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Europe's now-drowned 'lost world' and the 25m-high tsunami that finished it off

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Re: Europe's now-drowned 'lost world' and the 25m-high tsunami that finished it off

#161

Post by daveslash »

bandibus wrote: post #143
hnbad wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The title seems to use meters as the article says "anything up to 25 meters". It's a bit jarring how it switches between systems and then gives conversions on some imperial units but not others. It's also odd to read about Europe in measurements like "cubic miles" given there's only one country in Europe using imperial and their system is different from the US imperial. The author is a self-described "Yorkshireman" s…

Yes, US and UK miles are the same. And yep, I'm English - and I have that blindspot that a lot of us have, where we don't noticed how we use both imperial and metric in a confusing mash-up of systems - so yep, apologies, and guilty as charged! (In my everyday thinking I use meters and miles alongside each other, which is...ridiculous. But I was a little too late to the world to properly learn inches and pounds, so it…

I'm U.S., and I'd assert that all of our informational conveyance (from language to measurements) is a confusing mashup. English is a pidgin language, and we're so accustomed to the weird mashup that it doesn't seem jarring to us sometimes to mix metric and imperial in the same context. Not defending it (because it's honestly awful), just explaining why we might not notice until it's pointed out to us.

Re: Europe's now-drowned 'lost world' and the 25m-high tsunami that finished it off

#162

Post by gen220 »

galaxyLogic wrote: post #131
fsloth wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I warmly recommend to anyone interested in this line of thought James Scott's "Against the grain" for oldest evidence of the first agrarian states in the middle east. "Against the grain" points out that it's not obvious as number of people increases everyone wants to live in cities ruled over and taxed by someone else. "I think it’s pretty clear that sophisticated societies existed long before recorded history." If y…

Isn't the theory that agriculture meant some book-keeping was needed, to keep track of the seasons and when to plant. This book-keeping then caused the development of writing in general. And writing caused the birth of inter-generational memory and the ability to accumulate knowledge. Of course oral histories can be cross-generational as well, but writing is much more efficient storage medium than human brain alone.…

I think bookkeeping may be a related catalyst. But it's primary use seems more for inter-societal trade (settling accounts), than intra-societal education.

Bookkeeping is not the only prerequisite for written language, e.g. in the new world, sophisticated bookkeeping mechanisms existed for centuries without written language.

Re: Europe's now-drowned 'lost world' and the 25m-high tsunami that finished it off

#163

Post by qwytw »

chucksmash wrote: post #34
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And in the absence of proof, the simplest assumption would be that humans then were just as human, and so had sophisticated societies etc.

A simpler alternative assumption could be this: 1. sophistication is driven by specialization 2. the ability to specialize is driven by access to surplus energy 3. before the advent of agriculture bands of humans simply did not have the excess calories available to them to support a priesthood and philosophers and bureaucrats, etc.

Or maybe they simply choose to not spend those excess calories on philosophers and bureaucrats because doing so provided no immediate benefit? We have evidence showing that the rise of civilization and agriculture were a net negative for an average individual. It seems that at least in Egypt and Mesopotamia climate change, specifically an end of warmer and wetter climatic cycle, is what pushed people into fertile river valley. Most people would had probably preferred to remain hunter gatherers had that been possible or even independent farmers (which is what happened in the rest of the world.

The people in Mesopotamia (and in other similar areas which were slowly turning into a desert) didn't really have a choice. Building and maintaining irrigation systems takes a lot of people and coordination. Since most would probably prefer to be the ones handling 'coordination' aspect rather than digging trenches in the mud priests and philosopher classes had to appear to maintain social cohesion. It's much easier to convince peasants to give X% their harvest to the local strongman when they know that he's an divinely appointed king or maybe even a living god himself.

Re: Europe's now-drowned 'lost world' and the 25m-high tsunami that finished it off

#164

Post by Radim »

eesmith wrote: post #154
Radim wrote: post #138

> since there’s no evidence that Mesolithic people were seafarers, who knows if there were people living there? Whyyyyyy? To hedge your bets with "no evidence" that these people managed to navigate shallow sea waters to a nearby island, which they had inhabited for thousands of years and knew like the back of their hand , seems… unnecessary? Disrespectful? I mean, we already know Mesolithic "hunter gatherers" managed…

Here are some citations which support you. From https://researchframeworks.org/maritime/the-mesolithic/#sect... > Evidence for Mesolithic seafaring includes the colonisation of islands involving long sea journeys, such as Shetland and the Outer Hebrides (Warren 2005), as well as the location of sites on islands involving very difficult sea crossings, such as Ynys Enlli (Bardsey Island) in North Wales, where one must…

Thanks for the links. I was starting to wonder whether I'd said something unforgivably controversial.

