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Pseudo-Archaeology & The Racism Behind Ancient Aliens

that's not a good reason to want it canceled... Especially given that there's no real bias in the show itself.

Better reasons would be the fact the show is a stupid premise.
 
Vardoger said:
"cease fighting or arguing; admit defeat. "
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Yes, I know what it means, thank you. You seem to be suggesting it's not the right course of action here, though, hence my question mark. For one thing, I haven't seen much argument against the points raised in the articles - you can hardly cease arguing if you haven't even started.
 
Krepostnoi said:
Say what now? Clever racism* would be fine?
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No I mean that the show's fundamental premise is flawed in a way that has nothing to do with racism.

I think it's meant as satire but apparently some people actually take it seriously. BUT, it's not the origination of this idea. It's an OLD idea in UFO "research" circles. IE if there are aliens when did they first visit Earth?

Some mythology is WEIRD and talks about people in flying machines. WHAT does it mean? That is where the Ancient Aliens idea comes in. But books(such as Erich von Däniken's Chariots of the Gods) have been published since the 60s espousing the idea. How is this suddenly racist and insulting? Well, actually that's been a major criticism of the idea since the 60s.

But this aspect of history is something worth discussing. HOW were these things made?
 
It's not racist. The show's argument is most ancient tech is made by aliens, including in Europe, you know, where white folks reside. Only ancient population which has not been included is the Romans, I think.
 
Vardoger said:
A woke professor wants Discovery to cancel AA. It's racist against all those ancient people.
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Yeah, it actually is racist against all those ancient societies. Ancient Aliens theorists are actually discrediting non-white people whose architectural efforts we often have difficulty explaining even with modern science, so instead they want to claim it as proof for their pet theory about extraterrestrials? I mean quite a apart from the atrocious scholarship, Ancient Alien theorists are actually crypto-racists, let's face facts. Ever wonder why the ancient alien theorists don't include Romans? Hmm? Could it be because they were white?
 
marhawkman said:
No I mean that the show's fundamental premise is flawed in a way that has nothing to do with racism.
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Well, ok, but you did seem to say in as many words that racism alone is not a good enough reason to cancel a show:
marhawkman said:
that's not a good reason to want it canceled...
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marhawkman said:
How is this suddenly racist and insulting? Well, actually that's been a major criticism of the idea since the 60s.
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It is to the credit of the field that this critique emerged almost as soon as Von Daniken and his ilk crawled out from under their incredibly accurately carved stones. But it's no coincidence that these critiques are being voiced again given that people are now seeing a window of opportunity to have them heard by a wider audience, and maybe also acknowledged by the cultural gatekeepers who decide which shows get aired and which don't. Which is fair enough, I reckon.
 
Krepostnoi said:
Well, ok, but you did seem to say in as many words that racism alone is not a good enough reason to cancel a show:
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It's not racist though. It's not targeted at a specific culture. It's something that has been applied to literally every culture.

Cancelling something for being "racist" is only a good reason to cancel it if it's actually racist. If it's not racist and just stupid that's a different reason to cancel it.

Which yeah, Ancient Aliens was not a good idea to start with, but it's a bad idea for reasons other than racism... IE whether it presents an accurate depiction of the facts.
 
Krepostnoi said:
But it's no coincidence that these critiques are being voiced again given that people are now seeing a window of opportunity to have them heard by a wider audience, and maybe also acknowledged by the cultural gatekeepers who decide which shows get aired and which don't. Which is fair enough, I reckon.
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Yeah, I mean put yourself in the shoes of some poor Bolivian indio who lives around Tiwanaku, and has little enough in life, but can at least point to the ruins and say that their people once had an amazing culture and society, then some strangers (neo-conquistadors) come along an try to further discredit your ancestors' achievements on behalf of mythical sky critters that even their own people don't even believe in, after you have already become dispossessed in your own land. All this in order to push the agenda of some self-promoting narcissist like Von Daniken. Give everyone a break, huh?
 
AlchoPwn said:
Yeah, I mean put yourself in the shoes of some poor Bolivian indio who lives around Tiwanaku, and has little enough in life, but can at least point to the ruins and say that their people once had an amazing culture and society, then some strangers (neo-conquistadors) come along an try to further discredit your ancestors' achievements on behalf of mythical sky critters that even their own people don't even believe in, after you have already become dispossessed in your own land. All this in order to push the agenda of some self-promoting narcissist like Von Daniken. Give everyone a break, huh?
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Is it insulting to our ancestors? yeah. Is it racist though? I'd argue no.
 
marhawkman said:
Cancelling something for being "racist" is only a good reason to cancel it if it's actually racist. If it's not racist and just stupid that's a different reason to cancel it.
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Ah, right, I see what you're saying, now.

I guess one problem I have with the show is that - at least, if Wikipedia is to be believed - it treats Von Daniken as its core inspiration. If that's right, and at no stage since has it addressed the controversy around his ideas, then it is already on shaky ground.
 
To say it's racist means the ancient astronaut theory has been launched because the people in the ancient civilizations discussed are coloured. I don't think that's the case.
 
marhawkman said:
Is it insulting to our ancestors? yeah. Is it racist though? I'd argue no.
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Ancient Alien theories are attacking the heritage of disadvantaged people, often on the basis that they are "primitive" and "couldn't possibly" have made the artefacts. Please read these articles and reconsider your position.

