No, I meant 5000 years ago per the conventional time line. I was being casual, but I’m not sure we disagree.

A summary of your position would help.

I agree about 300,000 years ago (BP, before present) anatomically modern homo sapiens is reported to be on the scene (perhaps even 100K years earlier?), but they were small populations of hunter gatherers using simple knapped stone tools. I understand this lasted for 250K years or so, when evidence of bow and arrows, axes, better quality spear heads, etc., appear (perhaps with reed baskets, bone and wood tools, too; etc. One supposition would be there had been an evolutionary advance in cognitive abilities that did not change the fossil skull sizes, etc., but still allowed for enhanced physical and social capabilities. Also over this time span homo sapiens populated the whole of Africa with greater coordination and cooperation (and warfare) among distant groups. As you suggest, maybe there were sufficient advances in social structures and behaviors that created some form of earlier civilization that are now mostly lost, but I remain skeptical pending better evidence.

Then around 12,000 years ago plant and animal domestication is learned/ discovered in suitable* longitudinal tropic zones [not so much in latitudinal orientation]; farming advances; hamlets become villages; become cities, become nations/empires, etc. But the pater familias, clan/tribal, big chief political structure still dominates for way too long [and even Greeks and early Canaanites had slaves.] Eventually we have (in the West) the growth of the Church, Renaissance, Enlightenment, and the Declaration of Independence, coupled with growth in scientific thinking and practice (initially to help explain God’s world and Nature).

We have the 48 to 96 hour rule for day to day political reporting. We probably need to set a 2 to 6 year rule for new reports from archeology and (maybe) paleo genetics. Especially given the fall off in quality of scientific papers and repeatability of investigations in the last few decades. I have seen teaser titles on some You Tube videos claiming new discoveries about even earlier Gobekli Tepe features, but I have not had time to view them yet.

*Michael Magoon’s Substack has a lot about this aspect of human development and progress.
https://substack.com/@frompovertytoprogress

”…when you would think that things [the moon program] were just getting started, it all just died. Why?”

Because it was friggin’ expensive. In the 1960s we were spending 4-1/2 percent of the federal budget on the space program, almost all of it related in some way to Project Apollo. That was never sustainable. We had a lot of other things on which to spend the money.

It was also extremely dangerous with the technology we had in the 1960s. NASA estimated that each moon landing had a 10% chance of being fatal. That’s only slightly better odds than playing Russian roulette. We had already lost three astronauts on Apollo 1 (59 years ago today), almost lost three more on Apollo 13, and Apollo 12 was literally hit by lightning during the ride uphill. It was only a short matter of time before we lost another crew.

”It has always puzzled me why we didn’t follow up on our great successes, and go on to expand our Moon exploration program–setting up permanent bases, and eventually larger colonies–and just gave up, and never went back.”

Project Apollo was never about exploring the moon, setting up bases, or colonizing anything. It wasn’t about space exploration at all. It was a battle in the Cold War. We won! After that there was no reason to keep fighting.

After winning that battle we could more effectively fight the war by building F-14s, F-15s, and Apache helicopters. So that’s what we did.

”…and what appeared to be an ancient wall built of individual blocks…”

There are satellites in orbit about the moon with cameras that can detect the tracks left by the astronauts on their lunar spacewalks. None of them have ever detected any such wall.

”… voice transcripts with deliberate gaps…”

All moon-to-Earth communications were by unencrypted radio links. The Soviets heard — and probably recorded — every word. The Chinese and some of our allies probably did as well. You’d think one of them would have spilled the beans by now.

Yet in different interview, this time with Michael Malice (author of “Not Sick of Winning”, yet a super critical of state power in general), arguably the best libertarian commentator, he says that it took Walz to “bend the knee” and call Trump! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoX9yeFOqEI

Halperin concludes that Trump considered the media optics context. He thinks Trump thought that because of the Pretti shooting (just or not), “I look bad.” But Mpls Mayor Frey and Gov Walz look worse! Trump is a savvy consumer of TV-news — and he knows when he’s not being perceived as doing good, he explains.

Halperin says if Trump wanted to increase confident and regain the upper hand and dominate the narrative, optically, then change is what he’ll do. And did it seems (ie, Malice’ host Emily Jashinsky cites a source saying that ICE Commander Bovino[?7] did not get a demotion — only a reassignment).

