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That's why I consider the Hopi prophecy to be so interesting, especially combined with all the evidence that human kind had previously industrialized but disintegrated at the apex because they couldn't handle it. The Hopi prophecy gives us two futures, we can either pass the apex or disintegrate again.
...what?Quote:
Originally Posted by Omnis Dei
When have we disintegrated? Cultures have come and gone, but their technology usually just switches hands. You must also realize that centuries and millennia are not very large timescales, and will become even smaller with time. Humans haven't been civilized for very long. Certainly not long enough for any kind of global societal pattern to emerge.
To assume that the pyramids and other ancient granite structures could be built with anything less than industrialized technology is evidence that you have not done enough research into ancient society.
They're towers of rocks. There are plenty of ideas as to how they could have been built:
Egyptian pyramid construction techniques - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Please provide a single artefact showing an industrial society.
This ancient tool was unearthed beneath the sands of Giza.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_HXP2Z5GXFO...ckhammer+2.jpg
Only granite retains its form over the period of time I'm talking about. Only these particular ancient structures are earthquake proof.
If humanity disappeared today, in 10,000 years we would find no evidence that there was steel, iron, cement or anything. We would find nothing but the same granite structures that preceded us.
Did ancient societies swim underwater to build the Yonaguni Monument?
Omnis was correct that it is not an exponential curve, but a wave. Nothing goes on forever. If you extended that exponential curve timeline further, it would go back down again eventually.
I'm not so sure about technologically advanced/industrialised societies existing before though. There has been some evidence such as
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...%C3%A8re_1.jpg
And some others I can't remember coz that one is the most significant. But I'm not sold on the "cultures as advanced as us, or more so, existing before us" theories.
Roads and villages overgrown in 20 years? No way.
It would happen a hell of a lot quicker than that. You see grass growing through and cracking concrete/roads within a few months after it's put down, if that.
I would say 4 or 5 years and it would be overgrown.
They're making estimates about when erosion would be complete, not begin. Steel can be corroded by anaerobic, sulfate-reducing bacteria rather rapidly so steel structures would begin collapsing sooner than in the 200 year time span indicated, as well. It's not an image to be taken as absolute fact, it's just an estimate to compare erosion of different human artifacts.
How can you be so sure? We make discoveries of evidence way beyond what we thought ancient civilizations were capable of on a pretty consistent basis (although I don't know of any that are immediately recent). Who invented the Baghdad Battery? What information was lost when the library at Alexandria burned down? What was plato talking about when he wrote of Atlantis? Why is there a track leading up off a cliff in the Andes mountains?Quote:
Originally Posted by Spartiate
Just think about this for a bit; If the idealist futurist progressives among us have their way, in the next 100 years everything we make will be sustainable, recyclable, and biodegradable. If we then are killed off in a cataclysmic event, or even just mostly killed off, what will be left of us? What we know of ancient civilizations now comes mostly from digging through their trash. We could abolish trash in the next 100 years (easily) and really everything we make now isn't exactly built to last either. If we were to all die tomorrow, in ten thousand years what would be left of us? The pyramids and not a whole lot else.
Stop playing armchair archaeologist. We have archaeological remains of human settlements dating back to the neolithic and paleolithic. We have ample evidence to demonstrate early man's progress from small tribes of hunter-gatherers to sedentary agriculturalists all over the world.Quote:
Originally Posted by Omnis Dei
Furthermore you are completely wrong about building materials, the bulk of the Egyptian pyramids are made of limestone. There is 2000 year old Roman brickwork all over Europe. Rammed-earth and mud-brick buildings in Asia are even older. There are 1000 year old Viking sod house remains in Newfoundland for christ sake, I think an entire city would be obvious.
Edit: Xaq, if there was a civilization anywhere nearly as advanced as ours since the last ice age, how would they coexist literally on the same lands as all the other primitive civilizations that we have ample evidence for?
Limestone is another material that stands up well to exposure.
Giza was made of limestone but other ancient sites are granite, such as in Peru.
As far as the rest of your post, I don't see what 1000 or 2000 year old ruins has to do with anything.
Just saw this. Spart, do you know what an apex is? In the context of what we were talking about (the exponential model) the apex of the graph that xei posted is the point at which the graph turns sharply upwards. How does this imply that I think progress is going to end? Theoretically it means that progress will begin to advance more quickly than we can even imagine. I just found an article from 2007 that cites an IBM study that projected that the world's amount of digital information would be doubling every 11 hours by 2010. I'm sure we are closer to doubling every minute by now. The amount of time it takes for global digital information to double seems to me to be counting down to close enough to 12/21/12 to me to be a highly significant coincidence if nothing else.Quote:
Originally Posted by Spartiate
Incidentally, many buildings continue to be built with limestone today. And if 2000 year old brickwork can survive in the middle of Italy, I don't think it's accurate at all to claim that granite is the only "earthquake-proof" material. Just like 1000 year old sod remains. Sod is just grass... yet after a thousand years we can still tell where somebody chose to pile up grass.Quote:
Originally Posted by Omnis Dei
Spoiler for Sod house remains:
I think the notion that entire cities would completely disappear in the timeframe of modern human evolution is silly.
