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Notes from tired Egyptian whose job is explaining that humans built the pyramids

mcsweeneys.net

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Re: Notes from tired Egyptian whose job is explaining that humans built the pyramids

#71

Post by aqfamnzc »

thewebguyd wrote: post #33
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #17

"I personally can't conceive of how one might built this, and I must be a million times smarter than people 4500 years ago, ergo people didn't build this." is how the Ancient Aliens theory always sounds to me.

There's a ton of people that, for some reason, just can't grok that humans have been largely behaviorally and biologically identical for the past 200k years. The average ancient roman plebeian's life would not look dramatically different from ours today, minus technology of course. They worked a day job, ate at thermopoliums (basically fast food), lived in crowded apartment complexes with various forms of slum lords,…

A couple years ago I realized that I had somewhat subconsciously made the same assumption. The thing that snapped me out of it was my awe in watching Clickspring (YT) try to recreate the Antikythera Mechanism. That device's complexity and craftsmanship is proof to me that despite the lack of technology, there were some astonishingly smart and resourceful people living thousands of years ago.

Re: Notes from tired Egyptian whose job is explaining that humans built the pyramids

#72

Post by krisoft »

geraneum wrote: post #25

I think a lack of curiosity and capacity also play a role in some believing the conspiracies. The information is there. More accessible than ever, yet most out of reach for our brains addicted to instant gratification of doom scrolls and outrageous headlines that we’re blasted with by multibillion dollar attention optimization machines.

> The information is there.

Well. Not really? Of course a lot of information is available but still there is a lot of open questions.

Just considering the Great Pyramid of Giza: was it built with an external or an internal ramp? What was the purpose of the so called “well shaft”? What was the purpose of the “grand gallery”? What about the “air shafts”? Is the restoration of the so called “great step” in the “grand gallery” historically accurate? What is going on with the “big void” and the “small void” seemingly indicated by the ScanPyramid data? How did those who dug the “robbers tunnel” know how deep the granite plugs are?

My point is that there are enough interesting questions even after one learns “all there is to know”. They are just not in the realm of “aliens?” but much more like “what order were the ramps removed?”

Re: Notes from tired Egyptian whose job is explaining that humans built the pyramids

#73

Post by jubilanti »

FLHerne wrote: post #45
jrmg wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern construction firms would have no problem^ planning and building you a pyramid if you were willing to pay for it. ^ well, maybe some problems like any project, but they would overcome them.

Sure, but no-one on Earth today is willing to pay for a pyramid - or anything like it - even with the convenience of modern construction. I have a similar feeling looking at the great cathedrals. These structures took up a huge proportion of the community's money, labour and talent, for decades on end. They're orders of magnitude bigger than any 'normal' building of the time or for centuries later. All with no prospe…

> What would an Eiffel Tower with 10x the resources look like?

The Burj Khalifa.

Re: Notes from tired Egyptian whose job is explaining that humans built the pyramids

#74

Post by card_zero »

thewebguyd wrote: post #67
card_zero wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the downvote, it's like "nooo, their ideas were exactly as good as the ones we have today, humans don't learn over time, how dare you imply we used to be stupider, it's sacrilege". So I object to this weird article of faith every time it comes up, we can't have been exactly as sensible and exactly as clever in the past as we are today, it doesn't make any sense to say that. But it's somehow become…

I didn't downvote you. But, I'm not saying that humans haven't learned anything, but that cognitively we haven't changed. A roman citizen has the exact same brain capacity to reason and adapt as we do today. There is zero separation from ancient human vs. modern human in that aspect. You are conflating collective knowledge with individual human intelligence. That roman looking at bird entrails to predict the future w…

Yes, of course that's right. But I thought you were the one conflating collective knowledge with individual human intelligence, when you said "behaviorally". Behaviors being due to ideas, not nature (I don't much rate nature's effect on smarts anyway).

Maybe I need to spell this distinction out next time it comes up, which will be the next ancient history thread, probably. I guess the endless repetition of "they were just as smart as we were you know!" is in order to counteract an unstated idea that the ancients were some other species, like orangutans in bronze armor, I don't know. Maybe it's common to vaguely think that about them? But this gratuitous counter-point should be on a strictly genetic basis, or else you'd be accidentally denying that ideas improve.

Re: Notes from tired Egyptian whose job is explaining that humans built the pyramids

#75

Post by bjt »

thewebguyd wrote: post #67
card_zero wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the downvote, it's like "nooo, their ideas were exactly as good as the ones we have today, humans don't learn over time, how dare you imply we used to be stupider, it's sacrilege". So I object to this weird article of faith every time it comes up, we can't have been exactly as sensible and exactly as clever in the past as we are today, it doesn't make any sense to say that. But it's somehow become…

I didn't downvote you. But, I'm not saying that humans haven't learned anything, but that cognitively we haven't changed. A roman citizen has the exact same brain capacity to reason and adapt as we do today. There is zero separation from ancient human vs. modern human in that aspect. You are conflating collective knowledge with individual human intelligence. That roman looking at bird entrails to predict the future w…

I agree with the "steal an ancient roman baby" premise. The "roman citizen" example is not as strong. Cognitive ability is not just genetics. The grown-up roman would be missing a lot of advantages during their upbringing that weren't available back then. Also, limiting it to just "citizens" means limiting it to their upper class.