What Doggerland – and underwater archeology in general – has to reveal is quite exciting. How did these Mesolithic people conceptualize the world and themselves? What innovations and dead-ends "didn't quite make it" (in the evolutionary sense) to the start of protohistory, to us today?

So much of the juiciest evidence from that era is now under the sea!

And which of those now-dead innovations were genuinely obsoleted ideas, and which died out due to ecological happenstance? A bad timing, bad place for an otherwise brilliant life hack… especially on the psychological/cultural/spiritual front.

Unfortunately such aspects of prehistory are the hardest to piece together. But given the jaw-dropping accomplishments of many Paleolithic and Mesolithic peoples, and given the time scales, even their maladaptations must be worth a study.

In this age of Twitter, imagine something chiseled to perfection by groups of smart humans over thousands of years. Then swept away by something as "trivial" as a tsunami, or the agricultural revolution/slavery that marks the dawn of history. A truly multivariate optimization problem, with a rather shady objective function.

Re: Europe's now-drowned 'lost world' and the 25m-high tsunami that finished it off

#165

Post by eesmith »

Radim wrote: post #164
eesmith wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here are some citations which support you. From https://researchframeworks.org/maritime/the-mesolithic/#sect... > Evidence for Mesolithic seafaring includes the colonisation of islands involving long sea journeys, such as Shetland and the Outer Hebrides (Warren 2005), as well as the location of sites on islands involving very difficult sea crossings, such as Ynys Enlli (Bardsey Island) in North Wales, where one must…

Thanks for the links. I was starting to wonder whether I'd said something unforgivably controversial. What Doggerland – and underwater archeology in general – has to reveal is quite exciting. How did these Mesolithic people conceptualize the world and themselves? What innovations and dead-ends "didn't quite make it" (in the evolutionary sense) to the start of protohistory, to us today? So much of the juiciest evidenc…

We can get some of this by paying more attention to other indigenous cultures.

Australian Aborigines have an oral culture with ancient roots, and life hacks that have resulted in an astonishing long-lived culture.

The Khasi, as an example of a matrilineal culture, help remind us that certain things we take for granted - like how men are supposedly more competitive than women - simply isn't true.

(https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w13727/w137... - "amongst the Khasi ... women choose the competitive environment more often than Khasi men").

Or concepts revolving around "third gender" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_gender .

Re: Europe's now-drowned 'lost world' and the 25m-high tsunami that finished it off

#166

Post by arkey »

Jedd wrote: post #156
arkey wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you give some evidence for that? Could you reference specific inconsistencies and contradictions?

Have you genuinely been unable to identify any? They're manifest and generally well documented. A nicely topical example, given we've just had Easter, would be around the time of the crucifixion -- was it at 9am on the morning of Passover, or midday the day after passover? The gospels provide conflicting timelines - Mathew, Mark, & Luke say 9am on passover, John says the afternoon the day after passover. There are my…

To be completely honest, I am, as you probably might have already guessed, biased in the sense that I accept and believe the Bible.

Still being as honest as possible, I'll attempt to respond constructively to the details you provided:

Instead of myriads, I counted 7 alleged contradictions, of which only 3 are related to the timeline and (again, imho) easily disregarded by answering "while" to the question of "before or after?".

The other 4 alleged contradictions are not necessarily incompatible facts, but rather incomplete, related accounts of a whole situation. What I mean by that is that there are plausible explanations on why those examples are written in different ways.

For example, the criminals mocking Jesus at the cross. Of three accounts, two say the criminals were hating. Only one of the accounts goes on to say that one of the thieves repents. You've got two possibilities here: either you examine the three accounts as a whole and arrive at the conclusion that they both started hating and eventually one repented (do let me know if you honestly don't consider this to be a possibility), or you decide that there's no explanation as to why there are no four identical accounts of that situation, and therefore the whole Bible doesn't make sense.

