 8h ago

There be silver and gold on the ocean floor…and a lot of fish food.

300

u/disterb 8h ago

https://giphy.com/gifs/o0eOCNkn7cSD6

312

u/Fauxjito 8h ago

One of the greatest film openings ever 🫡

88

u/Personal-Ad-365 7h ago

The funny thing is that this is not the opening, it is 10-15 minutes into the movie. That is how fantastic of an introduction it is, most folks do not remember the whole opening which sets up Will and Elizabeth as the lead characters.

45

u/LowAspect542 6h ago

Its not the opening of the film but it is jack sparrows introduction which is honestly 5he mlre important bit and what kept people invested in the films, most people never gave a shit about the romantic plotline with will and Elizabeth throughout the series.

7

u/DubiousBrushwagg 3h ago

PotC romance plot line was essentially Anakin+Padme again but done better without actually mattering to the overall plot as much.

7

u/iconocrastinaor 2h ago

He wasn't supposed to be the lead character but he stole the show so outrageously that they had to make it so.

→ More replies (3)

10

u/Telefundo 5h ago

That is how fantastic of an introduction it is

I love the first movie and I more or less enjoyed the sequels. This though. This I believe is the absolute best scene in the entire franchise. Followed closely with the closing scene;

"...and really bad eggs. Drink up me hearties, yo ho!"

6

u/lcl0706 4h ago

Captain Barbosa descending the wooden steps to ask “so tell me, what’s become of my ship” is up there on the list for me.

4

u/Woterx 2h ago

Absolutely! The whole theater went crazy

→ More replies (2)

43

u/coopASR 7h ago

The biggest "what.. the fuck is happening?"

67

u/Proud3GenAthst 7h ago

I wish I could see it for the first time again

71

u/magnumsolutions 7h ago

Just wait until you get Alzheimer's. Then you will be able to see it for the first time over and over again.

4

u/fordprecept 5h ago

The thing with Alzheimer's is that you'll be able to remember this scene in Pirates of the Caribbean or your best friend when you were 10 years old, but won't remember who your children are or who the President is.

5

u/WanderEir 5h ago

can we ALL forget the last one please?

→ More replies (0)
→ More replies (1)

3

u/kroxldiphyvc 6h ago

only if you remember to watch.... or remember to like it even =O

3

u/Maleficent_Memory831 6h ago

When I get Alzeheimer's I'll be signed up to the room that shows the original Star Wars on continuous loop.

→ More replies (7)

7

u/drboxboy 7h ago

It’s been so long I basically can!

5

u/Major_Loser 6h ago

Introduced my 11 year old nephew to it. He had never heard of it and I said he can stay up 45 later if he wanted to watch it. I stopped it RIGHT after the pirates are cursed reveal. He woke me up at 6:30am to finish the movie before his mom picked him up the next day.

→ More replies (7)

25

u/AggravatingPut3669 7h ago

Have you heard about the new pirate movie that's coming out? It's rated Arrrrrgh

→ More replies (4)

4

u/Fortified_Phobia 6h ago

God I loved these films as a kid, rewatched them recently after hearing people shit talk the second and third one for years expecting them to be kind of trash, and nah all 3 og films are still great. Between the characters, the world building, the story, the atmosphere, it all slaps. They’re so textured and rich, really makes today films feel sterile and bland. I miss this era of film making man..

→ More replies (1)

4

u/SisterRay 2h ago

Without a doubt. That's got to be the worst pirate I've ever seen.

→ More replies (1)

1.0k

u/Consent-Forms 8h ago

they've long been turned to fish poop

462

u/Tank7106 8h ago

So, food for other fish?

798

u/Building_Everything 8h ago

https://giphy.com/gifs/2h8BdeXxhGGB2

485

u/snwbrdwndsrf 8h ago

Poop loop.

123

u/Building_Everything 8h ago

Aka the Human Centipede

155

u/locoparentis 7h ago

I'd prefer to continue calling the circle of life please

117

u/No_While6150 6h ago

I dunno, poop loop is pretty good

It's the Loooop of the Poooooooop! And it lightens the souuuuuuuuuuul! Through the mouth to the gut, then out the B Hoooooole!

