It is said by speaking the name of a daemon you can summon it.
No really. There is not much point in talking to some people here.
I moved to a more open minded forum with those special ideas.
This here is pearls for pigs. But i got one last pearl.
No interpretations this time. Thats up to you.
Well, I wasn't saying all professors are evil. My own professors were awesome, and I hope to be a professor myself someday.
It's just that the system lends itself to abuse, especially toward grad students, who are usually doing lots of crazy difficult research while being more or less at the mercy of the more established faculty. Not to mention the incestuous alliances, interpersonal/professional rivalries, and written and unwritten hierarchies which are endemic to any given academic field. Academia is about 50% achievement and 50% politics, really, and that's the part that sucks.
My father is a parking garage salesman. He is very knowledgeable about fitting together large pieces of stone and from what has rubbed off on me I can assure you that those are really terrible parking garages.
Two questions that are never answered by these sorts of people.
A) If the ancients had such powerful tools, why have such tools never been found at any of these sites? If aliens/atlanteans/whatever were communicating with these people in the past, why did they stop? Why aren't they still telling us what to do?
It is said by speaking the name of a daemon you can summon it.
No really. There is not much point in talking to some people here.
I moved to a more open minded forum with those special ideas.
This here is pearls for pigs. But i got one last pearl.
No interpretations this time. Thats up to you.
I don't even know who you are and I want to punch you.
King Riptor on
I have a podcast now. It's about video games and anime!Find it here.
Two questions that are never answered by these sorts of people.
A) If the ancients had such powerful tools, why have such tools never been found at any of these sites? If aliens/atlanteans/whatever were communicating with these people in the past, why did they stop? Why aren't they still telling us what to do?
C) It seems odd that literally the only thing the aliens taught these cultures was how to make big buildings out of stone. It seems such a bizarrely, comparatively useless thing to teach a developing society. No advanced metallurgy/medicine/social dynamics/economics/aqueducts/art/scientific theory for you!
Two questions that are never answered by these sorts of people.
A) If the ancients had such powerful tools, why have such tools never been found at any of these sites? If aliens/atlanteans/whatever were communicating with these people in the past, why did they stop? Why aren't they still telling us what to do?
C) It seems odd that literally the only thing the aliens taught these cultures was how to make big buildings out of stone. It seems such a bizarrely, comparatively useless thing to teach a developing society. No advanced metallurgy/medicine/social dynamics/economics/aqueducts/art/scientific theory for you!
A- Hard to explain arguably if they were super advanced odds are they were made of plastics and easily corroded materials. They wouldn't survive in the climates they were left in
B The experiment ended.
C. From a Scientific standpoint you don't give the rat the means to solve the maze you train it to eventually solve the maze.
Mind you I don't really buy most ancient civ theories.
King Riptor on
I have a podcast now. It's about video games and anime!Find it here.
a) Things survive in Egypt pretty much until somebody finds them. Also we're getting into territory there where we're basically dealing with magic. Purely organic machine tools which can punch through stone (according to the above video, required to be as hard as diamonds) but leave no trace whatsoever in the soil? Might as well just say a wizard did it.
b) This assumes there was some sort of experiment to begin with, and if it lasted from ca. 10,000 BC or so (Neolithic stuff usually factors into these 'theories') until ~1500 AD I don't see why they'd stop then.
c) see b).
I know you're just devil's advocat-ing but really these theories just make no sense at all without resorting to magic.
C. From a Scientific standpoint you don't give the rat the means to solve the maze you train it to eventually solve the maze.
This would make sense if any stoneworking actually leaked knowledge and ideas over to other areas, say disease theory or basic physics. But... it doesn't, at all; it's a limited set of manual techniques with very narrow applications.
I'm always intrigued by exactly how much the ancient astronauts were supposed to have done to help build these things. Did they just come down and teach a set of stoneworking techniques? Or were they flying around tractor-beaming rocks into position? One would have thought that either would rub some sort of unusual, preternatural knowledge off onto the society, but that doesn't appear to be the case.
