Citation Needed - Bronze Age Collapse

Episode Date: July 3, 2024

The Late Bronze Age collapse was a time of widespread societal collapse during the 12th century BC associated with environmental change, mass migration, and the destruction of cities. The collapse affected a large area of the Eastern Mediterranean (North Africa and Southeast Europe) and the Near East, in particular Egypt, eastern Libya, the Balkans, the Aegean, Anatolia, and, to a lesser degree, the Caucasus. It was sudden, violent, and culturally disruptive for many Bronze Age civilizations, and it brought a sharp economic decline to regional powers, notably ushering in the Greek Dark Ages. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Bronze_Age_collapse  

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Lens, where delicious begins. Hello and welcome to Citation Needed, the podcast where we choose a subject, read a single article about it on Wikipedia and pretend we're experts, because this is the internet and that's how it works now. I'm Noah and I'm going to be leading this excavation, but digging is hard and I don't want to do it, so I brought along a few strong backs. First up, two guys who assumed X-marking the spot meant that they were going to find porn there. Cecil and he. Well, no, with enough lube, everything is porn. Okay. All right. With enough porn, everything is lube. Philosophical. I like it. And also joining us tonight, two men who got kicked off their last dig site for screaming bone

fight every time they found anything Tom and Eli okay, but if you don't announce it, how will everyone know it's okay to join it? Yeah, and we brought our own skeletons from home. It's bullshit And before we get going tonight I want to remind you that pretending to know about shit is a really hard field to break into so if this falls apart We're all the way fucked. Yeah, right This doesn't help on a resume, which is why we love our patrons so much. If you'd like to become a patron, you should be sure to stick around to the end

of the show. And with that out of the way, tell us, Eli, what person, place, thing, concept, phenomenon or event we'll be talking about today. We'll be talking about the collapse of the Bronze Age. Oh, all right. See, so you read a page two on Wikipedia and are now going to summarize one of the most diffuse and complicated subjects in the entire field of historical science, huh? I mean, I'm gonna say we aren't really sure what happened six different ways. Let's not pretend this is complex, Noah. Okay, all right, all right.

Well, now that you've undersold it, how about you oversell it? Give us the hard side. All right. So today we're going to be talking about the Bronze Age Collapse, which was a multi-nation societal collapse in the 12th century BCE that took place in the Eastern Mediterranean. This collapse took out several nations, reducing them to lesser states or casting their societies into dark ages. One day we're going to unearth a Bronze Age large language model and all these pieces just fall into place.

I love that this is like fucking drilling right into Tom's fears the whole time. This is good for me, Cecil. Thank you. This is going to be amazing. It's going to be a lot of fun. All the essays are about things that happened. You know that's fair, Eli. That's fair. It's like a call back and a call forward. It's crazy. Exactly So the interesting thing is there's no one theory on how or why the societies around that time collapsed Many scholars don't think it was one thing but but a series of individual disasters, wars, and climate

anomalies that caused that era to take a tailspin. Oh, okay, good. We're going to be fine. Thank you. What could go wrong? Voice of reason. Before we collapse the Bronze Age, we should build it up. But let's actually start at what a Bronze Age is.

Couldn't have done this essay before I embarrassed myself in front of Dr. Dan McClellan. Historians and anthropologists split our human timeline into ages. The ages can be categorized in different ways like who was in charge of a land or a region, major conflicts during those times etc. cetera. Or, as in this case, they can be categorized by the technological advancement. The period before the Bronze Age was the Copper Age, and the period after was the Iron Age. These ages were named for the use of a certain material

used in weapons and tools. If you were wondering what age we're in now, it would be the information internet age or the silicon age and a future age could be something like the graphene age or perhaps a nanotech age or the AI age. The age of Ultron, that's what we're in. It's fun.

I love y'all's techno-optimism. To be clear, it could also be the fucking stick age with a radioactive pustule my bet is gonna be on the no one left to name it or the Tom was right all along age I don't know be either one you don't win anything by being right about it everywhere electricity was a mistake we

we name it age after the things we use for weapons we are in the internet age good We name it age after the things we use for weapons. We are in the internet age. Good. Yeah, I was going to say, we are in the internet age. We did it everybody. So in order to have a bronze age, you need bronze. What is bronze? Well, bronze is an alloy that's mostly copper

with about 12% tin. Adding copper to tin makes the metal harder and more durable than copper alone. Both copper and tin have lower melting points than iron, and the tech at the time really couldn't get iron hot enough to be widely usable. There's another way to make bronze, adding arsenic instead of tin,

and this was widely used too. And yes, the vaporization point of arsenic is lower than copper, so chronic arsenic poisoning from smelting could have been prevalent. You know there was one blacksmith who insisted that was just a conspiracy by Big Tin. Tin doesn't burn that hot. He's over there like, I'm pissing blood because I've developed a natural arsenic immunity. That's what I've done.