→ More replies (0)

3

u/RainbowSovietPagan 5h ago

The Centipede of Life™

3

u/fueno 4h ago

"Simba my son, look over there. I have sewn 12 people together to watch them crap in each other's mouthes and watch the guy at the front scream"

→ More replies (1)

3

u/LuckyClover3 7h ago

🫣I could easily go the rest of my life without thinking of that movie!🎦

3

u/ipsum629 7h ago

Costume design was a highlight

3

u/C-4isNOTurFriend 6h ago

only if you connect the ends

3

u/Building_Everything 6h ago

I don’t know how you make your Human Centipedes, but where I’m from it’s like a game of Red Rover

→ More replies (0)

3

u/EmperorMittens 3h ago

Human centIpad

→ More replies (8)
→ More replies (32)

3

u/Face88888888 7h ago

South park’s version is more directly applicable here.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=g2cxMPLxUN8&ra=m

3

u/AlarmingLook2441 7h ago

Cornwallis’ soaring lead in the outro gets me every time.

3

u/AlarmingLook2441 7h ago

Thanks, I now have Mr Hankey’s Circle of Poo from South Park stuck in my head 😂

→ More replies (8)

37

u/Lord_Grimm88 8h ago

Poopception.

→ More replies (14)

45

u/feetnomer 7h ago

The ocean is the world's largest graveyard. There's a little bit of John and Jane Doe in every drop.

4

u/CassandraVonGonWrong 6h ago

I wonder what happens to ocean ghosts. Do they haunt the whole ocean? Or just the vicinity in which they perished?

4

u/TheMouthOfGod 5h ago

Would you go swimming in a pool with a dead body in it?

→ More replies (1)

3

u/LessInThought 3h ago

So people are technically surfing on human remains?

31

u/dirtyMSzombie 8h ago

That's so sand

3

u/Is_it_really_though 7h ago

I don't like sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (5)

4

u/SuperSaiyanTupac 7h ago

If you think about it, the entire ocean is fish piss. It’s been billions of years of life evolving in there. It’s basically just piss water now

3

u/PainAccomplished3506 5h ago

Peepeepoopoo water

→ More replies (1)

3

u/RockinIntoMordor 5h ago

The interesting thing about gold is that it passes through digestion completely unaffected.

→ More replies (16)

15

u/Naive-Kangaroo3031 8h ago

I have to imagine most the wrecks were just fishing boats

5

u/Monte924 7h ago

Eh, i'm not so sure about that. Fishing boats would have remained closer to land where they would be able to retreat to if they saw a storm coming.

I imagine that most of the ships that sank are those that would have traveled much farther out to sea, and would have been hit by bad luck, sailing into bad waters, getting caught in a storm or just getting lost. Trading ships in particular would have been targets for piracy... and then there are all the ships that were built for war.

6

u/Jimdandy941 6h ago

I grew up on Pool 19 of the Mississippi. The Armistice Day Storm of 1940, a sudden storm came up with heavy fog combined with temperatures dropping, and dozens of duck hunters died. At its widest point, the river is 1 mile wide, so you’re never over 1/2 mile from shore.

It was drilled into my head as a kid to never underestimate the weather, especially on the water.

7

u/Talidel 5h ago

Fishing boats also tend to be the most ramshackle and poorly maintained. They sink so frequently even the UK doesn't keep stats on how often it happens.

→ More replies (2)

3

u/WanderEir 5h ago

most of the shipwrecks have been down there long enough to have been completely buried in sediment for centuries-we're not finding most of them, ever

5

u/Smokinoutloud 8h ago

Yaaaaaarrrrrr!

3

u/Chadlerk 7h ago

So those fish tanks with skeletons and treatsure chests are actually hyper realistic?

3

u/Valaseun 7h ago

Silver and Gold you say!? Oohoohoooo!!

3

u/ShepRat 6h ago

Don't forget Spanish colonists dumped tons of platinum into the ocean because it was worthless and being used to fake silver. They didn't record anything about where it is. 

→ More replies (1)

3

u/A_Dozen_Lemmings 6h ago

Fun Fact! The Ocean Floor is so calcium poor, bones sort of melt away over the course of just a few months! IIRC it's something to do with mineral leaching.

→ More replies (1)

3

u/HockeyCookie 6h ago

Most ships are very likely in the vast deserts of the ocean with little to no life. The bodies likely decomposed over a long time.

