I used to play "Spore" back in the day. I usually spent most of my time terraforming planets, spreading life forms from one world to another and modifying the species that I came across. That was a lot of fun.
It also allowed you to uplift a species, let them build up their homeworld by themselves and then take it over after they reached the Space Stage for maximum spice storage capacity. Luckily that didn't happen to us, ... right?
I don't understand why so many people describe such videos as "existential crisis", except to 1. Make it all about them and their reaction, and 2. To keep that perpetual victimhood on a low simmer. It's just science, lad. However we got here, it won't change your next fifty or hundred years of embodiment. Buck up.
@@archmage_of_the_aether Some people are just too emotionally reactionary towards the vast swathes of time that brackets their fleeting existence. I used to be, which actually hampered my ability to think about it clearly and as objectively as possible. Our anthropocentric biases are always waiting for a ride at the first opportunity and most of the time don't warrant one.
In Mass Effect, the Salarians uplifted the barbaric Krogans from their radioactive wasteland of a homeworld. Which eventually led to a galaxy-wide Krogan rebellion and ultimately their sterilization by a Salarian bioweapon. The Salarians, being the galaxy's smartest idiots, later decided that the Yahg (which were even bigger and more savage than Krogans) should be uplifted next. They just never learn from their mistakes...
I'm spotty on ME lore, but their lifespan is around 25-30 years, no? They probably viewed the Krogan uplifting with condescension many today reserve for the 'primitive' people of the Tudor times. Or something around that degree of separation.
@@dylutantkind of my thought process as well. To them, the Krogan uplifting would’ve been ancient history with hundreds of generations since it was done. They might have thought they were “beyond” the mistakes that led to it and tried again as a result
The difference is that they were uplifting krogans specifically to fight a massive war for them, and they just were a bit too successful for their own and the galaxy's at large good. I don't remember Yahg being considerd for a similar role, so maybe if you don't uplift species to literally be your cannon fodder, things might turn out better?
"It's utter nonsense, but I rather like that episode" lol. And this is why I love you and your channel: you are willing to entertain absurdity and equally willing to trash it afterwards 😂
It’s not so much that he’s “entertaining absurdity” and willing to “trash it” afterwards, but more that he’s willing to entertain these ideas respectfully without resulting to um… ridicule…….. I think Isaac is starting to see the issue with the communication of science to the public. The wider public who dictate the public paradigm are completely turned off by the scientific community because of how disconnected they are. The way they communicate science to your average person is belittling at best. It’s the whole reason why, despite an amazing reply to Terrance Howard’s JRE episode, Neil Degrasse Tyson widely disliked. Isaac is great in the sense that he doesn’t result to ridicule, dismissal and attacks. Gonna be great for the science community when other communicators catch on. What brought me to science was the woo. The crazy free energy machines, aliens, FTL travel. And that brought me to Isaac almost 10yrs ago now. Isaac brought me out of the woo. But that’s why it’s important to not squash that wonder, the same wonder that brought me into the community is the same wonder that will bring the next minds into the community. There are lots of top academics who came into their fields because of their interest in woo/aliens and UFOs etc.
If he is talking about so called ancient aliens uplifting humans I think that was unlikely but I do think humanity may uplift other species at some future point.
@@isaacarthurSFIA Larry Niven's "Inconstant Moon" was my favorite SF short story. Although it has lost something over the years as the nightly Johnny Carson ritual has mostly faded from memory. The story opens with the protag watching Carson's monologue as he begins to notice unusually bright moonlight shining through the window. The ultra-familiar feel of the opening and then gradual revelation of the plot really really sucked me in in a way that no other short story ever has. As I said, the Tonight Show habit has since faded from memory, so the opening doesn't grab the way it did when I first read it. But perhaps Mr. Niven could be persuaded to update it slightly. Instead of having the protag watch the Carson monologue, he could be shown settling into the newest Isaac Arthur RUclips video.
The problem with "aliens did it" is that only passing back the buck on answering the question of our origins. These aliens themselves would have to have evolved somehow, and the regress of ancient aliens being created/uplifted by even more ancient aliens has to begin somewhere.
David Brin’s Uplift series played with this. All the aliens in that series were the result of uplifting and they freak out at the possibility that humanity might have evolved on its own.
@@reefalefunk1244 you missed the point - yes, thats can be true, but when we are discussing things you cannot prove or disprove, claiming aliens uplifted with equally no evidence, is a non answer, because you can then say, also with no evidence, than THOSE aliens were uplifted. If you say its a turtle, then its turtles all the way down. Explaining where WE came from is nice, but the same questions and issues dont disappear once you see some other race - how did THEY come about?
Yooo banger vid man edit: it gets even cooler when you consider the fact that throughout the eons, many planets/stars/systems passed us by and we passed them by
Correct! All a civilization has to do is maximize the local resources until the opportunity arrives to hop over to the passing system. Something that we are probably capable of but not the way we're currently going about it.
@@bryandraughn9830 Yeah, well, those opportunities don't come by that often as of yet, but when we start merging with Andromeda in some million years then i suspect there will be plenty opportunity for "system hoping". Not to mention that our entire local cluster is hurdling towards the mysterious great attractor that hopefully turns out to be a gigantic cluster of galaxies providing even more opportunity. The question is if we can survive in this system for long enough for those ages of opportunity to materialize.
@@LilBnnuy Lol yeah obviously we would struggle with this atm. But technologically the not so far future is looking pretty bright. I mean surely we can figure out how to rejuvenate dying cells or halt the ageing process and if nothing else, then at least make a viable cryo/stasis chamber. If all that fails then iv always favored the idea of sending like a "nursery ship" run by AI with the, uhm, genetic essentials for creating bottle-babies or preferably fully grown clones, at the destination rather than transporting entire human beings and maintaining them for the whole journey.
I just wanted to say that I appreciate the fact that no matter the topic, SFIA always has such great visuals. The CGI, video clips, effects, all help to make the content even more enjoyable. This channel consistently produces great content that I can enjoy either watching or listening to. Thanks so much for all of your wonderful videos!
I think that "Hey, this gold stuff is pretty neat, look, you can melt it!, or "Look if we plant some of this grain it'll be here next year!" being met with "Meh" a few times is an undervalued point! I remember learning during studying archaeology that it looks like we tried to domesticate gazelles, but gave up as it turns out the domestic gazelle didn't really catch on compared to say, the cow or goat. There must have been more than one Eureka Moment.
I actually changed it last night, forgot I said that in the episode, but was reminded by a comment on one of our uplifting videos that 'uplifting' is a little too uncommon a term to make the topic clear by title alone, whereas aliens are major part of this topic, just not the only one we discussed.
I loved the line about how you couldn't fault the idea of "overkill" in regards to tossing people into volcanoes... It is like using a nico dyson beam to blow up a shuttlecraft, heh!
5:36 A Siberian reindeer herder named Tenevil invented his own script in the early 20th century, apparently without prior exposure to writing. He and his family used it, but it never caught on.
For me one of the main points of this is very few things have been done by a single individual. Humans seem to have a need to establish a single person to credit or blame for an event.
True, very little is done in isolation, though a lot of times one individual really does deserve the lion's share of the credit for some discovery or work.
@@isaacarthurSFIA I can imagine some ancient tinker took the technique of rolling sleds along logs and made smaller logs that were easier to run back to front as you went… and eventually attached the small logs to the sledge, and the wheel was born. This idea would have caught fire as they went from place to place. The next village had a tinker or farmer or miner who did it too after seeing it. It went ancient-viral, as everyone loved the new way to move stuff easier… not across oceans to Australia and the Americas until relatively modern times…
@@isaacarthurSFIAInterestingly, its quite common for said person to claim that they aren't responsible for it whatsoever, and that it simply seemed as it they were filled with an external force which "gave" them the idea and/or corresponding understanding of it. Many times this happens through a dream if not the classic "Eureka!" moment.
In some cases it could be a suggestion or idea by a family member, and then that person finds a way to accomplish such suggestion. A person in isolation may not see a need for an improvement, but when you have a family or a small society, that improvement gains much value.
This has been my main theory for a very very long time. Thank you for making this episode Isaac - it’s been a long time coming for me and I cannot wait to dive in!! 💫🙏
Before even watching the video I'll say this, if we *were* uplifted, they did it pretty irresponsably, like giving someone a car and teaching them to drive but without teaching any rules of the road or maintenance, basically just enough to run people down and that's it
Michael Crightons novel "sphere" had an interesting explanation for the effects the team experienced, that being possibly some side effect not accounted for by the builders, likening the sutuation with a microbe making its way into our machinery...
I read that book front to back in one sitting maybe 30 years ago now. I was excited when the announced the movie. But kind of disappointed by it. The book straight had me.
