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 reds8n wrote:
Phantom time hypothesis is my personal favourite one.

Almost seems plausible -- there's a long tradition in fiddling dates a little bit to make things "neater" and we did indeed "lose" 10 days or so when we switched to the Gregorian calendar.

But the major glaring issue with the idea is that it glosses over the minor detail of THE REST OF THE WORLD and how they, funnily enough might've noticed if we just magically inserted 300 odd years of fake history into being.

Probably.

This one is actually a little more interesting, simply because its a bit more complicated than that. The Gregorian change had some weird effects in how people handled it- for decades people were often writing New Style and Old Style dates on correspondence and journals. I was a bit baffled when I first came across this in archival records, as time went out people were simply writing 'March/April, 1855' or something similar. It gives the overall impression that many people generally did not know what the actual date was, and weren't sure which convention they were 'supposed' to use. It particularly persisted with people who grew up with the old style, but were told they had to adapt to the new, and only really faded out when their kids (who'd only known the new style) were the ones making records- especially for church records, which is where I first came across it. So you had lots of people who knew something had changed, but didn't understand (or were never even told) why, but something was clearly Going On, and even a minority thinking there was something sinister involved would have passed that attitude on.

As for the rest of the world angle, you've run headlong into a problematic aspect of history, particularly western history- that non Westerners (particularly non-Christians) don't count and don't have history- they only exist to be challenges to test the faithful. This started all the way back in the 400s with Orosius and his Seven Books of History against the Pagans, and continued all the way up to political theorists like Marx (who referred to the 'People without History,' ie, everyone else), and the anthropologist Eric Wolf, writing as recently as 1982. So from an institutionalized perspective, the rest of the world's history doesn't matter, as they don't have meaningful history except when they interact with Europeans- so if the dates don't match up, it'd be their fault for not keeping a proper calendar anyway. It is, of course, a super creepy and offensive attitude now, but something that any serious study of historiography has to deal with, because it was a dominant attitude for 1500 years.


Where the idea of inserting years of history falls apart is the various independent ways we have of dating materials. Archaeology, carbon dating, tree ring dating (we've got a huge library of tree data we can match wooden construction against, as long as we can pinpoint the region the tree came from). There's too much that can't be reasonably faked anymore. So when someone claims there are ancient Scottish cairns on the Gettysburg battlefield (yes, this actually happened, that was a fun call to listen to) from an early wave of colonization, we can just point, laugh and not take it seriously.

The whole Western History is a very interesting angle on other bizarre theories.

Such as ‘Aliens built the Pyramids’. Because what is often meant is ‘they didn’t have the technology’ actually boils down to ‘people in Europe didn’t have that technology at the time’. AKA ‘well, if white folk couldn’t do it, nobody could’. And ultimately that all stems from the colonial/Imperial era.

Never mind that we’ve found literal instructions on how they did it. It’s apparently still a mystery.

And as for ‘but Pyramids appear the world over, therefore Angels/Aliens/Little Blue Blobs’? Someone nailed it earlier in this thread. Not only are Pyramids an inherently stable shape, they’re actually pretty easy to build due to that inherent stability.

Precision? Not as if each was exactly a rush job, is it? When you’ve pots and pots of cash, and slave labourers you don’t actually have to like, pay because y’know, they were slaves....

Oh, i know another great one:

From Sean Hross, That the pharaos settled in switzerland somehow joined the knights templar, and with the money of the treasury of them and the Pharaos started the swiss banking sector.

Called it i believe the Pharaoh show?!
Complete and utter nutjob.

The Egyptian pyramids weren't built by slaves.

 insaniak wrote:
The Egyptian pyramids weren't built by slaves.

No, they were built by systematic Alcoholism. ( no seriously bread and beer was the payment )


An even better study is Russia and the vodka monopoly of the tzar's and the nobility.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
The whole Western History is a very interesting angle on other bizarre theories.

Such as ‘Aliens built the Pyramids’. Because what is often meant is ‘they didn’t have the technology’ actually boils down to ‘people in Europe didn’t have that technology at the time’. AKA ‘well, if white folk couldn’t do it, nobody could’. And ultimately that all stems from the colonial/Imperial era.