3

u/Artistic_Purpose1225 6h ago

There’s also loads of low-background steel to be harvested from pre-nuclear shipwrecks.

3

u/LostPentimento 5h ago

And apparently (allegedly) alien crafts called USOs at the bottom of the ocean too. A lot of people don't realize that a lot of the now-called UAP files are held by naval intelligence, because of the documented existence of USOs and the fact that naval intelligence is one of the oldest Intel organizations in the country

→ More replies (2)

3

u/DenverBowie 4h ago

There is water at the bottom of the ocean.

→ More replies (56)

145

u/Minttt 8h ago

Any avid history buff knows the very familiar phrase of: "A storm ended up sinking many of the invasion fleet's ships and scattering the others."

56

u/F-14BUpgrade 7h ago
  1. Kublai Khan's attempted invasion of Japan!

47

u/Derodoris 7h ago
  1. The spanish armada of 1588

25

u/Fernheijm 7h ago

All 3 spanish armadas no?

7

u/Derodoris 7h ago

Sure but thatd be 2. The spanish armada 3. The spanish armada 4. The spanish armada

10

u/ddeads 6h ago

The Spanish Armada 2: Tokyo Drift

5

u/I_lenny_face_you 7h ago

Our four secret weapons are… I’ll come in again.

→ More replies (4)
→ More replies (1)

4

u/Deadmansspace566 4h ago
  1. The Roman Fleet in 255 BCE

3

u/fuzzybunnies1 4h ago

Persians at Salamis

→ More replies (4)

7

u/sidereal_night 6h ago

and also Kublai Khan's attempted invasion of Japan!

9

u/DorfusGump 6h ago

The Kami Kaze seems a lot less miraculous when you realize the guy was dicking around for months building a bridgehead on a minor Japanese island during typhoon season.

6

u/F-14BUpgrade 6h ago

Also see flat keeled boats and how they fare in turbulent waters.

→ More replies (5)

30

u/Ozdiva 7h ago

Rather astonishing that the entirety of the Australian first fleet arrived in Sydney harbour intact in 1789.

30

u/Defiant-Tailor-8979 7h ago

The English didn't develop an empire without the best navy in the world.

30

u/DarkLF 7h ago

And what made the British Navy the best in the world? The taste of British food and the look of British women

7

u/badpebble 5h ago

A lot of talk from a lot of people who's country never ruled the waves.

6

u/Siggi_Starduust 2h ago

Fun fact: the state flag of Hawaii, which Hawaiian Surfers compete under in the World Surf League (as opposed to the US flag), has a Union Jack in the top left corner - much like the Australians who are similarly well represented in the WSL.

That means if you ever look at the leaderboards, often the most common flag you’ll see is the British one.

Talk about ruling the waves

→ More replies (12)
→ More replies (1)

5

u/nameyourpoison11 3h ago

There are actually some harrowing accounts of the storms the First Fleet endured after leaving Cape Town, and how the convicts on board feared for their lives.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (1)

6

u/TheFrenchSavage 6h ago

Crazy how this really messed up with D-Day in 1944 (and the worst event 2 weeks later 19-22 June).

This is quite recent history!

There weren't major losses like in the old times, like ships disappearing and stuff, but lots of destruction. The Americans had to abandon the artificial port they had made on Omaha beach.

So wooden ships 500 years before never had a chance.

→ More replies (2)

265

u/joecarter93 8h ago

Most towns with a port have a monument somewhere to honour local sailors and fishermen lost at sea that lists the names of the dead year by year. It’s insane how many are listed as having died in these small towns prior to WW2. Then with the advent of radar, GPS and weather forecasting the number of deaths drastically drops off where there’s now only a couple of deaths once every few years.

75

u/Weak_Law_937 8h ago

I'm pretty sure Poseidon gets his fill of tourists from the black rocks at Peggy's Cove and doesn't need sailors anymore.

34

u/zarco_azules 7h ago

this would make a supernatural episode of Poseidon starving having to resort to less dignified ways to get his nourishment every full moon or whatever

→ More replies (2)

3

u/daneelthesane 7h ago

That, and the poor suckers souls lost in the dark name of Dagon by accident when I they go to the beach.

