Cobblestone, somewhere in Brussels
Photo: Maarten Inghels
Years ago, I found this cobblestone on the street in Brussels with the golden inscription “I USED TO BE A MOUNTAIN.” Like a speech bubble rising from a choked rock. After all these years, I still haven’t been able to find out who made it—there’s no record of it anywhere as a listed artwork. I see it now as a poetic intervention by an anonymous city dweller.
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The complex atoms that make up you and me were born out of the hearts of exploding dying stars billions of years ago. Those atoms drifted, floated and danced across the universe, onto our planet where they were again moved, mixed and rearranged to make this walking talking meat skeleton powered by electricity.
Orchestrated by electrical messages but I think powered by ATP.
ATP (and any molecule, really) is just a particular configuration of electrical particles that use electromagnetism to hold together some mass.
I guess if you include the electrostatic interaction in the "powered by electricity" above and not just the common meaning of electricity which is electric current.
Yeah, they lost me at electricity. I think this is a copypasta.
Much of the water you and me drink, used to be pee and fecal sludge.
... of DINOSAURS! :O
That's why Gatorade is much better!
We are all stardust
That's actually a mildly depressing way to put it. Reduced from a majestic, imposing, mass to something humans tread on without a second thought.
Oh, for fucks sake not everything is holy and should remain immutable forever. Not everything humans do to their environment is bad.
Besides, this is probably granite which would have been under a mountain that got worn away. It was probably buried underground and quarried. No one saw a big impressive mountain and chopped it down.
Going off, chopping mountains, as one does. On a more serious note, are there examples of this? I only know of humans raising mountains and usually they're not of the good kind.
Edit: It appears this is a thing humans are doing. And it looks just as horrific as I feared it might.
Yeah, mountain top strip mining is a thing but it’s done for coal, mainly. It is horrific.
The worst part is coal is such a terrible fuel there's no good reason to keep doing it. We've already mined most of the accessible coal that can be easily mined, and we have better fuels now that burn cleaner and more easily than coal, and even for the odd one-off usecase where coal is the best option we have modern alternatives that contain no coal and burn similarly.
Killing coal is one of the easiest wins Humanity could achieve because it's entirely outmoded but moneyed interests keep it on life support for no reason other than money
You must be fun at parties
3 hours after you posted. You have 0 upvotes and they have 22.
Looks like you are the one who must be fun at parties judging from the numbers
Actually, I'd venture to say they were right, and they're no fun at parties
You are entitled to your opinion, but I was analysing the numbers. Which at this moment are 29 to -1
And I explained that so, you can disagree with me all you want. I don't care because my comment still holds up regardless of what you believe
I'm a different person, from the one you were replying to originally, and I was being tongue in cheek. Sorry if you got confused
Ahh thanks. I definitely did not catch that being tongue in cheek. Sorry, and thanks
😒
I've seen an animation about this: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NBVCIgfyciA
Why did this make me cry, I really like this short film
I knew what this was going to be before I clicked it. Such an excellent film.
With a tough guy tattoo like that, you just know he used to be a decorative stone in a fountain or some shit.
Brussels toynbee tile.
No. That used to be flowing magma.
Igneous rock lover enters the chat!
(Waiting to be shot down for my geological ignorance!)
Had I seen this two weeks ago when passing through, I may have hunted it down.
I passed through Brussels in 2023. I wish I had stayed a little longer. I really liked it there.
I passed through twice, had to be in the Netherlands for work and while I was there my partner visited family in the UK. So we took a week off after and met in Brussels before going to Ghent and Bruges and back to Brussels before heading back to the UK.
That first day we did wander and go to some of the sights (we aren't very touristy) but really liked it. If you ever are back in the area, I highly recommend Ghent!
Yes! I've heard good things. A friend of mine was just there and I'm meeting up with him tomorrow. Can't wait to ask about it. Cheers!
Driving around North Wales 😢
Then it took a pickaxe to the knee
Thanks. It'd nice to provide the location, lat/lon or OpenStreetMap link.
....and I used to be good, really good.
Life fucks everybody, you aren't special.