C. From a Scientific standpoint you don't give the rat the means to solve the maze you train it to eventually solve the maze.
This would make sense if any stoneworking actually leaked knowledge and ideas over to other areas, say disease theory or basic physics. But... it doesn't, at all; it's a limited set of manual techniques with very narrow applications.
I'm always intrigued by exactly how much the ancient astronauts were supposed to have done to help build these things. Did they just come down and teach a set of stoneworking techniques? Or were they flying around tractor-beaming rocks into position? One would have thought that either would rub some sort of unusual, preternatural knowledge off onto the society, but that doesn't appear to be the case.
Why would they give them the means to control disease if the experiment was simply to see how far they could advance in architecture?
King Riptor on
I have a podcast now. It's about video games and anime!Find it here.
Why would ancient astronauts care so deeply about getting humans to move stones around (and only that, apparently) that they did it over a period of several millenia at different places all over the planet?
Wasn't here also a large ancient library that got destroyed that purported to contain a lot of invalueable knowledge?
Alexandria.
Has "greek fire" ever been rediscovered or is that what basically napalm is?
What?
Was that library real? I remember because I want to say its associated with the atlantis myth, but it could have been a real place that much like a lot of things got associated with a nice myth to add validity.
Atlantis itself is even possibly real, to some extent.
Why would ancient astronauts care so deeply about getting humans to move stones around (and only that, apparently) that they did it over a period of several millenia at different places all over the planet?
Why not?
If all they wanted to do was gauge how we adapted techniques taught to us then it obviously worked. Building massive stone structures would arguably be the least disastrous thing to teach a civilization.
King Riptor on
I have a podcast now. It's about video games and anime!Find it here.
ACSIS I'd be much more willing to debate with you if you weren't so pretenscious about it.
Look if i read examples like the pyramids - everywhere on the world - are there because its the easiest ways to "pile" blocks and i look for anlignments in astronomy, planetary axis tilt, true north and in the earlier examples supposed to be build by people doing cave drawings. Before writing, before math, before the wheel... yes: i get pretencious. Very.
This is actually a very complex way to "pile" rocks.
Most of you look for an easy way out. There is none.
ACSIS I'd be much more willing to debate with you if you weren't so pretenscious about it.
Look if i read examples like the pyramids - everywhere on the world - are there because its the easiest ways to "pile" blocks and i look for anlignments in astronomy, planetary axis tilt, true north and in the earlier examples supposed to be build by people doing cave drawings. Before writing, before math, before the wheel... yes: i get pretencious. Very.
This is actually a very complex way to "pile" rocks.
Most of you look for an easy way out. There is none.
You really have no earthly idea what you're talking about, do you.
Are you actually trying to say that the pyramids (anywhere) were constructed by people "doing cave drawings" who "didn't have math"?
Have you ever even read an archaeology or history textbook?
Why not?
If all they wanted to do was gauge how we adapted techniques taught to us then it obviously worked. Building massive stone structures would arguably be the least disastrous thing to teach a civilization.
But there's no evidence anywhere that it's the case. I mean, you might as well say the pyramids were made by fairies or walking mushrooms or Jedis or anything else.
birds know north and south. it isn't so silly to think people couldn't know. especially sun worshipers, like the egyptians, who, you know, watch the path of the sun through the sky.
Look if i read examples like the pyramids - everywhere on the world - are there because its the easiest ways to "pile" blocks and i look for anlignments in astronomy, planetary axis tilt, true north and in the earlier examples supposed to be build by people doing cave drawings. Before writing, before math, before the wheel... yes: i get pretencious. Very.
This is actually a very complex way to "pile" rocks.
Most of you look for an easy way out. There is none.
It's not the easiest way to pile rocks. It's the sturdiest and most time-hardy way to pile rocks, and a side-effect is that it is also a fairly simple thing to do, organizationally. Not exactly labor-light, but that's not a problem for a slave-driven economy. It also needs a high level of craftsmanship to build something like the Great Pyramids, but not unfeasibly so, and it amuses me that everyone sort of forgets about the tinier, cruder pyramids that the Egyptians were building before their pharaohs got more megalomaniacal.
