You know, I'm really startin to BELIEVE this stuff

[tsmspace]

So,,,,, way out of the park,,, but. it's about ancient legends. (you know you think about that stuff!! Don't lie! swords rule)

 

So I was a kid and during that time had the chance to make some dams in rivers by piling rocks. (you're REALLY not supposed to do that in some places, it turns out, and the authorities will make you remove them, even though it's a flash flood risk). Basically, beavers made dams before humans, and the ancient egyptians had massive dams that are the earliest KNOWN dams, meaning that dams were well developed by that time. Dams are interesting because how can you drive a boat up a dam? Today we can use locks, but try imagining some egyptian canoe paddlers building a lock. The answer is, they couldn't possibly do so. But what you CAN do, is take a river that is taking the path of least resistance, change the resistance in some critical places, and then the river will flow a longer, more gradual path to the ocean. Although this new river path is much longer, it is perfectly navigable, likely even easier to navigate because it will move more slowly. This kind of increased resistance would also result in reservoirs or even giant inland seas, in the most extreme imaginable scenarios. ( a hoover dam would not be possible, it would be more like the dikes that contain flooding, but if placed strategically, relatively small earthworks could redirect rivers in areas of already very gradual elevation change). If animals such as beavers were already up to these shenanigans, it would be imaginable that humans might take it just one step further to result in certain irrigation or improved fishing or other reason, leading to long lasting cultures of little changes to dams that ultimately dramatically change the course of rivers, even religiously so. There is at least 200,000 years of human existence where humans already basically had their present physiology, so likely clothes and other technologies existed all throughout this time. Ancient cultures are understood to have fables and lore that help children adopt practices that are rather abstract, in order to maintain resource availability, from the knowledge of where to go and when (nomads) to the conservation of environments (such as unique areas where certain plants grow) and likely even complex cultivation. 

 

The Ancient Sahara is now more accepted as being green, filled with lakes and rivers, and settled by organized humans long before written history begins. Likely hard evidence is lost to time in most cases, but likely these cultures existed on infrastructure of a much more "eden" set of behaviors. This would be no less wonderous than the world today, for the people then, but much of the "infrastructure" would be the kind that takes generations to build, and lasts for as long as a fable. If a great earthwork was undertaken, likely it was carried out slowly, in such a way that it would function the entire time it was under construction (tiny changes to the beaver dam, with each change being good enough for "now"), but also in such a way as the people then would know it was generations past that incrementally built it. The Egyptians would have hailed these cultures as their forebears, and did have fables of great cultures in what is now no mans land, including the Legend of Atlantis, a civilization that was the victim of great cataclysm, , in fact, so great of a cataclysm that it filled the oceans with mud so thick, that the ocean was not even navigable by boat, and that a great portion of the world was lost forever as a result of this lost navigational route. Perhaps what the legend is about, is an ancient culture that over so very many generations, perhaps even thousands of years, slowly built a great network of dams (just for better fishing in one little place at a time) that resulted in a river that was navigable far inland, resulting in unparalleled fertility. So much fruit, so much fish, no need for advanced farming, just a great and fruitful civilization of comfort and ease. A true eden. This dam network would have increased the resistance upon the river, resulting in great reservoirs of water, perhaps even giant inland seas (great lakes one cannot see either side of while sailing them), all held within a balance of dikes and dams. Legend: Upon the edge of the highest lake, accessible to the sea by way of boat, was a great capital of this great civilization. From the ocean to the capital ran this great network of rivers and lakes, where so many of the worlds most magnificent human bodies lived in unmatched paradise. They ate the finest of fruits and fish, they had the best of health and longevity, and they had the best of worldly comforts. As a result of their resource wealth, and physical health, they had the worlds finest soldiers, and were never in history defeated in war. They projected their power far and wide, and held influence upon all of the Mediterranean and Fertile Crescent. But, they protected themselves also with secrecy, leading the world to believe that they were far into the ocean, and only could be accessed by sea. They even had a practice of bringing simple people on journeys to their capital, where they were able to bring people all the way to their capital (Atlantis) without them ever seeing land. They did this by traversing the river sections by night, ensuring that they were only within the reservoirs by day,  such that from the boat, a visitor would never see land, and would only believe themselves to be in the sea. They were very powerful, and lived such luxurious lives, but the knowledge of the physical world continued to grow around the world, until such a time came that an opponent arose that although could not defeat the Atlanteans on the battlefield, they did learn that there was way to destroy them. Although they tried to hide their infrastructure from outsiders, this opponent understood the culture was vulnerable as it relied on this network of dams and dikes that held back a massive great lake sized reservoir of water, which had accrued for potentially many thousands of years. This army knew that although Atlanteans could not be defeated, it was unlikely they would prevent them from moving onto the dike itself, because although it was possible for the Atlanteans to be victorious in a battle to prevent this move,, while both armies were on the dike, they would lose almost no soldiers to the invaders, while fighting further and protecting the dike completely, they would lose so many soldiers in battle, that their culture would be severely impacted. They had always fought the safer way, by allowing the invaders onto the dikes and killing them when they had little maneuvering room, and never before had an invading army known the dike was a weakness. But now, the invaders had a leader who had enough wisdom of the world and infrastructure of the generations, that they knew they only needed to break the dam, and the waters of atlantis would flood out across the entire area that the river made so fruitful, and destroy everything. Although the atleanteans feared this would happen, they could not believe it was possible the invaders knew, when all of time before they did not, and they chose to pull back and bring the fight onto the dike, and the invaders then did break the dam. A small break quickly worked it's way into a massive break, and water flooded from this great lake, until it the flood spilled out across the land, destroying all of the dams below, and killing virtually everyone who lived in the Atlantean paradise eden. So much water washed across the land in this one epic flood, that the ocean filled mud, making enormous delta. And this atlantis capital existed where now does the Richat Structure. 

