Is there a way the ancients moved giant stones without machinery?

[emjay]

Not that I believe Ancient Aliens but is the pulley and log theory really that solid?

 

[micromass]

Yes. This movie is mainly about debunking ancient aliens, but it does go into quite some details about the building:

 

[micromass]

Oh, and here's a guy who is building a replica of stonehenge on his own!

 

[phinds]

If Ancient Aliens says something is so, you can pretty much take it to the bank that it is not so.

 

[WWGD]

If Ancient Aliens says something is so, you can pretty much take it to the bank that it is not so.

What do you mean? If the "Alien Theorists" (meaning anyone who has a theory -- in the coloquial sense of the word) with no training in neither physiscs nor engineering , after two minutes of thought, cannot find an explanation, then what reasonable alternative is there to "alens built it". It is the ultimate in arrogance and mental lazyness. This is the (implied) message: if I , with no training in engineering nor physics do not get it, it is impossible. How could these ( usually non-white) people have come up with this if I, after a whole 30 minutes, without consulting books , nor any other source, can explain it?

 

[Evo]

What do you mean? If the "Alien Theorists" (meaning anyone who has a theory -- in the coloquial sense of the word) with no training in neither physiscs nor engineering , after two minutes of thought, cannot find an explanation, then what reasonable alternative is there to "alens built it". It is the ultimate in arrogance and mental lazyness. This is the (implied) message: if I , with no training in engineering nor physics do not get it, it is impossible. How could these ( usually non-white) people have come up with this if I, after a whole 30 minutes, without consulting books , nor any other source, can explain it?

You do realize that 'Ancient Aliens' means creatures from outer space? It's a joke based on the extra terestrial Ancient Aliens shows.

 

[zoobyshoe]

You do realize that 'Ancient Aliens' means creatures from outer space? It's a joke based on the extra terestrial Ancient Aliens shows.

I think WWGD was being sarcastic at first, then switched to explaining his sarcasm, but without a good segue.

 

[Evo]

I think WWGD was being sarcastic at first, then switched to explaining his sarcasm, but without a good segue.

Yeah, I am confused by his response.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Oh, and here's a guy who is building a replica of stonehenge on his own!

This is the video I would have posted had you not beat me to it. It shows that such things can be done in ways that are unexpectedly easy.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Yeah, I am confused by his response.

Yes, I don't believe a mere human could have written so confusing a response without help from...well, I'm not saying it was aliens, but...

 

[Evo]

Yes, I don't believe a mere human could have written so confusing a response without help from...well, I'm not saying it was aliens, but...

LOL!

 

[WWGD]

You do realize that 'Ancient Aliens' means creatures from outer space? It's a joke based on the extra terestrial Ancient Aliens shows.

Sorry, I don't get your point. What am I missing?

I think WWGD was being sarcastic at first, then switched to explaining his sarcasm, but without a good segue.

" It is the ultimate in arrogance and mental lazyness"?

 

[Evo]

Sorry, I don't get your point. What am I missing?

That posts you're replying to are jokes about extraterrestrial tv shows?

 

[rootone]

Is there way ancients moved giant stones without machinery?

yes.
sledges, boats. levers, oxen, watermills, ropes, pulleys, and more.
Ah .but that's machinery right?

 

[Drakkith]

Yeah, I am confused by his response.

No worries, there's an actual 'law' for this. It's called Poe's Law:
"The core idea of Poe's law is that a parody of something extreme can be mistaken for the real thing, and if a real thing sounds extreme enough, it can be mistaken for a parody."

 

[rootone]

Some of the ancient aliens probably ripped off the costume designs from early episodes of Star Trek though.

 

[billy_joule]

I recall a year or two ago some research was done on using ice to move heavy stones. Shallow trenches were dug, flooded, then once frozen in the winter the stones were dragged across the ice. They hypothesised that this was the only method that could've been used for these particular stones. I can't find anything via google though.

 

[WWGD]

An implied point from the show is that (many) modern men (theorists are mostly male), with all its fancy technology, seems to lack the imagination to do certain things, or understand how to do thm, with , often, very simple tools, like the ancient ( non-alien) often did.

 

[Drakkith]

An implied point from the show is that (many) modern men (theorists are mostly male), with all its fancy technology, seems to lack the imagination to do certain things, or understand how to do thm, with , often, very simple tools, like the ancient ( non-alien) often did.

I don't think it's that we lack the imagination, but that most of our engineers and other people who actually figure out things like this are working with modern materials building modern structures using modern equipment and therefor have little need to put their very creative minds to figuring out how to do something in a way that became obsolete thousands of years ago.

