# What are the odds that humans have been “reset” in the past **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 31, 2019, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-odds-that-humans-have-been-reset-in-the-past/831825 "2019-03-31T23:28:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-odds-that-humans-have-been-reset-in-the-past/831825/21 "2019-04-01T02:39:34Z")
> [@naita](#): > > In 12,000 years? Lots. Even if all our other building materials eroded away, we make plenty of buildings of hard stone. They’ll be as permanent as Stonehenge. Not to mention the materials that do erode won’t evaporate and will leave rather traces rather obviously the result of a large civilization. > > And if that fails to convince everyone, the world is full of road cuts and tunnels that are quite obviously not natural erosion. Building road tunnels and road cuts in places where there could naturally be lots of running water is generally a thing to avoid. Wild assed answer because I don’t feel like trying to watch the videos so I have no idea what the future tech this past civ had … OK, so I play MMORPGs, and in one of them the particular racial group lives in grown buildings, think giant plants … if you posit that one of the advances is manipulating DNA to grow buildings, then the house trees could definitely rot away, burn down or get termite nibbled til gone. If they had the tech to make flying vehicles, then no need for roads or tunnels, so those would be gone as well. Clothing is ephemeral and ‘jewelry’ does not have to be made of metal, stone or glass - bone and wood degrade in the right [wrong?] conditions. Just because a civ is advanced does not mean it _has_ to have skyscrapers, cars [flying or not] appliances and everything Jetson - how about an advanced mental/psychological ‘Shangri La’ of peaceful hunter gatherers that sit around discussing philosophy? If you posit correctly, then they could have left very little in the way of ‘uber advanced’ tech … hell - the height of ultramodern and people were still wearing jewelry of wood and bone - I have clunky wooden beads from the 20s, and the 60s and the 90s … [everything old is new again for sure!] ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-odds-that-humans-have-been-reset-in-the-past/831825/22 "2019-04-01T02:40:26Z")
> [@nightshadea](#): > > See before mankind even existed there was a omnipotent power on the earth that had land air and sea travel mastered …… that helped foster peace and understanding through out the world and had advanced sciences and even world wide sport that wouldn’t be discovered for millions of years > > They had such concepts as conservation inter racial peace and harmony we cant even get back to today > Sadly their greatest invention was lost because there astronomy hadn’t advanced enough to catch the big rock that would doom them all …. The time tunnel! > > Even though it took millions of years for humans to understand their ruins and notes when the ancients finally figured it out… it took us out of the mud and caves and started us on a path of enlightenment > It was the trolodons and the benevolent and omnipotent dinosaur train industries! > > I mean it makes more sense that the worlds smartest beings until the human race formed all of this before we even existed and all the ancients did was evolve until their intelligence could comprehend such advanced learning …… All the other theories are space gods and other disproven junk > > So what does my fellow compatriots of the dope think ? Well, at least you capitalized this time. So, progress. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-odds-that-humans-have-been-reset-in-the-past/831825/23 "2019-04-01T02:56:13Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > Wild assed answer because I don’t feel like trying to watch the videos so I have no idea what the future tech this past civ had … > > OK, so I play MMORPGs, and in one of them the particular racial group lives in grown buildings, think giant plants … if you posit that one of the advances is manipulating DNA to grow buildings, then the house trees could definitely rot away, burn down or get termite nibbled til gone. If they had the tech to make flying vehicles, then no need for roads or tunnels, so those would be gone as well. Clothing is ephemeral and ‘jewelry’ does not have to be made of metal, stone or glass - bone and wood degrade in the right [wrong?] conditions. Just because a civ is advanced does not mean it _has_ to have skyscrapers, cars [flying or not] appliances and everything Jetson - how about an advanced mental/psychological ‘Shangri La’ of peaceful hunter gatherers that sit around discussing philosophy? > > If you posit correctly, then they could have left very little in the way of ‘uber advanced’ tech … hell - the height of ultramodern and people were still wearing jewelry of wood and bone - I have clunky wooden beads from the 20s, and the 60s and the 90s … [everything old is new again for sure!] Sure, if you redefine “advanced civilization” and “advanced tech” you can posit any number of golden ages of thought and prosperity and it will be hard to prove wrong. It won’t have any evidence for either, of course. