• Subtracty@lemmy.world
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    6 天前

    This is the danger of celebrity endorsement. It will bring so much more attention to an unworthy ‘cause’, and so many fans will now absorb this information without critical thought. It is truly a situation where a well-intentioned person does not know enough to understand that this supposed expert is talking nonsense and the world at large slips that much further into disinformation.

    • burgersc12@mander.xyz
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      6 天前

      But I mean nothing Graham Hancock says is that damaging. He suggests that there really was an ancient Atlantis type civilization, which has been suggested by thousands of people including Plato. No one who listens to him talk is actually gonna be swayed against their beliefs one way or the other

      • Andonyx@lemmy.world
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        6 天前

        Plato did not suggest ancient Atlantis existed. He was very clear that he was illustrating a hypothetical “great society” to discuss his views on effective and beneficent government.

        When he discussed it sinking it was a divine punishment from the gods of Olympus because they had strayed from a righteous path. All of it is meant to be a parable.

        • burgersc12@mander.xyz
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          6 天前

          I mean that’s our interpretation of a translation of something said thousands of years ago. But if they want to they can choose to believe what they want. IMO an ancient island sinking due to gods is no different than saying “high tech civ nuked itself out of existense” but with less context. I’m not saying this really happened, but its not like its impossible, just extraordinarily unlikely to be true.

          • Andonyx@lemmy.world
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            6 天前

            I’m not sure if you’re arguing that it being fictional is an interpretation or that its demise from the ire of the Gods is an interpretation.

            If it’s the former, you are incorrect. The single best primary source being his own protege and student Aristotle who also makes it clear the whole thing is didactic invention. (There are debates that some individual events within the story are inspired by actual events in Egypt and Athens, but its existence is never presented as fact. The entire idea that this was some historical account came mostly from a judge writing his own history books in the 19th century.)

            This is also not debatable due to translation. It’s Plato. The best scholars of all time in both language and history have studied this, literally for centuries. There is not any serious or scholarly debate about his intentions with this story. And multiple, equally capable translations of Aristotle corroborate that.

            If you’re talking about the destruction of Atlantis, it’s been too long for me to argue that specifically, but the idea that it was divine punishment is the prevailing view of that story.

            • burgersc12@mander.xyz
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              6 天前

              Even if all the scholars think it wasn’t literal doesn’t mean he didn’t mean it literally, that could just be how we have been interpreting it

          • 100_kg_90_de_belin @feddit.it
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            5 天前

            Our interpretation of a translation

            My brother in Saint Jerome, the best minds in history have been nitpicking Plato’s works for centuries. There are libraries filled with commentaries of his works. Of course, they may be all wrong /s

            PS: Saint Jerome is the patron of translator.

            • burgersc12@mander.xyz
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              5 天前

              And for centuries we thought Troy was a myth made up by Homer until we found that shit. The fact that people act like we can make no mistakes and know everything already pisses me off. Way to kill the intrigue of ancient life.

                • burgersc12@mander.xyz
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                  5 天前

                  But like that’s at least interesting, more so than “we crawled out of the woods ~10k years ago, invented everything, end of story” which feels… like it can’t be true to me. We have been functionally the same for ~200k years, we didn’t do anything in 190k years??

      • SzethFriendOfNimi@lemmy.world
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        6 天前

        It’s damaging because it adds doubt to any kind of scientific consensus.

        “They” don’t want you to know that vaccines are dangerous.

        “They” are only pushing chemo for big pharma.

        “They” don’t want to admit that this was where ancient civilizations had some global empire.

        It’s the same kind of attitude of “fantastical claim you can believe if you just dismiss all the evidence that you don’t like”

        And that is very damaging because it further erodes understanding of the scientific method.

          • ZephrC@lemm.ee
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            6 天前

            Distrusting the government is not the same thing as believing baseless gibberish just because it disagrees with science that has been used to inform government decisions.

      • Subtracty@lemmy.world
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        6 天前

        The belief in the existence of a super-race (or whatever term Hancock uses) is dubious. While the idea on its own may seem harmless, it opens the door for racist idealogies. Everything has to be taken in context, and crackpot archeologists have been making this argument for ages in order to justify later arguments for eugenics.