 

[WWGD]

I don't think it's that we lack the imagination, but that most of our engineers and other people who actually figure out things like this are working with modern materials building modern structures using modern equipment and therefor have little need to put their very creative minds to figuring out how to do something in a way that became obsolete thousands of years ago.

Well, yes, you're right, I should have referred to the "theorists" , who assume that just because they cannot imagine it being done with everyday (basic) technology, it cannot be done at all. Sorry for all my confusion here, I will take a break.

 

[Drakkith]

Well, yes, you're right, I should have referred to the "theorists" , who assume that just because they cannot imagine it being done with everyday (basic) technology, it cannot be done at all. Sorry for all my confusion here, I will take a break.

There's no confusion here in my opinion. I was just offering my point of view on the subject.

 

[WWGD]

There's no confusion here in my opinion. I was just offering my point of view on the subject.

But the theorists I refer to have no training at all in engineering. They have access to a lot of fancy devices but little imagination. So I am not stating that engineers lack the creativity.

 

[Drakkith]

But the theorists I refer to have no training at all in engineering. They have access to a lot of fancy devices but little imagination. So I am not stating that engineers lack the creativity.

Okay.

 

[zoobyshoe]

No worries, there's an actual 'law' for this. It's called Poe's Law:
"The core idea of Poe's law is that a parody of something extreme can be mistaken for the real thing, and if a real thing sounds extreme enough, it can be mistaken for a parody."

It's good someone gave this a name.

This issue came up in a scholarly article I once read on Mark Twain. There are certain passages in some of his travel books that are usually taken to be 'serious' passages, but which this author maintained were actually parodies of the kind of drivel you might have found in badly written travels books of the day. If that is true, that these passages are parody, you just can't tell for sure because the style in question is so over-wrought and flowery that sincere examples of it already sound ridiculous.

However, reading your link, I was disappointed to find that Poe's law had nothing to do with Edgar Allan Poe. It would have been fitting had he named this phenomenon because he wrote so many things to which it might be applied. Roughly a third of his stories are a perverted sort of comedy that consists of heavy handed parodies of notions of his day and figures of speech. He draws them out so long and in such earnest that it's impossible to sense any humor in them. An example is the story Loss of Breath. To lose one's breath, is, of course, a figure of speech, but Poe spends several pages treating it as a literal phenomenon, exploring the experiences of a man who has literally misplaced his breath, as if breath is a thing you can physically put some where, and not remember where. It is a remarkably stupid premise, and I guess the humor is supposed to be lie in the earnestness with which he attacks and fully explores such a stupid premise. I'm not really sure. Regardless, we find the humor of WWGD often reaching for the same mockery of questionable turns of speech in the same ineffective way just kidding, WWGD.

 

[WWGD]

It's good someone gave this a name.

This issue came up in a scholarly article I once read on Mark Twain. There are certain passages in some of his travel books that are usually taken to be 'serious' passages, but which this author maintained were actually parodies of the kind of drivel you might have found in badly written travels books of the day. If that is true, that these passages are parody, you just can't tell for sure because the style in question is so over-wrought and flowery that sincere examples of it already sound ridiculous.

However, reading your link, I was disappointed to find that Poe's law had nothing to do with Edgar Allan Poe. It would have been fitting had he named this phenomenon because he wrote so many things to which it might be applied. Roughly a third of his stories are a perverted sort of comedy that consists of heavy handed parodies of notions of his day and figures of speech. He draws them out so long and in such earnest that it's impossible to sense any humor in them. An example is the story Loss of Breath. To lose one's breath, is, of course, a figure of speech, but Poe spends several pages treating it as a literal phenomenon, exploring the experiences of a man who has literally misplaced his breath, as if breath is a thing you can physically put some where, and not remember where. It is a remarkably stupid premise, and I guess the humor is supposed to be lie in the earnestness with which he attacks and fully explores such a stupid premise. I'm not really sure. Regardless, we find the humor of WWGD often reaching for the same mockery of questionable turns of speech in the same ineffective way just kidding, WWGD.

Hey, what can I say, people who know me well-enough and have heard my "jokes", try to hide when they see me, but here at PF, I got a captive audience -- my kind of ( only, actually) audience.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Hey, what can I say, people who know me well-enough and have heard my "jokes", try to hide when they see me, but here at PF, I got a captive audience -- my kind of ( only, actually) audience.

