|
Welcome to the International Skeptics Forum, where we discuss skepticism, critical thinking, the paranormal and science in a friendly but lively way. You are currently viewing the forum as a guest, which means you are missing out on discussing matters that are of interest to you. Please consider registering so you can gain full use of the forum features and interact with other Members. Registration is simple, fast and free! Click here to register today. |
17th June 2017, 09:22 PM | #241 |
Philosopher
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: Denmark
Posts: 7,259
|
|
__________________
Steen -- Jack of all trades - master of none! |
|
18th June 2017, 03:32 AM | #242 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Shanghai
Posts: 16,040
|
Do you think this post was particularly useful? You think that you are adding something of real value to this thread by repeatedly telling people not to post? You pretend to want to have a discussion about the video, but have nothing to say about it?
I watched 1.5 hours of the video. I'm happy to discuss the portion that I did watch. If you are interested in that discussion I'm happy to have it. If you want to discuss the rest of the video feel free to do so. Replying to this post by telling me not to post is not going to be very useful. But feel free to do that too if you want to. |
__________________
"... when people thought the Earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the Earth was spherical they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the Earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the Earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together." Isaac Asimov |
|
18th June 2017, 04:03 AM | #243 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 22,841
|
May I but in? It is my policy never to accept as evidence some disciple presenting a video containing the pronouncements of a guru. The disciple has a responsibility to provide interested parties with his or her own arguments, based as may be on an understanding of the guru's doctrine. That is NOT the same thing as the interested parties requiring to be spoon fed. But it is remarkable how often disciples offer unedited video evidence of their pet guru holding forth; and demand that questioners watch it or shut up.
We see this particularly in the fields of free energy, alternative history and religious revelation. |
18th June 2017, 04:04 AM | #244 |
Banned
Join Date: Nov 2001
Posts: 6,513
|
|
18th June 2017, 04:09 AM | #245 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 22,841
|
It is not your job? Yes it is. tell us what it says, and tell us why you are convinced by it. That's your job.
|
18th June 2017, 04:10 AM | #246 |
Banned
Join Date: Nov 2001
Posts: 6,513
|
|
18th June 2017, 04:36 AM | #247 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 22,841
|
Provide us with arguments founded upon your understanding of the evidence. These are the things we could have an exchange about the contents of. But if you have no such understanding, that's fine. you don't need to discuss anything at all if you don't want to.
It is not appropriate to tell people what they must read, or even worse, watch, before you will deign to enter discourse with them. That's what happens in classrooms, not discussion forums. |
18th June 2017, 04:38 AM | #248 |
Banned
Join Date: Nov 2001
Posts: 6,513
|
|
18th June 2017, 04:42 AM | #249 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 22,841
|
|
18th June 2017, 05:45 AM | #250 |
Grammar Resistance Leader
TLA Dictator Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Pattaya, Thailand
Posts: 41,468
|
I watched the video.
Fifth Request: What do you want to discuss? |
__________________
Ha! Foolmewunz has just been added to the list of people who aren't complete idiots. Hokulele It's not that liberals have become less tolerant. It's that conservatives have become more intolerable. |
|
18th June 2017, 05:48 AM | #251 |
Banned
Join Date: Nov 2001
Posts: 6,513
|
The oldest ruins of GT are the 'most impressive' logistically speaking. Those that followed, at the same site, "digressed" meaning that the build techniques lost detail and logistic difficulty.
The oldest site was buried, as to preserve it to be dated to this younger dryas period, the "great catastrophe" that disrupted the building techniques. Within the video, you'd have seen this, HAD YOU FLIPPING WATCHED IT! |
18th June 2017, 05:49 AM | #252 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 22,841
|
|
18th June 2017, 05:51 AM | #253 |
Banned
Join Date: Nov 2001
Posts: 6,513
|
|
18th June 2017, 05:58 AM | #254 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 22,841
|
Now we can discuss the points of "logistical impressiveness" and "digression". That will be interesting. You have drawn our attention to that element of the video, for which my thanks.
Are you stating that these criteria, measured (if indeed they are capable of being unambiguously measured) in a single site, are robust indicators of the course of technological achievement? |
18th June 2017, 06:07 AM | #255 |
Banned
Join Date: Nov 2001
Posts: 6,513
|
How can we discuss this, if you won't look at the evidence provided.