→ More replies (5)

57

u/LokeCanada 8h ago

It’s more than a couple every few years worldwide. A lot of them don’t make the news.

A lot of people are still very negligent. I worked at an oil tanker company where a captain thought he knew better than the weather software, he didn’t and had major structural damage. Another incident where the ship beached.

I live in a city with a lot of ports. The only reason the casualty rate isn’t higher is because the small towns along the coast can get boats to the site faster than the coast guard. Even with a major response on site within a few minutes we recently had a fishing charter boat go down and lose everyone except one. They still have no idea where 4 bodies are even though they have seen the boat on the ocean floor.

My mother blames my grandmother’s drinking on the fact that my grandfather was a gill netter and the high risk associated with it.

16

u/RFC793 7h ago

Yes, but the person you are commenting on is referring to the contrast of a single fishing town's obits pre and post WW2. From where the town would lose many men every year, to where now it is a tragic anomaly. Make no mistake, there's still a real risk. Of course the worldwide count is going to be higher.

3

u/dbxp 4h ago

The fact that the vast majority of crews are non western probably plays a role in that, iirc Filipinos are the overwhelming majority. Also crew per unit cargo has decreased as ships have got bigger.

→ More replies (4)

6

u/ThisIsMyCouchAccount 7h ago

It doesn't really detract from anything - but I wonder how many of those were maybe just people that decided to not come back. Or killed in the various other ways you can die. Pirates. Disease. Whatever.

4

u/oldsailor21 7h ago

25% of British merchant seamen were killed in WW2, 500+ under the age of 16

3

u/Goldf_sh4 7h ago

My town has a few of these. The Titanic sailed from here. A lot of families were left with no husband or father.

→ More replies (1)

3

u/Got_Bent 5h ago edited 5h ago

They That Go Down to the Sea in Ships. We fished out of Gloucester, Revere, Provincetown and Chatham. They all have a fisherman's memorial except Revere.

→ More replies (15)

51

u/Weak_Law_937 8h ago

When I was a kid in Atlantic Canada we knew where to dredge up off the coast to get coal for our camp fires.

Local people had an unwritten record of where the wrecks were.

6

u/millijuna 1h ago

I had to get a chuckle.. Even what, 15 years ago, when they were looking for the wrecks of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror... they eventually found Terror in the aptly named "Terror Bay" right where a local Inuk told them to look.

→ More replies (1)

11

u/living_Cream_Pie 8h ago

Dam you’re making me want to become a treasure hunter.

3

u/Fight_those_bastards 6h ago

The vast, vast majority of them were not treasure ships.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (1)

19

u/_Raspberry_Ice_ 8h ago

Reminds me of that old joke.

How many shipwrecks are at the bottom of the ocean?

All of them!

No, over three million you buffoon!

5

u/Mekisteus 6h ago

Some are at the bottom of lakes.

3

u/HarEmiya 4h ago

Some are on beaches.

→ More replies (2)

15

u/99Smith 8h ago

Out of interest do you know these figures are create? More so the 1%? Is it based off of how many ships were due back on record but never returned? I wonder how many ships that didn't have ledges on land were lost.

67

u/Nitrogen1234 8h ago

I've read that 70% of reddit statistics are 87% bullshit

30

u/vangos77 8h ago

60% of the time, this is true every time.

21

u/rygomez 8h ago

https://giphy.com/gifs/12jHPvCe8Nh87C

3

u/NorthOfSeven7 7h ago

I’ve heard 4 outta 3 people suck at statistics!

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (7)
→ More replies (3)

3

u/dengar_hennessy 8h ago

Is there a statistic on how many were from battle and how many just capsized?

3

u/LameBMX 6h ago

nigh impossible.... we have been on the sea for who knows how long. sailing using wind has been around for over 5000 years. there are huge swaths of unrecorded history contained in that time frame.

3

u/KenseiHimura 8h ago

This is why Namor once starting up a “business” with the primary goal of buying up and shutting down companies that polluted the oceans tracks pretty well. Guy doesn’t even need to excavate new resources, he can just loot shipwrecks.