That's why I'm pissing this blood. Making bronze would require mining of those two different ores, and that would require trade. And this era had quite a bit of trade, and in turn, an interconnectedness of multiple societies. The region had the Egyptians, the Mycenaeans, the Minoans, the Hittites, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Cypriots, the Trojans, and the Canaanites.

While society A might not be directly connected to society B, they would both be connected to society C. This creates a network of interconnected societies, trade, and communication that's much different than just a group of isolated kingdoms that would only get together to fight each other once in a while. Yeah, it's like a really complicated version of the hen, fox and the grain and nine different racist states with like a web of their own bigotry towards you. One, but there's actually an answer. We get to an answer.

Yeah. And that answer is usually money. Try a lot of straw for bricks. The Cypriots hate the Trojans. The Trojans can trade with the Egyptians. They don't fuck the Egyptians when they trade. So that's, they can have a thing. Copper mostly came from Cypriot and the tin from Afghanistan. The tin would have to be mined and then travel long distances over land to get to the

Mediterranean Sea and then it would be traded with cultures there. You can think of the need for tin like our current need for oil. It would have been constantly in demand and a product that a large society would need in abundance to keep functioning at the same level. So the trade of this ore was vital to the Bronze Age societies.

Yeah, did it also involve convincing a credulous nation to believe that sometimes invading another sovereign country wasn't an unprovoked attack, but instead a preemptive defense? It probably did. Like ancient Rumsfeld is like the best defense. While there's the unknown Cypriots the known Also important is that that this trade route to the Mediterranean was fragile and somewhat unique So if it were to fail then the cultures of the area would be without a lot of the raw material that made their lives Sustainable the armies of the land would be without weapons

The tools and everyday items would not be made or sold, and other tools for agriculture and farming wouldn't be around in abundance, possibly halting production and causing problems with the food chain. Ancient people are so stupid. Can you imagine basing the function of your entire society on a finite resource controlled by your enemies? So dumb. So dumb. We would never do that.

But it's also, it's a great reminder to those like live off the land types that if we all did that, like we couldn't even achieve Bronze Age levels of shit. Okay. If the Tik Tokers are lying, we're in a lot of trouble. Okay. I'm pretty sure they're the best farmers in the universe. So what else was being traded at the time? Well, there was actually a shipwreck that we found dating to this time frame that was

loaded with either trade goods or it was a gift to a ruler of one of these lands. It's called the Uluburin Shipwreck. It was loaded up with raw copper and tin ingots, about enough to make 11 tons of bronze, jars from Canaan filled with glass beads and others filled with pistachio resin, hippo ivory, tortoise shells, ostrich egg shells, pottery, a trumpet, beads of amber, quartz, gold and other jewelry, and a bunch of various weapons and tools. It also was carrying various food stuffs like olives, pine nuts pine nuts cumin coriander and grapes

How did the trumpet get in there that was weird right? Sometimes like we got a deal if you throw in the shiny ass funnel Hippo ivory feels like something Tom would have a desk made out of right Okay, now I have a new item to add to my Amazon wishlist. Thank you, Eli. This sampling of items has been traced back to other locations in the Mediterranean at the time, showing that the people of that era got a certain thing, like glass, from a certain place, Mycenae. One place would be the main producer of some of these items and that became their export

in this complex trade system that existed between these city-states. Right, and left them all the way fucked in the case of a siege. Right? They're like, good news guys, we got enough glass beads to make it until the fucking iron age. The bad news though is Everything all the other stuff. Yeah Stop listening after glass beads. Let's start the bus party