Unambiguously measured? Okay, let's look at how we date pyramids...the "bent" pyramid is generally accepted to be one of the first, because the technology was not yet perfected...its initial design was too steep, causing the bottom to crumble... Those that came after did not suffer this defect. This we might assume, was "progression" because the buildings became more sound, more structurally impressive. At GT, the first oldest ruins, are "bigger," more detailed, and thus required a larger workforce to complete. AGAIN, for us to fully discuss this, YOU NEED TO WATCH THE VIDEO. |
18th June 2017, 06:22 AM | #256 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 22,841
|
Your pyramid argument is worthy of discussion. Here is material evidence. Look at the column headed "volume" here, and tell me if later pyramids are always larger than earlier ones. I say not. They reached a quite early peak and then "digressed" logistically. That's a very common cultural phenomenon.
|
18th June 2017, 06:36 AM | #257 |
Banned
Join Date: Nov 2001
Posts: 6,513
|
Losing skills is a common cultural phenomena?
You understand how technology evolves, right? Losing technology requires some sort of 'disruption'...are you saying that ruins that indicate this "digression" are common throughout the world? If so, isn't THAT evidence of a global catastrophe??? --- *I'd also add, that I find Hawaas and his dogmatic adherence to his timeline for the pyramids' constructions is dubious. PLEASE WATCH THE VIDEO. |
18th June 2017, 06:54 AM | #258 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 22,841
|
That is not a dependable sign of technical progress, even assuming it has been correctly postulated in your source.
The replacement of hand operated querns by water mills in the ancient world permitted the expansion of flour milling very substantially, and facilitated the growth of urban civilisation. More flour was produced, but a larger workforce was not required to perform this task. Technological development occurred instead. We may soon, I hope, be able to turn our discussion to that topic. The reduction in the sizes of pyramids is therefore not an indication that skills were being lost in Ancient Egypt. Attention can be switched from one area of technical activity to another. In the Old Kingdom there were big pyramids, but no wheels. Later there were smaller pyramids, or underground chamber tombs, a digression. But there were chariots then. Overall technical development across an entire culture can't be assessed by measuring the sizes of tombs in particular sites. |
18th June 2017, 06:57 AM | #259 |
Banned
Join Date: Nov 2001
Posts: 6,513
|
"Detail" & "Logistic Difficulty"...made the first ruins "more advanced."
ALSO, remains of the following generations, show that the population 'shrank'... They "devolved" into hunter gatherers. The oldest ruins at GT indicate a bigger population and more advanced building techniques, than those that followed. The first ruins are dated to the younger dryas catastrophe. |
18th June 2017, 07:12 AM | #260 |
Banned
Join Date: Nov 2001
Posts: 6,513
|
AGREED. Finally. A success.
Although, this has little to do with GT. We have stratified, carbon dated layering. The earliest 'dated' construction was technologically more advanced, than the following constructions, to the point of a reversion to hunter-gatherers-nonbuilders. |
18th June 2017, 07:20 AM | #261 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 22,841
|
I'm not sure that these criteria are readily measurable, and in any case it was you who introduced size of tomb as a proxy for this. I have stated my objection.
Quote:
Wheels disappeared from Mesopotamia for millennia, after being used there at a very early date. Wheeled vehicles were displaced by pack camels. In many areas of Europe, populations were smaller in 1700 than in 1300. But what are you arguing? That humanity possessed an advanced technology, which it then lost on account of a universal catastrophe, and thus humanity as a whole subsequently turned to hunting and gathering? Are you saying this? - if so I will argue against it. Or are you stating something else. If so, what is the proposition that you want me to accept, or at least consider?
Quote:
|
18th June 2017, 07:49 AM | #262 |
Grammar Resistance Leader
TLA Dictator Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Pattaya, Thailand
Posts: 41,468
|
Depends on how you mean that. I think in later tests the microspherules have been proved to be rather mundane in composition (mundane, as in earthly origins), so the crazier left field comments about them being replete with space dust are probably inaccurate. They've been altered by extreme heat, so some sort of cosmic even is quite probable but it's still under study and a Krakatoa like event isn't ruled out.
Quote:
And this all proves Ancient Civilizations, how? |
__________________
Ha! Foolmewunz has just been added to the list of people who aren't complete idiots. Hokulele It's not that liberals have become less tolerant. It's that conservatives have become more intolerable. |
|
18th June 2017, 07:51 AM | #263 |
Banned
Join Date: Nov 2001
Posts: 6,513
|
No. I am not. GT is a singular site, specifically dated to the younger dryas, 'potentially' caused by several small asteroid impacts. This did not result in 'one' "universal catastrophe" that affected everyone, equally. Some civilizations were lost, never to be heard from again, some survived, some may have even thrived, due to location and life styles.