        I know it may appear that Hancock questioning the established historians and “big archeology” is above suspicion, but it is done in an unambiguously dishonest way. He refuses to acknowledge sound logical arguments put forth by multiple well-respected sources and hand waves things away as common sense. Essentially, he is frustrating because his arguments muddy the waters of logical discussions and introduce doubt in a community that certainly does not get paid enough for this shit.

          • WhiteOakBayou@lemmy.world
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            6 天前

            The survivors of the cataclysm that brought their advanced knowledge to the ancient peoples is the super race.

              • WhiteOakBayou@lemmy.world
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                6 天前

                Yes, if those people are technologically so advanced as to be indistinguishable from wizards. In Graham Hancocks mythology, these people brought the secrets of agriculture and advanced maths to indigenous peoples around the world. A lot of his evidence for this comes from ancient religious texts and artifacts. So, if these people are so advanced that they are worshiped by the natives I think it’s fair to say he is describing a super race.

                • xwolpertinger@lemmy.world
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                  6 天前

                  technologically

                  Not only that, according to his lore they also had psionic powers and could make stuff levitate.

                  Wonder if they were friends with the lost civilization on Mars (yes, he also believes this)…

                • burgersc12@mander.xyz
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                  6 天前

                  Sure techno wizards sound cool AF. Still don’t see how this is a super race when its just people who travel to other places after their civilization gets flushed. If we collapse and I move to south america am I a “super race” or did I just move a bit lol

  • pyre@lemmy.world
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    5 天前

    shame. i hope he was duped and didn’t know what he was in for.

    that being said, can’t wait for the miniminuteman video.

    • SSJMarx@lemm.ee
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      5 天前

      Graham Hancock is a fraud who pushes a baseless conspiracy theory about an ancient civilization that spanned the globe that was destroyed before the last Ice Age. He’s successfully siphoned money away from serious archeological work with his specious bullshit, and right now he’s doing a series called Ancient Apocalypse where he pushes this hypothesis on Netflix. Looks like it’s going into Season 2 and Keanu Reeves appears in it.

      • grrgyle@slrpnk.net
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        5 天前

        I used to love this kind of conspiracy stuff as a kid. It was like X Files. Then I learned people took it for real 😒 and it did actual harm to real academic work

        • chaogomu@lemmy.world
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          5 天前

          What’s worse is the links to white supremacy in all this shit.

          The origin of many of these ancient alien slash ancient apocalypse “theories” are 1900s Germany.

          People who were looking for a “scientific” reason why Germans were the superior race.

          The core thrust of every “ancient” whatever theory is that ancient people were idiots and had to be shown how to pile rocks into a pyramid shape or shit.

          The imaginary people who “showed” ancient brown people how to do shit are always depicted as white.

        • Someone8765210932@lemmy.world
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          5 天前

          There is so much anti science nonsense out there right now, that stuff like this isn’t funny anymore. It’s sad and, more importantly, dangerous.

      • Eyck_of_denesle@lemmy.zip
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        5 天前

        My fav media is archeological documentaries and my most hated media is archeological documentaries(the ones like these that have 0 content and 99% yap)

        • Zementid@feddit.nl
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          5 天前

          So, lots of cuts, repetitions, baseless claims and shitty 3D animations commented “Experts” who have never even published anything of value in “their field”?

          Sounds a lot like most Documentaries made by private companies.

      • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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        5 天前

        I thought, growing in Russia, that such things are not possible in the West. (They were and to some extent still are quite popular here, though, with Fomenko and thousand other freaks.)

        Do I look stupid?

        • Akasazh@feddit.nl
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          5 天前

          Not at all. We are all easy victims to propaganda.

          Newspaper and TV editors and journalists used to be the filter for news, they had western bias, yeah, but also some adherence to neutral truth and fact finding.

          Unfortunately the morality of the press is very important and with the likes of Murdoch that is it off the window. The internet makes for an easy place to search’ facts’ compatible with your gut feeling…

          • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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            5 天前

            Not at all. We are all easy victims to propaganda.

            Oh, not about that - that I know well since year 2020 when everybody went with “territorial integrity of Azerbaijan” over every agreement and every other principle and every other circumstance during Artsakh war.

            This was equivalent to 1993 in Russia (no, I didn’t see it, I was born in 1996), when it turned out that Yeltsin being the elected president means that what he does is democratic, despite the parliament, the constitution and the supreme court being on the other side.