Bacteria actually do have biologically grown and evolved propellers I just watched a whole episode about it on veritasium... They even managed to build a 3D replica of it and copy every molecule in the biological motor using scanning electron microscopy
Which is just made all the funnier when I recall older opinions that evolution couldn't produce things like 'axels' or 'wheels'. Nature is pretty dope I say.
@@Captaintrippz The problem is lots of these motors and propeller systems cant form useing evolution. Now they can decode the dna there are no intermidatry pathwaths. The jumps are impossible. The same logic and math Darwin used says these are imposible by evolution. The mutations result in garbage or cancer. Factors of 1good to 1 * 10'16 cancer or higher. Cutting edge biology and dna says you need a designer for things found.
Heard a rumor that the reason animals don't have wheels is they don't build roads, and they don't make roads because they don't have governments unlike humans.
Ok Genetics says these things should not have evolved. The fact we see them tells us something must have tamppered. Darwins own maths says this is not natural. The Monticarlow statistics fail all the time. Selective breeding results in garbage not motors. Mutation gives cancers not motors. DNA science says these should not excist via Darwin we can read the code in the DNA.
I like the one where the Sumerian gods that taught math, the teachers of boat building from the South Pacific to South America and the swan people that taught making musical instruments were denisovan remnants spreading knowledge and genres in their last gasp.
I keep hoping someone makes a movie. Of course, before they do that they need to do Ringworld as a movie. And before they do THAT, they need to do a TV series centred on my favourite Niven character, Beowulf Schaeffer. And, of course, Nessus. While we're at it, Lucifer's Hammer and The Mote In God's Eye would also make wonderful movies. I do like me some Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle. Also their version of Inferno would go down a treat. Wonder who they'd get to play Isaac Asimov
I think that this is easily one of your most entertaining episodes thus far, and I hope that you continue to give your input into Ufology and conspiracy theories. I especially loved your elaboration on the Nibiru hypothesis, which, for a long time, I completely dismissed it as impossible, as I was unaware that life, let alone intelligent life, could evolve on what would no doubt be a frozen ball of ice. Most channels that cover such stories don't go into speculating how these sorts of things could actually work in reality, nor attempting to debunk/gauge their chances of plausibility. And yes, I know your stance on exotic technologies like FTL and antigravity, but that makes you all the more qualified to speculate if they could exist, and why we don't see time travelers wandering all over the place. And I think that only being able to travel into parallel timelines makes the most sense, and/or we are living in one of those timelines, and probably would never even know about it. The creation of biological slaves actually isn't a problem: could be that the Annunaki once had an AI/Robot rebellion that nearly wiped them out, similar to the Butlerian Jihad. Of course, they aren't going to be slaves out of metal and plastic, since they don't need food, water, or rest, and they will be harder to kill! They also aren't susceptible to biological weapons, unless you're willing to resort to using nanites (and they will probably be willing to launch them right back in your general direction) If they have access to some factory and power source, then it gets even more dicey. The Annunaki could have a strict, death-penalty-if-violated-law prohibiting the creation of anything resembling AI. Of course, they could make power suits, which wouldn't necessarily require AI, but they could have some stupid, post-apocalypse rule prohibiting the creation of machines that even resemble humanoids, even if they aren't AI-controlled. What I don't know is how the hell they could genetically cross over with what would no doubt be a different biology. I mean, I GUESS carbon biology MIGHT be possible on a frozen wasteland, and I GUESS that maybe coincidental humanoid biology isn't completely impossible on same frozen wasteland, and there is NOTHING in the interpretation of the old Sumerian legends that doesn't preclude that Nibiru was just a world that the Annunaki colonized, and NOT their homeworld to begin with. Hell, they could be an offshoot of the Pleiadeans of Ufology mythos, and THAT would explain A LOT! But this is all speculation, and unless they actual exist, reveal themselves, and consent to an interview, we might never know.
I do swear sci-fi writers tend just to repackage standard issues creationism as a new idea. And every time I hear the aliens came for gold all I can think of is Yosemite Sam scream GOLD.
My favorite is how people get so invested in Simulation Theory and then don't realize they've literally just rediscovered creationism. All the reddit communities who discuss Simulation Theory and swear their all atheists and that "this is science", it's fun to just remind them they're just a 21st century Bible club. They get so offended by it, it's really comical.
@@Lusa_Iceheart that is something we do in the US particularly. Take older religions and simply set them in space or add a robot or two. It’s just so strange.
I personally find the idea that aliens might have had a hand in guiding and assisting humans to accomplish some of our greatest achievements unsettling. It diminishes the incredible ingenuity, hard work, and creativity that we, as a species, have poured into these monumental milestones. Believing that, some external force was responsible for our progress, takes away from the pride and ownership we should feel in what we’ve accomplished on our own. It’s as if our history is being rewritten to suggest we weren’t capable enough to achieve greatness without outside help, and that undermines the very essence of what makes us human... We are very inquisitive, sometimes to our own peril, but I suppose anything is possible...
@@The_Dark_Sotho_Seer I agree with you. I would also note that the idea Aliens were teaching us how to pile rocks on each other is kinda racist as well. Ever notice it’s always the Africans and Mesoamericans and Easter Islanders who seem to always need the alien’s help? Never white people. The whole “Ancient Alien” thing is predicated on the idea that nonwhite groups were incapable of doing anything cool on their own.
Same thing as the "we didn't went to the moon" spiel. True meaning is "my imagination is too narrow to accept that we ever could do something like this, therefore the credit CLEARLY can't be ours"
The comments about repressing memories during a game reminds me of Red Dwarf. There was an episode where the characters die only to wake up to find that for the last three years they’ve been playing a game…very badly.
There's this little short story I read somewhere once that went along the lines of: Humans had build the Pyramids. Aliens land and come out of their ship. "Wow! You guys made this?! That's amazing! One century you're learning to make fire, the next you're building these giant stone structures! Keep it up!" said the aliens, before re-boarding their ship and flying off. "... who were those things just now? I couldn't understand a word they were saying!" said the stonecutter, "I dunno man, I just don't know." said his friend. the end.
3:05 Man, that reminds me of my _favorite_ animal! I learned about the Basilisk lizard from an episode of Wild Kratts somewhere less than a decade and a half ago. I _loved_ it's look, yeah, and lizards in general were cool to be but... I think what it was _(and _*_certainly_* is now!) was that it taught me animals have come around to achieve thins in ways that I hadn't _really even _*_conceived_* of... Like... a lizard that runs on water? 🤯
Yeah, a prior human civilization that got wiped out is far more plausible than aliens. We know humanity evolved (probably) on Africa, and recent climate models show that the Sahara used to be a veritable paradise VERY recently. A measly 5000 years ago, coincidentally not long before the rise of civilization in Egypt and the Middle East. The north of Africa was perfect for human civilizations, better than the fertile crescent. Pushing human development back just a few millennia isn't outlandish at all, not like intelligent dinosaur civilizations. The Sphinx shows sings of millennia of water erosion that simply couldn't have been just 4500 years. If just a bit older, from a pre-Old Kingdom civilization, it would have been around during the period the Sahara was wet. Archeologists are clinging to the "Sumer and Mesopotamia was first" hypothesis as hard as they clung to "Clovis First" doctrine. As we now have definitive proof of, humans did in fact migrate to North and South America BEFORE the last ice age. ANd genetic evidence suggests there might have been a SOUTHERN route too, since south american tribes share genetic markers with austro-oceanians that neither North American natives or the Inuit share. The entire bedrock of archeology in the Western Hemisphere is completely trashed now thanks to new discoveries, why should we assume the bedrock of civilization in the Eastern Hemisphere is safe? What sorts of ruins are hiding in the sands of the Sahara? How many sites like Goelbeki Tepe are still buried in the Middle East? Questioning the existing model is necessary for science, otherwise it's not actually science it's just a religion.
Issac, Have you considered doing a video on Aliens and Tiers of Consciousness? We're clearly at a higher level of consciousness than many species on the planet.. but could there exist even higher forms? Could other intelligences out there have a higher perception of the Universe?
I find it fascinating that life on this planet inside the cell is mechanical. When it replicates DNA it uses Molecular machines. We even engines with torque being used.
Another great episode! I especially like your point at the end, where you point out that suggesting the "need" for uplifting demeans our nobility as well as our future potential. To suggest that we could not have achieved what we have today, on our own, also suggests that we may not achieve any greater potential than we have now. I believe we will one day go to the stars and beyond. We will take our rightful place in the universe and when we do, it will be by our own hand. Kinetic
We’re not worthy!! Isaac is one of the strongest thinkers, and I learn so much from him. I hope I can be this critical one day. Thank you for leading us down the path, and I know we’ll get better. One step at a time.