It's also self-filtering; the most stable shapes are also the ones we're most likely to find three thousand years later.
Look at Khmer architecture; the only reason it's still around, really, is because it's only from only a few hundred years ago. Breathtaking structures, but they're already falling apart quite rapidly because the Khmer were frankly terrible at building big things with stone.
Also: before writing? During cave drawings? What are you on? Even if you're talking about the American civilisations, that's still nonsense.
Actually ZE, (I'm not sure if you're saying this or not but it's a very common idea) most people are now of the opinion that the pyramids in Egypt were built by corvee (conscript) labor as opposed to slaves. The Nile's flooding was very predictable so the Pharaohs drafted the farmers to work during the off-season.
Actually ZE, (I'm not sure if you're saying this or not but it's a very common idea) most people are now of the opinion that the pyramids in Egypt were built by corvee (conscript) labor as opposed to slaves. The Nile's flooding was very predictable so the Pharaohs drafted the farmers to work during the off-season.
Cool, thanks for the correction. I haven't dipped into Egyptology for a while.
edit: I guess a better thing to say would be that it's not a problem for any economy with a huge labor force.
Actually ZE, (I'm not sure if you're saying this or not but it's a very common idea) most people are now of the opinion that the pyramids in Egypt were built by corvee (conscript) labor as opposed to slaves. The Nile's flooding was very predictable so the Pharaohs drafted the farmers to work during the off-season.
Even so, the Egyptians had plenty of practice at supervising large construction jobs from all of the storage cities and other structures they had been putting the slaves on.
Actually ZE, (I'm not sure if you're saying this or not but it's a very common idea) most people are now of the opinion that the pyramids in Egypt were built by corvee (conscript) labor as opposed to slaves. The Nile's flooding was very predictable so the Pharaohs drafted the farmers to work during the off-season.
Even so, the Egyptians had plenty of practice at supervising large construction jobs from all of the storage cities and other structures they had been putting the slaves on.
Oh, definitely. Slaves were certainly a part of their lifestyle, but it seems unlikely now that slaves were the ones who actually did the heavy lifting on the pyramids for several reasons.
It's more prestigious for the Pharaoh to say free men willingly did it, the egyptians likely saw it both as a religious obligation and point of national pride, having that many slaves all in one place (with heavy tools, no less) would probably revolt if they weren't treated pretty well, the fact that the Pharaoh would have had to get slaves from other people to build them (because what else could the Pharaoh himself want with thousands upon thousands of personal slaves?), slaves weren't likely to have had the skilled labor experience to build the pyramids anyway, etc.
But, like you said, the Egyptians were excellent task managers (quite literally unprecedented in human history), and doubtless smaller building projects are where they developed those skills.
Actually ZE, (I'm not sure if you're saying this or not but it's a very common idea) most people are now of the opinion that the pyramids in Egypt were built by corvee (conscript) labor as opposed to slaves. The Nile's flooding was very predictable so the Pharaohs drafted the farmers to work during the off-season.
Even so, the Egyptians had plenty of practice at supervising large construction jobs from all of the storage cities and other structures they had been putting the slaves on.
Oh, definitely. Slaves were certainly a part of their lifestyle, but it seems unlikely now that slaves were the ones who actually did the heavy lifting on the pyramids for several reasons.
I read a theory once that the main purpose of the pyramids was simply to give the farmers something to do during the off season. Keep them busy so that they wouldn't think about rebelling.
Actually ZE, (I'm not sure if you're saying this or not but it's a very common idea) most people are now of the opinion that the pyramids in Egypt were built by corvee (conscript) labor as opposed to slaves. The Nile's flooding was very predictable so the Pharaohs drafted the farmers to work during the off-season.
Even so, the Egyptians had plenty of practice at supervising large construction jobs from all of the storage cities and other structures they had been putting the slaves on.
Oh, definitely. Slaves were certainly a part of their lifestyle, but it seems unlikely now that slaves were the ones who actually did the heavy lifting on the pyramids for several reasons.
