this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2024
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[–] SturgiesYrFase@lemmy.ml 180 points 8 months ago (35 children)

As a Stonemason, this shit always bothers me. Recent example was an article on stone henge. "Scientists still mystified as to how the stones were stood so that to caps were level!"

Mfr! Give me a straight piece of wood, a length of string and a rock, I will make you a basic level. Don't want to lift the stone in and out multiple times to adjust the level? Get logs and cut them to the same length as the upright stones. It's not fucking rocket surgery!

[–] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 25 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Yeah people simply can't fathom that people in the past were just as intelligent as people are now. They just didn't have quite as much technology as we do now. Also people tend to think of technology as being magic and don't actually understand the underlying science that makes that technology work was the same in the past.

This results in weird ideas about how something isn't possible without a laser level or whatever.

And people tend not to think about skill being a factor. Probably many of the skills you have as a stone mason aren't too different from the skills people had in the past. Sure there's some technology you have available to help you now, but a larger part of it is just skill gained from experience working with stone that's completely independent of technology.

[–] SturgiesYrFase@lemmy.ml 12 points 8 months ago (2 children)

FUCKING THANK YOU!

For instance, yes I use grinders and saws to cut big pieces of stone into smaller pieces so they fit where I need them, but I was taught how to do all that by hand as well. Sometimes you don't have power or petrol, but the shit still needs to go up!

And the way we do things now is just a continuous evolution from how we did it then. I don't have to sharpen my chisels every 30mins because we have better materials. I don't have to break a giant billet of stone into manageable sizes(I can though) because a shop does it for me. And almost all of the old tech is still in use, albeit in a new form or in new materials.

Wire/string friction sawing has been around for millenia....here's an example of a new bit of kit.

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[–] Rodeo@lemmy.ca 15 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Give me a straight piece of wood, a length of string and a rock, I will make you a basic level.

Well axshually that's a plumb bob.

[–] SturgiesYrFase@lemmy.ml 15 points 8 months ago (6 children)

Right you are, but 99% of people would be all: don't you Bob for apple? Why Bob for plum?

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[–] HootinNHollerin@lemmy.world 127 points 8 months ago (15 children)

Only idiots listen to Joe rogan

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[–] fuzzyspudkiss@midwest.social 93 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] TurtleTourParty@midwest.social 14 points 8 months ago

There's even more than one in the US.

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 88 points 8 months ago (23 children)

Ok he’s finally triggered me. As an engineer, no. We absolutely can build pyramids. At least technologically. Financing it isn’t happening. But we can build pyramids on the size of the great pyramid without modern technology even. It’s impressive sure, but it’s not like people of the past were idiots, they just had less tools at their disposal, and better tools are great for inventing even better tools.

[–] 100_kg_90_de_belin@feddit.it 13 points 8 months ago

Rogan and his cohort simply don't want to acknowledge that non-white people could do that.

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[–] fsxylo@sh.itjust.works 72 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (13 children)

Pyramids are the easiest structure to build. You stack rocks. Want them to look nice, cut the rocks into bricks.

[–] slumlordthanatos@lemmy.world 26 points 8 months ago (3 children)

And all you need is lots of money, lots of labor, and some clever engineers, which are all things the ancient Egyptians had in spades.

It's really not that hard.

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[–] stebo02@lemmy.dbzer0.com 24 points 8 months ago (11 children)

fr where does he get the idea that a simple triangle can't be built with today's technology

[–] WaxedWookie@lemmy.world 32 points 8 months ago

Same place he gets his COVID takes.

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[–] SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca 65 points 8 months ago (2 children)

There was a documentary I saw once where they used the best estimates for how long it took the Great Pyramid and how large the work force was and then scaled it down. Like if it took a work force of X people Y number of years to build the Great Pyramid, then a few dozen guys would be able to build a two storey tall pyramid in two months with the same technology.

So they did that. And despite being inexperienced with the ancient technology and having to figure out how to push these massive stone blocks on rollers and make the corners around a spiral ramp winding around the pyramid, they got their little pyramid done on time. The math all checks out on people being able to build the pyramids provided they had a large enough workforce and enough time to do it.