I really want you to do an episode about the medusa version of an Orion drive. Maybe as part of colonizing a nearby brown dwarf, perhaps one one found so much closer than proxima
Tolkien oddly did a really good job of illustrating why some higher/advanced beings might find it unethical or at least distasteful to allow the higher beings to be viewed as gods. At the Council of Doom in Valinor when the Valar debated bringing the Elves to the West for the first time to teach them; Mandos at the end says "so it is Doom then." The implication is he alone knows most of the fate of Arda and can see the far reaching out comes of choices made by the Valar. Mandos is pretty much telling the rest of them "GREAT! Now we're gonna be gods instead of watchers! We could have had it easy and just let Nature do its things... but now we're gonna get directly involved... AGAIN... cause it worked sooo well the last few times!" but in a much catchier and "bitchy" one liner regard his personal feelings of being seen as a god by the beings of Middle Earth. I kind of agree with that outlook in that I find the concept distasteful, but only because I don't want that kind of responsibility or power, and would likely suck at being a god lol
As for the Egyptian pyramids... The Nile had predictable, annual floods. This made farming (the primary occupation) impossible, during the time of the floods. There is evidence that the pyramids (and other temples) were an alternate occupation for the farmers when they would be otherwise idle. During those times, the river was also at it's highest, enabling previously cut blocks to be lifted and moved downstream by the rising water.
I totally share the thought that it demeans our ancient ancestors to say they did not have the intelligence to be inspired and driven to accomplish some of history's most incredible if not daunting tasks as unified communities without some kind of external uplifting.
A shout out for one of my favorite animes, Gintama, a comedy set in the Meiji era. The premise being that at the end of the Edo era, Japan was met not by Perry's black ships but by an alien armada that basically took over the world (while allowing individual nations to keep their governments as puppet rulers) and technologically uplifted the planet, turning Tokyo into a modern skyscraper city. So you have samurai racing around in cars and doing battle not just with katanas but also modern firearms and the occasional rocket launcher. And at the end of the day they relax in front of TV featuring music videos and talk shows.
Feel like doing an episode that would be a bit more local in time? Tesla bots, Chat GPT, AI applications multiplying. A (very) near future episode that details your understanding of what's next, and when.
Another great episode, cogent and thorough. Well... thorough except perhaps for any mention of the most general literary survey of "Uplift" in exploratory fiction. Was it something that I said or did, Isaac?
I agree with what you said about our ancestors at the end of the video. We are standing on the shoulders of giants. We should appreciate their compliments.
My hypothesis for the great pyramids is either geopolymer or acid mortar. If I'm remembering it right, Gobekli Tepe recently discovered possible geopolymer construction. So that technology can be much older than you think and would allow ancient people to create large smooth blocks with wasting tons of bronze chisels. Like there is that unfinished obelisk that looks to have chucks scooped away. So if it's geopolymer, they were probably using very viscous mix. If it was acid, then they could be using that to scrap stone.
4:52 - sounds exactly like the live we live in _today_ - few inventing or innovating, most barely able to use it through sufficiently dumbed down interfaces. Or follow a "list of steps" ...
I've often observed that inventions need a receptive culture to take hold, and even then they are ferociously fought. For example, Vitruvius invented a spinning steam engine in 30BC. That could have been used for boat propulsion for an un-defeatable navy or a boulder throwing "machine gun", but, nobody saw the application. Certain artifacts left behind in ancient Egypt we cannot even replicate nowdays, at least in any financially viable way. There are undeniable circular saw blade marks through solid andesite which requires a carbide tipped, masonry drill bit nowdays. Also multiple drill holes all over the place, impossible with copper tools and "sand". Look it up simp. Someone had power tools with very hard, rock cutting blades. Doesn't mean aliens, but, doesn't NOT mean aliens.
The thing with the pyramids is that the ancient Egyptians had one huge advantage over the modern humans. They had patience, which offsets all the advantages in relevant technology we enjoy in the modern day.
exactly. the pyramids of giza in particular was a multi generation project. no sane person in the modern world would approve a building project that would take over a hundred years. even the biggest man made structure, dams don't take more than 15 years at max
I'm glad you actually talked about this topic and I am glad that you were respectful. if not accepting. I do hope that you, and others, remain open to the possibilities here and realise that there are those whom seem to bend over backwards to to alter potential evidence to thwart this theory and keep it as a fringe concept. Just remember how our own government treated the UFO phenomenon for decades until it was forced to be open minded.
Would be interesting to hear how we might go about demolishing large structures (dyson spheres, or matryoshka worlds). Maybe we'd just make a black hole onsite to just suck up all the matter, and then move the blackhole elsewhere for later use?
The problem is lots of these motors and propeller systems cant form useing evolution. Now they can decode the dna there are no intermidatry pathwaths. The jumps are impossible. The same logic and math Darwin used says these are imposible by evolution. The mutations result in garbage or cancer. Factors of 1good to 1 * 10'16 cancer or higher. Cutting edge biology and dna says you need a designer for things found.
This channel, along with JMG, Drach, Cool Worlds, and all the other excellent science and history content, is one of the few things keeping me sane while doing my best impression of a delivery drone at work, thank you for that. Also, that description of Scientology makes me wonder if the basic idea came from the Gnostics.
I do like to imagine going back to a little before 23,000 BC carefully eugenically selecting prehistoric humans and placing them on a mid-atlantic landmass (at least as big as the Iberia peninsula). Genetically & neurologically enhancing them and eugenically breeding them. Teaching them written language (recording & transmitting knowledge), agriculture, STEM, etc. Then when that landmass sinks 9,000 years before Solon they either evacuate themselves or I evacuate them or combo. I also like the idea of beautiful Ancient Aliens with Cuban accents coming down and founding Ancient Egypt (DCAU). my tabletop character that I’ve been world building for years. He’s from an illegal (without the UN’s knowledge or consent) colony on a peopleless parallel Earth. His colony has no compunction about following the “Prime Directives” of the UN and acquire science & technology from the Future & more advanced parallels making them very advanced. On it every resident, and I MEAN EVERY, is an able bodied genetically enhanced person for reasons similar to why under the reign of Henry II all men had a sword and that was to protect the realm, it’s all hands on deck. I have fun composing templates for various “makes & models” of genetic enhancements. My character has a super-soldier upgrade, but he isn’t a soldier, he’s a “genenapper”, he travels across space-time & across the multi-verse, to acquires genetic material of people for reasons ranging from further preventing the risk of inbreeding to de-extinction of past civilizations to the genetic material of a specific target for a client, but he also acquires DNA of flora & fauna. Anyway, Henry II wanting all men to be armed, I took to the next level, and everyone is able to protect the colony even by just being a competent (not below average IQ) extra pair of hands and feet. “X-Men ‘97” ruined Rogue!
I'm glad Isaac didn't try using the lazy way of discrediting or otherwise throwing shade at the Ancient Alien theory and anyone that subscribes to it, by just saying it's r@cist 🙄 I don't subscribe to it anymore, did in my younger days. But lord that has got to be the laziest way I've seen people go about discrediting it. It also shows how little you actually know about this "theory" and what it's proponents believe.
We have stories of a lot of things. Zeus was a goose once. But one thing never seems to change: we take the stories we find convenient and claim those are true and ignore the rest. So, the stories of uplifting are true, perhaps. So, then are the stories indicating Alexander the Great was a demigod true? Those are the stories Alexander and his mother latched onto. I wonder if they also believed the stories that said this or that city was founded and protected by this or that other god.
History and civilization tend to be sloppy. So in most cases it’s gonna be a mishmash of convenient knowing lies, genuinely believed superstitions, traditions and innovations. Hell, even some overt con-men televangelists believe *some* of what they’re saying.
I remember one specific case of a south american civilization claiming their city is founded by their god and is the first city, then as their empire expanded they found an abandoned city and a great temple from another civilization hundreds of years prior and from around that time their mythology "shifted", saying those two cities were founded first instead. Some of the smarter people around here could even tell me which civilization it was. Very suspicious. All I wanted to say, is that it's not only not rare, but downright expected for humanity to make up excuses and invent shit once they find something that doesn't fit their preestablished assumptions, whether it's grounded in reality, or is just nonsense, or both.
@@istvanvincze7411 yup. 100% correct. Mythology changes pretty constantly, and sometimes pretty massively. It’s useful for telling us what people believed at a particular time, but it’s not “history,” with a few exceptions
That last part is important imho: There are currently so many people (often grifters) who think our ancestors could barely build a hut without aliens and their fancy sci-fi technology. It is really frustrating to see this none sens, even though we have plenty of evidence of what people are capable of.
