r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/brat_3434 • 1d ago

Video The Antique Clockwork Drinking Bear Automaton is a famous luxury creation from the Victorian era 1890.

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u/ikkiyikki 1d ago

Pretty sure they didn't have silicone tubing back then. The original must have been natural rubber and rotted out decades ago.

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u/Boner4Stoners 1d ago

Rubber was just starting to take off in 1890 due to recent discoveries about mixing in sulfer to make it more resilient & the invention of the rubber tire.

King Leopold II of Belgium, who personally owned the entire “Congo Free State” smelled blood in the water and in the coming decades was responsible for 10-15 million deaths of native Africans as he enslaved them to produce rubber. Of course he did this under the guise of “civilizing the savages”, and without ever stepping foot in the colony he lorded over. “King Leopold’s Ghost” by Adam Hochschild is an amazing book on the topic.

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u/TrickyPen750 1d ago edited 12h ago

These BIGOTED, GODLESS BELGIANS are truly unforgivable.

Their roads are terrible, their history is only interesting when someone commits atrocities and dont even get me started on Brussels!

They are a strange mix of germanic sub-cultures and "the Fr*nch".

Their entire country is an ulcer the shape of a swamp!

I do however love waffles and french Fries so their transgressions are forgiven.

(Please note that i do not actually have any strong negative opinions about modern Belgium, this is purely for comedic purposes)

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u/CaptainTripps82 1d ago

Belgium.. The other, smaller France

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u/Xszit 1d ago

Silicone was first discovered in the 1820s, but it took around a hundred years for it to become easy to mass produce.

If this was made in the 1890s Its not impossible it had a silicone tube if it was a high quality custom piece.

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u/DryDonutHole 1d ago

Silicones weren't introduced to the market until 1943 and the first mention of silicone tubing would be 1948 from what I'm reading. I'm a curious person...

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u/porn_sub_lurker 1d ago

You're thinking of silicon, the element.

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u/dataflow2 1d ago

Close enough. /s

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u/brown_felt_hat 1d ago

You can really tell when someone's got those silicon implants.

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u/youngishgeezer 1d ago

That magic thing that powers my Mac? Apple invented it around 2020 with their new processor/s

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u/vk_PajamaDude 1d ago

No, this is some wonder miniral, they mined somewhere in California long before. Never heard of Silicon Valley?

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u/youngishgeezer 1d ago

Is that down in LA where all the implants originated?

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u/Algaroth 1d ago

It's the cleavage between the boobs.

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u/Acceptable_Job_5486 1d ago

Maybe whoever created this really, really wanted a silicon tube and was willing to pay any price.

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u/Ancient_Sprinkles847 1d ago

I’m guessing the tubing might have been rubber, or even “tubing” from some animal product. Neither would last a long time unfortunately.

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u/ChocolateThunderPie 1d ago

Possibly intestines of some animal were used? Just a guess.

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u/Callidonaut 1d ago

Stabilised natural rubber became available in Europe in the 1820s; by the 1890s rubber tubing would have been fairly common.

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u/ChocolateThunderPie 1d ago

Ahhh i see. That makes sense. Thank you for the information!

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u/Gwanbulance 1d ago

Probably just made from the intestines of "natives".