I answered:
Advanced civilizations have been destroyed by periodic pole shifts.
1 – very little of our civilization would remain after even 10,000 years. The rubble at Hoover Dam and the Great Wall of China – assuming they remain above the surface, should be among the few signs of an earlier civilization. The pyramids at Giza might be one of the few signs of an earlier civilization – though many ancient monuments like the Nazca Lines, Easter Island, Angkor Wat, Mohenjo Daro, Petra, Giza, etc all seem to be on one circle around the Earth that may represent a former equator.
2 – technology might be destroyed by survivors if they think the gods punished mankind for eating too much from the tree of knowledge or building too high or trying to be like gods. Cities and universities are largely coastal and would be destroyed. Survivors would mostly be primitive tribes at higher altitudes.
3 – governments and religious organizations might find relics and destroy or hide them to preserve history and beliefs as people know them, and avoid causing a panic. Ancient India had Sanskrit books detailing flying machines for hundreds of pages. If anyone ever found a vimana – it might have been destroyed, or hidden by the Vatican or the CIA… If America is just an Atlantis-like myth someday thousands of years from now… would archeologists reveal evidence that went against their cultural/religious beliefs – or is it possible some Mysterium or Ministry of Truth would kill them for it?
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The question can also be asked as: “Is it possible that homo sapiens remained at the stone age/hunter gatherer level of technological advancement for 488,000 of the last half million years of its existence?”
The next question is: “If homo sapiens and its cities are largely erased every 12,000 years, what measures assure sufficient preparation for, and surpassing of, the next erasure?”
A civilisation developed at just the right time, to be unwittingly harnessed?
Developed on a planned, ancient timeline to harvest maximum resources for some to survive and prosper – now that’s a long term plan.
Indeed, and a rather terrible plan – in the sense of being almost beyond human conception.
It’s the elephant that so many are feeling a tiny part of, and putting down to corruption, global domination, or just something ‘unfathomable’.