@@matthewbrown3981 ??? Yeah, of course. It's called hyperbole... This website is filled with pseudo-science BS, from flat earth to giants. So I wasn't even exaggerating that much. I even remember seeing a clip of someone saying the pyramids couldn't even be build with today's technology.
hey, its barely been a second in universe time, we got time, we can still get the spirit right, just gotta become hopeful and more open minded. our stupidity and pain comes mostly of masses being narrow minded
@@donperegrine922 "They can now throw their poo across the entire planet, in the time it once took to fling it across a gathering circle. And instead of splattering one or two of their brethren, they can now besmirch thousands at once. "You see? I told you they had potential!"
The fact, that there isn't a single point where human development or evolution made a significant leap that it stands out makes it quite improbable that we were uplifted.
how so? we have recordings of our earliest civilization since only around 5000 years ago. humanity exists longer then that, and so are we uncovering more and more artifacts of civilzations that are older then even 10000 years. Earth always goes on a route of change and renewal, who is to say there where no civilizations even older then that? We just dont have *Explicit* recordings of that. because of reasons.
Look up the improbability of one single protein molecule assembling itself. Ever. Then add that we have an entire planet of biology based on many protein molecules, a system of them, including millions of other species also using them... The math Boggles. Then you realize it defines “impossible.” So, how are we here…?
@@michealnelsonauthorthat’s something we’re still figuring out, can’t just fill the gap with an easy answer and act like it’s 100% true, it’s okay to not know
"[T]here isn't a single point where human development or evolution made a significant leap"? What about the sudden emergence of *_Homo erectus?_* Or archaic *_H. sapiens?_* Or modern *_sapiens_* 50,000 years ago? In each of these cases, a race of mutants with bulging skulls and immensely greater intelligence suddenly emerged (in geological terms) and rapidly replaced the ancestral population. What, did you think that trope of the mutant with a bulging cranium was just something people made up out of nothing...?
The four faces are holographic insignia on fuselages, the wheel on a wheel is tires on rims, the eyes on the wheel are lugnuts.. The folding wings are common on mobile aircraft transport devices. Robotic cargo lifting arms make sense. Theres a pilot in a seat under a transparent canopy, theres a description of electric light in the cockpit and an amplified speaker voice, also a description of the engine sound like a waterfall. Its a Duck! Actually three aircraft from about 3,000 years ago... Ezekiel 1....
I don't think they were, but it sure makes for an interesting start of the story (which is why in my webcomic exactly that happens, early humans get uplifted by alien civilization, alien dragons that is).
Y'all ever seen Terra Nova? It was a neat example of fleeing a bad future to a dimension-hopping past, namely one full of dinosaurs. Shenanigans of course ensued. Shame it only got one season, it was interesting.
One of the earliest, most transformative crops wasn't a food. It was gords. Containers are so commonplace now it's hard to appreciate how important they are.
And speaking of containers, it's likely that the first use or one of the first uses of grain stalks was for basket weaving. Baskets would have been rather useful for carrying and storing many solid items, and one of the things that could have been carried and kept in the baskets could have been the grain itself, which would have been eaten.
Appropriate, perhaps, that this came out in close proximity to the Civilization VII gameplay reveal. Alien uplifting is a possibility, but I don't think we've ever needed it to be able to build something we believe in.
The Nibiru theory could work as soft uplifting if they were simply trying to show us the value of gold and other conductors as they knew it could lead to technology eventually
I'm surprised you didn't mention Nigel Kneale's proposition in Quatermass and the Pit (aka Five Million to Earth) that the reason the uplifters are gone is that their world (Mars) was dying and they wanted to colonize Earth but couldn't tolerate the conditions here. They chose to rebuild the locals to be like themselves and colonize by proxy rather than modifying themselves to be like the locals because they had a deeply ingrained revulsion for genetic change among themselves, as evidenced by the film's depiction of a mass culling of mutants.
Thank you for another video, Isaac! Have you ever had to correct/revisit your past work - be it due to clerical error or, more excitingly, changes or additions to the scientific literature? Cheers!
Not really, I've had my share of errors but they were usually fine with a note like 'calculation at time X is 10^12, not 12^10, etc). The only bbad one was in an episode where I discussed cRISPR and mentioned it as an interesting bit of our DNA, when it isn't in human DNA or cells at all. I got a few amuse dnotes form biologists on the episode band psoted a correction but it wasn't really very relevant to the episode so I didn't take it down. I've updated with new videos when a topic I like gets something new and cool, many of our FP and colonization episodes are like that, but usually we're not responding to anything brand new and hyped, except to say its brand new and probably hyped, and thus we rarely need to amend that. Knock on wood :)
*Short answer:* No. We'd be much less dumber. *Longer answer:* humanity may have progressed but evolution-wise we are no different from the folks 300000 years ago. We still live in hierarchical structures, we still have tribalism, we still have superstition, we still think usually on the short term. Also, we can be just as stupid if not stupider. Back then at least natural selection did its job far more effectively, nowadays most who would perish in the wilds get to live and procreate. It's not speed nor strength that kept our ancestors alive but their brain, those who were dumb got themselves killed early. I think when we want to measure humanity's level of intelligence and sophistication, we should look at the weakest links, not the 0.1% who are actually smart.
I used to play "Spore" back in the day. I usually spent most of my time terraforming planets, spreading life forms from one world to another and modifying the species that I came across. That was a lot of fun.
Same, that game was like a Stephen King book. First 2/3rds are amazing but the final act is a slog of tedium if you don't make your own rules
I made a primitive replica of my species uplifted them wait for them to spread then buy the empire , doing this multi times is the best way to expand
I like the sound of that, but never heard of it.
With a bit of luck that will be the future of the human race.
It also allowed you to uplift a species, let them build up their homeworld by themselves and then take it over after they reached the Space Stage for maximum spice storage capacity. Luckily that didn't happen to us, ... right?
Coffee and an existential crisis is how I normally start my day, but when it’s caused by one of your videos I mind a whole lot less.
I don't rise and shine. I caffeinate and hope for the best.
I lost my battle with existentialism years ago.
Now I'm just a figment of everyone's imagination... 😅
I don't understand why so many people describe such videos as "existential crisis", except to 1. Make it all about them and their reaction, and 2. To keep that perpetual victimhood on a low simmer.
It's just science, lad. However we got here, it won't change your next fifty or hundred years of embodiment. Buck up.
@@archmage_of_the_aetherskill issue. I can comprehend these horrors perfectly fine.
@@archmage_of_the_aether
Some people are just too emotionally reactionary towards the vast swathes of time that brackets their fleeting existence. I used to be, which actually hampered my ability to think about it clearly and as objectively as possible. Our anthropocentric biases are always waiting for a ride at the first opportunity and most of the time don't warrant one.
In Mass Effect, the Salarians uplifted the barbaric Krogans from their radioactive wasteland of a homeworld. Which eventually led to a galaxy-wide Krogan rebellion and ultimately their sterilization by a Salarian bioweapon. The Salarians, being the galaxy's smartest idiots, later decided that the Yahg (which were even bigger and more savage than Krogans) should be uplifted next. They just never learn from their mistakes...
I'm spotty on ME lore, but their lifespan is around 25-30 years, no? They probably viewed the Krogan uplifting with condescension many today reserve for the 'primitive' people of the Tudor times. Or something around that degree of separation.
Fools! You should eat them!
Sounds like our boys in silicone valley.
@@dylutantkind of my thought process as well. To them, the Krogan uplifting would’ve been ancient history with hundreds of generations since it was done. They might have thought they were “beyond” the mistakes that led to it and tried again as a result
The difference is that they were uplifting krogans specifically to fight a massive war for them, and they just were a bit too successful for their own and the galaxy's at large good. I don't remember Yahg being considerd for a similar role, so maybe if you don't uplift species to literally be your cannon fodder, things might turn out better?
Can we just agree that if we find a Earth size Planet X, we name it Nibiru, just for fun?
I would agree but the name probably ought to go to the discoverer ;)
@@isaacarthurSFIA Well I'll join the letter writing campaign with you once someone finds it! :)
Just as long as they don't name it Planet McPlanetyface.
@@isaacarthurSFIA I personally have lolz theory that Theia is Nibiru.
(honestly, we wouldn't know if Earth was hit by Unicron 🤫)
@@TheRezro I read that as Unicorn.
"It's utter nonsense, but I rather like that episode" lol. And this is why I love you and your channel: you are willing to entertain absurdity and equally willing to trash it afterwards 😂
Right? Like I'm not against science fiction, I love it. I just hate when people act like it's factually correct.
Ignorance is bliss is suppose
It’s not so much that he’s “entertaining absurdity” and willing to “trash it” afterwards, but more that he’s willing to entertain these ideas respectfully without resulting to um… ridicule……..
