Mars

[WickedKitchen]

I'd give her a dirty bomb...

[Darwin]

The Sumerians were seriously advanced for their time but their culture was buried and largely destroyed by subsequent conquests. A lot did survive though. From them we got the seven day week which was based on the seven "planets" visible to the naked eye and the reason for seven being a lucky number. Of course like all pre scientific cultures the heavens got imbued with all sorts of absurd malarkey about the predictive power of the positions of those planets. Oh well can't win 'em all. Add in the beginnings of algebra and geometry, necessary for their huge constructions, the 360 degree circle, the 60 minute hour. and a goodly number of achievements that were later developed in greater detail by the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. There's not a trace of evidence of "alien" influence in all of this. They were smart cookies and well deserving of our admiration.

[Roo]

Darwin you forgo creidit to the "Islams" for their algebraic and astronomical contributions... **** it I'll leave it at that. I'm drunk, I know how you feel about Islam, I'll leave it up to you and Wikipedia. I speak to your last clause... about Algebra. "Al Khorezmi"

Edit: I'm wrong, you are giving credit where credit is due.... my bad...

[sgreger1]

The Sumerians were seriously advanced for their time but their culture was buried and largely destroyed by subsequent conquests. A lot did survive though. From them we got the seven day week which was based on the seven "planets" visible to the naked eye and the reason for seven being a lucky number. Of course like all pre scientific cultures the heavens got imbued with all sorts of absurd malarkey about the predictive power of the positions of those planets. Oh well can't win 'em all. Add in the beginnings of algebra and geometry, necessary for their huge constructions, the 360 degree circle, the 60 minute hour. and a goodly number of achievements that were later developed in greater detail by the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans. There's not a trace of evidence of "alien" influence in all of this. They were smart cookies amd well deserving of our admiration.

Yes and i agree, they (from whats left of them that we can observe) were pretty good at a wide range of things. From math to science to masonry, they where pretty advanced considering how long ago this all occured.

I guess it is that part of man that cannot comprehend how people living 6 thousand years ago could have developed all of this, when it seems they preserved so little of these accomplishments. By that i mean it's like the egyptians and the pyramids. They accomplished an architecturall masterpiece that would be studied for 5 thousand years after it had been built, yet left little record of how it was accomplished. That or the records were destroyed.


Such a mathematical accomplishment as the pyramids, such a grand project which still defies us today, was apparently not important enough to write about.

Why? Not becuase aliens did it, i just mean why, really. It would be like all of our modern science occuring, yet we never wrote anything down. Such a successfull project, those pyramids, and yet no explanation of how they built them. It must have been lost to the sands of time.



@ roo. It is sad, and a reflection on human nature as well, that the middle easterners actually contributed a great deal to science and math and then abandoned it suddenly. The abbacus, they created it, we were able to fly to the moon with it's use several thousand years after it's inception. But when we did, it was a time that the middle east lay in waste and was little more than a desert, or a place that was not scientificly advanced. No sewage, garbage service or electricity in much of iraq, the cradle of mankind in years past.. Oh how the mighty have fallen.



I wish we could all get along so we could refine and improve our science, our ability to accomplish great things as a species, and our resilience in nature. But politics holds us back. We have rockets and astronauts, yet on our planet we are stranded. We owe it to man's many accomplishments and sacrifices to pull it together and accomplish something.

[Darwin]

I'm pretty sure that the ancients did not consider reportage as the necessity that we do. Documentation sure but commentary on daily life or last week's progress on the latest ziggurat project would not be abundant simply because there was no "press" at the time. Makes sense for a population that likely was 99.9% illiterate. In any case that same 99.9% of what was actually written was lost to the vagaries of time and conquest as is the norm for such happenings of four or five millennia ago.

Regarding space exploration our imaginations have far outrun our scientific abilities and this will be so for a long time. This is really hard stuff that time and time again has proven that merely flinging money at projects is little guarantee of desired results. The relevant subject, materials science, has in great degree become asymptotic, that is to say that we are are already quite advanced in many material sciences and that improvements come harder and harder requiring greater and greater effort for what appears to be only incremental improvements. Unfortunately for humans to realistically begin exploring even the local neighborhood in a non bankrupting fashion will require huge leaps in the materials and propulsion sciences. Even if healthy space budgets for the industrialized nations were to be the norm for many decades it will almost certainly require a century or two before humans can begin flitting about the solar system in anything like a cost effective manner. As a rabid science fiction reader and space booster for more than 50 years I wish that it could be otherwise but the whole proposition has turned out to be technically far more difficult and expensive than we ever realized.

[tom502]

I need to set up a blind date with Colleen.

[devilock76]

Lol, that was outstanding.

*golf clap*

It really is an oldie, but that lady from the first video just reminded me of "propecia", RIP Propecia.

Ken

[sgreger1]

I'm pretty sure that the ancients did not consider reportage as the necessity that we do. Documentation sure but commentary on daily life or last week's progress on the latest ziggurat project would not be abundant simply because there was no "press" at the time. Makes sense for a population that likely was 99.9% illiterate. In any case that same 99.9% of what was actually written was lost to the vagaries of time and conquest as is the norm for such happenings of four or five millennia ago.

