A video on some of the worlds greatest/dumbest scammers
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Ancient Scamming Transcript:
Everywhere you look today you are surrounded by one scam or another, be it get rich quick schemes, crypto telegram groups or uh pension contributions. With all these scams and tricks you might wonder how did it get so bad that man should want to readily betray one another so easily. Well im here to tell you that the art of the scam is actually as old as civilisation itself, the methods may have changed but, the underlying aim to get ahead at the expense of others is thousands of years old maybe even millions. So in todays video we will be looking at ancient scams and scammers. Starting off with a somewhat infamous scammer because of a meme we will be looking at Ea-Nasir the worlds greatest copper vendor. Ea Nasir lived in 18th century Mesopotamia BC in Ur by what is now known as Persian gulf. Ea-Nasir was a businessman who worked with the Alik-Tilmun merchant guild and was actually one of the more successful copper traders at the time. Ea-Nasir also dipped his toes into selling finished metal products and other things but his main income came from selling copper ingots. Surprisingly enough at the beginning of his career he honoured his debts and was seen as a trustworthy businessman. But after an extended stay in Dilmun he began to trade less honestly, so much so that he began to get complaints about his copper specifically failure to delivers and when he did deliver it was of copper that was subpar. His web of deceit is quite confusing so im going to explain it using a spider diagram, kind of anyway. Central to the diagram we have Ea-Nasir and directly beside him was his business partner and middleman… um well…. 2016 sam o nella might have gotten away with it but uh im probably not as lucky so ill just call him nanna. Anyway our first complaint in cuneiform tablet form is from Arbituram who writes. “ and give the silver and its profit to Nanna. I have made you issue a tablet. Why have you not given me the copper? If you do not give it, I will recall your pledges. Good copper, give again and again.” He then ends it by saying “send me a man” which I like, is it threatening, is it a sign of romantic interest? Who knows, what we do know is that Ea Nasir didn’t resolve this and send arbituram his copper so he sends him another complaint tablet this time it reads. "Why have you not given the copper to Nanna? Ili-idinnam says 'The copper that Nanna has received is mine!' Be kind enough to give the copper, as much as he has a claim on you, to Nanna." So im guessing that Arbituram did receive some copper from Ea-Nasir through Nanna but it was actually promised to ili iddinum, im guessing that arbturam took the copper promised to ili iddinum and is telling Ea-Nasir to make ili iddinum whole. Because of this chicanery Ili iddinum also wrote a complaint to Ea-Nasir sarcastically telling him that “the work that you have done is sooooooooo good.” The literary device of the stretching of words to make them ironic seems to span millennia, taking the seems to be a timeless pastime and im all for it. He continues “One year ago, I paid silver in a foreign country; you shall hold back only bad copper. Please bring your copper." Im starting to think that if Ea-Nasir is continually scamming you yet you continue to do business with him you kinda deserve it. They are acting as if he was the only copper trader in ancient Mesopotamia the way they clamour for his trade. He also had a few more complaints from others such as Appa who wrote “The copper of mine, give it to Nanna - good copper, in order that my heart shall not be troubled." Very poetic, it’s a shame that this writing style didn’t survive ancient times, just imagine writing an email to your boss, like I pray that this email finds you in good health, at your request I have enclosed within thine inbox a copy of this winter’s financial reports, the days of dark evenings are subsiding and spring arises, may the coming seasons be bountiful and good. God be with you, Stoic stick, regional assistant manager. McDonalds. Cutaway gag aside, you might have noticed that ive added 2 more onto the spider diagram and that’s because I did, glad we cleared that up. But we have our final and longest complaint from the most famous of all of Eya nasirs disgruntled customers, he wrote on both sides of a cuneiform tablet, which is an arduous task, it probably took him many hours or even a day of just sitting there digging into a stone tablet just so he could get across how much Ea-Nasir him off. It Starts Now, when you had come, you spoke saying thus: 'I will give good ingots to Gimil-Sin'; this you said to me when you had come, but you have not done it. You have offered bad ingots to my messenger, saying 'If you will take it, take it; if you will not take it, go away.' Who am I that you are treating me in this manner.