I read a theory once that the main purpose of the pyramids was simply to give the farmers something to do during the off season. Keep them busy so that they wouldn't think about rebelling.
So basically the pyramids are the ancient Egyptian stimulus bill.
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
I read a theory once that the main purpose of the pyramids was simply to give the farmers something to do during the off season. Keep them busy so that they wouldn't think about rebelling.
There's no way to know, really, because then you're getting into the personal motivations of people who lived thousands of years ago. Personally I think they were constructed for genuine religious and political reasons but the Pharaohs were savvy enough to realize that the positive benefits for keeping their population busy in such a project, but once again, that's just my personal opinion.
I mean, can you imagine how awestruck these ancient people must have felt looking back at something the size of the Great Pyramid and saying that they helped build that thing?
You really have no earthly idea what you're talking about, do you.
Are you actually trying to say that the pyramids (anywhere) were constructed by people "doing cave drawings" who "didn't have math"?
Have you ever even read an archaeology or history textbook?
No. Take a deep breath.
The key word is EARLIER examples. Perhaps i should have made that more clear.
Megalit structures like Stonehenge would pass for earlier examples and i guess Puma Puncu would pass. Based on astronomical anlignments it dates back to 15000 BC. Of course its obvious (if you played that video) that is completely unaceptable to rational science for a good reason. The stonemasonery is far more advanced comparing it to Gizeh pyramids or anything else a "few" thousand years later.
You really have no earthly idea what you're talking about, do you.
Are you actually trying to say that the pyramids (anywhere) were constructed by people "doing cave drawings" who "didn't have math"?
Have you ever even read an archaeology or history textbook?
No. Take a deep breath.
The key word is EARLIER examples. Perhaps i should have made that more clear.
Megalit structures like Stonehenge would pass for earlier examples and i guess Puma Puncu would pass. Based on astronomical anlignments it dates back to 15000 BC. Of course its obvious (if you played that video) that is completely unaceptable to rational science for a good reason. The stonemasonery is far more advanced comparing it to Gizeh pyramids or anything else a "few" thousand years later.
Are you trying to say that Mayan structures predate the Egyptian pyramids?
And why would stonehenge have anything to do with something in Central america? They're on two separate sides of the planet.
The fuck? Stone henge stone masonry isn't far more advanced than the Giza pyramids. More so, Stone Henge didn't exist until 3100 BC. Your dates are all off.
Comments like "you would need diamonds to cut the stone" just show a complete lack of understanding about basic physical mechanics. You hit or grind against stone with something, it's going to have an effect on the stone. Even if you tool get broken or dull before you get very far, that just means you need to get a new tool. Keep repeating this long enough and you can do just about anything.
Ancient civilizations had an abundance of time and cheap labor. Patient plodding along can do the same work as power tools if you are willing to spend the time.
EDIT: I'm reminded of the Mythbusters episode where they did jailbreak myths and cut their way through iron bars with shit like dental floss and salsa.
HamHamJ on
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
Comments like "you would need diamonds to cut the stone" just show a complete lack of understanding about basic physical mechanics. You hit or grind against stone with something, it's going to have an effect on the stone. Even if you tool get broken or dull before you get very far, that just means you need to get a new tool. Keep repeating this long enough and you can do just about anything.
Ancient civilizations had an abundance of time and cheap labor. Patient plodding along can do the same work as power tools if you are willing to spend the time.
seriously
dudes didn't have a 9-5 that they had to be at, they had all day to pummel their rocks
and NEVER underestimate the power of religious belief in what it will get people to do.
Look if i read examples like the pyramids - everywhere on the world - are there because its the easiest ways to "pile" blocks and i look for anlignments in astronomy, planetary axis tilt, true north and in the earlier examples supposed to be build by people doing cave drawings. Before writing, before math, before the wheel... yes: i get pretencious. Very.
Was pretty specifically about astronomically-aligned pyramids.
I want you to know, I'm not just trying to beat on you because you're saying things which are generally dismissed. I think most of us feel that way. But you're just flat-out contradicted by evidence in a lot of the things you say, and then you dismiss that as just close-minded excuses, so it's difficult for us not to come off that way.
