How did humans be around for 200,000 years and only got technology recently?

[superpunch]

twats like that guy are partly the answer to your question Ts

That, the floods, the burning of hte library of Alexandria.. we really have lost 195,000 years of our heritage. There was an international human culture and civilization during the Ice Age with cities on coasts that all traded with each other. The art, the stories, the music, the religions, the values, the culture of that civilization -- it's all gone forever.

All we have left are a few myths from the Bible and other places. I'm not religious. I'm an atheist. But it's so amazing to be able to have the very few connections that we do to our ancestors and their stories through the Bible and other religious texts.

 

[superpunch]

its weird to me how alot of secular people cling to ancestry,culture and stuff like that. Personally, I don't even care about stuff like that in such general sense. I feel a connection to my grand parents but not to some guy im descended from who engaged in human sacrifice a long time ago. On second thought though I kind of understand what you mean, even as a Christian I like the idea of leaving things behind like my music and art that my descendants or other people will appreciate. so it is kind of sad there is some tune I will never hear that may have been great. but i guess thats part of what makes it special.

I don't mean clinging to ancestry or feeling a personal "connection" to it. I mean having the art, the stories, etc. like we have greek fables, statues, the colliseum, temples, and other stuff. The Egyptian pyramids. The Chinese terracotta army. Just knowing how they lived and being able to experience bits of their ancient culture and lives, even though I'm not Greek -- or Roman or Chinese -- is fucking cool. It's their story. I wish we still had some of our other 195,000 years stories. It's just sad to me that it's gone, forever. 195,000 years of human imagination, experience, and wisdom -- gone.

One day we will be replaced by AI and other artificial beings 100000 times more intelligent and capable than we are. Yet, I bet they'll still enjoy the stories, thoughts, art, and music of our people and time. If there's aliens out there, I bet those things are the one thing of value that we have for them and that they would want to visit us for.

 

[Possum Jenkins]

Some dude here explained it really well a few months back. It was something like, knowledge is cumulative but it multiplies on itself exponentially after you get take the first few steps.

2 squared = 4
4 squared = 16
16 squared = 256
256 squared = 65,536
65 squared = 4,200,000,000

For thousands of years we were just squaring by 1 and getting nowhere. But when we finally reached 2, it shot off.

 

[MusterX]

Is crazy. Last 100 years we have evolved more than last 100 thousands years

Well that's correct, thousands of times more advancement in 100 years than in the last 200,000. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me unless there were times in the past that natural disasters set us back. We know that the Earth is covered in impact craters, we know that massive super volcano eruptions have occurred repeatedly. It wouldn't take much to put us in jeopardy and almost wipe us out considering the low populations of the time.

 

[superpunch]

Well that's correct, thousands of times more advancement in 100 years than in the last 200,000. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me unless there were times in the past that natural disasters set us back. We know that the Earth is covered in impact craters, we know that massive super volcano eruptions have occurred repeatedly. It wouldn't take much to put us in jeopardy and almost wipe us out considering the low populations of the time.

It makes sense I guess. You have a stone. Now you can only invent a thing with a stone. You invent a hammer. Now you have 2 things to base inventions off of, a stone and a hammer. Invent one thing from each and you have now 4 things to base inventions off of. Invent one thing from each of those 4 things..... and yeah, it takes off pretty fast.

So I get why the technology wasn't there for 195,000 years. What I don't get is where their culture and civilization is. I don't buy that humans were just barbarians with no cities and no civilization for 195,000 years. Where are those things?

 

[andnowweknow]

I'm not sure what your point is if you aren't trying to assert there were advanced civilizations roaming the earth. I have no doubt there are still discoveries to be made that will add to the archaeological and fossil records, and no doubt there will be some surprises that cause us to rethink aspects of what we know, but I don't know what else you are trying to say.

you seem rational.

give me a rational explanation for the trilithon being moved by Romans.

then move to the stone of the pregnant woman, which is larger.

last, take me through the one just below the image above within the last decade...which was almost certainly unknown to the Romans as well.

the truth is the Trilithon would push our current level of technology to move...the stone of the pregnant woman and the stuff below it (each cut and separated from the bedrock mind you, would tax us to the absolute limit today.

