in reply to Re^3: Average Age of the Perl Monk - Poll?
in thread Average Age of the Perl Monk - Poll?

An Egyption slave pulling a huge block wasn't any more creative than most people today. There happend to be one guy who figured out how to move enough huge blocks to build a Pyramid

Not that it has anything to do with anything, but recent archaelogical research has shown that the actual workers on the pyramids, were a) not slaves, b) well treated - e.g. better fed than average, good housing, had health care available, etc. c) proud of their work. Perhaps there were only a few architects, but architects aren't the ones who find the solutions to the many practical problems of implementing the archtitect's design and there's evidence that many of those solutions were provided by the teams of workers.

As to the "this younger generation isn't as good as we were" meme - I think it's safe to say it's always been around and has both truth and falsehood in it. One difficulty in comparing ancient inventiveness to modern inventiveness is the shoulder-standing thing. If our ancestors hadn't invented, language, writing, math, etc. we'd have a difficult time doing all the things that are supposedly smarter than the things our ancestors did. OTOH, any civilization that pays people to lie to them (advertizing) can't be the smartest bear in the forest.

  • Comment on OT Pyramid Builders and Shoulder Standing

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Re: OT Pyramid Builders and Shoulder Standing
by Anonymous Monk on Apr 27, 2005 at 22:17 UTC
    As to the "this younger generation isn't as good as we were" meme - I think it's safe to say it's always been around and has both truth and falsehood in it. One difficulty in comparing ancient inventiveness to modern inventiveness is the shoulder-standing thing. If our ancestors hadn't invented, language, writing, math, etc. we'd have a difficult time doing all the things that are supposedly smarter than the things our ancestors did.

    A quote that addresses this quite well:

    "Children no longer obey their parents; every man wants to write a book, and it is clear that the end of the world is fast approaching".

    Though this sounds like quite a modern lament, if oddly worded, it was found on a 4,000 year old clay tablet from ancient Sumeria.

    In other words, the "good old days" were always a generation or two ago, regardless of when that generation really was, or how good it really was. Me, I'd much rather be alive today than back then in ancient Sumeria!

    --
    Ytrew

Re: OT Pyramid Builders and Shoulder Standing
by dragonchild (Archbishop) on Apr 25, 2005 at 12:35 UTC
    OTOH, any civilization that pays people to lie to them (advertizing) can't be the smartest bear in the forest.

    I don't want to be the smartest bear in the forest. I'd much rather be the biggest bear with middle-of-the-road intelligence.

    As for advertising ... it's not lying - it's creative slanting. :-)