The facts of GT point to a specific point of decline, and a reversion back to small bands of hunter gatherers. The previously held notion is that hunter gatherers evolved into agricultural towns, that then began to build simple structures that evolved into more complex, higher, more detailed megaliths... NOT so at GT. I want you to watch the video wherein you will see evidence that Michael Shermer finds both well researched and well reasoned. I promise it will be well worth the time you have spent typing out these responses. |
18th June 2017, 08:01 AM | #264 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 22,841
|
Don't worry about me. Simply tell me what the propositions are that you are defending.
If Shermer turns up on this forum, he can tell me what he personally finds convincing, but my question is addressed to you, because if I need to examine your responses further, you are there to continue the discussion if you wish. Shermer is not. |
18th June 2017, 08:06 AM | #265 |
Banned
Join Date: Nov 2001
Posts: 6,513
|
No. I am not. GT is a singular site, specifically dated to the younger dryas, 'potentially' caused by several small asteroid impacts. This did not result in 'one' "universal catastrophe" that affected everyone, equally. Some civilizations were lost, never to be heard from again, some survived, some may have even thrived, due to location and life styles.
The facts of GT point to a specific point of decline, and a reversion back to small bands of hunter gatherers. The previously held notion is that hunter gatherers evolved into agricultural towns, that then began to build simple structures that evolved into more complex, higher, more detailed megaliths... NOT so at GT. |
18th June 2017, 08:13 AM | #266 |
Banned
Join Date: Nov 2001
Posts: 6,513
|
I am certain "melting points" of all of the materials collected are both known and quantified. These microspherules of all sorts are found across the (now) U.S. Canadian border, in a layer dated to the Younger Dryas. The date does NOT correspond with the north american volcanic activity.
What? The 'construction' at GT proves "ancient badasses"...the dated findings correspond with their decline. |
18th June 2017, 08:25 AM | #267 |
Grammar Resistance Leader
TLA Dictator Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Pattaya, Thailand
Posts: 41,468
|
No. This is where Hancock steers you wrong. He actually admitted during the initial discussions of GT that he's a writer, not a scientist and thinks that his job is to make **** up that he can support with intellectual argumentation. In the next breath he says essentially that it's the work of mainstream science to refute him. The key, though, is that it's conjecture.
Recognize the pattern? See "Atlantis/Menorah" thread. I'll just make this stuff up and try to give it some semi-sound trappings and you guys can disprove me, if you dare. OOOPS! Hit the post button when I wanted to preview. Shermer is quite clear that the most exciting thing about GT is that it puts a whole new light on what we considered hunter/gatherer "society". Hancock says that it appeals to his logic as proof of an intervention but offers no such proof. Shermer's point is excellent. We have underestimated our ancestors repeatedly. Every new discovery causes us to re-examine what we thought we knew. It does NOT mean, "Oooh, magic!" unless you can actually show that. It's conjecture. Hancock is weaving a believable yarn and selling it. |
__________________
Ha! Foolmewunz has just been added to the list of people who aren't complete idiots. Hokulele It's not that liberals have become less tolerant. It's that conservatives have become more intolerable. |
|
18th June 2017, 09:08 AM | #268 |
Banned
Join Date: Nov 2001
Posts: 6,513
|
Speak more about this 'conjecture' you protest against? Are the evidentiary findings indicative of several small asteroid impact that date the younger dryas, or not?
Yes, hunter gatherers WEREN'T just hunting and gathering- they were bigger, better, farming-ass, city dwelling megalith builders. The "intervention" you are seeking to insert is a confutation of issues. There is no 'magic' implied or stated. There was a badass civilization, that declined, starting during the younger dryas. |
18th June 2017, 10:30 AM | #269 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 22,841
|
Good. There is a proposition you want to defend. Let's make sense of it. First, remove ambiguous wording. Did the badass civilisation start during the younger dryas, or did its decline start during that time?
