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.
Is it disinformation or merely misinformation here? The former seems to imply someone knowing what they are talking about but lying to the recipient, while the latter is someone clueless what even they themselves are saying.
Oh, but maybe you meant that falling for the misinformation opens people up to therefore be more receptive to actual disinformation.
Either way I thought I would share that I was being tripped up by that word, in case that feedback helps you to reach a wider audience without having to encounter such barriers.
I was torn between the use of misinformation and disinformation. And comments on Lemmy are often speaking into a void, so I honestly did not think it would matter. I appreciate the clarification and agree that misinformation is more appropriate. But agree that falling for misinformation leads to disinformation.
At this point I’m sure there’s been numerous people who have written in to correct him and advise him of the inaccuracies. I’m sure by now he’s had enough time to properly investigate the facts and why the modern consensus is the modern consensus, because of the available evidence.
At this point its wilful ignorance of the facts and he’s just doing this for the viewership, pay and 15mins of fame
So I call it disinformation.
Ooh good point.
Although still, if I see a 5-year-old toddler saying something b/c it garners them “attention” (either positive or negative), then I wouldn’t call what they are saying as “information”, of any kind, so much as mere “noise”. (scene below is from Babadook, a fantastic film btw)
It gets more difficult to describe when the situation escalates to that person being elected as the leader of the free fucking world (well… not as much that as Hillary Clinton was voted against - but still, someone had to go in, and it ended up being him, b/c of Electoral College hijinks etc.). Telling people to go out into the sun, in the dead of winter below freezing, after they are already sick, to soak up sunlight… is the height of irresponsibility, but he managed to top it further by telling people to brutally mutilate their bodies and die of diarrhea by taking Ivermectin (even people with MDs or PhDs did this!!!). So is Trump then the toddler in the above scenario, and thus excused by reason of mental… ah… “whatever”?
I would say “no” b/c the chief distinction is not age - either physical or mental - but rather the position of authority. A child throwing a hissy fit, even outright lying, is one thing, but e.g. a Supreme Court Chief Justice of the land doing the same thing? THAT is WRONG, and should be punished somehow (ignoring for the moment that it will not be:-().
Therefore it falls to: who is the one “responsible” for this TV show’s existence? If he made it, then arguably him yeah… but also someone paid for him to do it, so wouldn’t that make them more so, like even in a purely legal sense, plus possibly other senses too? If a postal worker carries a letter containing anthrax, we don’t blame them, so much as the person who sent the package - so shouldn’t we blame the originator of this show? Which ultimately may even fall onto the audience, for watching it, or the leaders of our nation to allow democracy to continue to be decided by people who refuse to read a book - e.g. like Starship Troopers, we could limit citizenship to those who either (a) engage in military service, or (b) have a degree, the latter of which must be one certified to have included at least the briefest, barest mention of the fact that there are 3 branches of government. Oh and… maybe the names of those 3 branches. Although as of now, there are so many Americans who don’t even seem to know the former, much less the latter.
Sorry for the long-winded way of saying: it is not this guy’s fault that he is contributing to the moral and possible literal physical decay of our entire nation, just by being a greedy fucker who ignores all “facts” and gives the people whatever “entertainment” that they we want. Or… then again… is it?
Anyway, I am less certain of anything here than when I started, but this is at least fun to think about!:-)
(Edit: and yeah, I think I’m switching sides now, you convinced me that either way, if he knew, then it would be closer to disinformation than mis-. Although even more pertinent, now I don’t think it’s either one really, so much as mere performance theater, so as to get paid. The distinction may fall down to: is the channel that he is put onto something that has an “expectation” of containing truthful, factual content? Sorry, I have no idea who this guy is really or what channel that show would be on, nor do I particularly care:-D. This is why I no longer watch TV really, except pure fantasy shows - I personally don’t like this blurring of the line between “reality(/-istic) TV” and pure fiction ones, I will take the likes of Breaking Bad over “Real” Housewives or whatever junk any day.)
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
I’m out of the loop, who is the guy?
Keanu Reeves is an actor who has starred in a number of popular movies including Speed, The Matrix, and John Wick. He is revered in the online community for being a wholesome person who tends to do the better thing, or at least avoids being terrible.
So if he is actually supports the charlatan who made this series then that would be disappointing.
Ok, but who’s the scientist bloke and what’s he claiming?
Earth is flat? Aliens walk among us? Billionaires are lizards?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Apocalypse
In the series, Hancock argues that an advanced ice age civilization was destroyed in a cataclysm, but that its survivors introduced agriculture, monumental architecture and astronomy to hunter-gatherers around the world. He attempts to show how several ancient monuments are evidence of this, and claims that archaeologists are ignoring or covering up this alleged evidence.
Reverse nepotism baby that wants to play archaeologist on Netflix. He’s also extremely paranoid that “big archaeology” (lmao) is out to get him because he cannot handle criticism from people that know what they’re talking about. Tldr weirdo on Netflix that thinks he’s a martyr.
Ha, now I wanna watch it. Might be fun if you treat it like it’s Cunk on Earth.
