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Seems like plain old nationalism to me. I've been seeing a lot of Indian nationalism online as well, particularly on videos about the Indian space program or In
by krilly 7y ago
Seems like plain old nationalism to me. I've been seeing a lot of Indian nationalism online as well, particularly on videos about the Indian space program or Indian mathematicians
- sterlind 7y agoAgreed. I went on a YouTube binge on pre-Indo-European genetics and culture, human haplogroup tracking etc. There were a bunch of white nationalist comments, everything from the "superior culture" of the Indo-Europeans that killed the Stonehenge inhabitants to outright racism in the Bantu expansion videos. I guess people look this stuff up because they're obsessed with proving their historical birthright or superiority or something, but man I just wanted to learn paleontology.. The YouTube recommendations after that binge made my feed quite unpleasant.
- duskwuff 7y agoIndian nationalism can get especially weird where it intersects with Hindu fundamentalism. A common pattern I've seen is claims that a modern invention or scientific discovery (like the speed of light, or the light bulb, or a space probe) was actually "inspired by", or "predicted by", or even "stolen from" the Vedas. (This isn't to detract from the technological discoveries which really did originate in India, of course! A few commonly cited true examplies of these are place-value numeric notation, cataract surgery, and certain advances in early metallurgy. The sorts of claims I'm referring to are much more fanciful -- for instance, one I've seen is that certain large symbolic numbers in the Vedas actually represent values of scientific interest, like the speed of light, the diameter of the Earth, or the distance to the Moon.)