- li10 ( @li10@feddit.uk ) English88•10 months ago
For some reason people seem to think they’re fundamentally smarter than people were back then.
Yeah, you may have technically had a better education, but you’re not inherently more intelligent than the average person back then, and a genius from that time is still miles ahead of you.
Yeah, it’s been linked to systemic racist thought patterns (which are often unintentional but should be acknowledged). I explain it to people like this: take a handful of sand and turn your fist so that your palm faces perpendicular to the ground. Now release the sand slowly… What shape does it form? It isn’t rocket science.
- CaptnNMorgan ( @CaptnNMorgan@reddthat.com ) English2•10 months ago
So you’re saying the pyramids are just giant rocks piled on top of each other?
If so, then what was dropping them and how could the intricacies inside the pyramids be possible if they were just dropped on top of each other?
Pyramids = basic engineering shape for a sturdy structure. Wide base, tapered top. A lot of early monumental structures were constructed with that basic concept in mind.
- CaptnNMorgan ( @CaptnNMorgan@reddthat.com ) English5•10 months ago
I don’t think people have ever been blown away from the shape of them.
Edit: and it’s actually really silly to think about someone who would be… “Woah! How are those things triangles???” Like what?
- Blóðbók ( @sudoreboot@slrpnk.net ) English1•9 months ago
I was thinking “three ridges” first 😅 (I imagined the sand running between the four fingers of my semi-closed fist)
- teichflamme ( @teichflamme@lemm.ee ) English1•10 months ago
Mind blown
- charlytune ( @charlytune@mander.xyz ) English3•9 months ago
I probably didn’t have as good an education as the highest educated classes in most ancient Egyptian dynasties.
- intensely_human ( @intensely_human@lemm.ee ) English1•9 months ago
I don’t know about that. Intelligence is attractive and it’s a predictor of lifetime success.
- GBU_28 ( @GBU_28@lemm.ee ) English41•10 months ago
It’s fair to imagine the challenges a building team would face 2k plus years ago.
Like in this example, building levers that are strong enough to lift the load. I bet they broke a bunch of stuff.
But eventually they figured it out, via trial and error. Levers, ramps, etc. They probably couldn’t describe why those things were inherently the best way, but more approached from the “we tried 9 other ways and they suck. This is the best way.”
Next, the phrase “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic” is relevant here, but in a backwards way.
Since we struggle to imagine what it would take for an ancient society to master the techniques to build these things, we therefore begin to grasp for unrealistic conclusions (magic…read…aliens).
Same goes for Europeans building cathedrals and stuff, the trick is the history, the methods and the results were more documented and understood.
There are some racism concerns that I think go beyond and around what I’ve discussed, which is more abstract. I’m not discounting the other topics, just not covering them here.
- IHadTwoCows ( @IHadTwoCows@lemm.ee ) English4•10 months ago
One thing is for sure: you can’t leverage those stones with a primed FJ 1x6 from Lowe’s. I’ll bet they went through quite a few of those!
- NattyNatty2x4 ( @NattyNatty2x4@beehaw.org ) English2•9 months ago
Lowe’s definitely made lots of USD getting the pharaohs to think the pyramids were a good idea
- intensely_human ( @intensely_human@lemm.ee ) English2•9 months ago
Now what were you thinking about a backsplash here?
- anzich ( @anzich@feddit.de ) English25•10 months ago
Pretty sure the Egyptians were smart enough. But the European cathedrals cannot be explained w/o aliens
- TwinTusks ( @TwinTusks@outpost.zeuslink.net ) English5•9 months ago
Great Wall of China? Come-on, no body can do that. And its not aliens, its GOD, who show favors protecting his favorite people, the Chinese.
- psud ( @psud@aussie.zone ) English4•9 months ago
Not to mention the Chrysler tower. Def aliens
- state_electrician ( @state_electrician@discuss.tchncs.de ) English22•10 months ago
The constant barrage of Joe Rogan clips of idiots claming it was impossible to move these huge stones over those distances with the tech at the time was what drove me to disable YouTube shorts.
- li10 ( @li10@feddit.uk ) English16•10 months ago
You can disable shorts??
I need to do that. I get stuck in a loop of watching them, and 90% of them just piss me off anyway.
- BolexForSoup ( @BolexForSoup@kbin.social ) 15•10 months ago
Honestly, the first and arguably most important step is recognizing how much of online content is specifically designed to get a reaction out of you, primarily in the form pissing you off.
- NattyNatty2x4 ( @NattyNatty2x4@beehaw.org ) English1•9 months ago
I honestly I’m surprised how much of a problem this is for people. All I’ve done is made sure to hit the “not interested” type buttons on YouTube and tiktok whenever they pop up, and I’ve run into next to nothing after like 3 times of doing that. Sometimes I’ll watch something the algorithm thinks is adjacent to ragebait or alt-right bullshit so it’ll try to feed it to me, and after not-interested’ing the video it goes back to feeding me the stuff I actually want…
Do people just not use those features or is my experience with the algorithms really that different?
- BolexForSoup ( @BolexForSoup@kbin.social ) 3•9 months ago
So you’re actually thinking of it a little more narrowly, which is understandable. What I mean by “content designed to piss you off” is VERY broad.
Conservatives like Fox News, but it makes them pissed off, right? Social media can be exactly the same way.