Comments like "you would need diamonds to cut the stone" just show a complete lack of understanding about basic physical mechanics. You hit or grind against stone with something, it's going to have an effect on the stone. Even if you tool get broken or dull before you get very far, that just means you need to get a new tool. Keep repeating this long enough and you can do just about anything.
I'm astonished by the interviewee dude's utter failure to follow his logic to its conclusion. If the only thing that can wear away or chisel something is something stronger, then I guess... diamonds must be impervious to all damage, ever? Shit, I gotta call DeBeers and let them know we can't cut gems anymore.
Posts
It is said by speaking the name of a daemon you can summon it.
No really. There is not much point in talking to some people here.
I moved to a more open minded forum with those special ideas.
This here is pearls for pigs. But i got one last pearl.
No interpretations this time. Thats up to you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AABPXvwevVA
It's just that the system lends itself to abuse, especially toward grad students, who are usually doing lots of crazy difficult research while being more or less at the mercy of the more established faculty. Not to mention the incestuous alliances, interpersonal/professional rivalries, and written and unwritten hierarchies which are endemic to any given academic field. Academia is about 50% achievement and 50% politics, really, and that's the part that sucks.
My father is a parking garage salesman. He is very knowledgeable about fitting together large pieces of stone and from what has rubbed off on me I can assure you that those are really terrible parking garages.
I'm not your buddy guy!
ACSIS I'd bem uch more willing to debate with you if you weren't so pretenscious about it.
A) If the ancients had such powerful tools, why have such tools never been found at any of these sites?
I don't even know who you are and I want to punch you.
A- Hard to explain arguably if they were super advanced odds are they were made of plastics and easily corroded materials. They wouldn't survive in the climates they were left in
B The experiment ended.
C. From a Scientific standpoint you don't give the rat the means to solve the maze you train it to eventually solve the maze.
Mind you I don't really buy most ancient civ theories.
b) This assumes there was some sort of experiment to begin with, and if it lasted from ca. 10,000 BC or so (Neolithic stuff usually factors into these 'theories') until ~1500 AD I don't see why they'd stop then.
c) see b).
I know you're just devil's advocat-ing but really these theories just make no sense at all without resorting to magic.
This would make sense if any stoneworking actually leaked knowledge and ideas over to other areas, say disease theory or basic physics. But... it doesn't, at all; it's a limited set of manual techniques with very narrow applications.
I'm always intrigued by exactly how much the ancient astronauts were supposed to have done to help build these things. Did they just come down and teach a set of stoneworking techniques? Or were they flying around tractor-beaming rocks into position? One would have thought that either would rub some sort of unusual, preternatural knowledge off onto the society, but that doesn't appear to be the case.
Why would they give them the means to control disease if the experiment was simply to see how far they could advance in architecture?
Atlantis itself is even possibly real, to some extent.
Ever heard of Santorini?
Why not?
If all they wanted to do was gauge how we adapted techniques taught to us then it obviously worked. Building massive stone structures would arguably be the least disastrous thing to teach a civilization.
Look if i read examples like the pyramids - everywhere on the world - are there because its the easiest ways to "pile" blocks and i look for anlignments in astronomy, planetary axis tilt, true north and in the earlier examples supposed to be build by people doing cave drawings. Before writing, before math, before the wheel... yes: i get pretencious. Very.
This is actually a very complex way to "pile" rocks.
Most of you look for an easy way out. There is none.
You really have no earthly idea what you're talking about, do you.
Are you actually trying to say that the pyramids (anywhere) were constructed by people "doing cave drawings" who "didn't have math"?
Have you ever even read an archaeology or history textbook?
But there's no evidence anywhere that it's the case. I mean, you might as well say the pyramids were made by fairies or walking mushrooms or Jedis or anything else.
