5 ms·

Fart Proudly (c. 1781)

93 points by lopespm 3y ago

christophilus 3y ago
I’d love to have a modern politician so capable and willing to write satire. Also, the more I find out about Benjamin Franklin, the more I realize that Charlie Munger is his modern-day clone.
- OfSanguineFire 3y ago
  In 1781 Franklin was not an elected official but already appointed ambassador to France. It is a lot easier to write satire if you don’t depend on the masses for their votes and have to stay on their good side. Also, a look at classic literature will show that the degree to which scatological humor is accepted, varies with time. Chaucer, whose work was massively respected in the late 14th and early 15th centuries, made jokes about farting and ass-licking that seem appalling to readers today. And I think a lot of HN readers already know about Mozart’s work Leck mich im Arsch.
- pphysch 3y ago
  Wit is sorely missed in our modern (Anglosphere) political culture.
cs702 3y ago
Throughout his adult life, Ben Franklin was dead-serious about the important things, but evidently he didn't take himself too seriously. This particular essay, he composed in response to a call for scientific papers from the Royal Academy of Brussels while he was the US Ambassador to France. Quoting from the essay's introduction: > I have perused your late mathematical Prize Question, proposed in lieu of one in Natural Philosophy, for the ensuing year...Permit me then humbly to propose one of that sort for your consideration, and through you, if you approve it, for the serious Enquiry of learned Physicians, Chemists, &c. of this enlightened Age. It is universally well known, that in digesting our common food, there is created or produced in the bowels of human creatures, a great quantity of wind. That the permitting this air to escape and mix with the atmosphere, is usually offensive to the company, from the fetid smell that accompanies it. That all well-bred people therefore, to avoid giving such offence, forcibly restrain the efforts of nature to discharge that wind. I'm reminded of Musk's antics. I wonder what Ben Franklin, were he alive today, would post on Twitter -- I mean, X.
- mamonster 3y ago
  You would probably not be aware of what Franklin would be posting, given that he would almost certainly be doing it with at least 5 alts.
  - ShrigmaMale 3y ago
    Benny F for TPOT!
- rabbits_2002 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - novosel 3y ago
    [flagged]
  - internet2000 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - cjaybo 3y ago
      In what ways?
- RIMR 3y ago
  [flagged]
- alexk307 3y ago
  This is thoughtful, funny, and non offensive. Musk posts political memes made by children with the intent of offending and provoking the media.
- VoodooJuJu 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - 3y ago
Mistletoe 3y ago
> Franklin believed that the various academic societies in Europe were increasingly pretentious and concerned with the impractical. Oh wow I wonder what he would think of it now. People spend their whole lives studying the tiniest most minuscule thing that is published in some obscure journal and forgotten like the ark at the end of Raiders. Maybe I’m just too bitter about academia in this point in my career but it seems like we’ve run out of things to study and/or have too many people doing it. The creepy professor/grad student pyramid scheme couldn’t go on forever.
- notthemessiah 3y ago
  > Maybe I’m just too bitter about academia in this point in my career but it seems like we’ve run out of things to study and/or have too many people doing it. We have certainly not run out of things to study, but I think we've hit the limit on what can effectively be communicated through traditional science journals [1], and we need to address the reproducibility crisis through open source science and reconsider the incentive structures around academia [2]. We need to oppose initiatives from people like Bill Gates who wish to privatize science through his various non-profits, as knowledge works better as as commons (we were unable to deal with the pandemic partly because Bill Gates prevented Oxford from open sourcing their work on COVID [3]). We need software that can compose scientific models [4], and organizations that can facilitate greater coordination among scientists. Science will become all the more important in an increasingly uncertain world, but are we up to the task? [1] https://www.science.org/content/article/frustrated-science-student-behind-sci-hub https://www.science.org/content/article/frustrated-science-s... [1] https://numfocus.org/open-source-science-initiative-ossci https://numfocus.org/open-source-science-initiative-ossci [2] https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-the-world-loses-under-bill-gates-vaccine-colonialism/ https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-the-world-loses-under-bi... [3] https://www.algebraicjulia.org/ https://www.algebraicjulia.org/
getarofilter 3y ago
[dead]
code_runner 3y ago
Finally an HN post in one of my areas of expertise!
falcor84 3y ago
See also this other letter of his: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advice_to_a_Friend_on_Choosing_a_Mistress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advice_to_a_Friend_on_Choosing...
Darmody 3y ago
I've been listening to his autobiography recently. Fascinating man. In case you're interested: https://es.player.fm/series/the-autobiography-of-benjamin-franklin-by-benjamin-franklin/00-introduction https://es.player.fm/series/the-autobiography-of-benjamin-fr...
sheepshear 3y ago
Like many writings from the time, the original does not seem to have been scanned or photographed yet. Only transcribed.
photochemsyn 3y ago
> "Franklin responded with an essay suggesting that research and practical reasoning be undertaken into methods of improving the odor of human flatulence" Japan has been leading the way in this sector, for at least ten years. Typical ad blurb: > 'New dietary supplement from Japan will make your farts smell “like a flower garden”'
mbg721 3y ago
There's a common joke (at least it was in my high school) that Thoreau's "lives of quiet desperation" were mainly about digestive distress from the bean-based diet at Walden.
klyrs 3y ago
My grandmother read this to the family at the dinner table once. People today are such prudes.
tgma 3y ago
Persian poet Saadi[1] (1210-1291) has a poem in his Golestan[2] that addresses a similar concern: شکم زندان باد است ای خردمند ندارد هیچ عاقل باد در بند چو باد اندر شکم پیچد فرو هل که باد اندر شکم بار است بر دل Roughly translates to: Bowel is a prison for wind Not a wise man beholds wind Wind blows in your bowel let it loose Wind in bowel, it weighs on thou [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saadi_Shirazi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saadi_Shirazi [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulistan_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulistan_(book)
- pphysch 3y ago
  > Comrades, you must all analyse your own responsibility. If you have to shit, shit! If you have to fart, fart! You will feel much better for it. -- Mao Zedong (1959) https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-8/mswv8_34.htm https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-work...
nologic01 3y ago
Uncontrollable farting undoubtedly contributes to global warming and the fact that we just had the warmest July ever suggests people don't take the impact of relaxed social mores seriously. So by all means, keep farting liberally, but we must invest in fart-capture technologies, or FCT (shameless plug - we are pioneering this with AI). Inaction will have consequences such as mass migration to more liveable areas.
lusus_naturae 3y ago
Depends on who's farting, if you don't like someone or it's a stranger (you're not kinda attracted to) everything about them is an assault to the senses.
timonoko 3y ago
Factual fact: If you live long time at optimal sustenance level, you will discover that farting is an anomaly and something is wrong. You do it carefully because the fart may be wet and you will soil you sleeping bag under condition where cleaning is impossible.

