3 ms·

>That kind of population isn’t building integrated circuits. It's infrastructure, too. Some people think the "Dendera light[0]" is an actual ancient Egyptian l

by krapp 2y ago

>That kind of population isn’t building integrated circuits. It's infrastructure, too. Some people think the "Dendera light[0]" is an actual ancient Egyptian lightbulb but never bother to wonder why there are no sockets or wires at the Temple of Hathor for it to draw power from, or where the power source was, or where the switches were, or why the Egyptians apparently only had one lightbulb to their name, why the Romans never mentioned the Egyptians had electric lights, why they saw fit to carve a picture of a lightbulb onto a temple wall, etc. >It’s big enough to support enough copper merchants that some of them are terrible, but that’s about all. A million years from now when humanity has merged with the Matrix and spread across the universe as beings of pure thought... poor Ea-Nasir will still be known for his lousy copper and customer service. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendera_light https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendera_light

bschmidt1 2y ago
To me the "lightbulb" is obviously a sail, because it's sitting on a well-known depiction of a boat. I think the snakes and some of the other hieroglyphs depict water passage. What I meant by ancient invisible technology is more like... consider a USB stick. What about that physical object would reveal what it is if you strip all cultural context (including language) away? When we see depictions of some ancient symbols (e.g. those handbags and wristwatches all over the ancient Middle East and Africa) I sometimes wonder if it is simply an unknown technological device - we'll never figure it out being in our time and place. Historians think everything is a temple or a tomb, instead of more everyday things like drive-thru restaurants and gaming devices. Surely those existed too, and if they did they probably iterated on them - they probably had some innovations we haven't thought of and wouldn't recognize today.

by krapp 2y ago

bschmidt1 2y ago

To me the "lightbulb" is obviously a sail, because it's sitting on a well-known depiction of a boat. I think the snakes and some of the other hieroglyphs depict water passage. What I meant by ancient invisible technology is more like... consider a USB stick. What about that physical object would reveal what it is if you strip all cultural context (including language) away? When we see depictions of some ancient symbols (e.g. those handbags and wristwatches all over the ancient Middle East and Africa) I sometimes wonder if it is simply an unknown technological device - we'll never figure it out being in our time and place. Historians think everything is a temple or a tomb, instead of more everyday things like drive-thru restaurants and gaming devices. Surely those existed too, and if they did they probably iterated on them - they probably had some innovations we haven't thought of and wouldn't recognize today.