Yes the Pyramids are impressive but it's because it took a lot of work over a lot of time to build them. But it required no special technology. Just a lot of dudes pushing heavy blocks on rollers up a ramp over many years.

[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 10 points 8 months ago (4 children)

Yes the Pyramids are impressive but it’s because it took a lot of work over a lot of time to build them.

That's the impressive thing. Their society had enough spare food that they could "waste" trillions of calories this way. It's hundreds of thousands of people doing nothing productive (for the survival of themselves or for others) for years on end. And, it happened thousands of years BCE.

Until just a few hundred years ago, 90% of people worked in jobs related to farming. So, to support 100,000 people building pyramids, they would have needed something like 900k farmers. That's a million people dedicated to this project for a full generation.

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[–] prole@sh.itjust.works 58 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

Yeah, but have you done DMT and then think about the pyramids?

Didn't think so.

[–] olutukko@lemmy.world 32 points 8 months ago (7 children)

This is a prime example how mind altering substances are a bit double edged sword.

They will get results but towards the goal you've set. If you want to do some self exploration and learn about yourself, sure it will most often help in a way or another. If you on the otherhand want to brainwash yourself with dumb conspiracy theories then it will most likely help with that too, especially if you do them too often.

A friend of mine has absolutely fried his brains with ketamine and he believes to the weirdest shit and basically think that the universe has intended him to be untouchable and no bad can happen to him. I for the other hand just learned a lot about my behaviour patterns with ketamine and came out with clearer mind about my life and goals.

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[–] flintheart_glomgold@lemmy.world 56 points 8 months ago (4 children)

Meanwhile on YouTube some dude in nowhere America has a set of videos showing how he can lift, rotate, leverage and pivot massive stone blocks and an entire house using stone-age technology... ropes and wooden levers... by himself!

Rogan appeals to people who want to hear that the world revolves around them. They believe and want to confirm that if they haven't figured it out no one else has. They are literal morons, but too stupid to know it. They are extremely satisfied when Rogan panders to their narcissism.

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[–] echodot@feddit.uk 47 points 8 months ago

My god you have to be especially thick if people on 4chan think you're an idiot.

[–] Zink@programming.dev 44 points 8 months ago (2 children)

The pyramids are an impressive feat that should not be ignored, but let’s not pretend like the luxury of modern technology doesn’t give us an insurmountable advantage.

We’re comparing a large skillfully built pile of big rocks to modern buildings that are several times taller and thinner while also being hollowed out for everyday use and filled with utilities and other infrastructure.

If the Steinway Tower or the Burj Khalifa were solid rock they would still be more impressive than the pyramids. But they have the equivalent of neighborhoods and towns inside them.

[–] vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works 24 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Also the bass pro shop pyramid and luxor pyramid exist, we are at the point where our direct equivelents to the ancient pyramids is a sporting goods place and a monument to mans decadence.

[–] QuantumStorm@lemmy.world 14 points 8 months ago (2 children)

As someone who grew up in Memphis, I hate that the pyramid got bought by Bass Pro Shop. It used to be a multi use structure for basketball, concerts, and even art exhibits.

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[–] lemmeee@sh.itjust.works 11 points 8 months ago

We also build stations in space and people live in them.

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 33 points 8 months ago

I find it funny that the people that think that the pyramids were built by aliens are the sort of people who get out of breath walking up a staircase. Yeah of course you find it inconceivable that people worked hard.

[–] thorbot@lemmy.world 33 points 8 months ago (6 children)

How Roegan is so fucking stupid it blows my mind that people listen to a word that comes out of his stupid fucking mouth

[–] Pratai@lemmy.cafe 17 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Want a simple explanation?

The ignorant BEG to be led. And because they’re not qualified at all to know if whoever ends up with the job is dumber than they are- they ultimately end up marching in lock-step behind them oblivious of the fact that they’re just marching in circles.

[–] Clent@lemmy.world 17 points 8 months ago

Led by someone who doesn't make them feel stupid. Because being stupid is bad and they aren't bad.

