a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by kleinbl00
kleinbl00  ·  2126 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Rising From the Ashes of SIDA [Solar Induced Dark Age] By Robert M. Schoch

1)

    Schoch contributed an essay to Lost Secrets of the Gods, a book which argues for the existence of ancient astronauts. He has appeared on Coast to Coast AM. Another of his interests is the study of parapsychology. In opposition to the scientific community, Schoch has stated that he believes psychokinesis and telepathy to be real.

2)

That's quite an edit war for someone so obscure. The sort of thing you see when there are paragraphs like

    However, throughout his career, Schoch has addressed the arguments of his critics with even further analytical evidence of his research. Contrary to the critics' claims of pseudoscientific discovery, Schoch conducted data-driven research by sending seismic waves through the rocks near the Sphinx with a sledgehammer. The relative velocities of these waves were computed and interpreted so as to indicate that there is indeed an artificially carved chamber underneath the left paw of the Sphinx. In fact, nearly all of Schoch's research is supported by photo evidence, numeric data, diagrams, primary source texts and on-site surveying as opposed to armchair speculation. A great deal of his research is also publicly available on the Internet free of charge. </citation needed>

BUT

Your basic point is

    I think that even if we end up disproving these hypotheses, the gestalt message of 'prepare for planet-wide catastrophes because they do in fact happen' is a good and salient one.

History bears out that what kills civilizations is climate change. Generally the water goes away. That's what wiped out the Mayans and the Anasazi. The Sahara is the Sahara because of goats; Lebanon is a desert because its forests were over-forested. Short of raiding Akkadians or Peloponnesian wars, your civilization will generally continue until you run out of water. Then your mighty nation-state of Pueblo Bonito becomes a ruin while hard-luck Hopi huddle on Acoma to avoid Apache reavers.

There is no evidence of massive shocks ending many civilizations. We know the shit out of Pompeii. We've quantified global impact from Krakatoa. The planet-wide catastrophes we need to worry about tend to be the slow-moving ones that nobody worries about; I got family in the Southwest that has just gotten used to two months of smoke that simply weren't a feature growing up. I remember blue jays as a kid; meanwhile the books would tell you Ringtail Cats didn't come further north than Sonora. But my buddy had a family of ringtails in his garage (at 7,000 feet!) and the last time I saw a blue jay was maybe 2nd grade.