[edwnj]

I agree Hancock's theories often has a lot of wishful thinking but they seem more plausible to me than the current orthodoxy which imo is definitely wrong.

> Another possibility is that chances of advanced civilizations developing are extraordinarily rare.

My issue with this theory is it makes us special (chronological snobbery). It makes a lot more sense for us to be standing on the ruins of many great civilizations that were roughly around ballpark or even more advanced than us. This would be more in line with our understanding of nature which is very conservative and cyclical.

> We have evidence of populous and vibrant civilizations existing

My understanding of this is, nature is a very powerful destruction agent and most archeological finds are rare exceptional cases where multiple unlikely things happened to get the area preserved.