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. |
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Everything works out in the end, sometimes even badly.
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. |
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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. |
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Everything works out in the end, sometimes even badly.
They're towers of rocks. There are plenty of ideas as to how they could have been built: |
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Only granite retains its form over the period of time I'm talking about. Only these particular ancient structures are earthquake proof. |
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Last edited by Omnis Dei; 01-09-2012 at 06:01 AM.
Everything works out in the end, sometimes even badly.
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. |
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Everything works out in the end, sometimes even badly.
Roads and villages overgrown in 20 years? No way. |
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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. |
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Everything works out in the end, sometimes even badly.
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? |
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Last edited by Xaqaria; 01-09-2012 at 08:27 AM.
Art
The ability to happily respond to any adversity is the divine.
Dream Journal Shaman Apprentice Chronicles
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. |
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Last edited by Spartiate; 01-09-2012 at 08:35 AM.
Limestone is another material that stands up well to exposure. |
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Everything works out in the end, sometimes even badly.
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. |
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Last edited by Xaqaria; 01-09-2012 at 08:48 AM.
Art
The ability to happily respond to any adversity is the divine.
Dream Journal Shaman Apprentice Chronicles
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. |
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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. |
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Everything works out in the end, sometimes even badly.
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. |
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Art
The ability to happily respond to any adversity is the divine.
Dream Journal Shaman Apprentice Chronicles
Why those years, 2022, or 2032, or 2112? |
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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 |
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Spoiler for Dream Goals:
What absolute horseshit. |
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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? |
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Last edited by Xei; 01-09-2012 at 02:47 PM.
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. |
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Everything works out in the end, sometimes even badly.
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