The the Romans did it. It's really hard to believe that we have missed some other group of people in the history of this planet that were able to move stuff like this, apparently with impunity...it's weirder that we will accept the impossible (the Romans having done it) over the unknown.

 

[MusterX]

It makes sense I guess. You have a stone. Now you can only invent a thing with a stone. You invent a hammer. Now you have 2 things to base inventions off of, a stone and a hammer. Invent one thing from each and you have now 4 things to base inventions off of. Invent one thing from each of those 4 things..... and yeah, it takes off pretty fast.

So I get why the technology wasn't there for 195,000 years. What I don't get is where their culture and civilization is. I don't buy that humans were just barbarians with no cities and no civilization for 195,000 years. Where are those things?

200,000 years is a really long ass time. I mean Jesus was only here 2,000 years ago and we think that's distant. If cultures were periodically wiped out there would be virtually no trace of most of them over the course of 200 millenniums.

 

[ralphc1]

Yes, that obsession with flood mythology can be found all over the world. Interestingly, it is believed that the possible asteroid strike from 12,000 years ago during the Younger-Dryas would have struck North America as well as the ocean. This would have caused rapid melting of the ice sheet in North America as well as tsunami's worldwide, maybe worse than what we saw in 2004. Only difference is, world population was very low, as I posted in post #86. So the impact of an event like that that caused rapid climate change, tsunamis, and flooding may be why we still see the flood mythos everywhere in the past.

I haven't been around for 100 years and I can remember several major floods on the Mississippi river. Almost every stream floods at some point in time. Since most people lived near water, every culture likely experienced flooding.

 

[Joe_Armstrong]

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Henry_Starling

Henry Starling was a Human computer technology pioneer and philanthropist who was largely responsible for the computer age of the late 20th century. Unknown to anyone at the time, Starling's innovations were based on his limited understanding of the technology found aboard the 29th centurytimeship Aeon, which he appropriated after discovering the crashed vessel in 1967.

Cannibalizing the Aeon, Starling single-handedly advanced Human computer technology to the point where innovations such as the Internet, laptops, and barcode readers were commonplace and taken for granted. Using the notoriety and money which came along with introducing these technologies, Starling constructed a corporate empire called "Chronowerx Industries."

 

[franklinstower]

you seem rational.

give me a rational explanation for the trilithon being moved by Romans.

then move to the stone of the pregnant woman, which is larger.

last, take me through the one just below the image above within the last decade...which was almost certainly unknown to the Romans as well.

the truth is the Trilithon would push our current level of technology to move...the stone of the pregnant woman and the stuff below it (each cut and separated from the bedrock mind you, would tax us to the absolute limit today.

The the Romans did it. It's really hard to believe that we have missed some other group of people in the history of this planet that were able to move stuff like this, apparently with impunity...it's weirder that we will accept the impossible (the Romans having done it) over the unknown.

I apologize for just jumping in on this point. What are you saying about these stones? How were they moved? Or what kind of technology do you think is required for the cutting and moving of them?


This whole thread has been a bit vague on this point I think. When you say "Advanced" civilizations that does not really mean anything unless you qualify what you mean by that. You could mean so many things. Are you implying there was electricity? electric motors, combustion engines? tech that is similar but based on unknown energy sources? magic, aliens etc? Or do you just mean a deep knowledge of mathematics and lots of time and people to get something done?

 

[GalegoREB]

And how would we correlate this with human induced activity?

Because any advanced culture that manage to extract and use fossil fuels would left traces in rock strata for millions of years(that's how we know that most coal beds on earth were formed during the carboniferous period) that could be found by any future intelligent life.

 

[Andy Capp]

you seem rational.

give me a rational explanation for the trilithon being moved by Romans.

then move to the stone of the pregnant woman, which is larger.

last, take me through the one just below the image above within the last decade...which was almost certainly unknown to the Romans as well.

the truth is the Trilithon would push our current level of technology to move...the stone of the pregnant woman and the stuff below it (each cut and separated from the bedrock mind you, would tax us to the absolute limit today.