- NattyNatty2x4 ( @NattyNatty2x4@beehaw.org ) English1•9 months ago
Ah that’s fair, I think I might’ve been injected other related conversations I’ve seen into this one. My bad!
- BolexForSoup ( @BolexForSoup@kbin.social ) 1•9 months ago
No worries
- paradiso ( @paradiso@lemm.ee ) English1•9 months ago
Yep, might explain some of the irritability of people online.
- BolexForSoup ( @BolexForSoup@kbin.social ) 1•9 months ago
What’s funny (I guess funny lol) is ever since I got my current job about 2.5 years ago, I no longer need to use social media. I am much, much happier without it. But I still get into little fights on forums and I really wish I didn’t. Every now and then I resolve to be less hostile, and things really do improve, but somehow I always get dragged back into old habits. But I’m a little hesitant to completely abandon things like Kbin because they are often my only window into events/what is going on/my hobbies. Idk what the answer is.
- paradiso ( @paradiso@lemm.ee ) English1•9 months ago
Well, the fact that you have the self awareness to realize is a great place to be. Not sure what to say other than try to treat your body with respect and your mind will follow.
- NicoCharrua ( @NicoCharrua@lemmy.ca ) English2•10 months ago
There’s probably a way to do it in browser with ublock origin or another extension.
On android, ReVanced.
- state_electrician ( @state_electrician@discuss.tchncs.de ) English1•9 months ago
I use ReVanced on my phone and it has an option to hide shorts permanently. In the browser I use an extension for that, there are multiple ones.
- RandomVideos ( @RandomVideos@programming.dev ) English19•9 months ago
A couple years ago my chemistry teacher told my class that the Egyptians had really advanced technology (technology even more advanced than our own) thousands of years ago but it all got lost because they started a nuclear war
Edit: she told us that the evidence was that there were smartphone paintings
Sounds like he was sneaking sniffs in the flammable cabinet a little too often.
- Elise ( @xilliah@beehaw.org ) English2•9 months ago
She must go to some good parties.
- averyminya ( @averyminya@beehaw.org ) English17•10 months ago
Friendly reminder the Mayans had a highway
- Spendrill ( @Spendrill@lemm.ee ) English13•10 months ago
“Give me a place to stand, and a lever long enough, and I will move the world,”
- jol ( @jol@discuss.tchncs.de ) English10•9 months ago
Actually I was listening to a podcast that explains this. They didn’t have levers yet. They did have other devices but no lever.
- Martineski ( @Martineski@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) English8•10 months ago
I know how they’re built because I watch Witual. Internal ramp theory babeeee!
- drolex ( @drolex@sopuli.xyz ) English7•10 months ago
The great pyramid of Giza weighs around 6 million tons https://weightofstuff.com/how-much-does-the-pyramid-of-giza-weigh/
An average human can apparently develop about 200N https://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/ergonomics/push1.html
Meaning that an average human would need a lever about 3×10^8 m long (considering a 1 metre load arm) to move the pyramid.
Do you find this credible?
ETA: some people think I’m serious. This is quite the flabbergast.
- Rodeo ( @Rodeo@lemmy.ca ) English3•9 months ago
You’re gonna need a bigger load arm. The pyramid is way more than a meter across.
- drolex ( @drolex@sopuli.xyz ) English1•9 months ago
How much more? One metre, tops?
The ancient Egyptians utilized neither wheels nor work animals for the majority of the pyramid-building era, so the giant blocks, weighing 2.5 tons on average, had to be moved through human muscle power alone. But until recently, nobody really knew how. The answer, it seems, is simply water. Evidence suggests that the blocks were first levered onto wooden sleds and then hauled up ramps made of sand. However, dry sand piles up in front of a moving sled, increasing friction until the sled is nearly impossible to pull. Wet sand reduces friction dramatically beneath the sled runners, eliminating the sand piles and making it possible for a team of people to move massive objects.
https://daily.jstor.org/scientists-have-an-answer-to-how-the-egyptian-pyramids-were-built/
- Epicurus0319 ( @Epicurus0319@sopuli.xyz ) English5•9 months ago
Nah, we all know the Great Pyramids were part of the “Giza Mass Autism Array” fired during the Finno-Korean Hyperwar. RIP Finnish social skills
- Alien Nathan Edward ( @reverendsteveii@lemm.ee ) English4•9 months ago
were part of the “Giza Mass Autism Array”
*will be part of
remember that the Finno-Korean Hyperwar is going to have been the war where we first learn how to manipulate chronodirectionality.
- mtchristo ( @mtchristo@lemm.ee ) English1•9 months ago
Now find sticks or stick assembly strong enough to lift a few tones of stone without breaking at the rotation center
- oatscoop ( @oatscoop@midwest.social ) English4•9 months ago
I’m not saying those are the exact techniques that were used to build the pyramids, but they demonstrate that massive stones can be easily lifted and accurately placed using only “primitive” resources and leverage.
- spikespaz ( @spikespaz@programming.dev ) English1•9 months ago
There is no guarantee that the lever would break in any position as particular as the pivot point.
- YeetPics ( @YeetPics@mander.xyz ) English1•9 months ago
You’ve cracked vertical lifting, now onto moving blocks a thousand miles from the quarry!
Fig. 1
- YeetPics ( @YeetPics@mander.xyz ) English1•9 months ago
I stand corrected. It all seems so obvious, why do people still disagree?