Hi, everyone. And welcome back to Geek Time. 欢迎回来【极客时间】. Hi, Brad.

Hey, Lulu, how's it going?

Yeah. I'm doing alright. So what are we going to talk about today?

We've talked about Utopian societies in the past, but have you ever heard of Atlantis?

Atlantis, 亚特兰蒂斯. I think I've heard that name in like games, fantasy novels, TV shows, it's not a real place is it?

It might be.

Oh, it's one of those... it's one of those legendary places that some people believe it to be real.

Exactly.

Now we've talked about the Pyramids and how the Pyramids may be something related to aliens. And this is maybe a more realistic thing. (also aliens?) However it might not be we have to kind of get a little bit into the topic a little bit more.

But first of all Atlantis has been... the whole legend about Atlantis has been around for ages, right? How far can we trace back to in history?

We can trace it back to Plato, right? And Plato described Atlantis as an island nation that was basically once the rulers of the western world.

柏拉图时候就已经说到了 an island nation, I thought they were undersea civilization or they sink.

Some people called them an Undersea Nation, but according to legend they were sunk into the sea.

I see because I don't know why, but every time I think of Atlantis I seem to think about things like Little Mermaid.

The Little Mermaid, the father of the Little Mermaid is Poseidon, and Poseidon was the one who ruled over Atlantis and when he got angry at them, he punished them and sank Atlantis into the sea.

A lot of the lore about Atlantis it has to do with marine life, has to do with sea.

But the people who lived on the island were just regular people who were blessed by the Gods. They lived there and they were rich but they fell out of favor with the gods and so they were punished.

So first of all, let's get back to Plato. 当时柏拉图what did he actually say about Atlantis? He just said that's an island nation in what sort of context did he mention...

Well, he was talking about more philosophical ideas but he gave a few different dialogues about the island of Atlantis. He called it the Lost Island of Atlantis.

Some people say it was just a narrative fiction as a way to tell a story to get people to understand why they should live good lives. But other people say that he was talking about a real place and that in his dialogues he was talking about why people should be careful because if we followed the path of the Atlanteans, we might be lost under the sea as well.

So as a philosopher, Plato might have just been talking about something metaphorically, it’s like, let me give you a fable that sort of the thing我给你们讲个寓言故事, 亚特兰蒂斯怎么样, but people might have taken it literally.

Some people have taken it literally.

Over the years this whole idea about searching for the lost civilization of Atlantis. That's a whole thing.

It's a legitimate thing just like looking for Bigfoot. There are people who are searching the world for the Lost City of Atlantis, the Lost Cities of Gold but the Lost City of Atlantis is probably one of the biggest ones that people are looking for.

I think there might be a reason because I think marine archaeology has discovered some of these ancient civilizations that have sunk right into the ocean.

That's fairly common. There's a lot of islands that have sunk over the years and like the civilizations that live there, all the houses are undersea, some have been preserved, others not so well.

Where is Atlantis in the lore? Is it in Europe?

It's difficult to say, but some people look at the Mediterranean Sea, others people talk about more like the Atlantic Ocean. However something very interesting be due to like some Continental shift some people say that Antarctica, that is actually Atlantis

Mediterranean, 地中海, 就欧洲这边的or Atlantic sea, 就是大西洋. I mean for me, it would be quite natural to assume Atlantic, Atlantis, you know is that why people draw that connection.

That might be where the name originally came from, right? But like it's all part of kind of like the same water system.

But you said some people are saying Antarctica like 南极, the South Pole?

Like when you look at some of the old maps that people used to draw, some people say it can't be there, but then when you look at the way they used to draw the maps, it actually makes it look like at the Antarctica could possibly be the Atlantis right?

They didn't really have the best technology to describe maps, they kind of had a... I think the way they drew the map put Antarctica in the wrong location.

So this was essentially according to lore or legend, this was once a very powerful civilization but angered the Gods. I'm assuming like Greek Gods, Roman Gods, right? Poseidon, you said, and then got punished, got sunk into the sea.

When it was still a civilization, was it like you said, was it utopia, is that people lived very happily with advanced technology, lots of development is that the idea?

The advanced technology part that might be more of a modern idea. But according to like legend the people that live there, they live very opulent lives. They had lots of riches, they had a very strong naval fleet.

But the story has kind of changed over years, it’s like it's not just a story that you'll hear from the Greek legends. You'll actually hear it in a lot of different places. People have kind of connected it even to more like Mayan society and things like that. But you'll see the story because it's kind of spread over the world.

These type of lores, they really once they get spread around, they take a life on themselves. They basically will morph into all sorts of ideas with different sort of cultural traits. Right?

So for every country or whatever a society, whatever they view as kind of being more like the ill of society, they kind of fit into the story.

So if some people think hedonism is a really bad thing, they'll talk about it out as like the Atlanteans were very hedonistic and as a result of that they were punished.

Atlanteans are people... are the residents of Atlantis, right?

Right.

Okay. And hedonistic means they indulge just in entertainment in fun in just like pleasing themselves rather than like hard work and these type of values.

Exactly. And the other side, some of the stories talk about how they thirst for power. They wanted the power to be able to rival the Gods. As a result of that, the Gods got very angry and punish them.

So it really depends on which side you're looking at what people are thinking about as being the problem with society. They just kind of fit that into it.

It's very interesting, actually to see the different versions of the same lore, although it started with just bits and pieces of information, but then each society when they try to spread the lore, they will add their own elements, like you said. If your society is more focusing on hard work, then you would obviously condemn hedonism. 比如说特别追求奋斗的这种社会和文化, 就会不喜欢享乐主义, hedonism.

So they would say Atlantis got punished because they were too hedonistic, but then like you said, there are also other societies that would say Atlanteans were punished because they wanted too much power.

But then again, if I know anything, if I remember anything about these myth, mythology, I think Greek Gods can punish you for pretty much anything.

They can... the Greek Gods might punish you for something the Greek Gods did.

Yes, they did a lot of messed up stuff.

Okay, and on that note, I think we're gonna wrap up here the basic episode we gave you like really just an introduction, a very short introduction to this lost civilization or this lore.

In the advanced episode, we're gonna get a little bit deeper into this, which I'm sure is going to involve aliens again. All right. And thank you, Brad, for coming to the show

No problem. See you again next time.

We'll see you next time. Bye.

Bye everyone.