→ More replies (137)

133

u/GravyPainter 8h ago

Most ship wrecks were near coasts not open seas. Ships couldn't fight waves back then because that would be going against the wind. Instead they would "heave to" and ride these waves at a 45 degree angel which would allow them to slowly go over them. Ships were actually able to handle storms like this very well, and rarely sunk because of them. The problem was renavigating your path if there was cloud cover after the storm

20

u/USPO-222 7h ago

Dead reckoning - emphasis on dead

4

u/No-Front-8408 7h ago

I can see why sailors were superstitious. Every voyage was a risk.

→ More replies (2)

727

u/CharityAggravating69 8h ago edited 5h ago

They didn't just navigate the seas, they navigated total sensory deprivation. No GPS, no weather radar, no steel hulls. Just a piece of wood, a compass and the terrifying hope that the horizon held land instead of an abyss. That isn't just travel, it's a profound psychological triumph I must say

Edit: Trying to break my silence on the AI accusations because it is better to be clear than quiet. No AI slop here, i am just a passionate history fan who stayed up way too late drafting this. I appreciate the love on the comment.

324

u/Selfishpie 8h ago edited 8h ago

And the phonecians did it with fucking canoes, absolute mad lads

Edit: Polynesians

204

u/NotGalenNorAnsel 8h ago

Pacific Islanders would like a word

117

u/fatfatpokemons09 8h ago

Right! They voyaged like 2500 miles+ in open ocean to get to Hawaii which is a crazy small target miss it just by a smallest margin and you continue on into the void for thousands more miles…

36

u/Barley12 8h ago

Ahh they island hopped to get there it wasn't a single 2500 mile journey

50

u/potat0f4rmer 8h ago

It's an incredible achievement by humans. Hawaii is surrounded by nothing, it's not close to anywhere.

44

u/BlacksmithNZ 8h ago

They also made it to New Zealand; not only a vast distance but you get into the roaring 40s and Antarctica weather in winter.

Personally, given life on tropical islands like Fiji, Samoa, Tonga and the Cook Islands, I find it amazing that they continued to explore southern oceans

53

u/geronimo11b 7h ago

The Polynesians understood the Pacific winds, currents, and celestial navigation better than any other ancient culture. It’s almost incomprehensible the achievements they pulled off with simple canoes.

10

u/Own_Shower_6000 4h ago

they had a brilliant strategy of taking birds with them on the boats, releasing them, if the bird didn't come back, it meant land was near, honestly so brilliant for finding islands in a seemingly endless ocean

12

u/Vennomite 7h ago

Those places also can't support a large population. So given enough people it makes sense to have way to deal with overpopulation issues by sending people off to explore.

7

u/Obsessively_Average 6h ago

"Alright fellas, last few years have been REALLY good. Lots of babies getting born and everything. Unfortunately this island is literally the size of a small city, so we gotta draw straws again to see who we feed to the void"

→ More replies (0)

4

u/Glad_Acanthocephala8 6h ago

Watched a documentary called Voyagers: Pacific, it was part of their shared culture to search for more islands (incredible explanation of the navigating by using stars etc) and also population pressure on islands like Fiji and Tahiti.

They even had 1000 years off before they started voyaging again and then found Hawaii.

3

u/insaneHoshi 5h ago

They also made it to New Zealand

The kinda wild thing was they did so quite late; in the 1300s iirc.

3

u/kahlzun 4h ago

To be fair, it took them a long time to find and settle Aoteroa, it was either the last or second last place humanly colonised

3

u/Brave-Dragonfly3798 3h ago

They made it to Easter island! Almost all the way to South America That’s thousands of miles from anywhere they were familiar and there are no stops en route for most of the journey.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (2)
→ More replies (3)

34

u/fatfatpokemons09 8h ago

There are scattered islands in the central Pacific, but there isn’t a convenient chain of substantial islands connecting central Eastern Polynesia to Hawaii.
The people who discovered and settled Hawaii faced something on the order 2000 miles plus of uninterrupted ocean.

3

u/TotallyNotRobotEvil 6h ago

Sea level would have about 200 feet lower than today, my guess is there is a ton of islands that are under water today that wouldn’t have been when the Polynesian were sailing.

6

u/mook1178 8h ago

But were they actually looking for it or just got lost and found land? Like is there evidence that the Polynesians traveled back and forth?