[Ryuikko]

I don't think that's how water works,  I'm also so confused 

[tsmspace]

3 minutes ago, Ryuikko said:

I don't think that's how water works,  I'm also so confused 

water takes the path of least resistance. Beavers put a dam in that path of least resistance, changing where the least resistance is, effectively redirecting the river around the dam. This can make a little area of rapids, but where the land is already really flat, it can actually just make the water move slowly around, and even so dramatically as to flow over a part of land that wasn't even river.  I have it on good account that beaver dams can be pretty impressive to behold. 

[tsmspace]

12 hours ago, offweek said:

You may enjoy the works of:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/12581.Cory_Doctorow
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/71155.Austin_Grossman

 

those are just author profiles, I didn't try to look deeper, but do you have some summary insights into specifically which works or styles of works you are talking about? 

 

-to be fair, it is most likely I will just be interested in those things that fit into my present mental image, so if they are talking about like, massive flooding in geological history in the americas,,, well all of that is interesting, but unless it has to do with human infrastructure of the pre-ancient world, I won't really want to take the time to read entire books. However, if you have some little analysis of the works, I can pursue a summary search. 

[tsmspace]

22 minutes ago, tsmspace said:

those are just author profiles, I didn't try to look deeper, but do you have some summary insights into specifically which works or styles of works you are talking about? 

 

-to be fair, it is most likely I will just be interested in those things that fit into my present mental image, so if they are talking about like, massive flooding in geological history in the americas,,, well all of that is interesting, but unless it has to do with human infrastructure of the pre-ancient world, I won't really want to take the time to read entire books. However, if you have some little analysis of the works, I can pursue a summary search. 

For example, Human irrigation has referenceable evidence showing that it existed in the Jordan Valley (fertile crescent) 6000 years ago. That puts it at 4000 BC that humans were advanced along the agricultural technology tree enough to leave evidence of it that we still can cite today. There is some debate about how long it would take to develop to that "tier" and what sort of steps would have had to have happened along the way, but since human bodies have existed for at least 200,000 years, and since we can suppose that technology preceded modern human body development, leading to it (things like clothing of some sort, settlement of some sort, balanced diet technology such as food storage of some sort), we can suppose that irrigation of some sort existed for many thousands of years before the Jordan Valley evidence was created, perhaps it is imaginable that because beavers or other animals made dams for longer than human existence (I don't know if they did, but supposing this is what happened) then beaver dams basically were an integral part of pre-history infrastructure, and likely inspired early irrigation. 

[Arika]

Holy christ, please use paragraphs.

 

I feel like this is a school essay you're proud of so you copy&pasted here.

[Middcore]

[tsmspace]

4 hours ago, offweek said:

Not a lot to do with your thought content.  May be a good match for your reality adjacent thought form.

I would argue it is not "reality adjacent", and instead I would call it "speculative logic based fantasy oriented realistic history fable building". 

 

So it is intended to be 100% based on realism only, realistic ideas of infrastructure development, realistic timelines based on realistic windows of unknown history about realistic regions that were certainly occupied by humans. 

 

So,, the fantasy aspect of it is simply that it doesn't matter if it is actual history, only that the working mechanism of explanation is in line with how accurate history works. So, in the case of atlantis, it is considered to be certain that egypt did not suddenly spawn from a vacuum, and that there was highly organized society before egypt, however specific references to atlantis are known from greece, not from egypt, and in reference to an egyptian story that existed at the time that heroditis wrote about it, but one that is not necessarily referenceable today. Instead, the greek reference isn't verifiable, so for us, it starts there. However, there is plenty of valid argument that irrigation as advanced as it was in jordan was probably not something suddenly discovered in jordan, and instead that example is highly sophisticated and representative of a longstanding tradition of irrigation with constant innovation for a very long period of many generations of farmers. 