I think Isaac is starting to see the issue with the communication of science to the public. The wider public who dictate the public paradigm are completely turned off by the scientific community because of how disconnected they are. The way they communicate science to your average person is belittling at best. It’s the whole reason why, despite an amazing reply to Terrance Howard’s JRE episode, Neil Degrasse Tyson widely disliked.
Isaac is great in the sense that he doesn’t result to ridicule, dismissal and attacks. Gonna be great for the science community when other communicators catch on.
What brought me to science was the woo. The crazy free energy machines, aliens, FTL travel. And that brought me to Isaac almost 10yrs ago now. Isaac brought me out of the woo. But that’s why it’s important to not squash that wonder, the same wonder that brought me into the community is the same wonder that will bring the next minds into the community. There are lots of top academics who came into their fields because of their interest in woo/aliens and UFOs etc.
If he is talking about so called ancient aliens uplifting humans I think that was unlikely but I do think humanity may uplift other species at some future point.
Think this idea was pretty popular in science fiction earlier before we had an as good grasp of human evolution.
27:50 "In fact, the reason this video doesn't mention aliens in the title."
"Were Primitive Humans Uplifted By Aliens"
Lol yeah
Not the only disinformation within this video, to be honest...
Gas meet light
OMG You're going to meet Larry Niven! That's AWESOME! I love the Ringworld novels.
It was a few months back, episode take a while to make, but yeah he was a lot of fun to talk to and do a panel with afterward.
@@isaacarthurSFIA I'm sure. You both love your megastructures.
@@isaacarthurSFIA Larry Niven's "Inconstant Moon" was my favorite SF short story. Although it has lost something over the years as the nightly Johnny Carson ritual has mostly faded from memory. The story opens with the protag watching Carson's monologue as he begins to notice unusually bright moonlight shining through the window. The ultra-familiar feel of the opening and then gradual revelation of the plot really really sucked me in in a way that no other short story ever has.
As I said, the Tonight Show habit has since faded from memory, so the opening doesn't grab the way it did when I first read it. But perhaps Mr. Niven could be persuaded to update it slightly. Instead of having the protag watch the Carson monologue, he could be shown settling into the newest Isaac Arthur RUclips video.
Ringworld was one of my favorites esp the cowardly Puppetters.
The problem with "aliens did it" is that only passing back the buck on answering the question of our origins. These aliens themselves would have to have evolved somehow, and the regress of ancient aliens being created/uplifted by even more ancient aliens has to begin somewhere.
David Brin’s Uplift series played with this. All the aliens in that series were the result of uplifting and they freak out at the possibility that humanity might have evolved on its own.
It’s the equivalent of saying that the gods did it.
Not necessarily. An organism can evolve naturally and then uplift another species artificially
I'd go as far as saying extraterrestrial origins of terrestrial life is a nightmare. How do we find the true origin then?
@@reefalefunk1244 you missed the point - yes, thats can be true, but when we are discussing things you cannot prove or disprove, claiming aliens uplifted with equally no evidence, is a non answer, because you can then say, also with no evidence, than THOSE aliens were uplifted. If you say its a turtle, then its turtles all the way down. Explaining where WE came from is nice, but the same questions and issues dont disappear once you see some other race - how did THEY come about?
Yooo banger vid man
edit: it gets even cooler when you consider the fact that throughout the eons, many planets/stars/systems passed us by and we passed them by
Correct!
All a civilization has to do is maximize the local resources until the opportunity arrives to hop over to the passing system.
Something that we are probably capable of but not the way we're currently going about it.
@@bryandraughn9830 Yeah, well, those opportunities don't come by that often as of yet, but when we start merging with Andromeda in some million years then i suspect there will be plenty opportunity for "system hoping". Not to mention that our entire local cluster is hurdling towards the mysterious great attractor that hopefully turns out to be a gigantic cluster of galaxies providing even more opportunity. The question is if we can survive in this system for long enough for those ages of opportunity to materialize.
@@1112viggo our lifespans are too short for it to matter to us for a very very long time.
@@LilBnnuy Lol yeah obviously we would struggle with this atm. But technologically the not so far future is looking pretty bright. I mean surely we can figure out how to rejuvenate dying cells or halt the ageing process and if nothing else, then at least make a viable cryo/stasis chamber.
If all that fails then iv always favored the idea of sending like a "nursery ship" run by AI with the, uhm, genetic essentials for creating bottle-babies or preferably fully grown clones, at the destination rather than transporting entire human beings and maintaining them for the whole journey.
I just wanted to say that I appreciate the fact that no matter the topic, SFIA always has such great visuals. The CGI, video clips, effects, all help to make the content even more enjoyable. This channel consistently produces great content that I can enjoy either watching or listening to. Thanks so much for all of your wonderful videos!
lol its stock footage
@@SilverSidedSquirrel And a lot of AI genned stuff too, these days.
@@SilverSidedSquirrel Accomplishing great things with poor tools is quite impressive.
Unfortunately, there's a lot of AI garbage in there too...
I think that "Hey, this gold stuff is pretty neat, look, you can melt it!, or "Look if we plant some of this grain it'll be here next year!" being met with "Meh" a few times is an undervalued point! I remember learning during studying archaeology that it looks like we tried to domesticate gazelles, but gave up as it turns out the domestic gazelle didn't really catch on compared to say, the cow or goat. There must have been more than one Eureka Moment.
And once we discovered agriculture, cats domesticated us
Isaac: "And the reason that this episode doesn't mention Aliens in the title..."
Title: Were Primitive Humans Uplifted by Aliens?
Damn! What's up with that? I wonder what the original title planned was. And I wonder if some of us see one title, and others see "aliens" in there?
I actually changed it last night, forgot I said that in the episode, but was reminded by a comment on one of our uplifting videos that 'uplifting' is a little too uncommon a term to make the topic clear by title alone, whereas aliens are major part of this topic, just not the only one we discussed.
I loved the line about how you couldn't fault the idea of "overkill" in regards to tossing people into volcanoes...
It is like using a nico dyson beam to blow up a shuttlecraft, heh!
5:36 A Siberian reindeer herder named Tenevil invented his own script in the early 20th century, apparently without prior exposure to writing. He and his family used it, but it never caught on.
The Cat Who Walks Through Walls
Robert A. Heinlein
is also a good one
David Brin’s Uplift series anyone? The galactic civilization of different species which prized uplifting other species.
For me one of the main points of this is very few things have been done by a single individual. Humans seem to have a need to establish a single person to credit or blame for an event.
True, very little is done in isolation, though a lot of times one individual really does deserve the lion's share of the credit for some discovery or work.
@@isaacarthurSFIA I can imagine some ancient tinker took the technique of rolling sleds along logs and made smaller logs that were easier to run back to front as you went… and eventually attached the small logs to the sledge, and the wheel was born.
This idea would have caught fire as they went from place to place. The next village had a tinker or farmer or miner who did it too after seeing it. It went ancient-viral, as everyone loved the new way to move stuff easier… not across oceans to Australia and the Americas until relatively modern times…
Scape goat
@@isaacarthurSFIAInterestingly, its quite common for said person to claim that they aren't responsible for it whatsoever, and that it simply seemed as it they were filled with an external force which "gave" them the idea and/or corresponding understanding of it. Many times this happens through a dream if not the classic "Eureka!" moment.
In some cases it could be a suggestion or idea by a family member, and then that person finds a way to accomplish such suggestion. A person in isolation may not see a need for an improvement, but when you have a family or a small society, that improvement gains much value.
This has been my main theory for a very very long time. Thank you for making this episode Isaac - it’s been a long time coming for me and I cannot wait to dive in!! 💫🙏
Love this guys voice, it’s like you’re being taught by a child prodigy who graduated college at 7 and is now giving lectures at 8
I think of it as a guy with down syndrome who's a really big fan of space Iol
Before even watching the video I'll say this, if we *were* uplifted, they did it pretty irresponsably, like giving someone a car and teaching them to drive but without teaching any rules of the road or maintenance, basically just enough to run people down and that's it
It's up to us to figure out our way, like everyone else.
Michael Crightons novel "sphere" had an interesting explanation for the effects the team experienced, that being possibly some side effect not accounted for by the builders, likening the sutuation with a microbe making its way into our machinery...
I read that book front to back in one sitting maybe 30 years ago now.
I was excited when the announced the movie. But kind of disappointed by it. The book straight had me.
@@Ta2dwitetrash it (any novel) always gets altered by Hollywood's ego...
Yeah I read the book, definitely a page turner.
I don’t remember too much of it now, that was about 30 years ago when I read it.
He's always been a favorite author of mine, if you liked Sphere I highly recommend 'Prey'.