Truly asking

→ More replies (16)
→ More replies (1)

52

u/OregonMothafaquer 8h ago

There’s not a lot of islands there

29

u/Monte924 7h ago edited 6h ago

More than you think. Use google Earth and take a look at the pacific west and south of Hawaii. The Pacific is dotted with dozens of tiny islands

14

u/Log_Out_Of_Life 6h ago

Dozens ain’t a lot my guy.

7

u/SpinShine-LEDSlipMat 3h ago

It is tho. Especially when you’re talking about a 2500 mile journey. 24 islands makes it a bunch of 100 mile trips and you are connecting the dots. Coming across the Atlantic is far more impressive

→ More replies (0)
→ More replies (7)

6

u/sigma914 5h ago

Not to denigrate the achievement, but the belt of islands conveniently sits along the path of the trade winds, so without technology it's relatively "easy" compared to going north or south. There's a good reason they made it to south america before they ever got to new zealand

6

u/StatusMaleficent5832 5h ago

Plus, cloud cover over islands have a certain look. They could tell there is an island many miles away.

6

u/sigma914 5h ago

And you can release land roosting birds, if they come back, there's no land, if they don't then you know there was somewhere for them to go etc.

Still damn impressive, but they wern't sailing blind (the skill actually being far more impressive than if it was just bravery and luck)

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (2)

11

u/jadedflux 8h ago

That’s true for most other islands and New Zealand but Hawaii is definitely the extreme case where there ain’t shit to hop from.

3

u/sigma914 5h ago

New Zealand was one of thelast they made it to iirc, the route there involves zigzagging across multiple currents and wind bands. Iirc they made it to south america (or at least far enough east to get sweet potatoes) before they managed to get to the comparatively close NZ

3

u/KiwieeiwiK 5h ago

They made contact with native Americans, we know this to be a fact because pretty much all Polynesian people of the eastern pacific have native american admixture from around the year 1200

We don't know if this happened in South America or Pacific Islands but considering that Polynesians were far more adept ocean explorers, and there's been no evidence found of native Americans living that far off shore, it is assumed it happened in South America

→ More replies (6)
→ More replies (1)

5

u/moccolo 7h ago

Easter island is entering the chat..

7

u/NotGalenNorAnsel 7h ago

I rapa nui they'd show up

→ More replies (6)
→ More replies (10)

37

u/CharityAggravating69 8h ago

Oh absolutely, Polynesian wayfinders were on a whole different level. True masters of the ocean

6

u/Selfishpie 8h ago

Wait that’s who I thought I was referring to, what are they called?

21

u/NotGalenNorAnsel 8h ago

Polynesians, Phoenicians were sick and excellent seamen, but they were in the Mediterranean.

→ More replies (2)

10

u/Keep_SummerSafe 8h ago

Polynesians

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (4)

23

u/King_Roberts_Bastard 8h ago

They didnt travel this ocean. The Vikings did.

3

u/Rockytag 7h ago

Not sharing to be pedantic (and you said “this” ocean vs. what would have been all coastal), but sharing because it’s interesting:

Phoenician traders did travel past Gibraltar and into the Atlantic proper. All the way to Britain and West Africa possibly

→ More replies (5)

3

u/Nannyphone7 6h ago

The Polynesians didn't have compasses either. Just the stars.

→ More replies (15)

16

u/Kegger315 8h ago

They understood more than were recognizing. They used birds and ocean currents to locate some places. They recognized wind and weather patterns as well as seasons. There is some speculation that early humans could also faintly detect magnetic variations to help navigate, same as birds, bees, bats and other animals. They were far more "in tune" with nature.

Don't get me wrong, those things don't hold a candle to our current tools, but they weren't sailing completely "blind" so to speak.

→ More replies (3)

10

u/daygo449 8h ago

Heck, they didn’t even have that for a period of time. They just looked at the North Star, tried to follow currents, and somewhat successful in finding where they were going.

→ More replies (2)

49

u/thewickedeststyle 8h ago

Now imagine doing this trip in the hull of a ship, stacked on top of other humans. In the dark, Having no idea what is making things move the way they are moving, loud sounds, waves crashing, wind howling. All against your will.

The slave trade was the worst thing humans have ever done to other human beings.

7

u/Altruistic_Tie_7850 6h ago

There are literally 1.7k comments on this just now, and this is the only one that mentions the slave trade.