You guys do a lot of this hippo ivory I got a good ass funnel. Is that helpful right now? With the beads, do they fit? Everything fits with enough loot. Now the ass funnels off key. Now this collapse timeframe is actually an era in history where modern people know some of the players. Ramsey's the third was the Pharaoh at the time, but about 70 to 100 years prior was the reign of Nefertiti and King Tut. This was also the time when the biblical exodus would have

taken place. It probably didn't. And it would have been the time that the Trojan War and the fall of Troy would have occurred. Okay, Cecil, I can't believe you're casting doubt on his story just because there's no evidence it did happen and plenty of evidence it couldn't have happened. Why do you hate freedom? Cecil. Thank you. Haven't I been through enough, Cecil? This land would have flourished in this balance of power for centuries like this. Sure, there were wars between these city-states and there were passing good and bad times,

but for the most part, there was an equilibrium for those centuries until we get to about 1200 BCE. At that point things start to go tits up and the Bronze Age settlements in the Mediterranean begin to wink out of existence one by one. All right. Well, it looks like we got our Bronze Age and we'll get our collapse after a little apropos of nothing. And so I said to her, you're not an oracle, why would I ask you? Woof. How'd that go? It went awful. Yeah, I mean, what did you expect though? What a bitch, she's not an oracle, why would I ask you? Woof. How'd that go? That went awful. Yeah, I mean, what did you expect though? What a bitch, she's not an oracle though.

Hey fellas. Oh, hey, the gollikas. What are you wearing? Oh, this? It's my bread mail. What's bread? Okay, it's the latest thing. Those scientists down at the granary look to be up I'm telling you guys they're gonna be calling this the bread age soon you you should really get on board right right

I mean that that stuff looks great, but I don't think it's gonna be like armor It's not just gonna be armor. How about one of these? It's not just going to be armor. How about one of these? You made an sure, you know, so watch out. Cool. Is it may I? Oh, I mean, sure. But be careful, because I've actually been sharpening that all.

Yeah, this is actually OK. You're not supposed to eat the axe version of it. Really seems like you're using this stuff wrong. Oh, good. You guys gotta try No, I am using it right you guys are afraid to change because it's just the start of the bread age and I'm ahead of the Times this bread age we're doing I mean, I mean I'm scared of it. Thank you Tom. Oh Yeah, no that's what's meeting there like like tween it. Oh good. Ooh

Life doesn't pause for education Like, tween it? an incredible price. It's fast, reliable internet for everyone. You're probably thinking, wait, what? But yeah, it's true. Learn more at Cox.com slash ACP. Non-transferable one per household. Application and eligibility decisions are made by the FCC. Other restrictions apply. And we're back when we last left off society was doing great You wanna pop that bubble for us or what sure I'll do that so what the hell happened We have this bustling group of trade partners all holding power in the area and they all start to die off Do we know what caused it? Well, not really. We have ideas and theories on why these city

states in the Mediterranean did collapse at the time, but no definitive answers. One of the leading researchers on this timeframe, Eric Klein wrote an op-ed in the Huffington Post a few years ago entitled, the collapse of civilizations. It's complicated. And he thinks that there were a lot of factors that went into this, into this collapse and we'll go over each one Sorry, the Huffington Post thought a op-ed was necessary for history happened for a variety of Response to people like Tom saying the size collapse tomorrow. That's what it was. I saw, I have a theory, it's about guns, germs, and steel.

Fuck you, pick one! No! So the first and foremost problem at this time is drought. This idea was originally suggested in the 1960s, but we really didn't have any way to confirm that there was drought at this time. Researchers in the last few decades have found that in fact there was widespread drought. First researchers found in core samples pollen counts that can help them determine the level

of vegetation at the time. They saw that in some of these sites there were hundreds of years of less vegetation and thus hundreds of years of drought. One researcher started to collect each of these instances and pin them all together and found that region wide there was generational drought. Okay, but hundreds of years of drought is just Yalera Desert now, right?

That's not a drought anymore. That's just, I feel like these societies are just floating around in the middle of the Pacific Ocean for a couple hundred years going like, well, but yeah, but wait until you see low tide. That's gonna be great. And Shapiro's like, this is just a drought. It's temporary drought.

But there to be water here would be a disease. Trout was not the only factor in the collapse though. There were other factors. Another bit of reading I did suggested that at the time a large volcano in Iceland Helga Erupted and it shot about two cubic miles of rock into the atmosphere There could have been severe cooling and climate change due to this explosion Yeah, and the really big cube of rock probably landed in a bad spot for Right Cecil another the researcher No Right, Cecil? Uh, another... Another researcher suggested... Answer him!

No. Another researcher... Suggests that cooler Mediterranean waters lead to less rain and more arid years. So it's possible that these two things are linked in some way. It's cold... But it's a dry cold, so we'll probably be fine. Another idea is that the collapse comes at the birth of the Iron Age. And that's more of a reason than a progression. Iron was too hard to melt and use for human history up until this point.