Bacteria actually do have biologically grown and evolved propellers I just watched a whole episode about it on veritasium... They even managed to build a 3D replica of it and copy every molecule in the biological motor using scanning electron microscopy
Which is just made all the funnier when I recall older opinions that evolution couldn't produce things like 'axels' or 'wheels'.
Nature is pretty dope I say.
@@Captaintrippz The problem is lots of these motors and propeller systems cant form useing evolution. Now they can decode the dna there are no intermidatry pathwaths. The jumps are impossible. The same logic and math Darwin used says these are imposible by evolution. The mutations result in garbage or cancer. Factors of 1good to 1 * 10'16 cancer or higher. Cutting edge biology and dna says you need a designer for things found.
Heard a rumor that the reason animals don't have wheels is they don't build roads, and they don't make roads because they don't have governments unlike humans.
Bacterial flagella, yes indeed
Ok Genetics says these things should not have evolved. The fact we see them tells us something must have tamppered. Darwins own maths says this is not natural. The Monticarlow statistics fail all the time. Selective breeding results in garbage not motors. Mutation gives cancers not motors. DNA science says these should not excist via Darwin we can read the code in the DNA.
This video is very uplifting
🦧->👨💼 Literally me after watching Isaac's videos
Wait until he starts making videos Post UAP Disclosure 🛸👽
I like the one where the Sumerian gods that taught math, the teachers of boat building from the South Pacific to South America and the swan people that taught making musical instruments were denisovan remnants spreading knowledge and genres in their last gasp.
Sci-fi Sundays are also uplifting👍🏼
30:15 Loved Protector. Been a couple or three decades since I read it-may be time to read it again.
I keep hoping someone makes a movie.
Of course, before they do that they need to do Ringworld as a movie.
And before they do THAT, they need to do a TV series centred on my favourite Niven character, Beowulf Schaeffer. And, of course, Nessus.
While we're at it, Lucifer's Hammer and The Mote In God's Eye would also make wonderful movies. I do like me some Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle.
Also their version of Inferno would go down a treat. Wonder who they'd get to play Isaac Asimov
I think that this is easily one of your most entertaining episodes thus far, and I hope that you continue to give your input into Ufology and conspiracy theories. I especially loved your elaboration on the Nibiru hypothesis, which, for a long time, I completely dismissed it as impossible, as I was unaware that life, let alone intelligent life, could evolve on what would no doubt be a frozen ball of ice. Most channels that cover such stories don't go into speculating how these sorts of things could actually work in reality, nor attempting to debunk/gauge their chances of plausibility.
And yes, I know your stance on exotic technologies like FTL and antigravity, but that makes you all the more qualified to speculate if they could exist, and why we don't see time travelers wandering all over the place. And I think that only being able to travel into parallel timelines makes the most sense, and/or we are living in one of those timelines, and probably would never even know about it.
The creation of biological slaves actually isn't a problem: could be that the Annunaki once had an AI/Robot rebellion that nearly wiped them out, similar to the Butlerian Jihad. Of course, they aren't going to be slaves out of metal and plastic, since they don't need food, water, or rest, and they will be harder to kill! They also aren't susceptible to biological weapons, unless you're willing to resort to using nanites (and they will probably be willing to launch them right back in your general direction) If they have access to some factory and power source, then it gets even more dicey. The Annunaki could have a strict, death-penalty-if-violated-law prohibiting the creation of anything resembling AI. Of course, they could make power suits, which wouldn't necessarily require AI, but they could have some stupid, post-apocalypse rule prohibiting the creation of machines that even resemble humanoids, even if they aren't AI-controlled.
What I don't know is how the hell they could genetically cross over with what would no doubt be a different biology. I mean, I GUESS carbon biology MIGHT be possible on a frozen wasteland, and I GUESS that maybe coincidental humanoid biology isn't completely impossible on same frozen wasteland, and there is NOTHING in the interpretation of the old Sumerian legends that doesn't preclude that Nibiru was just a world that the Annunaki colonized, and NOT their homeworld to begin with.
Hell, they could be an offshoot of the Pleiadeans of Ufology mythos, and THAT would explain A LOT! But this is all speculation, and unless they actual exist, reveal themselves, and consent to an interview, we might never know.
I do swear sci-fi writers tend just to repackage standard issues creationism as a new idea. And every time I hear the aliens came for gold all I can think of is Yosemite Sam scream GOLD.
My favorite is how people get so invested in Simulation Theory and then don't realize they've literally just rediscovered creationism. All the reddit communities who discuss Simulation Theory and swear their all atheists and that "this is science", it's fun to just remind them they're just a 21st century Bible club. They get so offended by it, it's really comical.
@@Lusa_Iceheart that is something we do in the US particularly. Take older religions and simply set them in space or add a robot or two. It’s just so strange.
Great video Isaac!
Isaac lining up his next career move as King Arkhan the Second
The "Time Travel" and the "Ancient Aliens" Options had an interesting Crossover in Stargate.
I personally find the idea that aliens might have had a hand in guiding and assisting humans to accomplish some of our greatest achievements unsettling. It diminishes the incredible ingenuity, hard work, and creativity that we, as a species, have poured into these monumental milestones. Believing that, some external force was responsible for our progress, takes away from the pride and ownership we should feel in what we’ve accomplished on our own. It’s as if our history is being rewritten to suggest we weren’t capable enough to achieve greatness without outside help, and that undermines the very essence of what makes us human... We are very inquisitive, sometimes to our own peril, but I suppose anything is possible...
Pride comes before the fall
I agree, similar to "bigotry of low expectations"
Historically that was the point. Undermining cultures that weren't white.
Atlantis diaspora and Ancient Aliens are the same racism.
@@The_Dark_Sotho_Seer I agree with you. I would also note that the idea Aliens were teaching us how to pile rocks on each other is kinda racist as well. Ever notice it’s always the Africans and Mesoamericans and Easter Islanders who seem to always need the alien’s help? Never white people. The whole “Ancient Alien” thing is predicated on the idea that nonwhite groups were incapable of doing anything cool on their own.
Same thing as the "we didn't went to the moon" spiel. True meaning is "my imagination is too narrow to accept that we ever could do something like this, therefore the credit CLEARLY can't be ours"
The comments about repressing memories during a game reminds me of Red Dwarf. There was an episode where the characters die only to wake up to find that for the last three years they’ve been playing a game…very badly.
There's this little short story I read somewhere once that went along the lines of:
Humans had build the Pyramids. Aliens land and come out of their ship.
"Wow! You guys made this?! That's amazing! One century you're learning to make fire, the next you're building these giant stone structures! Keep it up!" said the aliens, before re-boarding their ship and flying off.
"... who were those things just now? I couldn't understand a word they were saying!" said the stonecutter,
"I dunno man, I just don't know." said his friend.
the end.
3:05
Man, that reminds me of my _favorite_ animal!
I learned about the Basilisk lizard from an episode of Wild Kratts somewhere less than a decade and a half ago. I _loved_ it's look, yeah, and lizards in general were cool to be but... I think what it was _(and _*_certainly_* is now!) was that it taught me animals have come around to achieve thins in ways that I hadn't _really even _*_conceived_* of... Like... a lizard that runs on water? 🤯
I personally believe in a pre ice age bronze or iron age level civilization that was mostly wiped out by the younger dryas event.
Yeah, a prior human civilization that got wiped out is far more plausible than aliens. We know humanity evolved (probably) on Africa, and recent climate models show that the Sahara used to be a veritable paradise VERY recently. A measly 5000 years ago, coincidentally not long before the rise of civilization in Egypt and the Middle East. The north of Africa was perfect for human civilizations, better than the fertile crescent. Pushing human development back just a few millennia isn't outlandish at all, not like intelligent dinosaur civilizations. The Sphinx shows sings of millennia of water erosion that simply couldn't have been just 4500 years. If just a bit older, from a pre-Old Kingdom civilization, it would have been around during the period the Sahara was wet.
Archeologists are clinging to the "Sumer and Mesopotamia was first" hypothesis as hard as they clung to "Clovis First" doctrine. As we now have definitive proof of, humans did in fact migrate to North and South America BEFORE the last ice age. ANd genetic evidence suggests there might have been a SOUTHERN route too, since south american tribes share genetic markers with austro-oceanians that neither North American natives or the Inuit share. The entire bedrock of archeology in the Western Hemisphere is completely trashed now thanks to new discoveries, why should we assume the bedrock of civilization in the Eastern Hemisphere is safe? What sorts of ruins are hiding in the sands of the Sahara? How many sites like Goelbeki Tepe are still buried in the Middle East? Questioning the existing model is necessary for science, otherwise it's not actually science it's just a religion.