93 points by lopespm 3y ago

I’d love to have a modern politician so capable and willing to write satire. Also, the more I find out about Benjamin Franklin, the more I realize that Charlie Munger is his modern-day clone.

OfSanguineFire 3y ago
In 1781 Franklin was not an elected official but already appointed ambassador to France. It is a lot easier to write satire if you don’t depend on the masses for their votes and have to stay on their good side. Also, a look at classic literature will show that the degree to which scatological humor is accepted, varies with time. Chaucer, whose work was massively respected in the late 14th and early 15th centuries, made jokes about farting and ass-licking that seem appalling to readers today. And I think a lot of HN readers already know about Mozart’s work Leck mich im Arsch.
pphysch 3y ago
Wit is sorely missed in our modern (Anglosphere) political culture.

cs702 3y ago

Throughout his adult life, Ben Franklin was dead-serious about the important things, but evidently he didn't take himself too seriously. This particular essay, he composed in response to a call for scientific papers from the Royal Academy of Brussels while he was the US Ambassador to France. Quoting from the essay's introduction: > I have perused your late mathematical Prize Question, proposed in lieu of one in Natural Philosophy, for the ensuing year...Permit me then humbly to propose one of that sort for your consideration, and through you, if you approve it, for the serious Enquiry of learned Physicians, Chemists, &c. of this enlightened Age. It is universally well known, that in digesting our common food, there is created or produced in the bowels of human creatures, a great quantity of wind. That the permitting this air to escape and mix with the atmosphere, is usually offensive to the company, from the fetid smell that accompanies it. That all well-bred people therefore, to avoid giving such offence, forcibly restrain the efforts of nature to discharge that wind. I'm reminded of Musk's antics. I wonder what Ben Franklin, were he alive today, would post on Twitter -- I mean, X.

mamonster 3y ago
You would probably not be aware of what Franklin would be posting, given that he would almost certainly be doing it with at least 5 alts.
- ShrigmaMale 3y ago
  Benny F for TPOT!
rabbits_2002 3y ago
[flagged]
- novosel 3y ago
  [flagged]
- internet2000 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - cjaybo 3y ago
    In what ways?
RIMR 3y ago
[flagged]
alexk307 3y ago
This is thoughtful, funny, and non offensive. Musk posts political memes made by children with the intent of offending and provoking the media.
VoodooJuJu 3y ago
[flagged]
- 3y ago