 

therefore I prefer the term "speculative prehistory", with the added term "fable oriented". So,,, it's not reality adjacent, it is "fable oriented speculative prehistory". Because although you cannot prove any of it to be correct, presently, you cannot prove it to be incorrect. There is no plausible way to do so. The burden of evidence remains on both parties. 

[tsmspace]

4 hours ago, Arika S said:

Holy christ, please use paragraphs.

 

I feel like this is a school essay you're proud of so you copy&pasted here.

those are paragraphs. There's three of them. Paragraphs are concept centric, which means that you can have big ones. I used to read books upon books where entire small print pages would have no more than 3 paragraphs, often only two, and what I typed would fit easily 5 and 6 paragraphs per one of those pages. I have also read newspapers where paragraphs were consistently 1 sentence. The use of paragraphs is an art, and is flexible. Why don't you go tell people playing minecraft to take up drawing instead, because it's more correct as an artform. 

[tsmspace]

4 hours ago, Arika S said:

Holy christ, please use paragraphs.

 

I feel like this is a school essay you're proud of so you copy&pasted here.

and uh... I think I would fail that class. I don't think you're wanted to go off on some Atlantis fable where beavers invented the greatest human empire of the time. 

[Arika]

20 minutes ago, tsmspace said:

those are paragraphs. There's three of them. Paragraphs are concept centric, which means that you can have big ones.

No, those are walls of text, and there's 3 walls.

[tsmspace]

3 hours ago, Arika S said:

No, those are walls of text, and there's 3 walls.

it's Babylonian text, though. that's why. They like walls. I grew up reading the classics, which are certainly longer paragraphed than "the davinci code" . You know that one with the sex scene. 

[Arika]

6 hours ago, tsmspace said:

it's Babylonian text, though. that's why. They like walls. I grew up reading the classics, which are certainly longer paragraphed than "the davinci code" . You know that one with the sex scene. 

god, you sound like someone you'd find on /r/iamverysmart

[tsmspace]

1 hour ago, Arika S said:

god, you sound like someone you'd find on /r/iamverysmart

short paragraphs are for when you don't say anything technical. If you have a technical description, for example, all of the features of someone's face, they would fall into a single paragraph. 

 

So if you were going to go over their expression, with reference to the colors of their hair and skin, the size and shape of their mouth, the specific muscle tension, etc., you would have long sentences and several of them all in a row. You would end up with a wall of text. But, because this kind of description is very common and popular, it is easy to read, because you're just reading the same thing over and over again, there's really no new information, so no one minds. But, if it's about something you don't already know, it's harder to read because it's basically all new or rarely considered information, you have to take more time to process each idea, and it takes more time and effort to move down the lines. It's not that one should turn each sentence into it's own paragraph so that the reader has an easier time finding the period, although you may choose to do so if it is your preferred style, it's that the reader just needs to take that more time to read it, regardless of whether there is more space between each sentence or not.

 

There really isn't anything I could possibly do to make it easier to read, other than just be a better writer, which is something that I just can't control, because it takes so much time for that to develop. At any moment, what I manage to make in the way of sentences, is basically the limitation of what I could have made at that time. ,,,,, also have you ever tried using multiple commas in a row? I think it's because they look like little triggers, but nothing triggers people more. 

[IRMacGuyver]

Before the 1800s Atlantis was literally just two snipits in fictional stories from ancient greece.  There's no other ancient evidence for Atlantis to exist.  Everything else has just been made up by people to sell books.  Lots of ancient civilizations peaked with great technology and then crumbled but none of them were Atlantis. 

[RollyShed]

Atlantis is what happens when a work of fiction, Plato's, gets taken as fact.

 

As for rivers and transport and enough people to use it, the Nile for thousands of years. It was also allowed to flood annually, a necessity for irrigation and crops.

[tsmspace]

20 hours ago, RollyShed said:

Atlantis is what happens when a work of fiction, Plato's, gets taken as fact.

 

As for rivers and transport and enough people to use it, the Nile for thousands of years. It was also allowed to flood annually, a necessity for irrigation and crops.

The actual suggestion of the work (plato's work) was that plato knew an egyptian tale of atlantis, so according to plato, he was reciting an egyptian origin story. This egyptian origin story has not been proven to be egyptian by any egyptian work, and some people have actually spent some time searching for a reference to it specifically, and come up empty-handed. Along with Plato's work, comes many other greek works which allude to egyptian history, for example the methods used to construct the pyramids, which are also not to be yet found in any actual egyptian work, and since the library of alexandria was burned, it is presumed that these and many such bits of fable would have been more traceable had it not. It is often assumed that the egyptians did not actually track their history in heiroglyphs on buildings, and instead these heiroglyphs are more like culture art, and they actually did track their (preferred) history in the library of alexandria, and this idea is certainly in line with how egyptians also used paper (which we do have) for things like tracking agriculture trade and such. Likely, the library was where these most valuable bits of works were kept, and likely, there was not another publicly maintained resource for them, so unfortunately, a mystery it shall all remain (as far as actual history study is concerned. "history" can mean very specifically prove-able facts,, but unfortunately this is not useful beyond written history, and there is then the realm of "speculative history", which is responsible for more of what we think we know than perhaps you would like to believe. In other words, atlantis is very much a possible history, there is nothing to prove it was not a real place, there is nothing that can even suggest (besides the bible's genesis) there was not highly organized seafaring society at that time, and in fact the colonization of pacific islands is filled with bones from cultures that likely existed there before the present day indigenous arrived, meaning seafaring civilization 13,000 years ago is basically undisputable fact. (*pending some organization and a few more publications). Exactly the extent of seafaring capability is certain up for debate, and most fossils are found in areas that seafaring is certainly less impressive than for example a colony on the Azores, but it is without a doubt supported by dated evidence. 

