More scientifically literate world, "Chariots of the Gods" falls flat?

Well, 500 million is the number given on The Georgia Guidestones, which was apparently paid for by someone using the name R.C. Christian. Rumour has it that Ted Turner was R.C. Christian, which sorta makes sense, given that he's known to be a big backer of population-control, and lives down Georgia way. . .
And by amazing stroke of good luck, the “nice” methods of population control of social security and more educational opportunities for girls and women so that young women on average delay starting families and tend to have smaller families, work among the best.

I used to believe in a relatively small population.

Then the late UK philosopher Derek Parfit and this optimistic Swede Hans Rosling who does development statistics basically convinced me not to be afraid of a big population. That’s the lesson I took whether they intended it or not! :)
 
I guess back then 500 million sounded like a really big number, right?

World population for most of the Roman period onward was around 300-500 million, so keeping it at that amount would have been more or less maintaining the status quo.

A few thousand years before though, the middle Egyptian Empire, with its population of 10 million, represented a fifth of all humanity.
 
Lol! The teenage me was the exact opposite and believed every thing he said. I had all the
sequels and got kicked off divinity course for saying that everything in the bible could be explained by aliens.

I fell for other nonsense. My parents had some paperback copies of Ayn Rand on the book shelves.
 

hammo1j

Donor
I went through phrases. After my Christian period, I was very open to the idea of astral projection. I sent off for the information advertised by the Rosicrucians advertised in the National Enquirer (feel free to laugh)

Later, I was maybe over influenced by an article in a science magazine about CSICOP, the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. But mainly it was because the Rosicrucian material didn't seem fully believeable, and astral projection hadn't happened even though I was kind of scared about it.

PS Was this divinity course you were kicked off of, high school or college?

Thanks for asking. It was High School. They strongly said don't take an O level in this as you will fail
 
I fell for other nonsense. My parents had some paperback copies of Ayn Rand on the book shelves.
She and Robert Ringer, my libertarian period was in my 20s and lasted about five years.

But then, I’m ‘spectrum’ almost certainly (autism spectrum) and tend to develop more slowly, yes really. :)
 
Thanks for asking. It was High School. They strongly said don't take an O level in this as you will fail
At a Jesuit high school I was familiar with, they seemed to have a required theology class, which also seem to include such things as friendship skills and emotional skills.

But it would just astonish me if something like this was at a public school.
 
I fell for other nonsense. My parents had some paperback copies of Ayn Rand on the book shelves.

I had a teacher in high school who claimed to be an Objectivist, though it basically seemed to boil down to being a libertarian.

It was a pop-psychology class, full of kids who found social studies too much of a challenge, and the teacher liked to bait my young socialist self into arguments like "Why the heck should someone who likes to listen to Led Zepplin have to pay taxes to fund the local symphony?"

Which wasn't a bad question to think about. Though any intellectual challenge found in the libertarian arsenal could probably have stood on its own apart from the narcissistic bombast of Ayn Rand.
 
... It was a pop-psychology class, full of kids who found social studies too much of a challenge, and the teacher liked to bait my young socialist self into arguments like "Why the heck should someone who likes to listen to Led Zepplin have to pay taxes to fund the local symphony?" ....

Still kind of a painfully convoluted question. Most of my experience teaching has been with employees, or long in the past in the military. 98pct of that was in practical skills, so my understanding of the classroom ' teach them to think' metodology may be flawed.
 
Still kind of a painfully convoluted question. Most of my experience teaching has been with employees, or long in the past in the military. 98pct of that was in practical skills, so my understanding of the classroom ' teach them to think' metodology may be flawed.

Hmm. I'm not sure why you'd think it's convoluted. It was basically just an everyday way of asking "What is the justification for public arts-funding?" The point about it being a remedial class was that a lot of students in it would have been heavy metal fans, so he was kind of playing to the room. (And yes, I suppose that shows a bit of snobbery on my part; still an accurate description of the class tastes; FTR I was there 'cuz I couldn't hack even simple math.)
 
This book was one of the reasons why I was drawn to study of history and eventually archaeology. I first came into contact with it and other such material in the summer before the war began. My dad was reading it during siestas and I liked the cover so I asked what it was about which lead to my dad reading it to me out loud for the rest of the summer vacation. Early '90 were a period without internet, cable TV and the reality was rather drab with the news being dominated by the war and the music on the radio was little better. Deniken's books and others of the same genre were for some reason quite plentiful in ex-Yu and that carried over to Croatia. These books alongside 19th century traveling journals of Africa and South America were my doorways to escape into more interesting place of my imagination.

So I have quite fond memories of it in addition that my parents used such materials to train my critical thinking.


As for the topic. The book could actually be used as a great learning tool just not for the subject it contains.
 
. . . and the teacher liked to bait my young socialist self into arguments like "Why the heck should someone who likes to listen to Led Zepplin have to pay taxes to fund the local symphony?" . . .
That’s a softball question. In turn, I’d like to ask the ‘objectionist’ teacher, what about kids working in textile mills in England in the early 1800s?
 
. . . The book could actually be used as a great learning tool . . .
I’m not sure the book would have enough to bite down at. Intentionally or not, van Daniken may have picked examples, such as the Nazca lines in what’s now modern day Peru, which are not well known.

This could be done innocently. For example, a creationist scientist may truly believe the hemoglobin molecule shows the handiwork of God, and believes the half-step forms are not evolutionarily useful. And if it’s the case that there also happens not to be much research on these half-step forms, well, there you go. That’s a full chapter in at least one book!

PS You seem like a thoroughly alright person. I’m sorry you had to go through war in ex-Yugo and Croatia.

PPS And Congrats on Croatia beating Russia in the World Cup! :)
 
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(2015 revised edition)

Even plodding along at a mere fraction of the speed of light, a technologically-advanced society could colonize most of the Milky Way in a few tens of millions of years.

So . . . where the heck is everyone?
 
If the Universe Is Teeming with Aliens ... WHERE IS EVERYBODY?

Contrary to the popular view, aliens don't actually come from elsewhere in the universe; they come from other dimensions, unconnected to us by space and time. So, that's why they can exist, without us seeing them all over the place every time we look into a telescope.

(Is what I've been told by people who believe in aliens.)
 
Webb considers a number of possibilities including that the transition from prokaryotic cells to larger, more complex eukaryotic cells may be a lot more iffy and uncertain than commonly imagined.

But the most popular conclusion with the general public is that UFOs and extraterrestrials have already visited Earth a number of times and that government(s) are hiding this fact.
 
And I think the standard SETI plan of Make Sure, Tell the World is doomed to failure.

Because during the “Make Sure” phase, a government will clamp down if there’s even a whiff of possibility of military technology.
 
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