Never mind that we’ve found literal instructions on how they did it. It’s apparently still a mystery.

And as for ‘but Pyramids appear the world over, therefore Angels/Aliens/Little Blue Blobs’? Someone nailed it earlier in this thread. Not only are Pyramids an inherently stable shape, they’re actually pretty easy to build due to that inherent stability.

Precision? Not as if each was exactly a rush job, is it? When you’ve pots and pots of cash, and slave labourers you don’t actually have to like, pay because y’know, they were slaves....

anything in ancient egypt is mysterious though, for example, if you see the perfection of their temple carvings, despite having no hard metal tools. but its just hard work and perfectionism I guess.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
The whole Western History is a very interesting angle on other bizarre theories.

Such as ‘Aliens built the Pyramids’. Because what is often meant is ‘they didn’t have the technology’ actually boils down to ‘people in Europe didn’t have that technology at the time’. AKA ‘well, if white folk couldn’t do it, nobody could’. And ultimately that all stems from the colonial/Imperial era.

Never mind that we’ve found literal instructions on how they did it. It’s apparently still a mystery.

And as for ‘but Pyramids appear the world over, therefore Angels/Aliens/Little Blue Blobs’? Someone nailed it earlier in this thread. Not only are Pyramids an inherently stable shape, they’re actually pretty easy to build due to that inherent stability.

Precision? Not as if each was exactly a rush job, is it? When you’ve pots and pots of cash, and slave labourers you don’t actually have to like, pay because y’know, they were slaves....

anything in ancient egypt is mysterious though, for example, if you see the perfection of their temple carvings, despite having no hard metal tools. but its just hard work and perfectionism I guess.

Enough time and practical education do help though.

If you have a trained and propperly taught plumber your plumbing will be vastly better then when you send in a laymen especially when precision is required due to circumstance.

 insaniak wrote:
The Egyptian pyramids weren't built by slaves.

*duly reports for re-education*

Not Online!!! wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
The whole Western History is a very interesting angle on other bizarre theories.

Such as ‘Aliens built the Pyramids’. Because what is often meant is ‘they didn’t have the technology’ actually boils down to ‘people in Europe didn’t have that technology at the time’. AKA ‘well, if white folk couldn’t do it, nobody could’. And ultimately that all stems from the colonial/Imperial era.

Never mind that we’ve found literal instructions on how they did it. It’s apparently still a mystery.

And as for ‘but Pyramids appear the world over, therefore Angels/Aliens/Little Blue Blobs’? Someone nailed it earlier in this thread. Not only are Pyramids an inherently stable shape, they’re actually pretty easy to build due to that inherent stability.

Precision? Not as if each was exactly a rush job, is it? When you’ve pots and pots of cash, and slave labourers you don’t actually have to like, pay because y’know, they were slaves....

anything in ancient egypt is mysterious though, for example, if you see the perfection of their temple carvings, despite having no hard metal tools. but its just hard work and perfectionism I guess.

Enough time and practical education do help though.

If you have a trained and propperly taught plumber your plumbing will be vastly better then when you send in a laymen especially when precision is required due to circumstance.

Yeah of course, I'm not saying I believe those things, but you can forgive those in older times who were less educated in comparison to today.

I think ancient Egypt is an incredible example of just humanity in general. I've always loved the subject and was lucky enough to visit in 2009

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
The whole Western History is a very interesting angle on other bizarre theories.

Such as ‘Aliens built the Pyramids’. Because what is often meant is ‘they didn’t have the technology’ actually boils down to ‘people in Europe didn’t have that technology at the time’. AKA ‘well, if white folk couldn’t do it, nobody could’. And ultimately that all stems from the colonial/Imperial era.

Never mind that we’ve found literal instructions on how they did it. It’s apparently still a mystery.

And as for ‘but Pyramids appear the world over, therefore Angels/Aliens/Little Blue Blobs’? Someone nailed it earlier in this thread. Not only are Pyramids an inherently stable shape, they’re actually pretty easy to build due to that inherent stability.