Well you'd be nearing the asymptote no? Which means something whacky should happen within a short time period, some kind of technological culmination. I just don't see this, I think that technological advances in 2022, or 2032, or 2112 will completely eclipse those of 2012.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xaqaria
When did I say only granite was earthquake proof? Granite and limestone are earthquake proof over time because they retain their shape meaning earthquake proof stone masonry, such as in the case of Incan ruins, would survive for hundreds of thousands of years while earth quake proof steel would only survive hundreds of years.
How is a mound in the earth supposed to be proof that humans were never industrialized before?
I guess I don't know if I'm using the word wrong or not; I always took apex to mean the turning point of any curve. Either way, I'm not talking about the asymptote, I'm talking about the turning point between the part of the graph in which things could appear to be linear and when they "go exponential" and shoot upwards. Obviously if 2012 were this point then the advancements of 2022 would eclipse 2012; the advancement of jan. 2013 would eclipse 2012 too. Maybe by february the entire history of human advancement will be eclipsed. Reaching this turning point won't necessarily be accompanied by any singular event that makes us all realize that 'the prophecy has been fulfilled' and it could still be cataclysmic at some point after that as well. We might stumble along the upper portions of the exponential growth model for a little bit but it will become exponentially easier to destroy all life on earth the farther we go as well and we don't have a very good track record for proceeding with caution.
Why those years, 2022, or 2032, or 2112?
Also, I don't think cities would be so easily completely obliterated. But they would definitely be overgrown by plants and would crumble to the ground from weather and earthquakes etc.
Basically those Viking Sod houses are a pretty analogous representation of what our cities would be like.
Steel is strong but it rusts. Most wood lasts longer, without paint.
Of course the glass, afaik, would probably remain for a long time, but I think it does get brittle, so it might crumble too.
Plus there are usually trees all around our cities and they would help to cover up any remnants, so it wouldn't be as visible as those sod houses.
I'm adding my two-cents worth before reading the entire thread, just so you know (in case I write something already written in a previous page). I'll read the whole thing when I get home, I'm at work now ;)
My personal experience is that beacons of light ("bright sparks" if you will) have lit up over the course of 2011, and I have been fortunate enough to have been enlightened by one of them. She has, in turn, sparked my beacon to become illuminated. To me it's all about awareness about the self, the universe, the planet, government, those kind of things. Not just the spiritual side, but also the day-to-day part. I've become much more aware of "things that cannot be explained by science", like telepathy. I've practiced it for 10 years with nothing but blind faith in myself, without any proof of any kind, until October 2011. It's not the "omg I can read your mind" kind of telepathy, I guess it's more like Empathy, but more concrete. I just *know* things about people I've never physically met. And I *know* I'm not alone in this.
People are waking up all over the place. It feels to me like we're heading back to Consciousness (the "all that is" awareness or something like that), though the methods do seem questionably moral..
What absolute horseshit.Quote:
Originally Posted by Omnis Dei
Ancient Egyptian artefacts made with primitive techniques: thousands.
Ancient Egyptian artefacts made with industrial techniques: zero.
Egyptian pottery, jewelry, etcetera: loads.
Egyptian laptops: zero.
Remains of Egyptian settlement: plenty.
Remains of a pre-industrial society: all of them.
Remains of Egyptian industrial complex: zero.
Historical records of Egypt: hundreds.
Records which talk about a pre-industrial society: all of them.
Records which talk about an advanced post-industrial technological society: none of them.
I don't see what 10,000 year old ruins has to do with anything.Quote:
Originally Posted by Omnis Dei
Nnnope. History follows an exponential curve as is patently clear if you list paradigm events from actual history and not fairyland history.Quote:
Originally Posted by tommo
You're talking BS... exponential curves have no such feature, they are completely homogeneous. They are totally unreconcilable with a single event.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xaqaria
What about the Annunaki, from the records of the Sumerians?Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
What!??? Are you trolling again?Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
You're basically saying we can keep getting more advanced forever and no civilisations have collapsed.
Civilisations come and go. Nobody said it was a smooth pattern. The trend up till the present day has however been upwards, unequivocally. When have we ever taken a step backwards? The idea that the history of the universe is based on reverting to a primitive stage and starting all over again is utter nonsense; complexity has risen up and up and up. Do you expect humans to turn back into chimp like creatures? Do you think we are going to stop farming and return to hunter gathering? Forget how to use language, or tools? Do you think life is going to turn back into simple bacteria?
http://www.dreamviews.com/f96/2012-p...ml#post1804566
Do you dispute that post or something? Would you like to label the breaking of some other paradigms? Or are you seriously saying that the pattern there is not of telescoping timescales but a steady cycle?
Exponential increase is not sustainable, but it doesn't imply collapse either, and it certainly doesn't imply a cycle. This is something you have made up.
What about Moses parting the red sea? Let's talk about that too.Quote:
Originally Posted by tommo
Xei everything you've mentioned is still in relatively recent history. The Egyptians were not the ones to build the pyramids. They found them, just like we did. They were not industrialized but whoever built the pyramids before them was.
Was the history book you read printed on a napkin by any chance?Quote:
Originally Posted by Omnis Dei