 

All said and done,, we CAN do some speculative logic. Here is a quote from a source you can probably find googling the quote, """"Around 2950-2750 B.C, the ancient Egyptians built the first known dam to exist. The dam was called the Sadd el-Kafara, which in Arabic means "Dam of the Pagans. The dam was 37 ft tall, 348 ft wide at the crest and 265 ft at the bottom. The dam was made of rubble masonry walls on the outsides and filled with 100,000 tons of gravel and stone. """" -------- what this quote means, is that 5000 years ago, we are absolutely sure the egyptians built a gigantic dam to manage a gigantic mass of water. Now, it is known by historians that they also built small earthwork dams all over the place. The thing about that is,,, it is extremely unlikely that egyptians, 5000 years ago, suddenly figured out that dams could exist, and then had use-cases that justified such grand scale infrastructure. Actually, dams are a huge impact and problem, and likely if the egyptians were the first to discover the concept, they would not have used them very much, as it would have been largely catastrophic to do so. It would have been severely destructive to natural resources, severely destructive to inhabited areas, it would have caused civil wars that would have certainly prevented the rise of egypt as a "world power". However, if dam infrastructure was well known and well established by the time the egyptian kingdoms made a 100,000 ton dam, , (you know, pushing wheely carts or something), then it starts to be imaginable that they would use them like that. ,,, So the question is,, how long did humans (who have existed in basically the same physiology we have today) build dams before suddenly egypt built one that was 100,000 tons? Is it plausible that it was discovered a mere few hundred years before this dam was constructed, or is it more likely that the egyptian kingdom formed in a world where dams were already everywhere? Why did humans look exactly as we do today for 200,000 years without ever making a dam, when beavers were making dams long before humans evolved? If humans WERE making dams for the last 200,000 years (basically copy-catting beavers to make more human friendly wetlands), what sort of society would that facilitate? 

[RollyShed]

5 hours ago, tsmspace said:

The actual suggestion of the work (plato's work) was that plato knew an egyptian tale of atlantis,

Provable or suggested?

 

Considering the mapping of oceans and all, Atlantis is a fable. The biblical great flood was not the whole world but just the Euphrates River and animals were definitely only those available in the area. Incidentally if all animals in the world were on the Ark, there is a South American animal, the sloth, that would have only just have got home last year due to its slow speed. If someone writes a story and doesn't know about a lot of the "outside world", it is going to be limited to their area of knowledge and it should always be considered, "How much did the writer know (about anything)?"

 

Pacific colonisation can be and is dated. It is also known how it was possible to "see" an island, visible from 5 miles away, but known to be there from 150 miles away or a few thousand miles away. And it isn't technology, it is keeping your eyes open to your surroundings.

 

The dam you are talking about is probably the biggest they built. Simply putting a few stones across a stream will form a dam but it definitely won't go down in history. We're really only haggling over how many previous dams had been built, and without knowing any beavers.

 

[tsmspace]

On 8/10/2022 at 1:25 AM, RollyShed said:

Provable or suggested?

 

Considering the mapping of oceans and all, Atlantis is a fable. The biblical great flood was not the whole world but just the Euphrates River and animals were definitely only those available in the area. Incidentally if all animals in the world were on the Ark, there is a South American animal, the sloth, that would have only just have got home last year due to its slow speed. If someone writes a story and doesn't know about a lot of the "outside world", it is going to be limited to their area of knowledge and it should always be considered, "How much did the writer know (about anything)?"

 

Pacific colonisation can be and is dated. It is also known how it was possible to "see" an island, visible from 5 miles away, but known to be there from 150 miles away or a few thousand miles away. And it isn't technology, it is keeping your eyes open to your surroundings.

 

The dam you are talking about is probably the biggest they built. Simply putting a few stones across a stream will form a dam but it definitely won't go down in history. We're really only haggling over how many previous dams had been built, and without knowing any beavers.

 

it's not proveable, it's just that plato said the story comes from egypt. 

