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I can't tell if you're serious? I'll take your comment at face-value: Graham Hancock is not a trustworthy source. His "inspiration" is based on thoroughly discr

I can't tell if you're serious? I'll take your comment at face-value: Graham Hancock is not a trustworthy source. His "inspiration" is based on thoroughly discredited, white supremacist garbage. The fundamental thesis of his work is that: (1) white people have had civilization for (tens?) of thousands of years; and, (2) nonwhites are too stupid to have discovered/developed anything.

zozbot234 4y ago
> ... nonwhites are too stupid to have discovered/developed anything. Except that, e.g. the Dogon civilization is also many thousands of years old and had complex astronomical knowledge about extra-solar bodies which rivals that of modern times. There's nothing whatsoever about Graham Hancock's working hypotheses that's inherently exclusive to Europeans.
- thechao 4y ago
  No they didn’t. The Dogon BS was debunked years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogon_people#Astronomical_beliefs
permo-w 4y ago
Graham Hancock's tone bothers me. it's far too much of "these traitorous archaeologists don't want you to know". but I've never seen any hint of white supremacy, or even remotely white-focused ideology. he seems to look for older civilisations pretty indiscriminately around the world. I'd say, if anything, he just likes a nice holiday
- thechao 4y ago
  Why is it that he dismisses the ability of each of the native cultures (Mesoamerica, Egypt, China, ...) to have developed their own technology? His fundamental thesis is that they couldn't. That thesis comes from pseudoscientific 19th c. babble; that 19th c. work is for sure rooted in European exceptionalism.
  - permo-w 4y ago
    last I remember, he was suggesting the first known agricultural peoples were influenced by survivor(s?) of some kind of lost civilisation in the Americas somewhere. what does that have to do with race? do you think it's possible that you're seeing things through an overly racial lens?
    - thechao 4y ago
      Nope. The actual archeological community has called him out over the years. I’m assuming he’s in it for the money. https://ahotcupofjoe.net/2022/12/ancient-apocalypse-summary-of-the-series-from-a-professional-pov/ Here’s Feagans about page: https://ahotcupofjoe.net/about-2/ I heard about Hancock pandering the show from Ed Barnhart’s podcast: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Barnhart
      - KMag 4y ago
        The first link cites Fingerprints of the Gods, chapter 14 as racist, but doesn't give any quotations. I haven't read any of Hancock's books, and I have far better things to do with my time (apparently, among them, browsing HN). If he's really making clearly racist statements, it would be good to see the quotes. If one needs to read the whole chapter to see the racism in some holistic interpretation, then perhaps there's a lot of ambiguity there. I've seen video clips of Hancock here and there, and he strikes me as a smart guy who gets a kick of fooling average people. However, none of the clips I've seen seems racist.
  - KMag 4y ago
    Don't get me wrong. He strikes me as a bright guy who gets a kick out of (and if he profits, so much the better) fooling average people. But, has he actually suggested or implied that European society was more advanced back then? Has he actually suggested or implied that this ancient advanced civilization was racially European? The reason it took so long from anatomically advanced humans to create advanced civilizations, is that the progress of ideas is the slow painful task of churning and refining horseshit into slightly less shitty ideas. Others have theorized that a European advanced society pre-existed the most advanced ancient civilizations, and that comes from racist European exceptionalism. However, that doesn't mean that all theories positing an undiscovered advanced ancient civilization are racist. Even if he draws (I have no idea here... I don't follow him) some of his ideas from those earlier racist theories, that doesn't make his theories racist unless he assumes or implies this undiscovered civilization was of European ancestry. If you follow any idea back far enough back in time, you eventually hit horseshit. Maybe the first horseshit you hit in this case is racism. It's possible that he refined the racism out of the previous horeshit and came up with a less shitty advanced ancient civilization theory. Lots of modern medicine was full of racist horseshit more recently than the 19th century. That doesn't make modern medicine racist. Again, I think he's wrong, and likely knows he's wrong. I just haven't seen anything to justify painting him as racist. (Though, I also haven't paid him much attention.)
bl0rg 4y ago
[flagged]
- steve_gh 4y ago
  That's a pretty poor tone for HN. We don't do that sort of thing here.
  - bl0rg 4y ago
    Yeah, I apologize. I see this "fact" being brought up all the time and it frustrates me because it seems so disingenuous.