            It actually sucks more with people from the West because they often sincerely believe that “free world” bullshit, while Russians parroting propaganda know that it’s propaganda, they are just cowards or picked a side.

            The internet makes for an easy place to search’ facts’ compatible with your gut feeling…

            Not limited to that. It’s also that a lot of people in a lot of situations today are spectators, while 30 years ago they would be participants. It’s not only the Web, it’s the whole cultural shift which is catastrophic and if it’s not reverted, we’ll be nostalgic over WWII with the “at least then you could heroically die on the side of the good guys” mood.

      • lagomorphlecture@lemm.ee
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        5 天前

        I think I might have watched 1 or 2 episodes of this? I thought it was weird how he was talking about how known history is totally wrong and the vast majority of people don’t know the truth. If it’s the same thing anyways. DNF though lol

  • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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    5 天前

    he’s on the show to debunk or verify everything with his firsthand experience as an immortal, actually he built the pyramids and he’s getting utterly fed up with everyone assuming aliens or workers did it.

  • StrongHorseWeakNeigh@lemmy.world
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    4 天前

    Graham Hancock has a history within Ancient Apocalypse of very selectively editing people’s appearances on his show in order to make them appear more supportive of his crackpot theories than they actually are. Look up MiniMinuteMan on youtube for a complete breakdown and dissection of every episode of Ancient Apocalypse season 1. So, there is hope that Keanu is not actually that supportive of Hancock’s theories.

  • wick@lemm.ee
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    5 天前

    Holy shit, they greenlit a 2nd season of that trash!? And he’s still crying like a bitch about being censored.

    • capital@lemmy.world
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      5 天前

      More History Channel.

      Used to be some really good shit on there that would teach you interesting history. Then it turned into Ancient Aliens bullshit.

      • nomous@lemmy.world
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        5 天前

        Used to be some really good shit on there that would teach you interesting history.

        It was even better when it was just the WWII channel 24/7.

          • nomous@lemmy.world
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            5 天前

            I’m not sure the shows glorified war. Are you of the opinion that history should be ignored and swept under the rug or do we agree it should be studied and understood?

            One could argue that telling people every ancient thing we don’t understand was actually built by aliens is worse, at least the shows about war are based on fact.

    • Zip2@feddit.uk
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      5 天前

      By having one of its members die in a car crash?

      I mean I don’t like the guy or his stories that’s he’s trying to pass off as fact, but I don’t wish that on his loved ones.

  • Broken_Monitor@lemmy.world
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    6 天前

    Who was ever turning to Keanu for scientific knowledge? Lost him? We never had him! Chill dude, entertaining actor, but absolutely wrong person for science.

    • BruceTwarzen@lemm.ee
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      5 天前

      It’s almost like he’s just some guy who makes a paycheck when he can. People act like he’s their friend. Some creepy ass le epic keanu behaviour

    • BruceTwarzen@lemm.ee
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      4 天前

      I wonder that a lot. Like back when it was really important that Taylor Swift or whoever was hip back then had the: send from iphone on their social media, so people bought iphones. How much does she know about technology tho? I was driving past a car dealership and they had a huge sign with a football player shaking some guys hand saying: sportsball player is super into Hyundai. He almost famously is not, he’s into audi, i don’t care about sports or celebrities, and even i saw him driving his fancy audi that is also on many pictures of him.

  • ekZepp@lemmy.world
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    5 天前

    Why Keanu… why… 🤧

    Whatever. As long as he keeps doing good action movies I don’t give a damn of his beliefs. I still like Tom Cruise’s movies and he’s a scientology’s nuts.

  • Sgt_choke_n_stroke@lemmy.world
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    6 天前

    I’m OK with this dickhead claiming the things he’s claim but he doesn’t have EVIDENCE just speculation.

    That’s what’s frustrating

    • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social
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      6 天前

      “Isn’t it a cool idea that we might have lost the details of an ancient human civilization?”

      “Yes, absolutely, and we keep finding new evidence that behavioral modernity started earlier than thought, so it’d be awesome to find proof that-”

      “THE PROOF CAME TO ME IN A DREAM (OF GETTING A NETFLIX SPECIAL)”

  • BallsandBayonets@lemmings.world
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    4 天前

    Plot twist: Keanu isn’t immortal, as the pictures show, he’s actually just a very long-lived alien, and it’s in his best interest to make sure none of the crackpots get too close to the truth.