7 ms·

Nothing blows my mind more than Göbekli Tepe, especially its age. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Göbekli_Tepe https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Göbekli_Tepe

wuliwong 9y ago
Yes! Göbekli Tepe is so fascinating!
qubex 9y ago
Yes I visited it in 2012 and spoke with the German archaeologist who found it, Claus Schmidt. Amazing place and an amazing man, sorely missed.
nkoren 9y ago
Fun fact: Cleopatra and Mark Antony etc. lived closer in time to the invention of mobile phones than to the construction of the Great Pyramids. Egyptian history is deep. Funner fact: the Great Pyramids were built closer in time to the invention of mobile phones than to the construction of Göbekli Tepe. Human history is way deep. Funnest fact: if we don't fuck it up, we're still only at the dawn of history, not at the end of it.
- graphitezepp 9y ago
  Yeah but I am pretty worried about us fucking it up these days.
  - nkoren 9y ago
    Me too. If this is a worry of yours, though, may I suggest, in no way rhetorically, going into the "not fucking it up" business? The pay is generally terrible, but nothing beats making your own hope.
    - graphitezepp 9y ago
      I could really go for some hope and would very much like to do something of that nature, but it's hard to figure out where my skills are best allocated. As for the pay I am very difficult to motivate with money beyond what makes for housing and food security.
      - nkoren 9y ago
        > it's hard to figure out where my skills are best allocated Better is the enemy of good enough -- just do something, and if that doesn't work, do something else. There are so many issues facing the world: climate change, population growth (/collapse, depending on where you are), food security, energy security, biodiversity, civil society, socioeconomics in the face of automation, supervolcanos, etc. etc. etc. There are diverse solutions to all these problems. If energy security is your thing, then everything from better residential insulation, to business process optimisation for solar panel installation, to R&D for fusion reactors is potentially part of the solution. Pick whichever one interests you the most. You don't need to be the Elon Musk of whatever it is that you've chosen: if someone else is already doing it, they'll need everything from web developers to janitors. Work for them, and you'll be part of the solution. And if in a few years you see something that'll make you even more hopeful, do that instead. Personally, I chose "better urban design" as my personal route to saving the world. If we could make much better cities, this would seriously mitigate issues with energy consumption, climate change, land use, and civil society. But how best to do this? First I tried being an architect. But the impact I could make was limited by the property developers I worked for, who were limited by the urban planners they worked around, who were limited by the urban infrastructure technologies they worked with. So I changed careers, taking aim at transport technology innovation. Went back to school, got an MBA, and joined a company developing a new class of transport technology (the Heathrow Pod, if you're curious). After a few years I realised that my influence was constrained by working for the technology vendor; I actually needed to work for governments instead. So I switched careers again and became a transport-planning consultant doing advisory work in 14 countries. After a few years I realised that my advisory services were producing cool feasibility studies but no actual results, because the actual implementations were too constrained by antiquated, innovation-inhibiting communications processes and planning/design tools. This was a software problem. So I switched careers again and started a company developing collaborative urban planning software (https://www.podaris.com https://www.podaris.com), and now spend most of every week fighting with Javascript. This can be a tough slog, but it's Javascript that will hopefully change the way that cities are designed, thereby doing my bit to save the world. I feel good about it. The above story isn't meant to be illustrative of what you or anyone else should do. WHAT you do will be different for everyone, and is very nearly irrelevant, provided you've put some thought into it. THAT you do is the important part -- and you are absolutely capable of doing it.
    - dredmorbius 9y ago
      What does this business entail?
      - nkoren 9y ago
        For me personally, endless fights with Javascript. I'm the founder of www.podaris.com. If we're successful, it'll change the way that cities are designed, and getting cities right is a really critical part of not fucking up the world.
    - Abekkus 9y ago
      I would like to find a "hacker news" for the "not fucking it up" business, please. Especially for the part where we try to keep the military and police from being automated.
  - dsfyu404ed 9y ago
    People have been complaining about the imminent collapse of society for pretty much all of recorded history. We're not special.
    - rusk 9y ago
      and I'm sure on a few occasions (Ice Age - not recorded but anyway), black death, and various other cataclysms they may have thought they were right. Lets hope we're not among those.
    - nkoren 9y ago
      A lot of them were right. We live on the bones of numerous dead civilisations. You really don't want to have a collapse happen in your lifetime.
- nl 9y ago
  It took ~60,000 years to go from nearly extinct (possibly 40 "breeding pairs" of humans[1] left alive) to Göbekli Tepe, and we barely know anything about that time. [1] http://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2012/10/22/163397584/how-human-beings-almost-vanished-from-earth-in-70-000-b-c http://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2012/10/22/163397584/ho...
marnett 9y ago
Thanks for sharing this place. I've visited Turkey and unfortunately was unaware of this site then.
nnq 9y ago
The style of the animal carvings is really interesting - they look somewhat symbolic as letters in a "visual language" instead of artistic... "artistic" drawings/sculptures seek either to be skeurmorphic, aka imitate nature, or intentionally simplistic but following some "universally aesthetically pleasing" style, relative as it may be. These have things like the number of legs correct, but nothing about the angles. These look like neither... and that's damn weird! Almost like what a blind carver would make from listening to a description of a thing he never saw and carving it. Probably the oldest cave paintings are like this, but those are like "simplest thing one can do" while these imply effort, but... somehow "skillfully retarted", like there was something "messed up" with the minds of the designers, or simply very different from our own.