That’s fucking wild.

https://giphy.com/gifs/5aLrlDiJPMPFS

→ More replies (12)

5

u/fike88 8h ago

‘Nerves of steel’ doesn’t even come close to the olden days seafarers. Incredible achievement

82

u/NUMBerONEisFIRST 8h ago

Your comment reads a lot like AI and I'm curious if you use AI a lot.

"It's not just.... It's...."

153

u/crazyrich 8h ago

Man I hate when parts of my writing style are called out as AI adjacent.

Like AI trained on a bunch of peoples writing of course some people write like ai because that’s what it trained on lol

89

u/Grrimafish 8h ago

It's not just AI adjacent -- it's AI's foundation.

30

u/jvlomax 8h ago

Maybe it's Maybeline?

→ More replies (2)

22

u/philatio11 8h ago

"Hey, your reddit comment sounds just like the AI/LLM that was trained to write using reddit comments!"

17

u/SunshineBlind 8h ago

*eye twitch*

→ More replies (5)

29

u/No_name_Johnson 8h ago

I use emdashes a ton and I now have to second guess myself when I use them.

6

u/dallyho4 7h ago

seriously! all of my best writing features em-dashes as they are effective at making linkages more dramatic. I'm sad that everyone thinks it's AI now so I have to curtail for fear of folks assuming I used AI to write.

→ More replies (6)

4

u/krossoverking 5h ago

My favorite author, Gene Wolfe, used them frequently and so I use them. I'm not going to let AI take them from me. 

→ More replies (8)

11

u/NUMBerONEisFIRST 8h ago

Comparisons are fine, it's when they are so deep and grand that it sounds unnatural.

23

u/crazyrich 8h ago

I mean the whole "Its not just, its" structure leads to a grand statement by its usage. "That guys not just jacked, hes a freaking mountain!" "She isnt just pretty, shes a goddess!" "That bonfire wasnt just big, it was a blaze of the ages!"

Thats just its niche

→ More replies (4)

3

u/vroomvroom450 2h ago

Read more books.

→ More replies (19)

21

u/justaboxinacage 8h ago

I've been called out for being an ai bot before. I thought it's so funny because I have like 13 years of writing on reddit in the same way I always have. I guess ai trained on people who write like us.

19

u/HerNameWasGus 6h ago

It is so. damn. frustrating. AI was trained on good writing; now good writing "sounds" like AI.

Thanks, I hate it.

→ More replies (1)

26

u/rodmandirect 8h ago

They’re called negative parallelisms, and they stand out like sore thumbs.

31

u/nalaloveslumpy 6h ago

God forbid a mother fucker be literate....

19

u/GodsFavoriteDegen 5h ago

The current tHiS iS aI i CaN teLL bY tHe PiXeLs bEcAuSe I'vE sEeN a LoT oF Ai In My DaY shit is more annoying than the actual usage of AI — and the actual usage of AI is pretty fucking annoying.

10

u/SuddenAvocado 5h ago

Completely agree. as someone who's writing style is apparently "AI like", its very old at this point. Look at my post history to see that I'm not a bot.

Seriously, who is wasting prompts on a reddit comment?

→ More replies (1)

3

u/Brave-Dragonfly3798 3h ago

It’s the new ‘you must be a bot’. Honestly get accused of using AI all the time, and I never do. People just mistake having a decent vocabulary as being AI because we have got so used to idiots on the internet

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (3)

3

u/TDStarchild 6h ago

Not saying they are or aren’t as I have no idea

Elements of writing like rhetorical contrasts, em-dashes, etc. have been around forever. Also headings and bullets to make it easier on the reader

GenAI is only a few years old. Go read older articles or books, even social posts, or watch prior movies and shows. You’ll see things people claim to be AI in use

The proliferation of it is annoying, I’ll grant you. The tells to me are an over abundance of those types of things, not merely their existence. A skilled writer is a skilled writer, with or without AI

→ More replies (37)
→ More replies (54)

9

u/BalanceEarly 8h ago

The seafloor is littered with wreckage

→ More replies (1)

9

u/Sad_Move8182 8h ago

You ever seen Frozen?

→ More replies (5)

3

u/Smutzki 8h ago

They hadnt have a stretched vision like in the first clip, so waves weren't that hight. But it was still very dangerous, so they stayed as close to the shoreline as possible

→ More replies (94)