Dude, you're getting waaaay off topic. For your penance build 5 pyramids without machines. (No alien help allowed.)

 

[Drakkith]

Dude, you're getting waaaay off topic. For your penance build 5 pyramids without machines. (No alien help allowed.)

If they're inter-dimensional beings, do they still count as aliens?

 

[WWGD]

Dude, you're getting waaaay off topic. For your penance build 5 pyramids without machines. (No alien help allowed.)

But what if I can pay the Aliens under the pyramid, er, I mean table?

 

[zoobyshoe]

If they're inter-dimensional beings, do they still count as aliens?

That quetion made me want to go listen to this:

 

[phinds]

Some of the posts in this thread seem to assume that the people on Ancient Aliens actually believe what they say. I find that doubtful since they seem to be capable of feeding and dressing themselves and can probably even tie shoelaces. Personally, I think they are laughing all the way to the bank about getting paid to spout nonsense.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Some of the posts in this thread seem to assume that the people on Ancient Aliens actually believe what they say. I find that doubtful since they seem to be capable of feeding and dressing themselves and can probably even tie shoelaces. Personally, I think they are laughing all the way to the bank about getting paid to spout nonsense.

You could well be right that they're cold-bloodedly catering to their audience without, themselves, believing a word of what they say, because that kind of charlatanism happens all the time. . On the other hand, I have met dozens of perfectly functional people who believe in stuff like crystal healing, ghosts, the paranormal in general, and visitation of Earth by extra-terrestrials. In other words, belief in those things doesn't render a person dysfunctional. I don't know about Ancient Aliens because I haven't actually ever watched a whole episode, but the crew of Finding Bigfoot seems like a group of authentic believers to me. Likewise with those ghost hunter shows.

But here's the thing: even though I think they're authentic believers I also think they deliberately hoax some of their 'encounters' with the rationalization that, since these things are real (by their reckoning), it's O.K. to, let's say, artificially enhance the show in order to maintain people's interest in something that is real (according to their belief), but can't be relied on to manifest on cue when they are there with their cameras. It's an attitude of, "It's O.K. to fake it now and then because we know such things actually do happen."

The thing I wonder about is whether the real audience for those shows is one of authentic believers or is actually made up of people who enjoy them for how hokey they are: hipsters who sit there stroking their beards, drinking local brewery ales, while smiling cooly at the outlandish claims.

 

[phinds]

My belief is that a great many of the people who watch these shows DO believe the crap they spout. After all, something 30% to 40% of Americans, depending on what poll you read, supposedly believe in angels, aliens, ghosts, and other assorted crap. I find it hard to believe that that is so, but I've seen such statistics more than once, and at least one of them was in a reputable weekly news magazine (I don't remember which because I read several but it was in one of them).

I do agree it's possible that the folks spouting on Ancient Aliens may in fact be true believers but they are SO over the top and have been SO seriously debunked that I don't really believe that they are.

 

[micromass]

If you watch the first video I posted then I don't think there's any other conclusion than that the makers of ancient aliens are liars. I do know there are many people who genuinly believe in the ancient alien theory and that they have (what they believe are) good reasons. I do not wish to criticize such people, since they are genuine. But the makers of ancient aliens do not fall under that category. They say a lot of things which cannot be other than lies. Either that, or they just make up stuff without doing one percent research, but I count that as lying too. Watch the video, you will find many examples of things that are just factually incorrect. And then I don't mean things like "it looks really difficult to do this without advanced tools", or "this looks a lot like an alien", but actual factually incorrect things (an example in the video: the stone is this type and is very hard to cut, while it is not that type of stone at all).

 

[zoobyshoe]

I do agree it's possible that the folks spouting on Ancient Aliens may in fact be true believers but they are SO over the top and have been SO seriously debunked that I don't really believe that they are.

It's well within precedent that they are charlatans. The "father" of that whole line of thinking, Erich von Daniken, in addition to being the author of Chariots of the Gods, was a chronic con artist, involved in many schemes:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_von_Däniken

 

[rootone]

... something 30% to 40% of Americans, depending on what poll you read, supposedly believe in angels, aliens, ghosts, and other assorted crap...

Somewhere recently I read that there had been a poll on the faked Moon landing conspiracy,
I don't remember if it was only Americans polled or a broader sample, but anyway the number of people believing the conspiracy theory was around 20%.
Incredible, since this particular myth has been solidly dubunked with mountains of evidence, besides which there are aspects of it which make no sense at all,
for example that the USSR in the middle of the cold war at the time, sort of just went along with the gag.