wuliwong 9y ago

Yes! Göbekli Tepe is so fascinating!

qubex 9y ago

Yes I visited it in 2012 and spoke with the German archaeologist who found it, Claus Schmidt. Amazing place and an amazing man, sorely missed.

nkoren 9y ago

Fun fact: Cleopatra and Mark Antony etc. lived closer in time to the invention of mobile phones than to the construction of the Great Pyramids. Egyptian history is deep. Funner fact: the Great Pyramids were built closer in time to the invention of mobile phones than to the construction of Göbekli Tepe. Human history is way deep. Funnest fact: if we don't fuck it up, we're still only at the dawn of history, not at the end of it.

graphitezepp 9y ago
Yeah but I am pretty worried about us fucking it up these days.
- nkoren 9y ago
  Me too. If this is a worry of yours, though, may I suggest, in no way rhetorically, going into the "not fucking it up" business? The pay is generally terrible, but nothing beats making your own hope.
  - graphitezepp 9y ago
    I could really go for some hope and would very much like to do something of that nature, but it's hard to figure out where my skills are best allocated. As for the pay I am very difficult to motivate with money beyond what makes for housing and food security.
    - nkoren 9y ago
      > it's hard to figure out where my skills are best allocated Better is the enemy of good enough -- just do something, and if that doesn't work, do something else. There are so many issues facing the world: climate change, population growth (/collapse, depending on where you are), food security, energy security, biodiversity, civil society, socioeconomics in the face of automation, supervolcanos, etc. etc. etc. There are diverse solutions to all these problems. If energy security is your thing, then everything from better residential insulation, to business process optimisation for solar panel installation, to R&D for fusion reactors is potentially part of the solution. Pick whichever one interests you the most. You don't need to be the Elon Musk of whatever it is that you've chosen: if someone else is already doing it, they'll need everything from web developers to janitors. Work for them, and you'll be part of the solution. And if in a few years you see something that'll make you even more hopeful, do that instead. Personally, I chose "better urban design" as my personal route to saving the world. If we could make much better cities, this would seriously mitigate issues with energy consumption, climate change, land use, and civil society. But how best to do this? First I tried being an architect. But the impact I could make was limited by the property developers I worked for, who were limited by the urban planners they worked around, who were limited by the urban infrastructure technologies they worked with. So I changed careers, taking aim at transport technology innovation. Went back to school, got an MBA, and joined a company developing a new class of transport technology (the Heathrow Pod, if you're curious). After a few years I realised that my influence was constrained by working for the technology vendor; I actually needed to work for governments instead. So I switched careers again and became a transport-planning consultant doing advisory work in 14 countries. After a few years I realised that my advisory services were producing cool feasibility studies but no actual results, because the actual implementations were too constrained by antiquated, innovation-inhibiting communications processes and planning/design tools. This was a software problem. So I switched careers again and started a company developing collaborative urban planning software (https://www.podaris.com https://www.podaris.com), and now spend most of every week fighting with Javascript. This can be a tough slog, but it's Javascript that will hopefully change the way that cities are designed, thereby doing my bit to save the world. I feel good about it. The above story isn't meant to be illustrative of what you or anyone else should do. WHAT you do will be different for everyone, and is very nearly irrelevant, provided you've put some thought into it. THAT you do is the important part -- and you are absolutely capable of doing it.
  - dredmorbius 9y ago
    What does this business entail?
    - nkoren 9y ago
      For me personally, endless fights with Javascript. I'm the founder of www.podaris.com. If we're successful, it'll change the way that cities are designed, and getting cities right is a really critical part of not fucking up the world.
  - Abekkus 9y ago
    I would like to find a "hacker news" for the "not fucking it up" business, please. Especially for the part where we try to keep the military and police from being automated.
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago
  People have been complaining about the imminent collapse of society for pretty much all of recorded history. We're not special.
  - rusk 9y ago
    and I'm sure on a few occasions (Ice Age - not recorded but anyway), black death, and various other cataclysms they may have thought they were right. Lets hope we're not among those.
  - nkoren 9y ago
    A lot of them were right. We live on the bones of numerous dead civilisations. You really don't want to have a collapse happen in your lifetime.
nl 9y ago
It took ~60,000 years to go from nearly extinct (possibly 40 "breeding pairs" of humans[1] left alive) to Göbekli Tepe, and we barely know anything about that time. [1] http://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2012/10/22/163397584/how-human-beings-almost-vanished-from-earth-in-70-000-b-c http://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2012/10/22/163397584/ho...

marnett 9y ago

Thanks for sharing this place. I've visited Turkey and unfortunately was unaware of this site then.

nnq 9y ago

The style of the animal carvings is really interesting - they look somewhat symbolic as letters in a "visual language" instead of artistic... "artistic" drawings/sculptures seek either to be skeurmorphic, aka imitate nature, or intentionally simplistic but following some "universally aesthetically pleasing" style, relative as it may be. These have things like the number of legs correct, but nothing about the angles. These look like neither... and that's damn weird! Almost like what a blind carver would make from listening to a description of a thing he never saw and carving it. Probably the oldest cave paintings are like this, but those are like "simplest thing one can do" while these imply effort, but... somehow "skillfully retarted", like there was something "messed up" with the minds of the designers, or simply very different from our own.