Podcasts Technology Astral Codex Ten Podcast Against Ice Age Civilizations

Against Ice Age Civilizations

Published: March 9, 2023, 4:08 p.m.

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/against-ice-age-civilizations

There\u2019s a good debate about this on the subreddit; see also Robin Hanson and Samo Burja.

You can separate these kinds of claims into three categories:

  1. Civilizations about as advanced as the people who built Stonehenge

  2. Civilizations about as advanced as Pharaonic Egypt

  3. Civilizations about as advanced as 1700s Great Britain

The debate is confused by people doing a bad job clarifying which of these categories they\u2019re proposing, or not being aware that the other categories exist.

2 and 3 aren\u2019t straw men. Robert Schoch says the Sphinx was built in 9700 BC, which I think qualifies as 2. Graham Hancock suggests \u201cancient sea kings\u201d drew the Piri Reis map which seems to depict Antarctica; anyone who can explore Antarctica must be at least close to 1700s-British level.

I think there\u2019s weak evidence against level 1 civilizations, and strong evidence against level 2 or 3 civilizations.