I'm not convinced this is excessive / decadent, those words I'd associate more with the tech CEO's, Saudi royalty, etc.

It's bread, not a gold plated lamborghini.

I was homeless for nearly six years. I got myself off the street by moving into an SRO. I still live in an SRO more than three years later.

Most people in developed countries on planet earth today have completely decadent levels of wealth compared to literally billions of the people alive today, much less historic kings and queens. Yet many of us spend far too much time, money and effort on having walk-in closets full of clothes, getting cosmetic surgeries and similar.

I mean the Kardashians basically make millions off of playing to the crowd and sharing their lifestyles of the rich and shameless lives with people who are paying their bills and have zero hope of ever living that way. It is mind boggling and pointless and I am appalled the world is okay with that while also being okay with widespread poverty.

There are some incredibly perverse things going on in the world today and if people like the Kardashians did anything that was one tenth as interesting and useful as this experiment, the world would be a vastly better place. Instead, they sell clothes and makeup as if dressing up like them will make you a millionaire like them instead of just keeping them in comfort.

Edit: which is to say my idea of decadent wealth, connections, etc is different from yours and I'm not apologizing for that and I don't feel compelled to agree with your set point for "decadence." This was like some kind of movie Quest where you gather rare and ancient artifacts to make magic. He literally did that and you're dismissing it as merely bread.

(Also also: How many people could start with an argument on Twitter and end up with "So help me make bread that hasn't been made in 2000 years."? This is "decadent" for reasons having nothing to do with financial cost, though there is real cost involved. Not everyone has a backyard to bury pots in and try to figure out how you bake like they did in ancient Egypt.

Etc.)

It would be nice to pursue interesting and useful things like this, where someone bakes bread from 4,500 year old dormant yeast, but coming up with these ideas isn't usually very easy, even with a decadent lifestyle.

Not a whole lot of low hanging fruit these days, a lot of it has been picked. The amount of things we 'know' now is staggering, and has built up some boundaries on what's possible or not. Those boundaries might actually be wrong, but the more you learn the more boxed in your mind can get.

Sometimes it takes an outsider that's ignorant of those boundaries to break through them, try the thing that other people just think would be impossible and it works. I wouldn't be surprised if these people didn't even consider it a possibility that you could bake bread from ancient dormant yeast until this amateur Blackley claimed he did it the first time (and was mistaken).

I had no idea yeast could survive in a dormant state for 4,500 years in ceramic pots. I have yeast that doesn't always reactivate that's only a few years old, let alone 4,500 years. It would never even occur to me to even try, as I had a now clearly false belief that yeast doesn't last that long in my head.

I've probably spent most of my life thinking about games in one way or another, and coming up with new game ideas, but even still I never really come up with something truly genre-breaking. And yet board games have done that a few times in recent years, with someone coming up with deckbuilders, another person coming up with the idea of legacy board games, another a hidden traitor mechanic, etc, and creating a whole new genre out of it.

But even then, it's not super common. Most board games coming out now are a mix of established things, with a bit of a twist or an unconventional theme.

Thank you for your reply. I have to continually remind myself of this truth, and it's great when someone slaps me in the face with it.

One definition of decadence is "luxurious self indulgence." How much more self indulgent can you get than "I think I would like to do some lock down baking. I'm going to ask a couple of Egyptologists to source me ancient yeast cultures from museums and help me authentically recreate ancient Egyptian baking methods for funsies!"

It's basically insane. It's not like this was part of some lab project sponsored by government grants. But I heartily approve and I hope the world moves more in this direction.

Honestly it reminds me of the Enlightenment, when most research scientists and mathematicians were bored rich guys who were looking to impress other bored rich guys.

Yes, I completely agree. To take it one step further, he didn't even need the bread. He could have just thrown it away and not even notice.

Suppose Kim Kardashian disappeared tomorrow. How would my life better? If this man wasn't able to ask his question about bread, would there be more cars/houses/doctors/food in the world?

Agree. This is much more interesting than yet another charter to Antarctica.

My favorite part of the entire article is where he asks the two people who gave him the most crap to team up with him and help him do it right. It's brilliant and gutsy and I admire his dedication to excellence.

I'm so glad they both said "Yes." They also deserve respect for their dedication to excellence. No, they weren't just dogging him to be mean or something. They share his dedication to excellence.