Regarding space exploration our imaginations have far outrun our scientific abilities and this will be so for a long time. This is really hard stuff that time and time again has proven that merely flinging money at projects is little guarantee of desired results. The relevant subject, materials science, has in great degree become asymptotic, that is to say that we are are already quite advanced in many material sciences and that improvements come harder and harder requiring greater and greater effort for what appears to be only incremental improvements. Unfortunately for humans to realistically begin exploring even the local neighborhood in a non bankrupting fashion will require huge leaps in the materials and propulsion sciences. Even if healthy space budgets for the industrialized nations were to be the norm for many decades it will almost certainly require a century or two before humans can begin flitting about the solar system in anything like a cost effective manner. As a rabid science fiction reader and space booster for more than 50 years I wish that it could be otherwise but the whole proposition has turned out to be technically far more difficult and expensive than we ever realized.

Logic Tells us: 100-200 years before cost effective space travel
History Tells us: We started with horses and went to affordable jet travel in slightly less than 100 years, and technology progresses exponentially faster as time moves on. We only started a real space program 40 years ago, I think we will be able to pull it off by the time my daughter is a grown woman.

While all of those points are valid, especially about the progression of material sciences and how we have hit sort of a glass cieling as it were, the fact is that private industry is now looking into setting up shop in the space market. Right now they are focused on low earth orbit stuff, but in a matter of just a few years they went from nothing to be able to send a man to space for only $200,000, which is cheap enough for the commercial market (still for the rich, but not 20 million per lb like our rockets).

The point is that with private industry in there, the bottom line wil be cost effectiveness so they can turn a profit, and I think they will be able to make progress much faster than NASA has. But I encourage Nasa to continue trying. Even if it did take 200 years, which is outrageously longer than it will take, it would still be worth it. It would open up a whole new world to conquer, and will mark a new epoch in human civilization.

[tom502]

I think since the Earth has been intervened with and observed by ETs since it's inception, ET's probably are not travelling great distances just to "watch" us, every time. They must have a more effective way to travel, be it wormholes, or bending space, or something, but I would moreso assume they have bases on Earth, and perhaps on the Moon, and Mars. There is more underwater than above water, so an undersea base would make lots of sense.

[devilock76]

I think since the Earth has been intervened with and observed by ETs since it's inception, ET's probably are not travelling great distances just to "watch" us, every time. They must have a more effective way to travel, be it wormholes, or bending space, or something, but I would moreso assume they have bases on Earth, and perhaps on the Moon, and Mars. There is more underwater than above water, so an undersea base would make lots of sense.

Why not the earths core, there is more in there than on the surface. Or how about not here at all, because to them Uranus is much more interesting when you get down to it.

Ken

[Mordred]

I think since the Earth has been intervened with and observed by ETs since it's inception, ET's probably are not travelling great distances just to "watch" us, every time. They must have a more effective way to travel, be it wormholes, or bending space, or something, but I would moreso assume they have bases on Earth, and perhaps on the Moon, and Mars. There is more underwater than above water, so an undersea base would make lots of sense.

Other people believe that a dude with a beard made the earth in six days.

What bothers me, really, with all these theories isn't so much the lack of evidence, no, it's the fact that they all belittle humanity. I mean guys, we've beaten pretty stiff competition to become the dominant species on the planet and now we're so far that we can pretty much create life and travel to the stars. Ok, we're not quite there yet, but it's within our grasp. I think we can be proud of our species.

Yet all these people who chose to believe in some higher power, be that God, aliens, whatever, are essentially saying: humanity is small and pathetic compared to these omnipotent entities. Worse yet, these entities have been watching, influencing and guiding us from the start. Without them, we wouldn't have gotten this far. Nothing we've achieved is truly ours. The aliens built the pyramids. God made us in his image. We have achieved nothing, we are nothing, except maybe a pale reflection of these superior entities.

So beliefs are being spread that lead us to think less of ourselves. I'd suggest you take a good look at who is actively spreading these beliefs and how they benefit from it.

[WickedKitchen]

Good on ya, Mordred. I never looked at it that way but you've got a pretty good point

[CoderGuy]

Other people believe that a dude with a beard made the earth in six days.

What bothers me, really, with all these theories isn't so much the lack of evidence, no, it's the fact that they all belittle humanity. I mean guys, we've beaten pretty stiff competition to become the dominant species on the planet and now we're so far that we can pretty much create life and travel to the stars. Ok, we're not quite there yet, but it's within our grasp. I think we can be proud of our species.

Yet all these people who chose to believe in some higher power, be that God, aliens, whatever, are essentially saying: humanity is small and pathetic compared to these omnipotent entities. Worse yet, these entities have been watching, influencing and guiding us from the start. Without them, we wouldn't have gotten this far. Nothing we've achieved is truly ours. The aliens built the pyramids. God made us in his image. We have achieved nothing, we are nothing, except maybe a pale reflection of these superior entities.

So beliefs are being spread that lead us to think less of ourselves. I'd suggest you take a good look at who is actively spreading these beliefs and how they benefit from it.

You have a valid point but you have to remember due to religion that sentiment has been engrained in most people's brain patterns. The religious have lived their whole lives thinking they are insignificant and cannot do anything without God's guidance, so it's only natural that people that have been influenced by religion but don't necessarily accept it would substitute one higher power for another.

I think this t-shirt says it all

[tom502]

Well, mankind has done alot, some of it good. But the idea of ET intervention comes through findings of ancient technology that seemingly did not, or should not have existed at such times, or findings wich just baffle modern people, as well as the numerous ancient stories of beings from the skies coming down and doing stuff. So, I don't think it's a modern rationale of what ancients achived, it's what they themselves reported.

[truthwolf1]

For Tom.

Nazi spaceship film sparks UFO debate

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...FO-debate.html