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Comment by guhcampos | Hacker News Reader

I love the idea of trolling future generations and have thought about a couple methods in the past.

Yet, it makes me think: are we being trolled by past generations? What inexplicable wonders of archeology might just be someone thinking "whoever finds this will be so confused they'll go crazy".

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People are diverse enough that with a few millennia, probably no need to troll.

There's an archaeological site near here, vaguely described in most publications. If you can get your hands on some of the original field reporting, you learn that one of the finds was a burial site where the head of the deceased was replaced with that of a canine.

Not a known practice, apparently.

Deviant burial. Not that unusual, as a class.

I got to go on a dig a few years ago. We were excavating a site that likely was once the location of a large building. My supervisor pointed out a long, shallow, obviously man-made cut in the bedrock that ended abruptly and had no obvious purpose. He said his theory is someone screwed up and started cutting the foundation in the wrong spot.

It was comforting to realize that none of my mistakes are likely to be preserved for the next few millennia.

The trick to trolling the future is effort.

The more effort something obviously took, the harder it is to suspect it's just a troll.

And this is why I think our generation of Internet people are perfect for the job.

We're renovating a house to move into. I want to put a fake but realistic skull in the concrete that will get poured for some stairs. My wife disapproves. I’ll have to do it stealthily.

(Recommendations of a good fake skull that’s not too expensive are welcome.)

Real ones work best.

When I renovated behind my kitchen cabinets I wrote my email address and "clue 9 of 11. You've almost found the $5000. Email a photo of this clue to this address for the next clue!"

If someone ever does I'll ask them for clue 8 and then wonder if they destroy the house looking.

I guess I don’t understand trolling.

What’s the motivation in causing suffering for a person you don’t know?

You won’t even see them go through it. Is the fun in imagining them searching high and low for these clues made more pleasurable because it might actually happen?

I understand traditional revenge. An eye for an eye and so on. But why does someone want to create trouble presumably for the nice young couple who bought your house with the slightly tired kitchen?

Yes, I hate that motivation. More trivially there are people who enjoy baiting and winding other people up. Why?

I don't know. However I think I know the reason it's permitted to exist: because it makes its victims more resilient. The troll knows this at some level so his conscience is relatively untroubled.

Interesting take. I assumed trolls knew it was wrong and don’t care. You found an interesting logic where they might believe they were eventually a force for good

You're describing a different thing. In this context trolling = a practical joke. One of the things that makes life rich and worth living.

Yes there's also a kind of troll who is basically just an internet asshole.

Fair enough. Maybe trolling is a value laden term with negative connotations that don’t apply here.

What’s the thrill of the practical joke?

To share my POV, I never really found the banana peel or the pie in the face amusing. Guy fell down. She got hit in face. Seems bad. I wouldn’t enjoy receiving it.

This joke seems 99% invisible. Like most likely overwhelming likely, no one sees it. In some rare cases they find it and take some action. Maybe look for the money. Maybe email you.

If they look for it without contacting you, you never know.

Are we playing for the tiny corner case where they contact you?

Or the pleasure of telling people we did this funny thing?

It will be like the explanation of 20th century history in from the 31st century in Futurama.

How many cave paintings were just some whiteboard equivalent of hashing out an idea

Alright guys, so we’ve got the herd, say, over here. I’ll just sketch’em real quick on the wall so we’re on the same rock here. So at first, a couple of the youngsters chase them down the ravine, which is this crack in the rock over there. Now, after they round the corner, some of our more experienced guys flank them with spears. After running uphill over there, they won’t be rested and we should have a nice meal tonight. Thoughts?

"And this end is called the Thagomizer. After the late Thag Simmons".... [0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thagomizer#/media/File:Thagomi...

Nah, it was a prehistoric whiteboard interview.

I see you have 10 years experience hunting antelope.

We hunt gazelles here. Do you have any experience hunting gazelles?

"What is the best way to climb a tree to hunt or gather food..."

So if this is what remained on the cave wall ... it was the plan that killed the whole tribe?

Or maybe they didn’t have whiteboard markers, only permanent ones.

They had both, but some new hire confused them.

If someone writes on a whiteboard with a permanent marker, immediately black it out with a dry erase marker. Then wipe it off. The dry erase marker's solvent will release the permanent marker ink.

I doubt this was all that common, because it requires the pranker to have the idea of actual archaeologists to play the prank on, and that isn't something that's been present in all societies across history.

Archaeologists no but grave robbers have been around a long time.

Archaeologists aren't that new either. The oldest museum we know of was curated by Ennigaldi-Nanna, the daughter of Nabonidus, the last king of the Neo-Babylonian Empire.

Why do we think she created a museum? When the palace was excavated, dozens of neatly displayed artifacts from widely different eras and places were found. That alone wouldn't be conclusive, except for the fact that the artifacts had labels detailing their origins. In three languages.

Ennigaldi-Nanna lived in the 6th century BCE.

Mentioned here recently i think: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_dodecahedron

Even better: lets seed Mars with life and leave an actual mysterious buried or maybe orbiting artifact for future intelligences to find should any evolve there.

Then the Martian equivalent of Giorgio Tsoukalos, the Ancient Aliens guy with the crazy hair, would be right.

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