Yeah, it’s been linked to systemic racist thought patterns. 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.
Comment on aLiEnS!!1
li10@feddit.uk 6 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.
fossilesque@mander.xyz 6 months ago
yesman@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Ancient aliens literally has Nazi origins. They didn’t just have race-science, but race-history. I guess you could call their thinking ancient-Aryans because they believed that impressive structures built by brown people must have been led by a Northern European diaspora who eventually vanished because of race-mixing.
You can watch the History channel all you want, but nobody is going to question the Parthenon or the Colosseum. Stonehenge is the only one I can think of where Aliens had to help white people.
CaptnNMorgan@reddthat.com 6 months ago
The two things you named were built thousands of years after the pyramids are believed to have been built though. You said it yourself, people think aliens helped with Stonehenge. That’s because it’s much older and there is no written history from when it was built.
I don’t doubt racism is factor in all sorts of aspects in life but this seems like a massive fucking stretch. Maybe come up with better examples.
fossilesque@mander.xyz 6 months ago
hyperallergic.com/…/pseudoarchaeology-and-the-rac…
Pseudoarchaeology has a pretty bad background due to the profession’s colonial roots with treasure hunters, adventurers, and the like, especially in antiquarian circles.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_archaeology
In the late 18th to 19th century archaeology became a national endeavor as personal cabinets of curios turned into national museums. People were now being hired to go out and collect artifacts to make a nation’s collection more grand and to show how far a nation’s reach extends. For example, Giovanni Battista Belzoni was hired by Henry Salt, the British consul to Egypt, to gather antiquities for Britain. In nineteenth-century Mexico, the expansion of the National Museum of Anthropology and the excavation of major archaeological ruins by Leopoldo Batres were part of the liberal regime of Porfirio Díaz to create a glorious image of Mexico’s pre-Hispanic past.[22]
fossilesque@mander.xyz 6 months ago
Yeah, and it is hard for many people to see the direct correlation because it isn’t hitting them in the face. I try to show people that people were smart back then, too, instead of punishing these icky mindsets because they tend to be a bit reactionary anyway. Some people just don’t know any better.
CaptnNMorgan@reddthat.com 6 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?
fossilesque@mander.xyz 6 months ago
Pyramids = basic engineering shape for a sturdy structure. Wide base, tapered top.
Num10ck@lemmy.world 6 months ago
its not the basic shape thats impressive, its the truly gigantic pieces that have tighter tolerances than a tesla.
CaptnNMorgan@reddthat.com 6 months ago
I don’t think people have ever been blown away from the shape of them.
sudoreboot@slrpnk.net 6 months ago
I was thinking “three ridges” first 😅 (I imagined the sand running between the four fingers of my semi-closed fist)
teichflamme@lemm.ee 6 months ago
Mind blown
charlytune@mander.xyz 6 months ago
I probably didn’t have as good an education as the highest educated classes in most ancient Egyptian dynasties.
intensely_human@lemm.ee 6 months ago
I don’t know about that. Intelligence is attractive and it’s a predictor of lifetime success.
gibmiser@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Yeah they had less lead in their environment. They probably were actually smarter, just had less access to foundational knowledge
threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 6 months ago
Less lead, but probably more malnutrition and disease.
RGB3x3@lemmy.world 6 months ago
The way God intended.
GBU_28@lemm.ee 6 months ago
God: I intended more lead. I fixed the bug.
Franzia@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 months ago
Egypt was very fertile and had food surpluses, many societies that build cool shit had food surpluses.
intensely_human@lemm.ee 6 months ago
I don’t know. Looking at the pyramids I’m tempted to think all they had was foundational knowledge.