But as forging technology advanced became easier for more people to create iron tools and it became easier for these people to turn iron, a somewhat brittle metal, into steel. Iron was a lot more plentiful than tin and copper, so there was no need for complicated trade routes and trading partners. And city-states that ruled with an army that was outfitted with bronze was less scary to a populace with better access to iron and steel. Okay, I feel like Cecil knows this based on sword fights that he's actually bad at. Right, I realize. Cecil, is this whole essay based on an argument

you've been having with yourself in the shower ever since someone said something snarky to you at a renaissance fair? You have to tell us, you do have to tell us. I do not have to tell you. Cecil shows up at like a Syrian LARPing UFC or whatever the fuck it's called, and he's like, Iron age motherfuckers to mess

He gets banned for jumping ahead It's like this was the bronze I'm writing an episode I Just I love the thought of being the first scholar that had to present this idea though, right? You go through the way you go in front of some stuffy board of that had to present this idea, though, right? You go through the way you go in front of some stuffy board, a PhDs or whatever, and you're like, OK, so have we considered that maybe the Bronze Age ended because? Yeah, you know, because bronze kind of sucks.

So one of the biggest factors blame for the collapse of the Bronze Age is the sea peoples. Is this the woke version of semen? Because if it is, I'm a Republican. Now, I just a Republican now. This is my line. This is a group of possibly marauding, possibly migrating boat warriors that laid waste to several kingdoms during this time.

We know this because there is mention of these people who were actually a confederation of people rather than one group or nation in letters between these rulers. Ramses the third names these people in records and says that they were the Shardana, the Shekhalesh, the Jecher, the Denon, the Weshesh, and the Peleset. Now these words obviously meant something to Ramses but we have no idea who these people are today. Okay you need the slur word Rosetta Stone to figure that out. You ran. I feel like, well Eli probably knows it. I feel like it was something like, you know, something like that.

Let me check in my notebooks. Move on, I'll let you know. Now we do know what they look like. Giggle cluster. You got this. You got this. You got this. What was it? We do know what they look like because Ramsey's the Third has an image of captured sea peoples

on his temple in Metanet Habu. They had some kind of decorative headdress or helmet. Some of these people had helmets with horns. Okay, wait a minute. They were invaded by the Royal Order of Water Buffalo from the Flintstones? That's our going theory right now? They're just in a minute. They were invaded by the royal order of water buffalo from the Flintstones They're just in a boat their legs are out the bottom and they're running as fast as they can One of them also on this picture one of them also clearly has a dislocated shoulder because the human upper bodies aren't supposed to move like that But in any case we have Ramsey's the third account

of how he whooped the shit out of this group of people. And he did so a couple of times and we can read his account of this battle quote, the chiefs, the captains of infantry, the nobles I caused to equip the river miles like a strong wall with warships, galleys and barges. They were manned completely from bow to stern with valiant warriors bearing their arms, soldiers of all the choicest in Egypt. I, King Ramses III, was made a far-striding hero, conscious of his might, valiant to lead his army

in the day of battle. It feels like his teleprompter's about to go out. He's gonna start talking about beating up a shark army on his own. Nobody ever asked this question before. Those who reached my frontier, their seed is not. Their heart and soul are finished forever and ever. Those who came forward together on the sea, the full flame was in front of them at the

river mouths while the stockade of lances surrounded them on the shore They were dragged in enclosed and prostrated on the beach killed and made into heaps from tail to head He's trying to sell this as this genius strategy, but his plan was just line up a bunch of boats and have more spears than they do. Relax Ramsey the third far striding hero. Have more people is a valid strategy I will die on this hill. What we use on this podcast. Chariots of Fire made sense I feel like there actually were those. I didn't know what you were humming I was just trying to yes. I thought it was like the battle hymn of the Republic or something.

I thought it was maybe a fishing song based on what was happening and now that's that's the Marseille you needed a bat you need someone in the background to do the text me next time wait what's the battle him is that the same okay yeah so you're all probably thinking, wow, if he won and turned the sea people back, then what was the big deal? Well, Egypt was one of the two civilizations to actually survive the Bronze Age collapse. Other countries did not fare as well. Ugarit, a city on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, just east of Cyprus, sent several clay tablet

letters to each other, each more alarming than the last talking about the invaders from the sea. Quote, My father, behold, the enemy's ships came here, my cities were burned, and they did evil things in my country. Does my father not know that all my troops and chariots are in the land of Hati, and all my ships are in the land of Luka. Thus the country is abandoned to itself. May my father know it. The seven ships of the enemy that came here inflicted much damage on us. Dad, you said you'd buy me more chariots.