Compared to Roman times, we've had pretty big advances in nutrition, healthcare, education, and widespread middle class wealth. It's not unreasonable to infer that these would have an impact on cognitive ability similar to the effect they've had on life expectancy.

That being said, there's definitely a present-ist bias, as the McSweeney's article does a good job mocking. I do believe their best thinkers were as good as our best thinkers.

Re: Notes from tired Egyptian whose job is explaining that humans built the pyramids

#76

Post by geraneum »

krisoft wrote: post #72
geraneum wrote: post #25

I think a lack of curiosity and capacity also play a role in some believing the conspiracies. The information is there. More accessible than ever, yet most out of reach for our brains addicted to instant gratification of doom scrolls and outrageous headlines that we’re blasted with by multibillion dollar attention optimization machines.

> The information is there. Well. Not really? Of course a lot of information is available but still there is a lot of open questions. Just considering the Great Pyramid of Giza: was it built with an external or an internal ramp? What was the purpose of the so called “well shaft”? What was the purpose of the “grand gallery”? What about the “air shafts”? Is the restoration of the so called “great step” in the “grand ga…

Information is there to help steer people away from crazy conspiracy theories. The kind of information that help people even arrive at the questions you mentioned. That’s the whole point of my argument.

Re: Notes from tired Egyptian whose job is explaining that humans built the pyramids

#77

Post by card_zero »

bjt wrote: post #75
thewebguyd wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't downvote you. But, I'm not saying that humans haven't learned anything, but that cognitively we haven't changed. A roman citizen has the exact same brain capacity to reason and adapt as we do today. There is zero separation from ancient human vs. modern human in that aspect. You are conflating collective knowledge with individual human intelligence. That roman looking at bird entrails to predict the future w…

I agree with the "steal an ancient roman baby" premise. The "roman citizen" example is not as strong. Cognitive ability is not just genetics. The grown-up roman would be missing a lot of advantages during their upbringing that weren't available back then. Also, limiting it to just "citizens" means limiting it to their upper class. Compared to Roman times, we've had pretty big advances in nutrition, healthcare, educat…

Well no, not even as good. For instance, your comment invokes the idea of prejudice, and the value of being unprejudiced. Did Romans know about that, and consider it important? Maybe, I couldn't say offhand, but my point is that they might not have had some valuable idea like that. I think we can say with certainty that they must have lacked some idea of great value to thinking. That makes the ancients all worse at thinking, all of them. This doesn't of course mean that their best ideas were bad though!

Re: Notes from tired Egyptian whose job is explaining that humans built the pyramids

#78

Post by constantius »

bjt wrote: post #75
thewebguyd wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't downvote you. But, I'm not saying that humans haven't learned anything, but that cognitively we haven't changed. A roman citizen has the exact same brain capacity to reason and adapt as we do today. There is zero separation from ancient human vs. modern human in that aspect. You are conflating collective knowledge with individual human intelligence. That roman looking at bird entrails to predict the future w…

I agree with the "steal an ancient roman baby" premise. The "roman citizen" example is not as strong. Cognitive ability is not just genetics. The grown-up roman would be missing a lot of advantages during their upbringing that weren't available back then. Also, limiting it to just "citizens" means limiting it to their upper class. Compared to Roman times, we've had pretty big advances in nutrition, healthcare, educat…

Life expectancy didn't change that much, what changed is infant mortality.

And for cognitive ability: plenty of firsthand accounts from Enlightenment thinkers about thesuperior reasoning abilities of average members of hunter-gatherer/American Indian tribes compared to the typical European at the time, and they arguably already had better access to nutrition/education/healthcare.

Cognitive ability is for sure related to some extent to these factors, but actual practice of reasoning (through public debates, leisure time, storytelling) seems to have been much more influential on the actual realisation of cognitive potential, and I'm not sure there'd be a stark difference between a typical human today, or even a typical Westerner, vs a typical Roman citizen.

Re: Notes from tired Egyptian whose job is explaining that humans built the pyramids

#79

Post by an0malous »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #17

"I personally can't conceive of how one might built this, and I must be a million times smarter than people 4500 years ago, ergo people didn't build this." is how the Ancient Aliens theory always sounds to me.

This is a strawman argument, their real one is: "These megalithic structures would be tremendously difficult for anyone to build even today with all of our modern technology, and yet they did it hundreds of times before even inventing the wheel, in several places across the world."

Re: Notes from tired Egyptian whose job is explaining that humans built the pyramids

#80

Post by jleyank »

comrade1234 wrote: post #39
thewebguyd wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a ton of people that, for some reason, just can't grok that humans have been largely behaviorally and biologically identical for the past 200k years. The average ancient roman plebeian's life would not look dramatically different from ours today, minus technology of course. They worked a day job, ate at thermopoliums (basically fast food), lived in crowded apartment complexes with various forms of slum lords,…

There are ideas that ancient human thinking was very different and primitive compared to modern. For example (and others): The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes (1976)

Comparing Plato to various current-day companies and governments, this is true. Assuming "primitive" means "clear or unobscured".
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