This calculus says, as Malice notes, both sides came out with identical public statements— Walz and Trump both. “This is not an accident,” he explains. In fact, this was a de-escalation “let’s make a deal” moment, which Trump seized!

Finally, “Doug in Exile” (to Tennessee from San Diego) on YT has a 20m roundup of the corruption Democrats news on Tuesday (He posted suitably late at 5PM Eastern Time). He leans heavily on Elon Musk’s many cryptic posts and re-posts today. “He’s revealing everything” wrong with these Corruptocrats, Doug says. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rh4PK3HsT24

For example, Kamala only won instates with no voter ID! His reveal from one of Musk’s xPressions states that immigrants became essential to Democrat’s game because they flip large cities and Blue states. And Biden’s 3020 Census policy — reversing Trump’s (or was there a SCOTUS decision I’m forgetting? Or maybe an Appeal Court case?) policy that ONLY actual citizens ought to counted for Congressional apportionment purposes.

It’s all about election rigging advantage for the Dem Machine. The impact of changing population shifts could give Rs 9 to 11 more seats, out of 18 coming changes.

In passing, Doug Tenaple mentions how very much Charlie Kirk’s public assassination affected Elon Musk! It showed him that it only takes one breech in security, and then you’re gone.

He notes what others have saying about Musk. He no longer opines in open, public settings. And if he’s right about massive Democrat electioneering by rigging votes — and I believe he is — Musk dares to keep pissing off our enemies.

That ends my gleanings.

R2L:

That’s just what they want you to believe. 🙂

I don’t mind pushing the speculative envelope. Anthropologists now date Homo Sapiens back to 300,000+ years ago. I find the idea that we were just hunter-gatherers with primitive stone tools until 5000 years ago provincial.

I suspect there’s a civilization or two missing in the current timeline.

It’s more useful to think of the Giza pyramids and the Sphinx as remnants of an earlier civilization than as Egyptian beginner’s luck that they never equaled again.

President Trump on Tuesday said pulling controversial Border Patrol official Gregory Bovino and some agents from Minneapolis was not a retreat, although he called Mr. Bovino a “pretty ‘out-there’ kind of guy.” [snip]

Mr. Trump’s comments come after it was reported that Mr. Bovino and some of his agents were expected to leave Minneapolis on Tuesday and return to their jurisdictions … [snip]

The Department of Homeland Security also suspended Mr. Bovino’s access to his social media accounts after he spent the weekend fighting online with lawmakers and critics about his tactics in Minnesota. Mr. Bovino also lost his commander title.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/jan/27/trump-says-border-patrol-official-pulled-minnesota-agent/

Well, reading “Computer Lib/Dream Machines” by Ted Nelson was one. Buying a developer Macintosh in 1983 before it was released was another.

But that’s just me.

Ditto to TJ’s and om’s endorsement. But I was unnerved to see manoeuvers [with an “o”] vs. maneuvers as I was expecting. Glad that Wiki said both were valid British/English vs. American English versions.

@ RTF: Nice commentary on the Keil slides. I did not review them in full either, but just the 3 or so you cited, and agree we ought to be careful and concerned about where this all leads.

“Does the top 100 list of great moments in your life contain a single entry centered on interacting with tech?”
Well, not in the top 100, but maybe in the top 500 I would include my learning the matrix calculating program PL-1 [different from that other PL-1 language?], using email, learning word processing (3 or 4 versions), 2 major spreadsheets (including charting, which I would need to relearn now), and generating slide animation in PowerPoint. These skills aided me in achieving other accomplishments of greater value/worth. As do most / many tools that humanity has developed*. Life is complicated, but new ideas and new tools are used for both good and ill throughout history.

But as I get older, I don’t want to bother learning new modes of engaging with those (and other) high tech tools, I just want them to work as expected (consistently, if not also intuitively). If we do end up with a truly high surveillance world and reduction in personal liberty as a result, some people will evolve the skills to work around it, although a few thousand years from now they might no longer be truly human.

Or we will follow the paths of the USSR, CCP, and Iranian or related dictatorships and ultimately fail to achieve viability long term.

*In fact I find it hard to understand why it took so many millennia after primitive stone tools were made to advance beyond that; and then again around 50K years ago to see more a surge with more advances achieved. But that it still took to around 1500’s or so for the scientific mode of experimentation and thinking to take hold.

I understand your point, but did you watch what happened to O’Keefe??? Maybe there’s a different way to stop what was going on in that video other than the IA. Better minds than I have….