They figured out a way to sail without paying fifty men with rum and scurvy
Text content
Giant kites could pull cargo ships across the ocean – and slash their carbon emissions
By Mark Tutton, CNN
5 minute read
5000yrs ago:
Overview
This is a two-panel comparative meme. The top panel displays a snippet of a CNN news article with the headline stating that giant kites can be used to pull cargo ships across the ocean to cut carbon emissions, paired with a photo of a modern cargo ship being propelled by a large kite over the ocean. The bottom panel is labeled '5000yrs ago:' and shows an illustration of a historical tall-masted sailing ship that uses wind power via large fabric sails to travel. The humor comes from pointing out that the 'innovative' new kite propulsion technology is essentially a reimplementation of the ancient concept of wind-powered sailing, with the joke framing the only practical difference as not needing to employ a large crew that is paid in rum and at risk of scurvy, as was the case for historical sailing vessels.
Origin notes
This meme originates from the Reddit r/Meme subreddit, as provided in the source information. It combines a real CNN news article excerpt about emerging kite propulsion technology for reducing cargo ship emissions with public domain imagery of a historical sailing ship to create the humorous comparison.
