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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, h

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
        I am much more in agreement with you than not. But I see Hancock, presented with evidence indicating a better alternative than his own, cheerfully accepting it. Most likely he would come up with another speculation consistent with the new facts. He certainly harbors lots of deeply kooky ideas, but doesn't seem as attached to them as my favorite kooks are. I don't know if anybody has tried taking him aside to explain how Earth's rotational precession is wholly divorced from solar system orbital dynamics, or if he could understand it if they did. His notion of Gobekli Tepe built as a red warning to us about the scheduled upcoming comet strike is easily his kookiest, and has been a serious distraction from his main interest. On a different tangent, I only just found out about megaliths in Montana. If those are all erratics, some glacier was being awfully artful about it. https://www.montanamegaliths.com/uploads/6/9/2/9/69295147/tizer-julie-purple_orig.jpg https://www.montanamegaliths.com/uploads/6/9/2/9/69295147/ti... https://www.galacticfacets.com/uploads/9/4/8/8/9488982/1345397_orig.jpg https://www.galacticfacets.com/uploads/9/4/8/8/9488982/13453...

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
      I am much more in agreement with you than not. But I see Hancock, presented with evidence indicating a better alternative than his own, cheerfully accepting it. Most likely he would come up with another speculation consistent with the new facts. He certainly harbors lots of deeply kooky ideas, but doesn't seem as attached to them as my favorite kooks are. I don't know if anybody has tried taking him aside to explain how Earth's rotational precession is wholly divorced from solar system orbital dynamics, or if he could understand it if they did. His notion of Gobekli Tepe built as a red warning to us about the scheduled upcoming comet strike is easily his kookiest, and has been a serious distraction from his main interest. On a different tangent, I only just found out about megaliths in Montana. If those are all erratics, some glacier was being awfully artful about it. https://www.montanamegaliths.com/uploads/6/9/2/9/69295147/tizer-julie-purple_orig.jpg https://www.montanamegaliths.com/uploads/6/9/2/9/69295147/ti... https://www.galacticfacets.com/uploads/9/4/8/8/9488982/1345397_orig.jpg https://www.galacticfacets.com/uploads/9/4/8/8/9488982/13453...