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-odds-that-humans-have-been-reset-in-the-past/831825/24 "2019-04-01T03:28:54Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > Wild assed answer because I don’t feel like trying to watch the videos so I have no idea what the future tech this past civ had … > > OK, so I play MMORPGs, and in one of them the particular racial group lives in grown buildings, think giant plants … if you posit that one of the advances is manipulating DNA to grow buildings, then the house trees could definitely rot away, burn down or get termite nibbled til gone. If they had the tech to make flying vehicles, then no need for roads or tunnels, so those would be gone as well. Clothing is ephemeral and ‘jewelry’ does not have to be made of metal, stone or glass - bone and wood degrade in the right [wrong?] conditions. Just because a civ is advanced does not mean it _has_ to have skyscrapers, cars [flying or not] appliances and everything Jetson - how about an advanced mental/psychological ‘Shangri La’ of peaceful hunter gatherers that sit around discussing philosophy? > > If you posit correctly, then they could have left very little in the way of ‘uber advanced’ tech … hell - the height of ultramodern and people were still wearing jewelry of wood and bone - I have clunky wooden beads from the 20s, and the 60s and the 90s … [everything old is new again for sure!] Unless their flying technology is organic, too, we would find evidence of those vehicles. That’s kind of the point - technology is generally metallic or ceramic or polymer, or whatever - it’s not very biodegradable. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-odds-that-humans-have-been-reset-in-the-past/831825/25 "2019-04-01T03:37:22Z")
> [@Mrdeals](#): > > I think I have heard him propose that civilization is around 30,000. > As far as no trace being left over. If we disappeared, how much evidence would be left for someone to find in 12,000 years? Not much, maybe plastic? But by then something may have adapted to eat it. I’m no expert, but if the civilization was advanced enough it would leave some signs behind. Granted I don’t know if its possible for small cities to have been established 30,000 years ago that just haven’t been found yet. But human technological progression tends to have a direction to it, and society becomes much larger and more advanced as time passes. Small cities become civilizations. civilizations become empires, and empires become a global civilization. There would be traces if we were truly advanced in the past. I don’t know if a few groups of maybe a few hundred people learned agriculture and started up a small city thousands of years before the generally accepted upon timeline of roughly ~10,000 years ago. But if they did, then if it got bigger than that then their remnants would’ve been discovered by now I’m sure because so much of the earth’s surface has been examined now. A large civilization like Atlantis would’ve left behind some artifacts that had been found by now. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-odds-that-humans-have-been-reset-in-the-past/831825/26 "2019-04-01T06:03:30Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > Wild assed answer because I don’t feel like trying to watch the videos so I have no idea what the future tech this past civ had … > > OK, so I play MMORPGs, and in one of them the particular racial group lives in grown buildings, think giant plants … if you posit that one of the advances is manipulating DNA to grow buildings, then the house trees could definitely rot away, burn down or get termite nibbled til gone. If they had the tech to make flying vehicles, then no need for roads or tunnels, so those would be gone as well. Clothing is ephemeral and ‘jewelry’ does not have to be made of metal, stone or glass - bone and wood degrade in the right [wrong?] conditions. Just because a civ is advanced does not mean it _has_ to have skyscrapers, cars [flying or not] appliances and everything Jetson - how about an advanced mental/psychological ‘Shangri La’ of peaceful hunter gatherers that sit around discussing philosophy? > > If you posit correctly, then they could have left very little in the way of ‘uber advanced’ tech … hell - the height of ultramodern and people were still wearing jewelry of wood and bone - I have clunky wooden beads from the 20s, and the 60s and the 90s … [everything old is new again for sure!] Unless they somehow skipped straight from the hunter-gatherer phase to developing “uber-advanced tech” out of nowhere (which has completely eluded our entire civilization for 5,000+ years, BTW), they’d have had to master stone working, metallurgy, chemistry, fossil fuels, and nuclear energy. And we’d long ago have noticed the _absence_ of those non-renewable resources from the places that geology indicates that ought to be. Pre-historic advanced civilizations are fodder for sci-fi authors and the fever dreams of H.P. Lovecraft, not serious consideration. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-odds-that-humans-have-been-reset-in-the-past/831825/27 "2019-04-01T06:09:17Z")
