3 ms·

> because not only is it harmful in the immediate term How is it harmful? I'd never heard of most of the megalithic sites he visited. He just goes around to

by nverno 4y ago

> because not only is it harmful in the immediate term How is it harmful? I'd never heard of most of the megalithic sites he visited. He just goes around to these sites and points out things he finds amazing, and presents some of his theories on their origins. Whether a viewer chooses to believe his theories or not, really all he's doing is stimulating the viewer's imagination. Nothing he discusses will have any immediate physical effect on anyone's lives. > discovered how lucrative falsehood They are in the entertainment business, not the education business. They sell stories and fantasies. You're holding TV to a standard that might make sense for government sources.

1attice 4y ago
It's harmful because it means that it presents things which are known with near-certainty to be falsehoods as truths or potential truths. This is being done by Netflix for profit, which ought to be bad enough to end the conversation right there. But the deeper context is even worse: it's being done in an era where reality is routinely contested by quasi-LARP-like political actions that depend on keeping their userbase afraid, absurd, and feeling unheard. Giving them yet another reason to feel epistemically isolated in order to boost ratings is like taking the water out of a nuclear reactor to heat your home -- it makes a great deal of sense to today's bottom line, but none at all for tomorrow's. Our civ is not sustainable without a steady, heartfelt, and broadly-distributed grasp on truth.
- nverno 4y ago
  > it presents things which are known with near-certainty to be falsehoods as truths or potential truths I didn't get that from the show at all. There aren't many fundamental 'truth's in this realm, afaict, and I don't recall him debating things like carbon dating. Instead, there are theories with varying amounts of archaeological evidence to support them. Does he display every bit of evidence people have discovered? Obviously not, but over time, everyone's theories on ancient civilization will change. There shouldn't be anything negative/isolating for people if they choose to entertain different theories about the past, and it's sad that people would ostracize someone for that. The world is a richer place because of it imho- this is largely a realm of fantasy, imagining life in the past, trying to infer the ancient's motivations/capabilities from scraps of long-lost cultures.
- 015a 4y ago
  I think you're being dangerously dramatic. I'll counter with a bit of dangerous drama of my own: Its very easy to believe that the 14th century papal state said the same thing to Galileo. "Our civilization is not sustainable without a steady, broadly-distributed grasp on truth; and that truth is Christianity, with the earth in the center of the universe." Of course, our scientific truths today are far, far more steady than those of the past. We know a lot more; we don't know everything. We only evolved beyond that state by questioning the accepted truth and testing it. In the line of that questioning; we're going to land on ten times more wrong answers than right ones. Graham's work is, probably, a wrong answer; that doesn't make it any less important that its asked. We shouldn't aim for a world with one steady, heartfelt, and broadly-distributed grasp on truth. We should encourage skepticism. The Accepted Truth should exist; people should be taught it, and taught to be skeptical of it. They should seek out alternate viewpoints, and be skeptical of those too. They should do their own research, whether that's new fundamental research or seeking the research of others; integrate what they find into their worldview; and draw new conclusions from it.
  - 1attice 4y ago
    And I think you're being dangerously complacent. I in no way claim that we all need the same grasp on truth. I do however claim that there are ideas which can be described as 'absurd.' A large number of these ideas later turn out to have been misclassified, for example, Galileo's ideas. Yet there are still some other ideas in the 'absurd' category which are there *because they are absurd*, and because *absurd ideas deserve to be ignored.* The possibility of making a mistake does not obviate the need to try.

by nverno 4y ago

1attice 4y ago

It's harmful because it means that it presents things which are known with near-certainty to be falsehoods as truths or potential truths. This is being done by Netflix for profit, which ought to be bad enough to end the conversation right there. But the deeper context is even worse: it's being done in an era where reality is routinely contested by quasi-LARP-like political actions that depend on keeping their userbase afraid, absurd, and feeling unheard. Giving them yet another reason to feel epistemically isolated in order to boost ratings is like taking the water out of a nuclear reactor to heat your home -- it makes a great deal of sense to today's bottom line, but none at all for tomorrow's. Our civ is not sustainable without a steady, heartfelt, and broadly-distributed grasp on truth.

nverno 4y ago
> it presents things which are known with near-certainty to be falsehoods as truths or potential truths I didn't get that from the show at all. There aren't many fundamental 'truth's in this realm, afaict, and I don't recall him debating things like carbon dating. Instead, there are theories with varying amounts of archaeological evidence to support them. Does he display every bit of evidence people have discovered? Obviously not, but over time, everyone's theories on ancient civilization will change. There shouldn't be anything negative/isolating for people if they choose to entertain different theories about the past, and it's sad that people would ostracize someone for that. The world is a richer place because of it imho- this is largely a realm of fantasy, imagining life in the past, trying to infer the ancient's motivations/capabilities from scraps of long-lost cultures.
015a 4y ago
I think you're being dangerously dramatic. I'll counter with a bit of dangerous drama of my own: Its very easy to believe that the 14th century papal state said the same thing to Galileo. "Our civilization is not sustainable without a steady, broadly-distributed grasp on truth; and that truth is Christianity, with the earth in the center of the universe." Of course, our scientific truths today are far, far more steady than those of the past. We know a lot more; we don't know everything. We only evolved beyond that state by questioning the accepted truth and testing it. In the line of that questioning; we're going to land on ten times more wrong answers than right ones. Graham's work is, probably, a wrong answer; that doesn't make it any less important that its asked. We shouldn't aim for a world with one steady, heartfelt, and broadly-distributed grasp on truth. We should encourage skepticism. The Accepted Truth should exist; people should be taught it, and taught to be skeptical of it. They should seek out alternate viewpoints, and be skeptical of those too. They should do their own research, whether that's new fundamental research or seeking the research of others; integrate what they find into their worldview; and draw new conclusions from it.
- 1attice 4y ago
  And I think you're being dangerously complacent. I in no way claim that we all need the same grasp on truth. I do however claim that there are ideas which can be described as 'absurd.' A large number of these ideas later turn out to have been misclassified, for example, Galileo's ideas. Yet there are still some other ideas in the 'absurd' category which are there *because they are absurd*, and because *absurd ideas deserve to be ignored.* The possibility of making a mistake does not obviate the need to try.