• Subtracty@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    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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      3 months ago

      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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        3 months ago

        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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          3 months ago

          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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            3 months ago

            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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              3 months ago

              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

              • Confused_Emus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                3 months ago

                Plato wasn’t writing in some long-dead obscure language that we only have vague translations of, it was Greek. It’s not a matter of interpretation.

                • burgersc12@mander.xyz
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                  3 months ago

                  You can’t even intrepret my English correctly, how can we assume we know what was going through some dudes head several thousand years ago?? Also I’d like to see where Plato wrote “I made it all up about Atlantis” cause AFAIK we just assumed this is the case

      • SzethFriendOfNimi@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        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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            3 months ago

            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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        3 months ago

        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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            3 months ago

            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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                3 months ago

                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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                  3 months ago

                  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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                  3 months ago

                  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

  • fsxylo@sh.itjust.works
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    3 months ago

    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.

    • SSJMarx@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      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.

      • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        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?

      • lagomorphlecture@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        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

  • Broken_Monitor@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    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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      3 months ago

      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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      3 months ago

      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.

    • Cataphract@lemmy.ml
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      3 months ago

      NNOO!!! Matrix was a documentary though!! /s But seriously though, if I were Keanu I would steer really wide and far from anything like this because of the semi-cult following he got from the movies. There was borderline problems with people conflicting the metaphors of the movie to actually say it’s reality and we are trapped. Like it’s a cool hypothesis and explains some things easily like religion, but takes all the fun out of actually researching or discovering something universe shattering like that.

  • wick@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

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

  • Sgt_choke_n_stroke@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    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

  • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 months ago

    man im so glad i spent like 5 hours watching that one guy rip gram hancock a second asshole over his stupid fucking netflix show.

    This meme would make no sense otherwise. Fuck conspiracy theories.

  • pyre@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    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.

  • ekZepp@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    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.

  • yesman@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Keanu must really believe in this stuff because we know he’s no good at pretending.