[tikker]

On 8/10/2022 at 7:31 AM, tsmspace said:

In other words, atlantis is very much a possible history, there is nothing to prove it was not a real place, there is nothing that can even suggest (besides the bible's genesis) there was not highly organized seafaring society at that time, and in fact the colonization of pacific islands is filled with bones from cultures that likely existed there before the present day indigenous arrived

There is nothing to suggest that there was either. We have no convincing phyiscal evidence for it ever having existed. To my knowledge the status quo is that if there really was a well-organished seafaring (advanced) civilisation that existed we would have found some small indication that a massive island / city / civilisation has existed.

On 8/10/2022 at 7:31 AM, tsmspace said:

meaning seafaring civilization 13,000 years ago is basically undisputable fact. (*pending some organization and a few more publications).

If it needs "some organisation and a few more publications" then it is far from an undisputable fact.

On 8/10/2022 at 7:31 AM, tsmspace said:

Exactly the extent of seafaring capability is certain up for debate, and most fossils are found in areas that seafaring is certainly less impressive than for example a colony on the Azores, but it is without a doubt supported by dated evidence.

I don't follow the reasoning here. You say their capabilities are up for debate, fossil findings are not that impressive and that the evidence is dated. How does that lead to the conclusion of "without a doubt"? All those points you raise by their nature make its existence full of doubt at best.

On 8/10/2022 at 7:31 AM, tsmspace said:

Here is a quote from a source you can probably find googling the quote,

Quotes should be cited, not left for people to google.

On 8/10/2022 at 7:31 AM, tsmspace said:

what this quote means, is that 5000 years ago, we are absolutely sure the egyptians built a gigantic dam to manage a gigantic mass of water. Now, it is known by historians that they also built small earthwork dams all over the place. The thing about that is,,, it is extremely unlikely that egyptians, 5000 years ago, suddenly figured out that dams could exist, and then had use-cases that justified such grand scale infrastructure. Actually, dams are a huge impact and problem, and likely if the egyptians were the first to discover the concept, they would not have used them very much, as it would have been largely catastrophic to do so. It would have been severely destructive to natural resources, severely destructive to inhabited areas, it would have caused civil wars that would have certainly prevented the rise of egypt as a "world power". However, if dam infrastructure was well known and well established by the time the egyptian kingdoms made a 100,000 ton dam, , (you know, pushing wheely carts or something), then it starts to be imaginable that they would use them like that. ,,,

Environmental concerns have hardly ever stopped humans from doing anything. I don't think it's unlikely that they thought of the dam nor that it's unlikely that they would quickly try to apply it. Humans can be rather ingenious. Just look what we have achieved over just the last 150 or so years. Things can go really fast if we put ourselves to it. In what I can only assume is your source, it is also mentioned that they didn't really know how to properly manage said dam:

Quote

https://watershed.ucdavis.edu/shed/lund/dams/Dam_History_Page/History.htm
The dam failed after a few years and it was concluded that overflow was the cause of failure. The poor workmanship from a hasty construction lead to the failure. The dam was not watertight and water flowed through the structure quickly eroding it away. Once the water overflowed the crest, it quickly eroded away the dam. The dam was a failure and the Egyptians never attempted to build another dam until modern times.

 

On 8/10/2022 at 7:31 AM, tsmspace said:

So the question is,, how long did humans (who have existed in basically the same physiology we have today) build dams before suddenly egypt built one that was 100,000 tons? Is it plausible that it was discovered a mere few hundred years before this dam was constructed, or is it more likely that the egyptian kingdom formed in a world where dams were already everywhere? Why did humans look exactly as we do today for 200,000 years without ever making a dam, when beavers were making dams long before humans evolved? If humans WERE making dams for the last 200,000 years (basically copy-catting beavers to make more human friendly wetlands), what sort of society would that facilitate? 

I don't think Egypt "suddenly" built a dam any more than that we "suddenly" were on the Moon. This dam was likely just the first recorded dam that we know of, not the absolute first dam ever built in the history of man kind.

[tsmspace]

4 hours ago, tikker said:

 

I don't think Egypt "suddenly" built a dam any more than that we "suddenly" were on the Moon. This dam was likely just the first recorded dam that we know of, not the absolute first dam ever built in the history of man kind.

It's the oldest known remains according to basically the internet. But it's a pretty big dam, being hundreds of feet across. IMO , it is highly unlikely that it was constructed before dams existed for very long periods of time on a smaller scale, all over the place. Also, it was built from rubble, which is fairly abstract. This means that rubble was available, and that people had decided it might be a nice dam building material, and that it was worth transporting the rubble. I suggest that dams on smaller scales existed as far back as people of the day's knowledge could have fabled. 