"…and on this grand battlefield, the aliens had their first successful battle against protonapoleon, they had learned to…
…would suffer worsening results for centuries while the aliens established themselves slowly across the south pole and up towards Australia. Eventually developing into an opening for a slaughter across much of Southeast Asia. The tall, narrow mountains are actually mass graves for the…
… the grand fortification of the majority of what is now called Tibet endured assaults and sieging unequalled in scale, but stood strong for decades. Vast swaths of territory was being lost in Africa and America, but the line at the Himalayan range practically never faltered, with the exception of smaller breaches. By this time, their very strange and interesting form of nuclear weapons technology had finally had time to enter the theater, and preparations were being made for a massive surprise attack…
…there were apparently only a few hundred outposts left, but advance forces and the rolling production and use of nuclear weapons were steadily taking them down, dozens every month. The majority of the alien empire was reduced to ash and rubble, a nuclear stockpile – vastly larger than even the modern superpowers at the height of the Cold War – was emptied in its entirety.
While the cleansing of Earth was almost done, the results required them to heavily adapt their civilization, there was heavy bunkerization of everything that was not abandoned, and expansion of subterranean production of…
…likely meant that finally, they had won, there were none left to be found. The final proper outpost was destroyed very long ago, but there were many sightings for a while after; With Alaska’s search now finally being completed with no findings, there was nowheren left to look that they hadn’t. They would leave nearly a hundred thousand scouts stationed to keep an eye out, like they had done all over the world, but any aliens they couldn’t find must have crawled deep into the Earth only to be entombed to a cave-in. So thorough and global are the signs of the massive search they committed decades to…
…an asteroid, almost certainly too massive to deflect despite being spotted so early. The centuries of peace had been appreciated despite the hardships, but this turn of events brought a wave of madness over much of the world. Production of space equipment was still in nearly full force and teams were already being sent out do as much as they could, but likely they’d only be able to chip off a fraction of it. Frantic research into alternatives was ongoing, but there were few who hadn’t accepted the futility of it all, the majority were on a hedonistic spree for the next few months…
…impact, the global devastation…
…and that’s how the most interesting period of Earth’s history came to an end."
reverse nepobaby? How does that work? His kid gave birth to him and then hired him?
the show is fun to watch if you realize it’s just him tearing through the strawmen he set up for himself
Ancient Aliens is fun because the crazy people are so excited and engaged. They promote willful ignorance and antiscience stuff too, but at least we got Stargate out of the ancient astronaut malarky.
This guy is boring and smugly antiscience. When the show came out, before I knew who he was and without warching a preview, it seemed like it was going to be about ancient cultures that atalled because of climate change or something along those lines. Nope, took a hard left into stupid territory.
It is frustrating that these jerks ruin actual discussion about ancient cultures being older than we think. Especially when we keep finding older evidence of innovation or oceanic travel that double our estimates on the earliest examples. Like there had to be a significant period of human innovation prior to the oldest sites we know of with massive stone megaliths. The smaller pieces are just harder to find, or may not be recognizeable as intentionally carved!
Damn minions of orthodoxy, I’ll keep my cells from getting bored and then what?
Don’t have a boat in this race, but banning him from otherwise open historical sites because they don’t like his ideas is not scientific, but more like the mediaeval Catholic church.
Science is full of bigoted thinking as any other discipline. If you don’t already know this, you have never met a scientist.
Having said all that, it is a silly idea, but I enjoy the incidental geology that he employs to illustrate his argument. Not that I buy into the argument itself.
Quacks get banned/shunned because they’re usually obnoxious and abusive, not because they hold fringe ideas. If it was only the latter they’d fit right in in most fields.
My recent favorite is anthropology ignoring all evidence of women hunting because it didn’t fit social morals of the researchers. Even finding women buried with shields and weapons and people still making excuses.
There’s a few videos on YT about him, particularly about his newest show and reintroduction to an unaware younger audience who isn’t familiar with his tricks. I’d suggest potholer54’s critique of the episodes, not only for breaking it down on why Hancock is woo crazy, but also reading the comments where lots of times you get defenders trying their own attempts of logic spin. It’s funny and sad at the same time.
I hope Keanu isn’t a sucker about this stuff. I believes some of Hancock’s ideas too once, but to be fair I was like 11. I can only hope he was playing along and every time Hancock mentions a new fact Keanu goes “whoa…”
Dear Earth, apart from the many terrible things we have done historically, we, the British, are most recently sorry for David Icke, Andrew Wakefield and now Graham Hancock. We have tried to balance this out but one David Attenborough only goes so far.
Hey you did also have Tolkien. Not gonna say everything’s forgiven, but he pulls a lot of weight.
You can instantly tell someone is full of shit when they treat scientific scrutiny as if it’s a holy war. Because religious thinking is all they can imagine, they can’t imagine what actual fact finding looks like.
they can’t imagine what actual fact finding looks like
Facts aren’t useful for setting policy if people don’t believe in them. Just ask any climatologist.
ELI5?
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
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.
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)
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?
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…
He’s successfully siphoned money away from serious archeological work
Ho’s gotta eat, too.