Precision? Not as if each was exactly a rush job, is it? When you’ve pots and pots of cash, and slave labourers you don’t actually have to like, pay because y’know, they were slaves....

anything in ancient egypt is mysterious though, for example, if you see the perfection of their temple carvings, despite having no hard metal tools. but its just hard work and perfectionism I guess.

Enough time and practical education do help though.

If you have a trained and propperly taught plumber your plumbing will be vastly better then when you send in a laymen especially when precision is required due to circumstance.

Yeah of course, I'm not saying I believe those things, but you can forgive those in older times who were less educated in comparison to today.

Must've been aliens/white folks is actually quite a new idea. Early antiquarians had little problem believing that the monumental architecture of West Asia and North Africa were achieved by indigenous communities. Desperation to attribute them to other agents largely came after we'd started arranging humans into levels of evolution (with good old white folks at the peaks, obvs). Bearing in mind that earlier scholarship placed considerable trust in biblical narratives and classical literature, which cheerfully talk about massive engineering feats being accomplished by people in Egypt and the Levant.

Ancient Egypt is definitely a fascinating era.

If my memory serves ( and happy to report yet again for re-education if not), the nation’s stability was down to the Nile, and how it would flood. Meant ready harvests, supporting ever larger population. And as we saw again during the Agricultural Revolution in Europe (certainly within the U.K., yep, GCSE history!) it meant certain folk who were higher in the pecking order had more time on their hands, which was spent learning new things.

After all, arguably anyone can be a stone mason. But when your stone masons don’t need to worry about their own farming etc, they’ve more time to learn their art. And with writing, what’s learned tends to stay learned. Rinse and repeat a few generations, and serious skill and ability is soon demonstrated.

Also, farmers can't farm the flood plains when the flood plains are flooded, so get up to other stuff like piling blocks of stone on top of eachother instead...

Yeah thats it. they were definitely a remarkable civilisation. I'd recommend anyone visit (once the world levels out) the temples at luxor and karnak, the valley of the kings, the temple of hatsheptsut and abu simbel were my personal highlights. you can visit them all on a cruise which takes you down the nile.

As part of my re-education (and because when you remote work, nobody can tell what you’re watching on your iPad! So long as your work gets done. Which it does) I’m watching this via on YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do3oFnaoYCM

It’s actually pretty good. Some speculation, but not in a ‘woooooo! Aliens or GTFO’ type stuff. Just presenting the informed theories of others.

To be honest, I'm a little bit disappointed in the conspiracy theory community. I'd half expected that by now there would be a conspiracy to conceal the truth that Corona virus is actually far deadlier than officially reported, and that the whole "social distancing and lockdown" scams are the government's way of hiding from the populace that, well, half or more of the population is dead or dying and we're ALL DOOMED! DOOMED I SAY!

Also, on a tangentially related note to this thread, this song cracks me up. It's a long way to go for a joke, but it does pay off.

If you remember, back on the first page I expressed my disgust about people peddling ‘miracle cures’, claiming Big Pharma only want munneh? Despite charging through the nose?

You know the post. When I had to go sit on the Chill Out Step for a bit, given Dear Old Mumsy’s fate?

Look what popped up on my YouTube feed....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxzJ3AuTCN0

There is a huge consequence in regards to what you are stating. I’m a sport scientist (currently lecture in it) and some of the absolute moronic crap I hear about diet and nutrition is infuriating. It’s purely epidemic misunderstanding, and crucially an inability to objectively dissect a subject.

In a similar vain to your hate of ‘fake’ treatments (and that is what it is), I also have gripes elsewhere... There’s so much fake bull**** in martial arts that is absolutely 100% dangerous, when you see people throwing other people over a room with touching them, come on... You are going to get someone killed.

The worst thing you can do is give a naive person confidence in some situations, they are prime sheep.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
If you remember, back on the first page I expressed my disgust about people peddling ‘miracle cures’, claiming Big Pharma only want munneh? Despite charging through the nose?

