Day 203 – Happy Birthday to Me, Class Warfare, Idiots Do Archaeology

Sunday, August 10, 2025

Yes, it’s my birthday. I’ve been working on trying to get my back to stop hurting and I’m happy to report that I’ve figured something out that seems to work. Maybe, I should post to Facebook and call it a “life hack”?

Before I get to the main topic let me note that Trump’s tariffs and his Big Ugly Bill put a huge burden on the middle class and especially the poor. I can write more about that at another time. I have to wonder do the people around Trump understand this and are they just covering so they keep their jobs?

Which is worse knowing and lying? Or believing and telling lyes?

The first is evil, the second is gross naïveté.

Moving on to archaeology. Joe Rogan has been speculating about one ancient site – Göbekli Tepi. What he did and seems to do on most of his shows is to sit there and wonder, then arrive at some pull-it-out-of-your-rectum conclusion. Oftentimes aided by a guest who claims some knowledge of the subject. Or in the case of Tucker Carlson it’s more like Beavis and Butthead.

Göbekli Tepi is a site in Turkey, discovered by a German archaeologist in the 1990s. It’s a sunken round area with benches carved out around the perimeter and interspersed with rectangular T shaped pillars. In the center are two larger T-shaped pillars. Many of the pillars have depictions of animals, either in very flat bas-relief or in well shaped 3D. There are also elongated arms with hands that seem to wrap around part of the blocks. The site is 12,000 years old and has upended all that we know about the start of civilization.

So what does Rogan do? Besides sit on his rear and wonder? He brings in Graham Hancock. Who is Hancock? He’s a guy whose schtick is basically, “We don’t know how they moved these stones. They must have had help.” The help is either from a more advanced Lost Civilization or Aliens. Cute stuff, but dangerous. Better for a Saturday morning kids’ cartoon show than adults discussing things. Rogan brought in another person with other wilder ideas who claimed there were more hidden pillars and the archaeologists were dragging their feet to uncover them.

Here’s the thing. It’s been shown quite convincingly how the blocks for the pyramids were moved. How the stones of the Inca were so perfectly cut. How the statues of Rapa Nui “walked” to their locations. All these were claimed at one time to have been the work of gods, aliens, or lost civilizations. And yet, these wild claims persist. Why? Well, it’s more interesting than grubbing in the dirt for twenty years, and more spectacular. But it adds to the shitification of the subject. Now with AI, we can generate hundreds and thousands of BS similar things. We’ll get buried in it.

Göbekli Tepe is a site with a lot of questions and things we don’t know. There are a few things that can be ruled out. For instance: “Was it an ancient observatory?” Uh. No. Why? It appears that the circular structure had a roof with a hole in the center for smoke. So you wouldn’t be able to see stars. (Because there’s a roof in the way! OMG, do I have to spell it out? No? Okay, sorry.)

Why haven’t they dug more, faster? Answer: Once you dig through a layer it is gone for good. You want to take your time and tease out as much as possible. Also, the current archaeologist at the site said that he thought it important to leave some for others – possibly of another generation. Ken Weeks thought the same when digging KV5 in The Valley of the Kings. (That and digging out chamber after chamber could become boring.)

And lastly, a little tidbit from my source of all truth – Facebook.

There’s a picture of a kangaroo. Beside it is some speculation on his where it came from.

“You mean to tell me that after he got off Noah’s Arc he hopped all the way to Australia, and never left a sign of the journey?” Obviously, the kangaroo got teleported by aliens to Australia