> [@Mrdeals](#): > > One of his main focuses is trying to prove humanity is much older than we think and used to have technology more advanced than we think they had. What’s his reasoning? Some variation of “Early Bronze Age man wasn’t smart enough to build pyramids”? ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-odds-that-humans-have-been-reset-in-the-past/831825/28 "2019-04-01T06:47:05Z")
> [@Isosleepy](#): > > If any prior civilization existed, they were super considerate, only mining the really hard-to-get ores and only pumping the really deep crude, leaving the easy stuff for our 18th/19th century ancestors to find and use to start this most recent industrial civilization. > Anyway, they didn’t. The dinosaur one double-didnt. Exist that is. And they didn’t domesticate or cross-breed anything to create suspiciously nice food plants. I’ll ignore animals for a while and focus on corn. You know, what the Europeans call maize. That stuff. Do you think corn is natural? It’s _grass_ and it produces cobs with gigantic freaking seeds. It’s a freak. It’s proof solid _someone_ got busy with cross-breeding because there is no way anything like that would evolve naturally. And where it came from isn’t a mystery: [Ancient Mexicans made it from teosinte beginning 10,000 years ago.](https://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/selection/corn/) The genetic similarity is undeniable. So where are the equivalents in the truly ancient fossil record? Where are the hyper-productive food plants dating from before humans developed the ability to cross-breed? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 10:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-odds-that-humans-have-been-reset-in-the-past/831825/29 "2019-04-01T10:00:13Z")
> [@Mrdeals](#): > > One of his main focuses is trying to prove humanity is much older than we think and used to have technology more advanced than we think they had. This is absolute bullshit. Not just because we don’t have evidence for technologically advanced humans, but much more importantly - because we _do_ have evidence for technologically _ **unadvanced** _ humans. Lots of it, and it tells a consistent story. So not only is this a hypothesis without evidence, it’s a hypothesis without a need. ---
**Author:** ![JacobSwan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@JacobSwan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JacobSwan)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 10:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-odds-that-humans-have-been-reset-in-the-past/831825/30 "2019-04-01T10:11:49Z")
I’ve heard fantastical tales of an ancient civilization that was way more advanced than us. They had supersonic airliners! They walked on the moon! They switched on their tvs with a single remote and didn’t have to use 3 different ones to select the video input! ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-odds-that-humans-have-been-reset-in-the-past/831825/31 "2019-04-01T13:16:14Z")
Yeah, they could get to the moon using their technology in seven or eight years! NASA says we’d take decades! ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-odds-that-humans-have-been-reset-in-the-past/831825/32 "2019-04-01T14:20:19Z")
I’ve heard, and please don’t quote me because I have no cites, that they knew how to freeze food and even preserve food in metallic “cans!” And there has even been the reintroduction of food stuffs the ancient astronauts ate: [Space Food Sticks!]([Inside the Rise, Fall, and Stoner Rebirth of 70s Space Food](https://munchies.vice.com/en_us/article/nzk74q/inside-the-rise-fall-and-stoner-rebirth-of-pillsburys-70s-space-foodSpace) Food Sticks!) ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-odds-that-humans-have-been-reset-in-the-past/831825/33 "2019-04-01T14:23:39Z")
Pre-Flood, it’s not likely that humanity was any more advanced than the average Mesopotamian or Sumerian/Egyptian culture of the time. So no, nothing particularly advanced or remarkable about their technology. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-odds-that-humans-have-been-reset-in-the-past/831825/34 "2019-04-01T14:45:07Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#): > > Well, but the lost civilization was on a large island that sunk, you know it was called Númenor or maybe Atlantis. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Antarctica. The continents have moved, the earth’s axis shifted, whatever, but all the remains of civilization are under a mile of ice. As for evidence of past civilizations, another point against is mines. Say we dig a new coal mine, or copper mine, gold mine, whatever, and find that all the material was taken out centuries ago. A series of miles long tunnels hundreds of feet underground would kind of be a tell, that can’t be hidden or explained away. ---