You know the post. When I had to go sit on the Chill Out Step for a bit, given Dear Old Mumsy’s fate?

Look what popped up on my YouTube feed....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxzJ3AuTCN0

Sadly, that's only par for the course when it comes to that denomination of snake-oil peddlers.

 Nurglitch wrote:
Alan Moore had a wonderful point about conspiracy thinking:

“The main thing that I learned about conspiracy theory, is that conspiracy theorists believe in a conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is actually chaotic. The truth is that it is not The Iluminati, or The Jewish Banking Conspiracy, or the Gray Alien Theory.

The truth is far more frightening - Nobody is in control.

The world is rudderless.”

I think that's definitely a factor.

'Rudderless' overstates it IMO. I envision it as gross movements being steered by the actions of countless individuals together in a very messy, inefficient process. Sometimes certain small groups or individuals can influence these gross movements somewhat, but that's usually very fleeting.

Bran Dawri wrote:
To be honest, I'm a little bit disappointed in the conspiracy theory community. I'd half expected that by now there would be a conspiracy to conceal the truth that Corona virus is actually far deadlier than officially reported, and that the whole "social distancing and lockdown" scams are the government's way of hiding from the populace that, well, half or more of the population is dead or dying and we're ALL DOOMED! DOOMED I SAY!

I'm honestly surprised by the lack of death cults so far. They usually crawl out of the wood-work during epidemics.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 insaniak wrote:
The Egyptian pyramids weren't built by slaves.

*duly reports for re-education*

It's murky, because Egypt didn't have a a system where people owned other people. Egypt did adopt chattel slavery, but it was after the Pyramids were built (way after) toward the end of Pharonic Egypt and it was a practice mostly reserved for non-Egyptians captured in wartime. It wasn't really a big thing until the Greeco-Roman era either.

Egypt had a caste system of sorts that was strictly hierarchical, but also loosely defined. The running theory for the labor force that guild the Giza Pyramid complex was a mix of bonded and corvee labor. More skilled craftsmen (masons, carpenters, the like) sold their services for periods of time in a patronage like system, so they'd basically be under contract. These guys would have been performing the complex tasks needed to cut the stone, support the worker village, and such. The bulk of the workforce would have been corvee laborers, peasants drafted to do the work during the flood season when they couldn't work the fields. This could be called 'slavery' because it was a form of forced labor but it's not really what most people mean when using that word these days cause. Corvee laborers didn't lose their rights or anything. Their labor was a sort of 'tax' the Egyptian state could levy on the peasantry. I'm actually not sure if they got paid. There's a lot of guess work and inference in Egyptian history.

I think it's less "Rudderless" and more "There are so many factors influencing everything else that, no matter how much humans try, there is always some random wrench thrown into the gears that we could not even begin to account for everything."

That being said my favourite conspiracy, and the one I honestly do somewhat believe, is that Shakespeare didn't write Shakespeare.

Now William Shakespeare the man DID exist. There are at least 20 documents that still exist from that time period to show that he was an actual person. However, of those 20 signed documents about half of them were signed with an X. The remaining 10 have his signature written, but it is spelled wrong on each of them.

In fact, there is no evidence Shakespeare even knew how to read, let alone write. Even if he could, in order to write all the plays and Sonnets he's famous for he would have to be:

A Doctor
A Lawyer
A Sailor
A Soldier

He would also have to have at least some knowledge of speaking French, Italian, Arabic, Dutch, Latin and Greek.

Now, the conspiracy goes that Shakespeare was just a Nom-Du-Plume used by other writers to get around some of the religious restrictions at the time. After all God made man in his image, and if that is the case then standing on stage pretending to be someone else was the equivalent of idolatry. There were also many attempts by puritans to get theaters closed and such, so being associated to those seedy establishments was something to be avoided.

Most likely the plays hes famous for were probably written by 3 people. Sir Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe and, in the case of Hamlet, Written by an English Noble (who's name escapes me right now) who had his father killed by his mothers lover.