Another example, when the soldiers compel Simon of Cirene to carry the cross. One of the accounts does not include that, but rather says that He, bearing His cross, went forth into (towards, in the direction, with the intention of getting to...) the place of the skull. Again, the options. Could it be that the one writing the fourth account was not present when Simon started carrying the cross? Is it absolutely so impossible that there's some explanation to that?

We could go on with the rest of contradictions, but that's not the point. I acknowledge that minor details as the colour of a robe might be messed up during in history across 2000 years and multiple transcriptions and translations, because after all, there is human intervention in the Bible. One says the robe was scarlet, one says the robe was purple. Does that really compromise the Truth exposed in the Bible? Does it invalidate His sacrifice at the cross?

I am still to find or be shown a relevant inconsistency, just one point that really contradicts a fundamental truth on the Bible with itself. Something that compromises the fact that God himself gave His Son who died as a person in the world to clean us from our sinful nature and give us eternal life in His presence.

Re: Europe's now-drowned 'lost world' and the 25m-high tsunami that finished it off

#167

Post by Jedd »

arkey wrote: post #166
Jedd wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you genuinely been unable to identify any? They're manifest and generally well documented. A nicely topical example, given we've just had Easter, would be around the time of the crucifixion -- was it at 9am on the morning of Passover, or midday the day after passover? The gospels provide conflicting timelines - Mathew, Mark, & Luke say 9am on passover, John says the afternoon the day after passover. There are my…

To be completely honest, I am, as you probably might have already guessed, biased in the sense that I accept and believe the Bible. Still being as honest as possible, I'll attempt to respond constructively to the details you provided: Instead of myriads, I counted 7 alleged contradictions, of which only 3 are related to the timeline and (again, imho) easily disregarded by answering "while" to the question of "before…

Ah, fairy nuff. I suspected, but assumed good faith. I suppose this means I can't possibly sway you, as much of your core identity is very tightly coupled with these beliefs.

I'll offer a couple of things. A small one first - consider that myriad is an adjective, not a collective noun.

For rational readers, being told that a work is inerrant, and then finding myriad inconsistencies within that work, or claims of historical actions that make no sense within the context of the times & places described, along with the conflicting contemporary historical record (in the case of the bible, basically no contemporary corroboration whatsoever) -- but then having those contradictions or inconsistencies hand-waved away by trying to claim a 'while' addresses them (it does not), or trying to bundle them all up in a dismissive 'does it matter what colour the robe was?' -- can be frustrating.

Obviously an inerrant work shouldn't contain even weirdly specific wardrobe inconsistencies, but that's not the point, as we can agree that one is a relatively trivial error (but an error nonetheless).

So, the moneylenders story - one of the most famous in the book - is a favourite for me.

Few people, including the strong believers, can answer the question of whether this happened early on in the story, or just before the end (ie. did it kick-start the character's main story arc for the next 3-5 years, or was it a key event in motivating the Jewish leaders to orchestrate his death some weeks before he was killed).

And, just like the robe's colour, it depends on which gospel you read, because both versions are in the bible.

Apologists will typically claim 'it must have happened twice', but that's a weak retort given how monumental it must have been in order to be reported in the first place.

I recently finished David Fitzgerald's second book in his trilogy 'Nailed', which was a fascinating read (the first in the series is lighter & shorter, but a compelling introduction to the subject). Prior to publishing the first book, he wrote an essay that you may find interesting [1] that describes some more profound contradictions & provably-false myths / beliefs.

http://www.nazarethmyth.info/Fitzgerald2010HM.pdf

Re: Europe's now-drowned 'lost world' and the 25m-high tsunami that finished it off

#168

Post by medstrom »

mrdatawolf wrote: post #113
medstrom wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please specify, what do you mean by "less advanced"? I doubt a randomly picked person has a more complex net of social interactions today than 50,000 years ago - probably the personal level is a lot simpler today, since we can outsource many needs to corporate and national structures, with whom you also have pretty straightforward relations.

"I doubt a randomly picked person has a more complex net of social interactions today than 50,000 years ago..." Why? 50k years ago the average person lived with a small group of people and barely ever interacted with anyone else in the world. Whereas the common person, today, interacts with a large number of people socially; if you include virtual and physical interactions.

Yes, by simple count the social net may have been smaller in the past, but I was talking about complexity. Just imagine living with one tribe for the rest of your life, having to partake in everyone managing each other's friendships and relationships with each other.
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