**Author:** ![Mtgman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5a626/32.png) [@Mtgman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mtgman)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-odds-that-humans-have-been-reset-in-the-past/831825/35 "2019-04-01T15:14:27Z")
> [@Mrdeals](#): > > I have discovered and am thoroughly enjoying Youtuber Bright Insight. > > One of his main focuses is trying to prove humanity is much older than we think and used to have technology more advanced than we think they had. > > He proposes that humanity goes through resets once in a while, the last one being 11,600 years ago. The odds are zero in infinity. He’s flat out wrong. There’s no way an advanced civilization could have existed 11,600 years ago on this planet and left no trace of their existence today. That having been said, humans are clever. This kind of theory is the kind of thing that clever humans come up with when they turn inside for explanations of natural phenomenon instead of outside. It’s the same kind of tendency that created the pantheons of gods we had in our early days. Searching for an explanation for something that you don’t understand, but doing it with you imagination instead of your reasoning faculties. Enjoy, Steven ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-odds-that-humans-have-been-reset-in-the-past/831825/36 "2019-04-01T15:48:45Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Unless they somehow skipped straight from the hunter-gatherer phase to developing “uber-advanced tech” out of nowhere (which has completely eluded our entire civilization for 5,000+ years, BTW), they’d have had to master stone working, metallurgy, chemistry, fossil fuels, and nuclear energy. > > And we’d long ago have noticed the _absence_ of those non-renewable resources from the places that geology indicates that ought to be. But they _did_ dig up all the impossibilium and left the coal and petroleum behind. Why do you think it’s called crude oil, smart guy? ---
**Author:** ![ZonexandScout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zonexandscout/32/544_2.png) [@ZonexandScout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZonexandScout)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-odds-that-humans-have-been-reset-in-the-past/831825/37 "2019-04-01T16:48:30Z")
Everyone is overlooking the obvious. All advanced tech that existed at the time was gathered into the OTHER pyramids before they took off on their interstellar flights with the ruling/technical class aboard. The remaining pyramids are the ones that didn’t function and couldn’t achieve lift-off. Our ancestors were the losers who got left behind (after providing the labor to build the pyramid ships). ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-odds-that-humans-have-been-reset-in-the-past/831825/38 "2019-04-01T18:49:19Z")
> [@JacobSwan](#): > > I’ve heard fantastical tales of an ancient civilization that was way more advanced than us. They had supersonic airliners! They walked on the moon! They switched on their tvs with a single remote and didn’t have to use 3 different ones to select the video input! Even more amazing, they died of smallpox, something we’ve completely lost. ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-odds-that-humans-have-been-reset-in-the-past/831825/39 "2019-04-01T20:15:05Z")
This is just Graham Hancock stuff regurgitated. An advanced, global, maritime civilization based in Antarctica brought art, metallurgy and building technology to the then-primitive Egyptians and Olmecs and Inca, _et al_. The hypothesis is flawed due to dismissing the ingenuity of humans and downright ignoring all evidence to the contrary. (At least it’s not aliens.) It does highlight how little we really know about the transition from societies to genuine civilizations, and that much of ice age archaeology is below sea level. The underlying basis for this bad idea is that these seemingly advanced cultures sprang up out of nowhere. But really it’s an existing people that merely began building with stone. ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2019, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-odds-that-humans-have-been-reset-in-the-past/831825/40 "2019-04-01T20:26:41Z")
Archaeologists are constantly finding evidence of lost civilizations who were more advanced than we think they were. Usually in South America. Sometimes North. A bit in Australia recently too. Oooooh, you mean civilizations more advance _than us_. Naaah, carry on… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-odds-that-humans-have-been-reset-in-the-past/831825.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-the-odds-that-humans-have-been-reset-in-the-past/831825.md?page=3)