zozbot234 4y ago

> ... nonwhites are too stupid to have discovered/developed anything. Except that, e.g. the Dogon civilization is also many thousands of years old and had complex astronomical knowledge about extra-solar bodies which rivals that of modern times. There's nothing whatsoever about Graham Hancock's working hypotheses that's inherently exclusive to Europeans.

thechao 4y ago
No they didn’t. The Dogon BS was debunked years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogon_people#Astronomical_beliefs

permo-w 4y ago

Graham Hancock's tone bothers me. it's far too much of "these traitorous archaeologists don't want you to know". but I've never seen any hint of white supremacy, or even remotely white-focused ideology. he seems to look for older civilisations pretty indiscriminately around the world. I'd say, if anything, he just likes a nice holiday

thechao 4y ago
Why is it that he dismisses the ability of each of the native cultures (Mesoamerica, Egypt, China, ...) to have developed their own technology? His fundamental thesis is that they couldn't. That thesis comes from pseudoscientific 19th c. babble; that 19th c. work is for sure rooted in European exceptionalism.
- permo-w 4y ago
  last I remember, he was suggesting the first known agricultural peoples were influenced by survivor(s?) of some kind of lost civilisation in the Americas somewhere. what does that have to do with race? do you think it's possible that you're seeing things through an overly racial lens?
  - thechao 4y ago
    Nope. The actual archeological community has called him out over the years. I’m assuming he’s in it for the money. https://ahotcupofjoe.net/2022/12/ancient-apocalypse-summary-of-the-series-from-a-professional-pov/ Here’s Feagans about page: https://ahotcupofjoe.net/about-2/ I heard about Hancock pandering the show from Ed Barnhart’s podcast: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Barnhart
    - KMag 4y ago
      The first link cites Fingerprints of the Gods, chapter 14 as racist, but doesn't give any quotations. I haven't read any of Hancock's books, and I have far better things to do with my time (apparently, among them, browsing HN). If he's really making clearly racist statements, it would be good to see the quotes. If one needs to read the whole chapter to see the racism in some holistic interpretation, then perhaps there's a lot of ambiguity there. I've seen video clips of Hancock here and there, and he strikes me as a smart guy who gets a kick of fooling average people. However, none of the clips I've seen seems racist.
- KMag 4y ago
  Don't get me wrong. He strikes me as a bright guy who gets a kick out of (and if he profits, so much the better) fooling average people. But, has he actually suggested or implied that European society was more advanced back then? Has he actually suggested or implied that this ancient advanced civilization was racially European? The reason it took so long from anatomically advanced humans to create advanced civilizations, is that the progress of ideas is the slow painful task of churning and refining horseshit into slightly less shitty ideas. Others have theorized that a European advanced society pre-existed the most advanced ancient civilizations, and that comes from racist European exceptionalism. However, that doesn't mean that all theories positing an undiscovered advanced ancient civilization are racist. Even if he draws (I have no idea here... I don't follow him) some of his ideas from those earlier racist theories, that doesn't make his theories racist unless he assumes or implies this undiscovered civilization was of European ancestry. If you follow any idea back far enough back in time, you eventually hit horseshit. Maybe the first horseshit you hit in this case is racism. It's possible that he refined the racism out of the previous horeshit and came up with a less shitty advanced ancient civilization theory. Lots of modern medicine was full of racist horseshit more recently than the 19th century. That doesn't make modern medicine racist. Again, I think he's wrong, and likely knows he's wrong. I just haven't seen anything to justify painting him as racist. (Though, I also haven't paid him much attention.)

bl0rg 4y ago

[flagged]

steve_gh 4y ago
That's a pretty poor tone for HN. We don't do that sort of thing here.
- bl0rg 4y ago
  Yeah, I apologize. I see this "fact" being brought up all the time and it frustrates me because it seems so disingenuous.