You've been up so bad by pirates. It was the word. They were racially diverse. I love you. So bad by pirates. It was the word they were they were racially diverse Love you here's another quote To the king Quote to the king my lord say thus Amarapi your servant I wrote you twice thrice three times a lady news regarding the enemy I don't like missives may my Lord know that now the

enemy forces are stationed at Rasu and their avant-garde forces were sent to you Garret now may my Lord send me forces and chariots and may my Lord save me from these forces of this enemy. Okay, so I looked up the etymology and I get it now, but when I first read avant-garde forces and I pictured this fabulously dressed contingent of the sea people got super excited but it turns out that's Yeah, I did not look it up Noah and I'm still picturing a mental image of an attack from like a troupe of performative dancers and black turtlenecks and nobody, nobody can stop me from that. Yeah!

Kick, jazz hands, torch, torch, yoke-o-no. How did that become avant-garde as the term after it was a military thing? But it's before garde, right, in French? I don't, I didn't look up the Alba. I didn't. I feel really combative right now. Turn into like that style of like edgy art or whatever. I have no idea.

Do you want an answer or do you want to look it up? You want time to look it up or? No, I thought maybe we'd discuss it together in our show. Weird. Okay. There are several other archaeological finds that show a thin layer of soot, arrowheads, and destruction around this time in other cities along the coast, indicating to some that the Sea Peoples had pretty good run of destruction before they decided to sail up

the Nile Delta. Yeah. run of destruction before they decided to sail up the Nile Delta. Yeah, how total is the destruction that thousands of years later you're digging around and you unearthed destruction? I mean like it's like a Larry's settlement. That's why I like this. No, it looks pretty destroyed up. Huh? Long time ago, destroyed up all the dirt nerds are so mad at you right now

I'm dirt nerds. You're gonna get so many fucking messages. I can't wait. I'm Citation pod at gmail.com dirt nerds. That's just stick a knife in the ground. They tasted something This was destruction. Like wiping your tongue on your shirt for a half an hour afterwards. Yeah, right. You guys know where the term avant-garde came from? It's possible that this coalition of forces was not intentionally warlike, but more migratory. Their lands were overcome with drought and famine and thus they left their lands and

came to new ones and they were not welcomed in it because those lands were overcome with drought and famine. They may have been like an ever growing Katamari of migrants rolling from place to place, eventually getting more and more hostile and eventually becoming a formidable force. Okay, I like when Cecil does the old-timey war stories and they're also aspirational. Kind of like we deserve to get beat up so hard in the US because of the economic situation. Yeah, I've actually been sitting here with an atomic wedgie the entire recording. Yeah. Oh, you meant our economy. Yeah, sorry. Although five bucks says that the sentence ever-growing katamari of migrants

Place to place and eventually getting more and more hostile shows up in a Trump fundraising Now that's out yes, super cool about the migrant army that attacks us that we deserve like we're gonna be getting take Amari you guys you're like the woke pirates from the bronze age. This is really we did a podcast. Cheers to you. Before you do, before you do. Do you guys know when the phrase of on car moved from a military distribute? Oh, you're cutting my head off. Okay.

Maybe one of you may know. military distribution. Oh, you're cutting my head off. Okay. Maybe one of you might know. Another possibility is that while some of these states dealt with the new invading sea people from the coast, traditional enemies in nearby lands might've used this as an attack of opportunity and invaded or attacked these already weakened or occupied states. Another suggestion is that there was what they call an earthquake swarm. This happens in an area on or around a fault line when all the lands around the fault lines get caught up and don't release all the pressure in the fault. So there can be a disastrous earthquake and then weeks or months or years later, another earthquake in the same spot or region until

the fault releases that pressure completely. So cities might have had time enough to just rebuild to get knocked back over again. Okay, there's got to be one that happened at like the worst timing. Somebody's like, finally, a city made of arsenic dominoes is rebuilt. Just going to set up the ribbon, grab the big scissors for this. Many researchers that study this time period think that all these factors combined to collapse several large populations of ancient people. Some of these cities and cultures died forever and others survived in a much more weakened state.

The Assyrian Empire did survive like this and so did the Egyptians. Okay, the drought is going to end soon and the double earthquake that was bad luck. We're going to rebuild one more time. But you guys are looking at me weird. There's two cubic miles of rock in the sky right now. Come on. This plunged the area into a dark age. Which was a weird thing to mine and then make weapons of. It's the dark.