Mistletoe 3y ago

> Franklin believed that the various academic societies in Europe were increasingly pretentious and concerned with the impractical. Oh wow I wonder what he would think of it now. People spend their whole lives studying the tiniest most minuscule thing that is published in some obscure journal and forgotten like the ark at the end of Raiders. Maybe I’m just too bitter about academia in this point in my career but it seems like we’ve run out of things to study and/or have too many people doing it. The creepy professor/grad student pyramid scheme couldn’t go on forever.

notthemessiah 3y ago
> Maybe I’m just too bitter about academia in this point in my career but it seems like we’ve run out of things to study and/or have too many people doing it. We have certainly not run out of things to study, but I think we've hit the limit on what can effectively be communicated through traditional science journals [1], and we need to address the reproducibility crisis through open source science and reconsider the incentive structures around academia [2]. We need to oppose initiatives from people like Bill Gates who wish to privatize science through his various non-profits, as knowledge works better as as commons (we were unable to deal with the pandemic partly because Bill Gates prevented Oxford from open sourcing their work on COVID [3]). We need software that can compose scientific models [4], and organizations that can facilitate greater coordination among scientists. Science will become all the more important in an increasingly uncertain world, but are we up to the task? [1] https://www.science.org/content/article/frustrated-science-student-behind-sci-hub https://www.science.org/content/article/frustrated-science-s... [1] https://numfocus.org/open-source-science-initiative-ossci https://numfocus.org/open-source-science-initiative-ossci [2] https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-the-world-loses-under-bill-gates-vaccine-colonialism/ https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-the-world-loses-under-bi... [3] https://www.algebraicjulia.org/ https://www.algebraicjulia.org/

getarofilter 3y ago

[dead]

code_runner 3y ago

Finally an HN post in one of my areas of expertise!

falcor84 3y ago

See also this other letter of his: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advice_to_a_Friend_on_Choosing_a_Mistress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advice_to_a_Friend_on_Choosing...

Darmody 3y ago

I've been listening to his autobiography recently. Fascinating man. In case you're interested: https://es.player.fm/series/the-autobiography-of-benjamin-franklin-by-benjamin-franklin/00-introduction https://es.player.fm/series/the-autobiography-of-benjamin-fr...

sheepshear 3y ago

Like many writings from the time, the original does not seem to have been scanned or photographed yet. Only transcribed.

photochemsyn 3y ago

> "Franklin responded with an essay suggesting that research and practical reasoning be undertaken into methods of improving the odor of human flatulence" Japan has been leading the way in this sector, for at least ten years. Typical ad blurb: > 'New dietary supplement from Japan will make your farts smell “like a flower garden”'

mbg721 3y ago

There's a common joke (at least it was in my high school) that Thoreau's "lives of quiet desperation" were mainly about digestive distress from the bean-based diet at Walden.

klyrs 3y ago

My grandmother read this to the family at the dinner table once. People today are such prudes.

tgma 3y ago

Persian poet Saadi[1] (1210-1291) has a poem in his Golestan[2] that addresses a similar concern: شکم زندان باد است ای خردمند ندارد هیچ عاقل باد در بند چو باد اندر شکم پیچد فرو هل که باد اندر شکم بار است بر دل Roughly translates to: Bowel is a prison for wind Not a wise man beholds wind Wind blows in your bowel let it loose Wind in bowel, it weighs on thou [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saadi_Shirazi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saadi_Shirazi [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulistan_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulistan_(book)

pphysch 3y ago
> Comrades, you must all analyse your own responsibility. If you have to shit, shit! If you have to fart, fart! You will feel much better for it. -- Mao Zedong (1959) https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-8/mswv8_34.htm https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-work...

nologic01 3y ago

Uncontrollable farting undoubtedly contributes to global warming and the fact that we just had the warmest July ever suggests people don't take the impact of relaxed social mores seriously. So by all means, keep farting liberally, but we must invest in fart-capture technologies, or FCT (shameless plug - we are pioneering this with AI). Inaction will have consequences such as mass migration to more liveable areas.

lusus_naturae 3y ago

Depends on who's farting, if you don't like someone or it's a stranger (you're not kinda attracted to) everything about them is an assault to the senses.

timonoko 3y ago

Factual fact: If you live long time at optimal sustenance level, you will discover that farting is an anomaly and something is wrong. You do it carefully because the fart may be wet and you will soil you sleeping bag under condition where cleaning is impossible.