 

4 hours ago, tikker said:

Environmental concerns have hardly ever stopped humans from doing anything. I don't think it's unlikely that they thought of the dam nor that it's unlikely that they would quickly try to apply it. Humans can be rather ingenious. Just look what we have achieved over just the last 150 or so years. Things can go really fast if we put ourselves to it. In what I can only assume is your source, it is also mentioned that they didn't really know how to properly manage said dam:

This is not true in the slightest. SUBTLE impacts have rarely stopped humans, but still have actually affected decision making,,, but environmental impacts have ALWAYS SIGNIFICANTLY IMPACTED decision-making. For example, thou shalt not hunt in the kinds wood without the kings permission,, because then there won't be enough animals in the wood for when the king himself shalt go hunting. Another example, one tribe of cavemen went over and killed another tribe of cavemen, because if they didn't, the environmental impact would cause them to be more hungriererer. Environmental impacts are really the only consideration. Now, dams are major major, because although today we live in much more well developed infrastructure, of yore people lived in varying levels of infrastructure depending on what kept them right on top of where they met their needs. Lots of people wouldn't live in towns in egypt, they would live on their farms, and there would be farms along the river, as close to it as possible. That means that if you built a major dam,, it wouldn't be some subtle impact, all of those farmers would have to stop farming there, and move. But, it's not like they could just move to the new shoreline, because that area also was owned by someone already farming there. That means they would just be SOL because there wouldn't be any farmable land they could really go that wasn't already farmed. So a large dam that is going to make a large reservoir isn't going to gently change the environment over time, ((it will, but )) instead it will immediately displace a bunch of people, who will then have no choice but to turn to crime and kill people so they can steal their farms. 

5 hours ago, tikker said:

Quotes should be cited, not left for people to google.

I whole-heartedly disagree. This is not a submission to the peer reviewed database. The burden is therefore not my responsibility. 

 

5 hours ago, tikker said:

I don't follow the reasoning here. You say their capabilities are up for debate, fossil findings are not that impressive and that the evidence is dated. How does that lead to the conclusion of "without a doubt"? All those points you raise by their nature make its existence full of doubt at best.

basically I'm talking about how some pacific islands appear to have been inhabited although they would not have been accessible by land but any of the miniature humans that lived there. Since the oldest boat is like 8000 bc. which is already 10,000 years ago, and it is unlikely that this boat is the oldest used boat, (it surely can be considered fairly refined as a design, all said and done) and since there are humanoid fossils where a land bridge wasn't plausible in the pacific,,, I suggest that although it would not be standard infrastructure, we can easily suggest that travelling across bodies of water by boat was in practice for platos atlantis. You know, even the Hawaiians have the "Menehune" which is a legend hawaiians have about a pygmy people who inhabited the islands when they first arrived, but that they wiped out in wars and by eating them. Likewise, the Moari similarly have fables of eating little peoples until they went extinct when they first arrived in new zealand. Since we have fossils of little peoples that are on other pacific islands and from the ballpark of the time of atlantis,, I guess I just think that if speculation is already the game, it's pretty safe to say that SOMEONE had been boating around by then. 

 

5 hours ago, tikker said:

There is nothing to suggest that there was either. We have no convincing phyiscal evidence for it ever having existed. To my knowledge the status quo is that if there really was a well-organished seafaring (advanced) civilisation that existed we would have found some small indication that a massive island / city / civilisation has existed.

Correct, we can't say there's any proof of it. 

 

well organized isn't necessarily a part of the conversation, because actually it could be more like a rare tradesmen, where parents teach their kids, but they live very separate from the majority of society, meaning not many people actually even know they exist. Also, they wouldn't necessarily be unique enough to have widespread reputation,, because if you, for example, lived in a valley, whoever lives in the mountains around you is already very different from you. Then, if you learn about someone on the other side of them, they too probably have a very very different way of life, meaning that basically everyone around is terribly interesting, meaning you would mostly spend your life being fascinated by each new culture you encountered, rather than hearing about any that are far away.  ,,,, another idea I personally like to throw around, is how there were "gods" that always ended up to be some kind of person. So,, very easily a seafarer would be very impressive to behold, and were they to be one of the "gods" this would probably go over pretty well. 

 

-------------------------------------------------------

 

just to really get speculative. It is physics relevant for humans to get really good at sailing and then soar. (a quick look up of the definition of soar is helpful here). So, a paraglider pilot is able to go to the right place (for example, the top of a mountain in hawaii, where the trade winds blow and paraglider pilots today frequent),, launch, and then just fly around gaining and losing altitude. The hawaiians actually believe that they were guided to the islands by the "gods" who were able to go to a mountaintop, "change into a bird" (some kind of translation,, I think it is not clear) and then fly. So in their origin story, these polynesians were basically persecuted as a result of overpopulation, and in polynesian culture it was common that some people were forced to get into a canoe, and never return. (they were supposed to go out and find some new islands or something and just live there, or anyways just don't come back here thank you). Since it was generally a death sentence as far as anyone was concerned, it would actually result in people just rowing about until they found somewhere nearby that didn't force them out,, until such as time as a group of militants went ahead and just killed the lot. The gods came to these prospective hawaiians and told them that if they used their sails to follow them,, they would lead them on a long hard journey to a place where no one would find them. The gods flew in the air,, but actually, if you're soaring and if you're sailing, you would end up taking the same route. These gods were able to soar near the boats, and could even land in the water and take off after that. Some modern people thought they made some kind of bamboo glider, and flew using that. I reckon they probably made some kind of cloth or thin leather sheet that they would just hold with string,, looking closer to a parachute. Maybe they used bamboo sticks and leaves to make a foil of some sort,,, but the physics is sound. If the foil is smaller,, you just need more wind to make it work, but people do it today as a popular sport. 