Around 27:50 you mentioned that "aliens" isn't in the title of the video. But it is. Just any FYI. Love the video though. Thanks.
Issac, Have you considered doing a video on Aliens and Tiers of Consciousness?
We're clearly at a higher level of consciousness than many species on the planet.. but could there exist even higher forms? Could other intelligences out there have a higher perception of the Universe?
Uplifting... Good video for my combination of whisky and Stargate Atlantis :)
4:50 the original Man cave.
I find it fascinating that life on this planet inside the cell is mechanical. When it replicates DNA it uses Molecular machines. We even engines with torque being used.
Great Episode!
Finally! I was waiting for so long for this episode!
Would it be possible for you to make a video about The Future of Medical Technology? Please and thank you.
Yes, please! I second that!
Sci-fi Sunday!!!
Another great episode! I especially like your point at the end, where you point out that suggesting the "need" for uplifting demeans our nobility as well as our future potential. To suggest that we could not have achieved what we have today, on our own, also suggests that we may not achieve any greater potential than we have now. I believe we will one day go to the stars and beyond. We will take our rightful place in the universe and when we do, it will be by our own hand.
Kinetic
We’re not worthy!! Isaac is one of the strongest thinkers, and I learn so much from him. I hope I can be this critical one day. Thank you for leading us down the path, and I know we’ll get better. One step at a time.
Oh this gonna be a great episode, I can already tell. Not only will I be grabbing a drink and a snack for this one but also some weed
Weed before during and after
I really want you to do an episode about the medusa version of an Orion drive. Maybe as part of colonizing a nearby brown dwarf, perhaps one one found so much closer than proxima
I'm looking forward to the Battle Fleets episode. I want to know what the first rule of warfare is.
Tolkien oddly did a really good job of illustrating why some higher/advanced beings might find it unethical or at least distasteful to allow the higher beings to be viewed as gods. At the Council of Doom in Valinor when the Valar debated bringing the Elves to the West for the first time to teach them; Mandos at the end says "so it is Doom then." The implication is he alone knows most of the fate of Arda and can see the far reaching out comes of choices made by the Valar. Mandos is pretty much telling the rest of them "GREAT! Now we're gonna be gods instead of watchers! We could have had it easy and just let Nature do its things... but now we're gonna get directly involved... AGAIN... cause it worked sooo well the last few times!" but in a much catchier and "bitchy" one liner regard his personal feelings of being seen as a god by the beings of Middle Earth. I kind of agree with that outlook in that I find the concept distasteful, but only because I don't want that kind of responsibility or power, and would likely suck at being a god lol
As for the Egyptian pyramids... The Nile had predictable, annual floods. This made farming (the primary occupation) impossible, during the time of the floods. There is evidence that the pyramids (and other temples) were an alternate occupation for the farmers when they would be otherwise idle. During those times, the river was also at it's highest, enabling previously cut blocks to be lifted and moved downstream by the rising water.
I totally share the thought that it demeans our ancient ancestors to say they did not have the intelligence to be inspired and driven to accomplish some of history's most incredible if not daunting tasks as unified communities without some kind of external uplifting.
Chat with Larry Niven...totally cool!
Isaac has a propensity for rewording Sagan quotes to make them much more uplifting 🙂
A shout out for one of my favorite animes, Gintama, a comedy set in the Meiji era. The premise being that at the end of the Edo era, Japan was met not by Perry's black ships but by an alien armada that basically took over the world (while allowing individual nations to keep their governments as puppet rulers) and technologically uplifted the planet, turning Tokyo into a modern skyscraper city. So you have samurai racing around in cars and doing battle not just with katanas but also modern firearms and the occasional rocket launcher. And at the end of the day they relax in front of TV featuring music videos and talk shows.
I always liked that STNG episode, thinking isn't it wild that our dna contains non-coding elements that create a computer virus LOL
If you send out life and then park beside a black hole for a little while you can check every half an hour to see the results.
Feel like doing an episode that would be a bit more local in time? Tesla bots, Chat GPT, AI applications multiplying. A (very) near future episode that details your understanding of what's next, and when.
Another great episode, cogent and thorough. Well... thorough except perhaps for any mention of the most general literary survey of "Uplift" in exploratory fiction. Was it something that I said or did, Isaac?
You did it. You answered my request to do this episode sortof thank you
20:30 my favorite ancient aliens and Egypt in sci-fi is the Futurama one where the aliens went to Earth and learned to make pyramids
I agree with what you said about our ancestors at the end of the video. We are standing on the shoulders of giants. We should appreciate their compliments.
This video talks about this issue in a vacuum, rather than responding to arguments in favor of the idea.
My hypothesis for the great pyramids is either geopolymer or acid mortar. If I'm remembering it right, Gobekli Tepe recently discovered possible geopolymer construction. So that technology can be much older than you think and would allow ancient people to create large smooth blocks with wasting tons of bronze chisels.
Like there is that unfinished obelisk that looks to have chucks scooped away. So if it's geopolymer, they were probably using very viscous mix. If it was acid, then they could be using that to scrap stone.
Alien religions that would be a cool episode like alien belief systems and the factors that contribute across different star systems
4:52 - sounds exactly like the live we live in _today_ - few inventing or innovating, most barely able to use it through sufficiently dumbed down interfaces. Or follow a "list of steps" ...
Great timing, I was just thinking about this again.
I've often observed that inventions need a receptive culture to take hold, and even then they are ferociously fought. For example, Vitruvius invented a spinning steam engine in 30BC. That could have been used for boat propulsion for an un-defeatable navy or a boulder throwing "machine gun", but, nobody saw the application.
Certain artifacts left behind in ancient Egypt we cannot even replicate nowdays, at least in any financially viable way. There are undeniable circular saw blade marks through solid andesite which requires a carbide tipped, masonry drill bit nowdays. Also multiple drill holes all over the place, impossible with copper tools and "sand". Look it up simp.
Someone had power tools with very hard, rock cutting blades. Doesn't mean aliens, but, doesn't NOT mean aliens.
It's that time again ❤
The thing with the pyramids is that the ancient Egyptians had one huge advantage over the modern humans. They had patience, which offsets all the advantages in relevant technology we enjoy in the modern day.
exactly. the pyramids of giza in particular was a multi generation project. no sane person in the modern world would approve a building project that would take over a hundred years. even the biggest man made structure, dams don't take more than 15 years at max
I'm glad you actually talked about this topic and I am glad that you were respectful. if not accepting. I do hope that you, and others, remain open to the possibilities here and realise that there are those whom seem to bend over backwards to to alter potential evidence to thwart this theory and keep it as a fringe concept. Just remember how our own government treated the UFO phenomenon for decades until it was forced to be open minded.
Here's a possible topic, "Justify the prime directive", or value systems under which it would make sense.
Would be interesting to hear how we might go about demolishing large structures (dyson spheres, or matryoshka worlds). Maybe we'd just make a black hole onsite to just suck up all the matter, and then move the blackhole elsewhere for later use?
Isaac: or nondawinian traits like a biological propellor something that would never evolve naturally
me: um bacterial flagella
The problem is lots of these motors and propeller systems cant form useing evolution. Now they can decode the dna there are no intermidatry pathwaths. The jumps are impossible. The same logic and math Darwin used says these are imposible by evolution. The mutations result in garbage or cancer. Factors of 1good to 1 * 10'16 cancer or higher. Cutting edge biology and dna says you need a designer for things found.
This channel, along with JMG, Drach, Cool Worlds, and all the other excellent science and history content, is one of the few things keeping me sane while doing my best impression of a delivery drone at work, thank you for that.
Also, that description of Scientology makes me wonder if the basic idea came from the Gnostics.
JMG?
A fantastic sci-fi Sunday video as always, Isaac.
Glad you enjoyed it!
I do like to imagine going back to a little before 23,000 BC carefully eugenically selecting prehistoric humans and placing them on a mid-atlantic landmass (at least as big as the Iberia peninsula). Genetically & neurologically enhancing them and eugenically breeding them. Teaching them written language (recording & transmitting knowledge), agriculture, STEM, etc. Then when that landmass sinks 9,000 years before Solon they either evacuate themselves or I evacuate them or combo.
I also like the idea of beautiful Ancient Aliens with Cuban accents coming down and founding Ancient Egypt (DCAU).
my tabletop character that I’ve been world building for years. He’s from an illegal (without the UN’s knowledge or consent) colony on a peopleless parallel Earth. His colony has no compunction about following the “Prime Directives” of the UN and acquire science & technology from the Future & more advanced parallels making them very advanced. On it every resident, and I MEAN EVERY, is an able bodied genetically enhanced person for reasons similar to why under the reign of Henry II all men had a sword and that was to protect the realm, it’s all hands on deck. I have fun composing templates for various “makes & models” of genetic enhancements. My character has a super-soldier upgrade, but he isn’t a soldier, he’s a “genenapper”, he travels across space-time & across the multi-verse, to acquires genetic material of people for reasons ranging from further preventing the risk of inbreeding to de-extinction of past civilizations to the genetic material of a specific target for a client, but he also acquires DNA of flora & fauna. Anyway, Henry II wanting all men to be armed, I took to the next level, and everyone is able to protect the colony even by just being a competent (not below average IQ) extra pair of hands and feet.