If the first, then how long had this civilisation lasted prior to its decline? What level of technology had it attained at its peak, compared to modern industrial society, for example? Over what area of the world did its control or influence stretch? Before the badass civilisation appeared, did any society practice agriculture or advanced technology? In other words, if people were hunter gatherers after the fall of the badass civilisation, in what state were they prior to the rise of the badass civilisation? Hunter gatherers? Interstellar space travellers? Or something in between? If so, what? Have any traces of technologically advanced artefacts attributable to the badass civilisation ever been found? If so, where and what? If not, where are they? Note. It is clear that collecting big groups of people and setting them to work large stones and assemble them in such formats as megaliths and pyramids doesn't require technical attainments of any high order. It requires central authority and logistics, but these are within the reach even of polities which have neither efficient metal tools nor effective writing, as was the case in pre Conquest Peru. End note. |
18th June 2017, 12:38 PM | #270 |
Banned
Join Date: Nov 2001
Posts: 6,513
|
Watch the video...
Watch the video... I don't think ANY historians 'know' what was really happening prior to the younger dryas. You mean besides the monuments? You are ignoring the decline of the building style... "Doesn't require technical attainments of any high order...?" This is my last response to you, until you've watched the video. We cannot continue this discussion, if you refuse to look at the evidence. |
18th June 2017, 01:40 PM | #271 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: Apr 2009
Location: Iowa USA
Posts: 12,131
|
|
__________________
"Sufficiently advanced malice is indistinguishable from incompetence. = godless Dave |
|
18th June 2017, 01:53 PM | #272 |
Banned
Join Date: Nov 2001
Posts: 6,513
|
Then, please do, defend the actions of NOT reviewing this video before posting, because what YOU are doing is called 'deflection'...
You are attacking the manner in which I phrased my counter-point, rather than address the fact that this poster is judging evidence he or she publicly refuse to look at. "Come now, it is the afternoon, let the bag sit in thy cup a bit longer." Indeed, my counter-factual did go a step too far... But ignoring evidence, and interrupting people trying to have a discussion is *(currently under discussion)* |
18th June 2017, 06:24 PM | #273 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 22,841
|
They don't, indeed. There was no writing then. The period was "prehistoric". Unless you're telling us that these early people had writing after all. But archaeologists have evidence that in those times people lived by gathering and hunting, not by agriculture, let alone advanced technology. Do you reject that?
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
|
18th June 2017, 06:40 PM | #274 |
Banned
Join Date: Nov 2001
Posts: 6,513
|
Haha, no. The 'findings' of GT contradict those previously held beliefs or understandings.
GT was NOT built by a small band of hunter gatherers. The skills and techniques suffered decline from a vey advanced, massive city, with advanced buildings techniques, compared to those that followed at the same site. So you reject the idea that technology evolves towards a more perfect state, unless it suffers an interruption? Okay...we disagree. Watch the video, and we'll talk more... |
18th June 2017, 06:57 PM | #275 |
Penultimate Amazing
Join Date: May 2011
Posts: 22,841
|
I don't accept "perfection" as a condition of technology. I have discussed "advances" in that field.
Quote:
I deny again that perfection of style is a measure of the progress of technology. I assert that there is evidence for the activity of people prior to the younger dryas. Abundant evidence; and I will produce it from the sources that seem best to me, while you will respond from whatever sources you personally select. That is how I conduct such discussions. Even if you stop addressing me, I assert the right to continue to respond, respectfully, to any argument or information or source thereof, that you may choose to employ. |
18th June 2017, 08:16 PM | #276 |
Banned
Join Date: Nov 2001
Posts: 6,513
|
Technology, "gets better"...it improves...evolves 'towards' a desired state of perfection, normally.
Pitfalls, setbacks, degradation in difficulty to create advancement, are caused by 'disruptions'...they could be internal or external. In the case of GT, the site's remains feature a perfectly preserved point of 'highly advanced building techniques'...who abandonment/burial, was followed by structures much less impressive. There date of this interruption correspondences with the younger dryas. Look at the evidence presented in the video, it is very compelling. |
18th June 2017, 08:17 PM | #277 |
Banned
Join Date: Nov 2001
Posts: 6,513
|
Stupid question: Does Craig B = Craig4?