 

the implications of a culture of "gods" who were so good at sailing that they knew actually how to fly in the air (for example up and down the andes mountains, where machu picchu is) would basically be that small societies of people DID actually have knowledge of how to sail around, but that this knowledge was quite abstract and complex, and not really the realm of the average tribe, but instead the environment made some groups comfortable enough that they could have long enough and comfortable enough lives to practice skills and achieve mastery of such things as winged flight. Winged flight is actually a part of greek culture, and their fable is that they thought that they were regularly encountering people up to it. The hawaiians didn't actually reach hawaii until at the earliest 400 ad or so.

 

Anyway,,,, ignoring all else. What say you about the odds that people saw beavers building dams,, were able to benefit from them, and then went and made more somewhere else? Seems likely to me, but we all have our own imaginations. 

[wseaton]

Egyptians built pyramids that even today baffle engineers as to how they pulled it off. Its the force of will to build such massive structures that have no real practical value that is startling. The resources and effort required to do so without machinery is mind boggling. You need a stupidly large labor force and the means to feed them for decades. 

 

I'm sure if the Egyptians wanted to build damns they could have. Why bother though. 

 

Never bought into these ancient advanced civilizations. Civilizations advance because they are able to share information. Rome ascended because they were meticulous record keepers and bureaucrats. Same with the Greeks. The smart guy in the village needs to be able to share his knowledge and record it while others hunt and gather for him. Pretty much the simple formula for all successful civilizations. 

 

If there was a prior advanced civilization there would be evidence of it. 

 

Go back too many millenia and there isn't enough technology to support large population centers. Too difficult to feed cities of people and it just made disease to easy to spread. So, populations stayed low and populations centers were limited. 

[tikker]

10 hours ago, tsmspace said:

It's the oldest known remains according to basically the internet. But it's a pretty big dam, being hundreds of feet across. IMO , it is highly unlikely that it was constructed before dams existed for very long periods of time on a smaller scale, all over the place. Also, it was built from rubble, which is fairly abstract. This means that rubble was available, and that people had decided it might be a nice dam building material, and that it was worth transporting the rubble. I suggest that dams on smaller scales existed as far back as people of the day's knowledge could have fabled. 

That's what I said: the first recorded dam. That doesn't mean we haven't built dams before, it simpy means the first (notably big) dam we have confident knowledge of is that one. They are relatively simple things. Egyptians were quite an advanced civilsation. I'm nor surprised by their ability to attempt a dam. Sources are thinly spread from what I can find, but the failure might also have been bad luck. This piece says its design was alright, but it was hit by a flood during construction:

Quote

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344386016_sd_alkfrt_mn_sdwd_msr_alqdymt
The dam's purpose was apparently to protect installations in the lower wadi and in the Nile valley from the frequent and sudden floods following heavy rainfalls. By modern standards, the dam is stable and would have withstood the floods reasonably to be expected if it had been completed. However, a flood during the construction period led to its destruction, followed by a catastrophic flood wave. As a consequence, the construction work was abandoned. The design was basically correct and the dam was adequately protected from damage caused by water bypassing the dam on the left bank or overtopping.

An encyclopedia on Egyptian architecture corroborates that it was alright in design, but lacked experience from not building things like it before:

Quote

https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaarch00bard

Assessments of the dam's stability by modern methods lead to the conclusion that the design was basically correct, though very conservative. This probably indicates that no experience with structures of this kind was available when it was built (Old Kingdom)

 

10 hours ago, tsmspace said:

This is not true in the slightest. SUBTLE impacts have rarely stopped humans, but still have actually affected decision making,,, but environmental impacts have ALWAYS SIGNIFICANTLY IMPACTED decision-making. For example, thou shalt not hunt in the kinds wood without the kings permission,, because then there won't be enough animals in the wood for when the king himself shalt go hunting. Another example, one tribe of cavemen went over and killed another tribe of cavemen, because if they didn't, the environmental impact would cause them to be more hungriererer.

I think these two examples are societal impact, not environmental impact. With environmental impact I mean our effect on the world by e.g. clearing land, starting big farms, burning fossil fuels etc. You not hunting because the king wants to is not about environmental concerns, but about the king's hobbies. Tribe A fighting tribe B due to hunger is about surviving. They're not murdering the other tribe out of concern for the environment.