But they are stupid. And that isn't bad. I don't look down on stupid people for being stupid. I judge them because they do stupid shit, like following stupid people.

I've too well versed in history to ignore the threat of the stupid leading the stupid. Idiocracy is a utopian version of stupid people taking over. The reality is also bloody.

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[–] prime_number_314159@lemmy.world 30 points 8 months ago (5 children)

I had a classmate that would tell me over and over how precisely the pyramids aligned with a set of stars at the time they were built, how we needed lasers to measure the imprecision, how we couldn't do the same thing today.

Eventually I found out that the imprecision was... a little over a foot, roughly 35 centimeters. That's the insane precision, the refined craftsmanship we can't produce today, getting the walls of a place within a foot of where we meant to put them.

Everyone that says this is either blindly repeating a thing they heard once, or has never seen a skyscraper, or a shopping mall, or the average parking lot outside a Walmart with that one area where all the rain water stays a few extra days, because it's 6 inches lower than the rest. THAT PARKING LOT IS STILL MORE PRECISE THAN THE PYRAMIDS, BRIAN.

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[–] Cort@lemmy.world 27 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Their advanced technology: slaves

[–] MutilationWave@lemmy.world 46 points 8 months ago (2 children)

From what archaeologists have discovered, the builders were paid laborers.

[–] SkaveRat@discuss.tchncs.de 30 points 8 months ago (1 children)

that, and wasn't it also kind of a tax duty? "gotta work X days a year on the pyramids".

Although, given how long the civilization was around, all of it might have been true at some point

[–] LEDZeppelin@lemmy.world 44 points 8 months ago (1 children)

It was the first ever pyramid scheme in recorded history

[–] pancakes@sh.itjust.works 21 points 8 months ago (1 children)

You had to recruit two friends to work on the pyramid and they had to each recruit two friends.

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[–] Socsa@sh.itjust.works 26 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

I'm convinced the whole "they couldn't do this today" is subtle anti-modernity propaganda whether they are saying it about movies, or ancient megastructures. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of human progress, wrapped up in weird conservative anger about how it will never be 40(00) years ago again.

[–] glitches_brew@lemmy.world 17 points 8 months ago

It's as stupid as holding up a floppy disk and saying "modern computers can't even read this data, they're all garbage".

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[–] StephniBefni@lemmy.world 21 points 8 months ago (2 children)

My boyfriends grandmother loves to watch shows like ancient aliens and stuff. Normally I just ignore them as background noise, but sometimes I'll catch something, shake my head and move on.

One time though she was watching the one with William Shatner, unexplained mysteries I think it's called. And the person Shatner was talking too said "and there is no way we could build the pyramids today" and Shatner just said nodded and then said "why?" The guy mean mugged the shot outta him and they cut to a commercial. When it came back they were talking about something else. Really made me laugh.

But like fr though, bass pro shop built a pyramid, we build crazy skyscrapers and have hundreds of building styles all over the world, I'm sure we could build a pyramid today if we had too.

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[–] Flumpkin@slrpnk.net 18 points 8 months ago (8 children)

There is no limit to the amazing shit you can do if you have power and ignore human suffering

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[–] olafurp@lemmy.world 16 points 8 months ago

I feel like the show goes like "So you're saying electricity isn't real because it's doesn't have matter?" and an expert says it doesn't have protons and neutrons so it can't be real because it the periodic table of elements doesn't have it. "Really? Hey computer guy, look that up"

It's often some dumb stuff that gets so much credit and validation from Joe that I don't like.

[–] PrincessLeiasCat@sh.itjust.works 16 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

I knew he was an idiot, but goddamn.

[–] SkyezOpen@lemmy.world 71 points 8 months ago (1 children)

All I think about when I see Joe.

[–] PrincessLeiasCat@sh.itjust.works 14 points 8 months ago

That is fucking amazing. Thank you.

[–] TakiMinase@slrpnk.net 12 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Cement. It's not rocket science.

[–] prole@sh.itjust.works 13 points 8 months ago

It's literally materials science.

Plus maybe some basic physics for the simple machines.

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