“X-Men ‘97” ruined Rogue!
"The Game of Blood and Dust" by Roger Zelazny is uplifting as a game.
I'm glad Isaac didn't try using the lazy way of discrediting or otherwise throwing shade at the Ancient Alien theory and anyone that subscribes to it, by just saying it's r@cist 🙄
I don't subscribe to it anymore, did in my younger days. But lord that has got to be the laziest way I've seen people go about discrediting it. It also shows how little you actually know about this "theory" and what it's proponents believe.
We have stories of a lot of things. Zeus was a goose once. But one thing never seems to change: we take the stories we find convenient and claim those are true and ignore the rest.
So, the stories of uplifting are true, perhaps. So, then are the stories indicating Alexander the Great was a demigod true?
Those are the stories Alexander and his mother latched onto. I wonder if they also believed the stories that said this or that city was founded and protected by this or that other god.
History and civilization tend to be sloppy. So in most cases it’s gonna be a mishmash of convenient knowing lies, genuinely believed superstitions, traditions and innovations. Hell, even some overt con-men televangelists believe *some* of what they’re saying.
I remember one specific case of a south american civilization claiming their city is founded by their god and is the first city, then as their empire expanded they found an abandoned city and a great temple from another civilization hundreds of years prior and from around that time their mythology "shifted", saying those two cities were founded first instead. Some of the smarter people around here could even tell me which civilization it was. Very suspicious.
All I wanted to say, is that it's not only not rare, but downright expected for humanity to make up excuses and invent shit once they find something that doesn't fit their preestablished assumptions, whether it's grounded in reality, or is just nonsense, or both.
@@istvanvincze7411 yup. 100% correct. Mythology changes pretty constantly, and sometimes pretty massively. It’s useful for telling us what people believed at a particular time, but it’s not “history,” with a few exceptions
That last part is important imho: There are currently so many people (often grifters) who think our ancestors could barely build a hut without aliens and their fancy sci-fi technology. It is really frustrating to see this none sens, even though we have plenty of evidence of what people are capable of.
Massive exaggeration
@@matthewbrown3981 ??? Yeah, of course. It's called hyperbole... This website is filled with pseudo-science BS, from flat earth to giants. So I wasn't even exaggerating that much. I even remember seeing a clip of someone saying the pyramids couldn't even be build with today's technology.
Aliens: “hmm these poo throwing critters have potential”
Aliens a few million years later after seeing the human internet: “what have we done…”
hey, its barely been a second in universe time, we got time, we can still get the spirit right, just gotta become hopeful and more open minded.
our stupidity and pain comes mostly of masses being narrow minded
"still just throwing poop....."
@@donperegrine922 "They can now throw their poo across the entire planet, in the time it once took to fling it across a gathering circle. And instead of splattering one or two of their brethren, they can now besmirch thousands at once.
"You see? I told you they had potential!"
"How did we outdone ourselves you mean, Blahg?"
29:03 see Card’s alternative history of Christopher Columbus as an example of an attempt at beneficent meddling by time travelers.
The fact, that there isn't a single point where human development or evolution made a significant leap that it stands out makes it quite improbable that we were uplifted.
how so?
we have recordings of our earliest civilization since only around 5000 years ago. humanity exists longer then that, and so are we uncovering more and more artifacts of civilzations that are older then even 10000 years. Earth always goes on a route of change and renewal, who is to say there where no civilizations even older then that? We just dont have *Explicit* recordings of that. because of reasons.
Look up the improbability of one single protein molecule assembling itself. Ever.
Then add that we have an entire planet of biology based on many protein molecules, a system of them, including millions of other species also using them...
The math Boggles. Then you realize it defines “impossible.”
So, how are we here…?
@@michealnelsonauthor
This theory neatly solves that, ruclips.net/video/JOiGEI9pQBs/видео.htmlsi=KWBjySwjFSxVXUYA
@@michealnelsonauthorthat’s something we’re still figuring out, can’t just fill the gap with an easy answer and act like it’s 100% true, it’s okay to not know
"[T]here isn't a single point where human development or evolution made a significant leap"?
What about the sudden emergence of *_Homo erectus?_*
Or archaic *_H. sapiens?_*
Or modern *_sapiens_* 50,000 years ago?
In each of these cases, a race of mutants with bulging skulls and immensely greater intelligence suddenly emerged (in geological terms) and rapidly replaced the ancestral population.
What, did you think that trope of the mutant with a bulging cranium was just something people made up out of nothing...?
I read Battlefield Earth. It was certainly ... a book
The four faces are holographic insignia on fuselages, the wheel on a wheel is tires on rims, the eyes on the wheel are lugnuts..
The folding wings are common on mobile aircraft transport devices. Robotic cargo lifting arms make sense.
Theres a pilot in a seat under a transparent canopy, theres a description of electric light in the cockpit and an amplified speaker voice, also a description of the engine sound like a waterfall.
Its a Duck!
Actually three aircraft from about 3,000 years ago...
Ezekiel 1....
I don't think they were, but it sure makes for an interesting start of the story (which is why in my webcomic exactly that happens, early humans get uplifted by alien civilization, alien dragons that is).
So, you'd definitely be Sir Boss if you could travel back in time then Isaac :-)
Y'all ever seen Terra Nova? It was a neat example of fleeing a bad future to a dimension-hopping past, namely one full of dinosaurs. Shenanigans of course ensued. Shame it only got one season, it was interesting.
Wasn’t expecting apocalypse being uplifted by the Celestials to be mentioned here hoho.
One of the earliest, most transformative crops wasn't a food. It was gords. Containers are so commonplace now it's hard to appreciate how important they are.
And speaking of containers, it's likely that the first use or one of the first uses of grain stalks was for basket weaving. Baskets would have been rather useful for carrying and storing many solid items, and one of the things that could have been carried and kept in the baskets could have been the grain itself, which would have been eaten.
Appropriate, perhaps, that this came out in close proximity to the Civilization VII gameplay reveal. Alien uplifting is a possibility, but I don't think we've ever needed it to be able to build something we believe in.
The Nibiru theory could work as soft uplifting if they were simply trying to show us the value of gold and other conductors as they knew it could lead to technology eventually
The premise is so dumb that i've just gotta watch this one
I'm surprised you didn't mention Nigel Kneale's proposition in Quatermass and the Pit (aka Five Million to Earth) that the reason the uplifters are gone is that their world (Mars) was dying and they wanted to colonize Earth but couldn't tolerate the conditions here. They chose to rebuild the locals to be like themselves and colonize by proxy rather than modifying themselves to be like the locals because they had a deeply ingrained revulsion for genetic change among themselves, as evidenced by the film's depiction of a mass culling of mutants.
Interesting dude
Thank you for another video, Isaac! Have you ever had to correct/revisit your past work - be it due to clerical error or, more excitingly, changes or additions to the scientific literature?
Cheers!
Not really, I've had my share of errors but they were usually fine with a note like 'calculation at time X is 10^12, not 12^10, etc). The only bbad one was in an episode where I discussed cRISPR and mentioned it as an interesting bit of our DNA, when it isn't in human DNA or cells at all. I got a few amuse dnotes form biologists on the episode band psoted a correction but it wasn't really very relevant to the episode so I didn't take it down. I've updated with new videos when a topic I like gets something new and cool, many of our FP and colonization episodes are like that, but usually we're not responding to anything brand new and hyped, except to say its brand new and probably hyped, and thus we rarely need to amend that. Knock on wood :)
*Short answer:* No. We'd be much less dumber.
*Longer answer:* humanity may have progressed but evolution-wise we are no different from the folks 300000 years ago.
We still live in hierarchical structures, we still have tribalism, we still have superstition, we still think usually on the short term. Also, we can be just as stupid if not stupider. Back then at least natural selection did its job far more effectively, nowadays most who would perish in the wilds get to live and procreate. It's not speed nor strength that kept our ancestors alive but their brain, those who were dumb got themselves killed early.
I think when we want to measure humanity's level of intelligence and sophistication, we should look at the weakest links, not the 0.1% who are actually smart.
Just read the tablets and take note that Zechariah sitchin never translated any tablets he just colated the data and tried to fill in the blanks.