The the Romans did it. It's really hard to believe that we have missed some other group of people in the history of this planet that were able to move stuff like this, apparently with impunity...it's weirder that we will accept the impossible (the Romans having done it) over the unknown.

Today, we have to make the calculation, what is the cost of the resources we will need if this takes many many many many years, rather than getting it done in our lifetimes? I don't doubt there are unanswered questions, but I also don't doubt many many more options present themselves when you have decades and more to succeed.

 

[ralphc1]

you seem rational.

give me a rational explanation for the trilithon being moved by Romans.

then move to the stone of the pregnant woman, which is larger.

last, take me through the one just below the image above within the last decade...which was almost certainly unknown to the Romans as well.

the truth is the Trilithon would push our current level of technology to move...the stone of the pregnant woman and the stuff below it (each cut and separated from the bedrock mind you, would tax us to the absolute limit today.

The the Romans did it. It's really hard to believe that we have missed some other group of people in the history of this planet that were able to move stuff like this, apparently with impunity...it's weirder that we will accept the impossible (the Romans having done it) over the unknown.

Man develops ways to use what they have to do what they want. When you have tools, you use them. The difference in the tools available in just the last 60 years is amazing. I as looking at a large boiler in a building that was built in 1880. I wondered how they got the boiler in the building. I assumed it was delivered by rail but the building was about a mile from the tracks. A man in his 90s heard me mention it to someone. His father was one of the first one to tend the boiler as the coal had to be shoveled into it. His father told him that the boiler had come in by rail. It was put on blocks of ice and pulled by horses to the hole for the basement. Blocks of ice were piled up in the hole to get up to ground level and the boiler was pulled onto them. Then it took a couple of weeks for the ice to melt and the boiler to settle to the floor as the building was built over it.

Today we have Machines that can easily lift heavy things. Cranes that can lift thousands of tons so we don't have to come up with creative ways to do things.

 

[andnowweknow]

Because any advanced culture that manage to extract and use fossil fuels would left traces in rock strata for millions of years(that's how we know that most coal beds on earth were formed during the carboniferous period) that could be found by any future intelligent life.

With hindsight, yes it would look suspicious, however with no other accompanying evidence of this sort of civilization present, nobody would accept that this was the case...there would be "natural" explanations abound for all this stuff, and there would be none of the apparatus used for extraction of natural resources left. This prospect you are suggested as "evidence" in a vacuum sounds great but it simply wouldn't be easy to make sense of on its own.

Where the problem remains is the idea that we are on THE path of technological advancement...as if there aren't other possible paths that have nothing to do with fossil fuel usage, iPhones, etc...that MIGHT be more advanced in some ways at some stage while in some ways being woefully behind us as we sit today.

Long story short, if you think there is only one way to "advancement", there is a fundamental misunderstanding involved.

 

[andnowweknow]

I apologize for just jumping in on this point. What are you saying about these stones? How were they moved? Or what kind of technology do you think is required for the cutting and moving of them?


This whole thread has been a bit vague on this point I think. When you say "Advanced" civilizations that does not really mean anything unless you qualify what you mean by that. You could mean so many things. Are you implying there was electricity? electric motors, combustion engines? tech that is similar but based on unknown energy sources? magic, aliens etc? Or do you just mean a deep knowledge of mathematics and lots of time and people to get something done?

I would just be completely speculating regarding the technology...those stones are there and someone had a means for moving them. Furthermore, human nature is not to do something the hardest way possible, that is easily achievable another way, just for the hell of it. Whoever cut and moved the Trilithon and the other stones I mentioned had a convenient and relatively easy way of doing it. It is a HUGE project just to cut and separate that sort of block, you don't just do that without knowing you can move it to where you want it to be. The orthodox theory on the Stone of the Pregnant Woman is that the Romans cut it, realized it was too big to move...and left it. That is so ridiculous, yet it remains because the alternative, namely that "someone else" did it, is untenable, because there is no other suspect.