The Racism behind Alien Mummy Hoaxes

Pseudoarchaeology and the Racism behind Ancient Aliens

Now imagine that someone said that white people are so racist that they couldn't possibly have built Big Ben or the Empire State Building, because they are a bunch of primitive racist redneck trash who can barely operate a pick-up truck, given all their drunken accidents, so it must have been done by the Chinese or by extraterrestrials. AA theorists are a little more polite, but as Dennis Reynolds would say "it's about the implication..." I mean, ffs, the AA theory is all but completely tapped out in terms of credibility anyhow; let it die. It might be one of the only good things to come out of political correctness.
 
I have never had any interest at all the "aliens brought us culture" books; even as a teen I recognized sloppy reasoning, narcissistic flights of thought, and totally missing scholarship, and I do agree with the argument that questioning every achievement of non-European cultures is racist. The argument for me is that the perpetrators don't realize their built-in racism. But remember as the various pseudo-scientists have not that the Roman Empire, which was very huge and extensive, included people of all shades of skin, and all were welcome to become citizens if they met the various requirements - which changed from time to time but I believe included property ownership and/or military status. Always, of course, Y chromosomes. You would have seen people of all sorts in Rome. Jesus and Cleopatra, just for names we recognize, were darker-skinned. Slaves came in all colors as well. Athens also but to a lesser extent, and it was more difficult to become a citizen. So if the authors instinctively omitted Rome from their thoughts they were, once again, wrong.
 
Lb8535 said:
I have never had any interest at all the "aliens brought us culture books"; even as a teen I recognized sloppy reasoning, narcissistic flights of thought, and totally missing scholarship, and I do agree with the argument that questioning every achievement of non-European cultures is racist. The argument for me is that the perpetrators don't realize their built-in racism. But remember as the various pseudo-scientists have not that the Roman Empire, which was very huge and extensive, included people of all shades of skin, and all were welcome to become citizens if they met the various requirements - which changed from time to time but I believe included property ownership and/or military status. Always, of course, Y chromosomes. You would have seen people of all sorts in Rome. Jesus and Cleopatra, just for names we recognize, were darker-skinned. Slaves came in all colors as well. Athens also but to a lesser extent, and it was more difficult to become a citizen. So if the authors instinctively omitted Rome from their thoughts they were, once again, wrong.
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Also I tried once for 5 minutes it's an unbelievably boring TV show filling the time period with a tiny amount of interesting footage and lots of garbage.
 
I've always despised the idea that ancient, native civilisations obviously didn't built these wonderful and existing structures but must've had help from 'aliens'.
I don't think it's racism, though. The proponents aren't saying "coloured people couldn't have done it - it must've been white people" but "we have a theory that aliens visited us and it must've been them who built the pyramids etc."

The idea isn't racist unless you can assert that the alien technocrats were white terrestrials. Yes, they weren't of the native race ... but the idea is they weren't native to Earth, full stop.
 
Stormkhan said:
I've always despised the idea that ancient, native civilisations obviously didn't built these wonderful and existing structures but must've had help from 'aliens'.
I don't think it's racism, though. The proponents aren't saying "coloured people couldn't have done it - it must've been white people" but "we have a theory that aliens visited us and it must've been them who built the pyramids etc."

The idea isn't racist unless you can assert that the alien technocrats were white terrestrials. Yes, they weren't of the native race ... but the idea is they weren't native to Earth, full stop.
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I dunno, that somehow seems worse to me: the idea that the indigenous people in a given area were capable of such feats is somehow more difficult to believe - despite the tangible evidence - than the idea that it must have been aliens (aliens, for pity's sake!) instead. That seems pretty damn dismissive to me.
 
Mythopoeika said:
She's being a silly troll. Probably a bit drunk too.
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Should she get back in the kitchen, where she belongs?

FFS, Mytho, she's an archaeology professor. She certainly knows more about her chosen field than I do, and I'd bet a chunk of change that she knows more about it than you do, too.
 
Absolutely it is racism, of a particularly insidious kind. The Ancient Alien premise makes me particularly angry, and it is a lazy trope in films like Prometheus, too.
 
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Krepostnoi said:
Should she get back in the kitchen, where she belongs?
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Stop with the projection right now. I didn't have those thoughts.

Krepostnoi said:
FFS, Mytho, she's an archaeology professor. She certainly knows more about her chosen field than I do, and I'd bet a chunk of change that she knows more about it than you do, too.
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As for her being an archaeology professor... she can still be a troll.
 
Wait! Objecting to the idea of Ancient Aliens is racist against aliens.
 
Every once in a while I try to step back and look at Earth as the inhabitants of say Enterprise 1701-D (TNG) would have seen us. We're the episode where a mythology of aliens was built up from one small piece of technology or a scrap of cloth left behind by a survey team. Sort of a What Would Riker Think. And you know what happened to the planets in those episodes. Anything from enlightenment to civil war.
 
Mythopoeika said:
Stop with the projection right now. I didn't have those thoughts.
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There was an awful lot of "be quiet, dear, grown-ups are talking" energy in the post I took exception to. For example, what connotations do you associate with the word "silly"?
Mythopoeika said:
As for her being an archaeology professor... she can still be a troll.
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Being a troll =/= saying things you disagree with. So what do you find particularly trollish about her remarks?
 
Lb8535 said:
So if the authors instinctively omitted Rome from their thoughts they were, once again, wrong.
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We know how Rome was built though (not in a day!). It is not a mystery. Everything else that is discussed is far harder, if not impossible to explain with our current knowledge. I always saw it as ancestorist rather than racist but I can see where racism charges might come from.
 
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