10 hours ago, tsmspace said:

I whole-heartedly disagree. This is not a submission to the peer reviewed database. The burden is therefore not my responsibility.

It doesn't matter if it's peer reviewed or not. Firstly it's just attributing a quote that you use verbatim to its source, since it's not your work, but it also serves as reference for the reader to simply see where it came from or read more. The burden of citation is on the one who cites, not on the reader.

10 hours ago, tsmspace said:

Environmental impacts are really the only consideration. Now, dams are major major, because although today we live in much more well developed infrastructure, of yore people lived in varying levels of infrastructure depending on what kept them right on top of where they met their needs. Lots of people wouldn't live in towns in egypt, they would live on their farms, and there would be farms along the river, as close to it as possible. That means that if you built a major dam,, it wouldn't be some subtle impact, all of those farmers would have to stop farming there, and move. But, it's not like they could just move to the new shoreline, because that area also was owned by someone already farming there. That means they would just be SOL because there wouldn't be any farmable land they could really go that wasn't already farmed. So a large dam that is going to make a large reservoir isn't going to gently change the environment over time, ((it will, but )) instead it will immediately displace a bunch of people, who will then have no choice but to turn to crime and kill people so they can steal their farms. 

I think you are jumping to conclusions that buiding a dam would immediately lead to crime and killing without looking into why the dam was built. A dam will indeed impact the environment, but since they built it anyway you can see that that was either not a concern or the benefits outweighed it. Page 1058 of the above linked encyclopedia implies that the dam was actually built rather far away from labour areas and mentions that farms were on fertile land close to the Nile instead of where the dam was built, so no SOL farmers. They conclude that the dam was buit to protect the settlements from floods caused by heavy rain in combination with their geography.

10 hours ago, tsmspace said:

I guess I just think that if speculation is already the game, it's pretty safe to say that SOMEONE had been boating around by then. 

It's not safe to say that. Speculation remains speculation until there is believable proof. There can of course be strong suspcion without solid proof that you can build on. You can say if it happened somewhere it may have happened elsewhere or earlier as well, but until you can prove that it will remain uncertain. Some things that happened too far before diligently recorded history may simply be forever lost to time and may remain speculation forever. I guess that is one of the nice aspects about history as well. It retains an element of wonder.

10 hours ago, tsmspace said:

Anyway,,,, ignoring all else. What say you about the odds that people saw beavers building dams,, were able to benefit from them, and then went and made more somewhere else? Seems likely to me, but we all have our own imaginations. 

Could be. You could also stick your hand in a stream or throw a few rocks in it and realise you can stop water that way. It will probably be hard if not impossible to say what inspired the idea of a dam, if anything even did.

[RollyShed]

On 8/14/2022 at 12:14 PM, tsmspace said:

Likewise, the Moari similarly have fables of eating little peoples until they went extinct when they first arrived in new zealand. Since we have fossils of little peoples that are on other pacific islands and from the ballpark of the time of atlantis,, I guess I just think that if speculation is already the game, it's pretty safe to say that SOMEONE had been boating around by then. 

Rubbish. Never, ever heard that fable. Do you know when the Maori got to New Zealand? About 800 years ago and the only "people" they ate were seals and moa (a bit like an emu) until population pressures increased and they ate each other after fighting them. There were no little people here.

On 8/14/2022 at 12:14 PM, tsmspace said:

it would actually result in people just rowing about until they found somewhere nearby that didn't force them out,

Rowing? They never rowed. They paddled short distances and sailed the rest. How did they know where islands were? One of the best guides were birds. If birds are flying south every year, they must be going somewhere.

Spotting low lying islands - the birds flying home at the end of the day. There must be an island somewhere in that direction.

 

There is a very good book written about that.

 

As for gliders, where did all that come from. Yes, the Maori flew kites but that was all.

[RollyShed]

Polynesians and exploration of the Pacific -

Pathway of the Birds – The Voyaging Achievements of Māori and their Polynesian Ancestors by Andrew Crowe, 2018.
It outlines clear evidence of return voyaging, as well as regular inter-island contact between New Zealand and central Polynesia, and the process of strategic discovery voyaging followed by planned settlement voyaging.

 

The Māori are the indigenous Polynesian people of mainland New Zealand (Aotearoa) and arrived in New Zealand in several waves of canoe voyages between roughly 1320 and 1350.

 

Manu tukutuku – Māori kites

Kites were flown for recreation, but they also had other purposes. They were used for divination – to gauge whether an attack on an enemy stronghold would be successful, or to locate wrongdoers. They were also a means of communication. It is said that when the founding ancestor of Ngāti Porou, Porourangi, died in Whāngārā, on the East Coast, a kite was flown and his brother Tahu, the founding ancestor of Ngāi Tahu, was able to see it from the South Island. Sometimes people would release a kite and follow it, claiming and occupying the place where it landed.