The people who moved the stones I'm referring to had some form of technology we don't have a record of and don't recognize, which to me means it is probably different in some fundamental way to the way that we do things. Again, I would be completely speculating if I said what that was. What I'm not doing, which is responsible and honest, is positing that someone we know of in the past who was CLEARLY incapable of doing some of the things we see in the ancient world must have done those things simply because we can't imagine someone might have come before them that for some reason (there is a reason, and it's not some under the radar theory) hasn't been fully recognized.

What I DON'T subscribe to is "They had a lot of time on their hands", no, they were humans just like us and they had lives, they didn't figure out the most difficult shit to do possible that they could do another way and do it just for the fuck of it. Humans do things in the most efficient way they know how and are always striving for progress by nature...that doesn't mean doing it the hard way just because.

"Magic", "Aliens"...and that stuff is a waste of time and thought.

 

[andnowweknow]

Man develops ways to use what they have to do what they want. When you have tools, you use them. The difference in the tools available in just the last 60 years is amazing. I as looking at a large boiler in a building that was built in 1880. I wondered how they got the boiler in the building. I assumed it was delivered by rail but the building was about a mile from the tracks. A man in his 90s heard me mention it to someone. His father was one of the first one to tend the boiler as the coal had to be shoveled into it. His father told him that the boiler had come in by rail. It was put on blocks of ice and pulled by horses to the hole for the basement. Blocks of ice were piled up in the hole to get up to ground level and the boiler was pulled onto them. Then it took a couple of weeks for the ice to melt and the boiler to settle to the floor as the building was built over it.

Today we have Machines that can easily lift heavy things. Cranes that can lift thousands of tons so we don't have to come up with creative ways to do things.

The Trilithon and the Stone of the Pregnant Woman are at the absolute max ends of our largest, most sophisticated crane technology for weight. And the Romans "did it with pulleys and counterweights...and manpower. I almost feel ashamed that this is the answer we get when it stresses our technology today, which everyone agrees is vastly advanced compared to that of ancient Rome.

 

[GalegoREB]

With hindsight, yes it would look suspicious, however with no other accompanying evidence of this sort of civilization present, nobody would accept that this was the case...there would be "natural" explanations abound for all this stuff, and there would be none of the apparatus used for extraction of natural resources left. This prospect you are suggested as "evidence" in a vacuum sounds great but it simply wouldn't be easy to make sense of on its own.

The explanation would be that past cultures or another intelligent species achieved post industrial level technology, there are no other "natural" explanations. I'm not suggesting anything, this is established and verified scientific knowledge, no other geological period have the same characteristics that now define the holocene due to our use of fossil fuel and extraction of rare earth minerals.

 

[andnowweknow]

The explanation would be that past cultures or another intelligent species achieved post industrial level technology, there are no other "natural" explanations. I'm not suggesting nothing, this is established and verified scientific knowledge, no other geological period have the same characteristics that now define the holocene due to our use of fossil fuel and extraction of rare earth minerals.

There are also no "natural terrestrial explanations" present for the melting of the ice sheets at the end of the last ice age...should it be cut and dry then that it was humans that caused the melting? There is also no known explanation for the earth warming 18 degrees F in a decade 11,600 years ago. Should we believe that was humans because there is no natural explanation?

I learned a bit from your posts on this and it has gotten me thinking, so thank you! but I think you're off track on how our form of civilization would be seen by a future civilization in 10k years if we were to disappear today.

 

[GalegoREB]

There are also no "natural terrestrial explanations" present for the melting of the ice sheets at the end of the last ice age...should it be cut and dry then that it was humans that caused the melting? There is also no known explanation for the earth warming 18 degrees F in a decade 11,600 years ago. Should we believe that was humans because there is no natural explanation?

I learned a bit from your posts on this and it has gotten me thinking, so thank you! but I think you're off track on how our form of civilization would be seen by a future civilization in 10k years if we were to disappear today.[/QUOTE

That is not the same, we are leaving clear culprits on earth because of our "advanced" use of natural resources, you are describing unexplained phenomenon in our current scientific paradigm.

 

[andnowweknow]

That is not the same, we are leaving clear culprits on earth because of our "advanced" use of natural resources, you are describing unexplained phenomenon in our current scientific paradigm.

Give me an example of something unmistakably "us" in the mining of resources that would be interpreted as such 10k years from now if we vanished today.