Fragony on 10/3/2010 at 15:39
It kinda is my field of work, what do you want to know. They had missile launchers back then, men is smart.
kabatta on 10/3/2010 at 15:59
Quote Posted by fett
I didn't really "get it" from anywhere - it's all over the place in archaeology and middle-eastern/Mesopotamian history circles as fairly common knowledge. I can't point to a single source that contains all that information though. Are you looking for a specific publication or something?
I am looking for something that goes in more details than the manual.
kabatta on 10/3/2010 at 16:40
No offense, but wikipedia isn't the best history research tool in my opinions or my professor's opinion.
Martin Karne on 10/3/2010 at 20:26
You don't need to go that far, in ancient Egypt the ancient kingdom had commerce with ancient Chinese traveling the world including the Americas, traces of cocaine and tobacco found on mummies were blamed on modern contamination, cultural protection thanks to Egyptian archeologists staying faithful to their static model or idea of ancient Egypt.
In America, the Smithsonian institute quickly and promptly dismissed and hid any evidence of ancient visitors from, Greece, Egypt and Roman eras that left their tombs marked in their own language, again cultural protection (even back in the 1800s).
In Japan in 1976, every foreign archeologist was denied access to a millennial tomb (1000-1200 CE), when evidence of Korean empire important representatives was found in said tomb, since Japanese always considered themselves superior to Korean and Chinese, this was a hard blow to swallow for them, but we all know that in ancient times a branch of people departed from ancient China (or maybe even ancient Korea?) to establish themselves in Japanese islands, again cultural protection.
This damage, while not irreversible, is blocking a bigger view of a common culture with trade and relations that go further away than just language and sporadic visits.
Why? Because "my culture is superior to your culture" and so on.
Is it possible that Atlantis was in the Americas somewhere?
We will never know probably thanks to those stuck up archeologist protecting their favorite cultures.
As you can see Fett is not far away from the truth, there is people actively seeking to hide any relation among other ancient cultures for their own glory.
Bah archeology this far start to look like a fucking joke then if they're all thinking like that.
:nono:
kabatta on 10/3/2010 at 20:39
I'm more inclined to think that Atlantis is somewhere in the Black Sea. I hear that when it turned from a lake into a sea a lot of cities were lost. And now people don't fund research of the area.
Martin Karne on 10/3/2010 at 21:15
The main point is, Tobacco and Coca leaves exist only in the Americas, so they had to have some commerce with those fellas there.
Namdrol on 10/3/2010 at 22:18
Some of the Himalayan/Indian Buddhism ideas on the mind and its explanation of perception are starting to be verified by empirical evidence 1500 yrs after being structured
But some of them Buddhists also believed in some right fucking nonsense.
demagogue on 10/3/2010 at 22:58
I'll give the tl;dr version of my last comment.
Pre-1600 civilizations had a lot of things going for them, but what makes us special (so they say) are the big 3 Enlightenment innovations, which they largely didn't have: Secularism, the Scientific Method (& welfare-enhancing/democratic technology), and Modern Government (democratic liberalism & advanced regulation).
These three things involve commitments (and maybe a particular world-view), but not intelligence.
If you've read *Guns, Germs, & Steel*, if anything "modern civilization" has made us less intelligent, since we can't intuitively problem-solve like a native running through the bush, but over-rely on technology and institutions.
Nicker on 11/3/2010 at 00:49
Quote Posted by demagogue
If you've read *Guns, Germs, & Steel*, if anything "modern civilization" has made us less intelligent, since we can't intuitively problem-solve like a native running through the bush, but over-rely on technology and institutions.
Information overload, technology and increased specialisation may have dulled the general and adaptive intelligence of individuals but our collective knowledge continues to grow at an astounding rate. Since we are a social species, I think that is more important to our overall survival than a talent for scrabbling out a subsistence living in the wilds.
I guess it's a trade off. We are already at a place where crucial infrastructure and functions cannot be directly controlled by humans. I wonder if it possible that there will come a time when we are completely overwhelmed by our own genius and disconnect from any real understanding of the technologies that sustain us. Sort of like Michal Morcock's
Dancers at the End of Time series, where a dwindling race of near immortal, cynical, childlike humans, live lives of permanent, magical and total indulgence, powered by machines they are not even aware of.
Or the machines might just finish us off...