It's not the easiest way to pile rocks. It's the sturdiest and most time-hardy way to pile rocks, and a side-effect is that it is also a fairly simple thing to do, organizationally. Not exactly labor-light, but that's not a problem for a slave-driven economy. It also needs a high level of craftsmanship to build something like the Great Pyramids, but not unfeasibly so, and it amuses me that everyone sort of forgets about the tinier, cruder pyramids that the Egyptians were building before their pharaohs got more megalomaniacal.
It's also self-filtering; the most stable shapes are also the ones we're most likely to find three thousand years later.
Look at Khmer architecture; the only reason it's still around, really, is because it's only from only a few hundred years ago. Breathtaking structures, but they're already falling apart quite rapidly because the Khmer were frankly terrible at building big things with stone.
Also: before writing? During cave drawings? What are you on? Even if you're talking about the American civilisations, that's still nonsense.
I'm not saying there is. I am offering an explanation into why people believe there might be evidence.
Cool, thanks for the correction. I haven't dipped into Egyptology for a while.
edit: I guess a better thing to say would be that it's not a problem for any economy with a huge labor force.
Even so, the Egyptians had plenty of practice at supervising large construction jobs from all of the storage cities and other structures they had been putting the slaves on.
Oh, definitely. Slaves were certainly a part of their lifestyle, but it seems unlikely now that slaves were the ones who actually did the heavy lifting on the pyramids for several reasons.
It's more prestigious for the Pharaoh to say free men willingly did it, the egyptians likely saw it both as a religious obligation and point of national pride, having that many slaves all in one place (with heavy tools, no less) would probably revolt if they weren't treated pretty well, the fact that the Pharaoh would have had to get slaves from other people to build them (because what else could the Pharaoh himself want with thousands upon thousands of personal slaves?), slaves weren't likely to have had the skilled labor experience to build the pyramids anyway, etc.
But, like you said, the Egyptians were excellent task managers (quite literally unprecedented in human history), and doubtless smaller building projects are where they developed those skills.
So basically the pyramids are the ancient Egyptian stimulus bill.
There's no way to know, really, because then you're getting into the personal motivations of people who lived thousands of years ago. Personally I think they were constructed for genuine religious and political reasons but the Pharaohs were savvy enough to realize that the positive benefits for keeping their population busy in such a project, but once again, that's just my personal opinion.
I mean, can you imagine how awestruck these ancient people must have felt looking back at something the size of the Great Pyramid and saying that they helped build that thing?
The key word is EARLIER examples. Perhaps i should have made that more clear.
Megalit structures like Stonehenge would pass for earlier examples and i guess Puma Puncu would pass. Based on astronomical anlignments it dates back to 15000 BC. Of course its obvious (if you played that video) that is completely unaceptable to rational science for a good reason. The stonemasonery is far more advanced comparing it to Gizeh pyramids or anything else a "few" thousand years later.
Are you trying to say that Mayan structures predate the Egyptian pyramids?
And why would stonehenge have anything to do with something in Central america? They're on two separate sides of the planet.
Ancient civilizations had an abundance of time and cheap labor. Patient plodding along can do the same work as power tools if you are willing to spend the time.
EDIT: I'm reminded of the Mythbusters episode where they did jailbreak myths and cut their way through iron bars with shit like dental floss and salsa.
seriously
dudes didn't have a 9-5 that they had to be at, they had all day to pummel their rocks
and NEVER underestimate the power of religious belief in what it will get people to do.
Was pretty specifically about astronomically-aligned pyramids.
I want you to know, I'm not just trying to beat on you because you're saying things which are generally dismissed. I think most of us feel that way. But you're just flat-out contradicted by evidence in a lot of the things you say, and then you dismiss that as just close-minded excuses, so it's difficult for us not to come off that way.
I think modern living has just made us soft and unable to relate to the effort ancient people were able to exert.
"Careful hiding in the bushes? Fuck that noise, we have sweat glands!"
I'm astonished by the interviewee dude's utter failure to follow his logic to its conclusion. If the only thing that can wear away or chisel something is something stronger, then I guess... diamonds must be impervious to all damage, ever? Shit, I gotta call DeBeers and let them know we can't cut gems anymore.