|
18th June 2017, 08:30 PM | #278 |
Grammar Resistance Leader
TLA Dictator Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Pattaya, Thailand
Posts: 41,468
|
KotA,
Do you realize that GT and other settlements are destroying one of your favorite lines of intellectual entertainment. Every new discovery, whether in China or India or Turkey or Central America fills in another of those "OMG where'd they get this!" gaps. Around the time of Chariots of the Gods, Egypt was the gape-mouthed inexplicable technology. Now we see that something like GT exists with no written language and no metal implements in what's pretty obviously a pre-potter neolithic age, and the True Believers have to change to wondering where THEY got their knowledge because it seems that Egypt with its many astonishing developments was merely standing on the shoulders of previous civilizations. The next argument is the Joe Rogan one.... But man, it was like 6000 years before Stonehenge! Yeah? And how many years before the earliest Egyptian history? How many before Nevali Cori? Some of the uniqueness of both GT and Nevali Cori is that they are preserved. Ancient settlements on a river route or by a natural harbor were quite likely simply trampled to dust. I think we can safely predict other findings over the years that will fill-in some of those thousand-year gaps. From the body of knowledge we're developing about earliest societies, one of the constants is the debunking of low expectations. Because WE can't figure out how to do it, THEY must certainly have not been able to. But it turns out that quite a number of neolithic and post-neolithic cultures had this fascination with monument building. Because we can't imagine developing those skills before developing metallurgy or writing, we lazily fob this off to aliens or superior, now extinct, civilizations. The preponderance of evidence is that numerous societies developed monument-building and graphic arts before they developed either. Rather than assuming the order in which WE would do it if we had to, why not explore with the assumption that we have evidence for.... that they actually did this and that those further developments are not necessary to the task of monument-building. |
__________________
Ha! Foolmewunz has just been added to the list of people who aren't complete idiots. Hokulele It's not that liberals have become less tolerant. It's that conservatives have become more intolerable. |
|
18th June 2017, 08:42 PM | #279 |
Banned
Join Date: Nov 2001
Posts: 6,513
|
STOP... You asserted "aliens," "superior," "now extinct," "civilizations"... One none has asserted aliens. *sigh* Superior? Compared to the last GT builds the first was indeed "superior." Now extinct. YES. There are no more GT citizens building these sites. Civilizations. YES. Entire civilizations are being 'found' or rediscovered anytime they look or dig deeper anywhere. It is called discovery.
The evidence at GT is truly astounding... Have you reviewed it? What? We have evidence of advanced monument builders, agriculture, and sciency poop. Then they covered it up, and built similar less impressive stuff on top of it. |
18th June 2017, 10:21 PM | #280 |
Grammar Resistance Leader
TLA Dictator Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Pattaya, Thailand
Posts: 41,468
|
I have no idea what you're saying. Are you claiming that alt dot archaeology hasn't tried to claim alien origins for numerous sites and achievements? Are you claiming that Hancock isn't selling GT as a passing of knowledge from a superior civilization? You're not really clear on what it is YOU are proposing, as you're fairly clearly not here to support Hancock, although that is ostensibly the topic.
Quote:
What it's changed is the notion of the "neolithic revolution". Are we at the beginning of the timeline or is there going to be another discovery and another and another. Hancock and friends keep harping on how much before Stonehenge (I guess they assume we're all still puzzled by Stonehenge) this was or how much before Egypt, but there have been numerous discoveries over the past 50 years filling in those millennia, already. Instead of "OMG this is seven thousand years before the pyramids" I see it as ??>>>GT>>>>Nevali Cori>>>>>Catalhoyuk>>>>>And onwards.... The big interest here is that the assumption has been that we're tracking "THE Civilization", e.g. all the "fertile crescent" stuff we learned in school, but there are discoveries of neolithic settlements that while they don't match GT in scope, they certainly are indications of some form of organized settlement. And they're not remotely near the overall area of previous archaeological concentration. (The Thai Spirit Cave predates GT, for instance.) We are piecing together a patchwork quilt of history using small shovels and air brushes. I personally doubt that I'll live to see it, but think we'll find all sorts of fillers in these gaps of two to three millennia when we seem to think we were waiting for the next great civilization arise. I also think we'll probably find similar and perhaps earlier societies to GT.
Quote:
I don't buy the "later are less advanced" argument. First, they haven't finished excavating GT. Second, how do you define "advanced"? We can see the style of the construction morphing into what we later see at Nevali Cori, but that could be a matter of taste. We need a lot more exploration before we can make that claim. |
__________________
Ha! Foolmewunz has just been added to the list of people who aren't complete idiots. Hokulele It's not that liberals have become less tolerant. It's that conservatives have become more intolerable. |
|
Thread Tools | |
|
|