19 ms·

Please and thank you. I got one of his books as entertainment, it's a guilty pleasure, I like "kooky" fringe stuff. So I was actually pretty stoked to see the

Please and thank you. I got one of his books as entertainment, it's a guilty pleasure, I like "kooky" fringe stuff. So I was actually pretty stoked to see the series appear on Netflix, but then I watched the preview... It is presented as if it's not "Harry Potter"-grade silly nonsense, as if it's not fiction. Hancock might believe his own fiction, but that makes him a nutter, not a scientist nor a journalist. The problem is that this series, and say, the mushroom series about Stamets et. al., and Tyson's Cosmos are presented as if they are the same epistemologically, when they are clearly not the same. Cosmos is science. Paul Stamets is basically scientific with a gloss of pop and promotion. Graham Hancock is a kook. Normally I'm not one for the "won't somebody think of the idiots!?" folks, but I really find the presentation of the Netflix series problematical. But then the "History Channel" is full of ancient astronauts gunk, so what do I know? Tabloid trash sells.

moloch-hai 4y ago
He is not a kook. He is just wrong about the implications of the facts. He gets attention because nobody whose job it actually is will even look at the facts. His "debunkers" carefully avoid so much as mentioning them.
- Hikikomori 4y ago
  Which facts?
- carapace 4y ago
  My friend, I'm sorry, he is a kook. (At best he's a kook, if he believes his own fiction he's merely a kook. He might just be trolling for the money. If so, he's a pernicious conman. But I think he's earnest. As I mentioned I'm a fan of his.) I've been reading fringe material since before the Internet was a thing, I've forgotten more weird theories than most people know exist. You can tell a kook from a journalist or a scientist w/o reference to the content, it's the form that their communication takes that gives it away. That's why this series is problematic: it conflates the three things: journalism, science, and kooky fringe "theories". (Whenever they say "ancient astronaut theorists" on those History Channel I giggle because what they really mean are "kooks". But it's fucking pathetic that that channel calls itself the "History" channel, eh? It's like a cooking channel that only showed programs about sewage treatment.)
  - moloch-hai 4y ago
    The hallmark of a kook is promoting a story in conflict with the facts. Flat-earthers are kooks. Hancock speculates out ahead of the facts, a different activity. He can turn out to be wrong as new facts come in, or even right, as he was about the North American comet strike 12,800 years ago. Kooks start out wrong and stay wrong. A million square miles of what was southeast Asia 20kya is under water, enough room for several Mesopotamian-scale civilizations. People had lived there for tens of millennia, ice-free. Kooks are useless. Speculators generate interest in big questions.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - carapace 4y ago
      You're missing the point. The problem isn't that he is "speculating out ahead of the facts", the problem is that this series paints him in exactly the same light as, say, Neil deGrasse Tyson.
      - moloch-hai 4y ago
        This is a problem? NGT has done actual work. But the main difference today is that he hews close to the favored mainstream speculation. But probably Brian Greene is a better comparison. He has not done any actual physics (i.e., connected at any remove to actual experiment) in decades, if ever.
        carapace 4y ago
        Perhaps Tyson isn't the best example. Like I said, normally I'm not a "think of the children" type, but IMO you've got to give the kids (et. al.) a fighting chance, I really did watch the trailer for the series and think "WTF? This makes GH look way more legit than he is." and I count myself as a fan of GH, okay? Maybe I'm wrong, but that's my reaction and my considered opinion. Take it for what it's worth. (Or not. It's just the internet, eh?) Cheers!

moloch-hai 4y ago

He is not a kook. He is just wrong about the implications of the facts. He gets attention because nobody whose job it actually is will even look at the facts. His "debunkers" carefully avoid so much as mentioning them.

Hikikomori 4y ago
Which facts?
carapace 4y ago
My friend, I'm sorry, he is a kook. (At best he's a kook, if he believes his own fiction he's merely a kook. He might just be trolling for the money. If so, he's a pernicious conman. But I think he's earnest. As I mentioned I'm a fan of his.) I've been reading fringe material since before the Internet was a thing, I've forgotten more weird theories than most people know exist. You can tell a kook from a journalist or a scientist w/o reference to the content, it's the form that their communication takes that gives it away. That's why this series is problematic: it conflates the three things: journalism, science, and kooky fringe "theories". (Whenever they say "ancient astronaut theorists" on those History Channel I giggle because what they really mean are "kooks". But it's fucking pathetic that that channel calls itself the "History" channel, eh? It's like a cooking channel that only showed programs about sewage treatment.)
- moloch-hai 4y ago
  The hallmark of a kook is promoting a story in conflict with the facts. Flat-earthers are kooks. Hancock speculates out ahead of the facts, a different activity. He can turn out to be wrong as new facts come in, or even right, as he was about the North American comet strike 12,800 years ago. Kooks start out wrong and stay wrong. A million square miles of what was southeast Asia 20kya is under water, enough room for several Mesopotamian-scale civilizations. People had lived there for tens of millennia, ice-free. Kooks are useless. Speculators generate interest in big questions.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - carapace 4y ago
    You're missing the point. The problem isn't that he is "speculating out ahead of the facts", the problem is that this series paints him in exactly the same light as, say, Neil deGrasse Tyson.
    - moloch-hai 4y ago
      This is a problem? NGT has done actual work. But the main difference today is that he hews close to the favored mainstream speculation. But probably Brian Greene is a better comparison. He has not done any actual physics (i.e., connected at any remove to actual experiment) in decades, if ever.
      - carapace 4y ago
        Perhaps Tyson isn't the best example. Like I said, normally I'm not a "think of the children" type, but IMO you've got to give the kids (et. al.) a fighting chance, I really did watch the trailer for the series and think "WTF? This makes GH look way more legit than he is." and I count myself as a fan of GH, okay? Maybe I'm wrong, but that's my reaction and my considered opinion. Take it for what it's worth. (Or not. It's just the internet, eh?) Cheers!