The case of Christopher Marlowe is interesting because it kind of sounds like a damn Monty Python sketch. He was supposedly killed in a drunk bar fight by his friends who acted in self defense after Marlowe attacked them. Most likely he skipped town and ran off to Italy, which is why many of Shakespeare's later plays take place there. Because Christopher Marlowe wrote them and used "Shakespeare" as a stand in because he was "dead".

The reason it's a conspiracy is because, well, Shakespeare the man is worth a lot of money. Especially in Stratford and all the Stratford festivals everywhere that still do his plays. If this singular genius William Shakespeare was actually a bunch of different people, well, then its not all that much of a money maker now is it? So no one looks too deeply into it for risk of being called out by "Big Shakespeare".

Anyway that's roughly how I heard the conspiracy. I'll be honest it's been years since I read it and am probably missing details.

One note of caution there?

English wasn’t particularly standardised at the time. This is seen in English place names when you look at the entomology. Many places with different words for the same thing. And the roots can be traced.

With no strictly standardised spelling, it’s entirely possible a single person might spell their name different ways on different days.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
One note of caution there?

English wasn’t particularly standardised at the time. This is seen in English place names when you look at the entomology. Many places with different words for the same thing. And the roots can be traced.

With no strictly standardised spelling, it’s entirely possible a single person might spell their name different ways on different days.

Yes of course! It could also be that he did that intentionally to throw people off that is was him doing it too. After all this unique genius who "supposedly" wrote all these works certainly would be able to have a standard way of writing his name no? But its just a silly conspiracy theory. Is it true? Probably not. But like most of these theories it, in many ways, is just a thought experiment. People hoping against hope that all things in the world are controlled by some grand plan or intelligence. When in reality we are all just a bunch of random atoms spinning around in the void banging into each other.

Eh. I always thought the Shakespeare conspiracies showed all the worst kinds of conspiracy thinking.

That it's impossible for the plays to have been written by a guy we don't know much about. They had to have been written by someone MORE FAMOUS and better catalogued in the historical record. See 1,957 Jack the Ripper theories. And how many serial killers end up being already famous or prominent individuals?

Goes back to humanity's desire for structure/sense/shortcuts/easy solutions IMO. Hell, look at C-3PO, LOL.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
Interesting conspiracies....hmmm. I'm pretty sure we've all heard of the conspiracy about hitler not committing suicide but ending up in a latin American colony for the rest of his life. I've heard people legit believe in that one.

While it is rather silly now, at the time it wasn't really all that crazy. Lots of Nazi big wigs did indeed flee to south america, those who weren't immediately rounded up for Nuremberg anyway. The Soviets were the ones who captured the area around the bunker and they weren't exactly open and forthright with information. It wasn't really inconceivable that Hitler could have faked his death and escaped. There were actually plans in place for him to escape, he simply chose not to use them and offed himself. Which is just enough fodder for people to maybe consider if he actually did.

So its a conspiracy theory now, but its rooted in the post-ww2 murkiness that shrouded the actual events that took place then. Information that never came to light till after the Soviet Union collapsed was the missing half of the equation.

True but there were far too many people wanting Hitler dead. I mean where would he have gone. One of the most notorious dudes of the time somehow manages to hide from the world in south America without someone finding out and getting a bounty on his head. Yeah I don't think so. He probably weighed the options and realized they were bleak and there was no point to continue. He was too well known to just hide so easily.

Not gonna lie though there were some post-war Nazis that took on a fake identity with some even hiding in the usa. I even think I knew a guy whose grandparents never shared their lineage and I saw his last name looked german or similar and I guessed his grandparents may have been Nazis. He said it's possible but he doesn't know. The guy in question was nice and I don't think he was mixed up in anything. Whether his grandparents did something or not it's clear it was never brought up again. At least it didn't make it's way down to the kids and grandkids far as I know.

 gorgon wrote:
Eh. I always thought the Shakespeare conspiracies showed all the worst kinds of conspiracy thinking.

