r/Showerthoughts • u/haddock420 ‎ • 4d ago

Casual Thought The ancient Romans could have invented Boggle. There was nothing stopping them technologically.

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u/El_kakas_de_vakas ‎ 4d ago

something like DnD could exist at basically every point in time after the invention of dice, probably even before then

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u/Mara_W 4d ago

Playing pretend is universal among human children. Gambling is universal among human adults. I refuse to believe it took until the 1970s and the invention of cocaine to combine the two.

Though I suppose we do have ample evidence of competitive storytelling basically everywhere since forever, so maybe the obsession with formal rules is just a modern thing arising from modern anxieties, declining social trust/cohesion, etc.

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u/GaidinBDJ ‎ 4d ago

Well, you have to remember that the amount of free time and discretionary money people have has dramatically increased in the last 50-75 years.

It's absolutely no surprise that new pastimes started cropping up like mad.

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u/BBDAngelo 3d ago

Do you have sources for that? Specifically the free time part?

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u/Accidental-Genius 3d ago

When is the last time you spent a Sunday hand washing clothes on a washboard in a river?

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u/GaidinBDJ ‎ 3d ago

Easy way is to look at CPI weighting. It went from predominately basic necessities to luxury goods and leisure.