Just odd. I liked it, Tom. I liked your joke, Tom. I liked it, Tom. What you said? They were named after. I was paying attention, is what I want to point out. I was paying attention.

Yeah, you did your homework. This was where societal communication and cooperation were minimal. It was also around this time that the Dark Ages led to poems and stories about a golden era of the past and myths of that time began to circulate, which is when we get Homer's Odyssey and Iliad. It would be several centuries before the area would recover, giving birth to several new societies and city-states,

places like Athens and Carthage, and in 900 BCE, the citation-needed mascots, the Etruscans, were burst onto the scene hoping for a mention in a podcast three millennia in the future. Okay, first of all, We got you, babe. I am the mascot for this podcast, Cecil,

and they didn't burst onto the scene, they stepped through their time-travelling years. Okay, my favorite anecdote that I found while researching this and they didn't burst onto the scene, they stepped through their time-travelling walls. BOTH LAUGH BOWEN Okay, my favorite anecdote that I found while researching this is that the ancient Greeks, when they were looking at the ruins of Mycenae, could not believe that humans that lived 300 to 800 years before them could move rocks that big or build walls like that.

So instead, they thought that the ancient Mycenaeans were helped by Cyclops. B Cyclops straight to Cyclops interesting did they build without depth perception is that why just I don't know what back means! I don't know what back means! What if two of you stood next to each other? Alright, so if you had to summarize what you learned in one sentence, Cecil, what would it be? Civilizations fail for a lot of reasons, and you can't take it with you, so become a patron on a per episode basis today. There it is. And are you ready for the quiz? I am. Let's do this. Alright, Cecil, what should historians call the Trump era?

Oh no. Hey, the stop the steal age. The Magnesium age. See, the Cooper age. Or D, the age. C. The Cooper age. Or D. The age of treason. Oh, they're all so good. They're all so good, but I love the first one. A. Stop the Steel Age. Correct. Well done.

Alright, Cecil. When future generations, thousands of years from now, write about our own imminent societal collapse, what will they blame it on? A. Something Tom has been warning everyone about for years. B, something Noah made me read about, which has haunted my every waking moment since. C, something Noah made me read about, which has haunted my every waking moment since caused by something Tom has been warning everyone about for years.

You realize that this I told you so moment is going to be really short. It's going to be so quick. It's going to be so quick. So quick. It's definitely secret. Yeah. Any of these really. Yeah. See.

Oh, sure. Yeah. All right. See, so I have a question for you. So the answer to the question, gee, why is it that the first time societies organize themselves into an interdependent, intercontinental trade coalition that required resources from far-flung locations to make the basic necessities for life, isolated geographical problems got horrendously amplified, leading to centuries of deprivation to the overwhelming majority.

It seems easy to me, right? Like that doesn't seem like a super complicated question. And yet the answer that I was thinking of didn't show up anywhere on your list. So my question is, why are scholars so reluctant to just admit the obvious on this one? A. No reason, really. B. We're doing great, actually. C. Not that that's related. Or D. Maybe genetic drift?

Could have been genetic drift? The collapse of civilizations. It's complicated. I just want to say somebody wrote a huff-poll-o post about it. Breaking news right there. See, Eric Kahn has some column space. Yeah, Eric Klein call me, baby. Tell the people. Cecil, the Graphene AI and Nanotech ages all sound pretty cool,

but what should this period of time actually be called? Hey, the Miss information age. The oil age or the Facebook special the underage I don't have to answer this if I don't want to right yeah I just declare Eli the winner yeah well Cecil Tom has been warning us about item C for a very long time. So I want an essay from him next week. About the person he hates most in all of history. All right. Well, for Eli, Cecil, Tom and Heath, I'm Noah. Thank you for hanging out with us today.

We're going to be back next week. By then, Tom will be an expert on something else. Between now and then, Cecil can teach you how to cook or Eli can teach you how to parent your choice. Those are just several ways that we can intrude on your life. And if you'd like to help keep this show going, you can make a per episode donation at patreon.com or CitationPod or leave a five star review over where you can. And if you want to get in touch with us, check out past episodes, connect with us on social

media or check the show notes. Be sure to check out citation pod.com. I can't believe you guys ate all my stuff. Now I'm going to have nothing to fight with at the big battle tomorrow. I don't even have any arrows to shoot. You know, most arrowheads these days are actually made of bone. We heard you, man. I'm just, I'm just saying.

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