That it's impossible for the plays to have been written by a guy we don't know much about. They had to have been written by someone MORE FAMOUS and better catalogued in the historical record. See 1,957 Jack the Ripper theories. And how many serial killers end up being already famous or prominent individuals?

Goes back to humanity's desire for structure/sense/shortcuts/easy solutions IMO. Hell, look at C-3PO, LOL.

Depends where one goes with it. There are reasonable arguments the portfolio isn’t the work of one man.

The whacko stuff comes in that already well known people did it. The simple question there being ‘but why wouldn’t they take the credit? None of it was exactly seditious or likely to upset Queen Elizabeth?

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 flamingkillamajig wrote:
Interesting conspiracies....hmmm. I'm pretty sure we've all heard of the conspiracy about hitler not committing suicide but ending up in a latin American colony for the rest of his life. I've heard people legit believe in that one.

While it is rather silly now, at the time it wasn't really all that crazy. Lots of Nazi big wigs did indeed flee to south america, those who weren't immediately rounded up for Nuremberg anyway. The Soviets were the ones who captured the area around the bunker and they weren't exactly open and forthright with information. It wasn't really inconceivable that Hitler could have faked his death and escaped. There were actually plans in place for him to escape, he simply chose not to use them and offed himself. Which is just enough fodder for people to maybe consider if he actually did.

So its a conspiracy theory now, but its rooted in the post-ww2 murkiness that shrouded the actual events that took place then. Information that never came to light till after the Soviet Union collapsed was the missing half of the equation.

True but there were far too many people wanting Hitler dead. I mean where would he have gone. One of the most notorious dudes of the time somehow manages to hide from the world in south America without someone finding out and getting a bounty on his head. Yeah I don't think so. He probably weighed the options and realized they were bleak and there was no point to continue. He was too well known to just hide so easily.

Not gonna lie though there were some post-war Nazis that took on a fake identity with some even hiding in the usa. I even think I knew a guy whose grandparents never shared their lineage and I saw his last name looked german or similar and I guessed his grandparents may have been Nazis. He said it's possible but he doesn't know. The guy in question was nice and I don't think he was mixed up in anything. Whether his grandparents did something or not it's clear it was never brought up again. At least it didn't make it's way down to the kids and grandkids far as I know.

"Hiding"? The US government literally gave them fake identities and jobs.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 gorgon wrote:
Eh. I always thought the Shakespeare conspiracies showed all the worst kinds of conspiracy thinking.

That it's impossible for the plays to have been written by a guy we don't know much about. They had to have been written by someone MORE FAMOUS and better catalogued in the historical record. See 1,957 Jack the Ripper theories. And how many serial killers end up being already famous or prominent individuals?

Goes back to humanity's desire for structure/sense/shortcuts/easy solutions IMO. Hell, look at C-3PO, LOL.

Depends where one goes with it. There are reasonable arguments the portfolio isn’t the work of one man.

The whacko stuff comes in that already well known people did it. The simple question there being ‘but why wouldn’t they take the credit? None of it was exactly seditious or likely to upset Queen Elizabeth?

The comedies and tragedies were fairly innocuous, true.
I believe the issue was that some of the history plays did exactly that. Richard II is the most notorious- but even Caesar, which we teach in high school, has monarchs being betrayed and murdered.When the monarch in the play is a literal ruler of England, it becomes much more questionable. If the author was not a powerless playwright/actor/director but was in fact a high ranking government official, writing about high ranking officials overthrowing a corrupt ruler of England well, then it becomes about as innocent as Carol Baskins stating that to get a tiger to eat someone you'd have to cover them in sardine oil.
Here's some lovely context of Richard II, and it's possible ties to the Essex rebellion. It definitely fits a conspiracy theory mold.

https://slate.com/culture/2018/06/how-shakespeare-may-have-played-a-part-in-an-uprising-against-queen-elizabeth.html

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


With no strictly standardised spelling, it’s entirely possible a single person might spell their name different ways on different days.

My mother does this all the time. Her first name might start with a C on some days and a K on others. Both are legitimate spellings and she flicks between them.

I'm sure in an earlier age others did the same.