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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

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.)
- permo-w 4y ago
  Hancock is clever in that he works around a core idea that’s genuinely plausible and effectively impossible to disprove[1] he takes the idea, and wraps it up in dramatic, grandiose language with an us-vs-the-establishment twang, adds a few extremely tenuous pieces of evidence, and sells it to the public lots (most?) of these pieces of “evidence” are just geological/archaeological monuments conveniently located in exotic holiday destinations that he can get people to pay him to go and "study" - i.e. stand in front of and make ostentatiously-phrased claims, while presumably making diligent use of the 5-star resorts in the area it’s a clever con, with little to no real harm, and I applaud him for it. Robert Schoch has taken a similar route, presumably realising that there's a lot more money in his PhD from broaching these ideas with the public than there is in analysing rocks [1] - this being the idea that civilisation goes back [a lot] further than our current understanding suggests

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.)

permo-w 4y ago
Hancock is clever in that he works around a core idea that’s genuinely plausible and effectively impossible to disprove[1] he takes the idea, and wraps it up in dramatic, grandiose language with an us-vs-the-establishment twang, adds a few extremely tenuous pieces of evidence, and sells it to the public lots (most?) of these pieces of “evidence” are just geological/archaeological monuments conveniently located in exotic holiday destinations that he can get people to pay him to go and "study" - i.e. stand in front of and make ostentatiously-phrased claims, while presumably making diligent use of the 5-star resorts in the area it’s a clever con, with little to no real harm, and I applaud him for it. Robert Schoch has taken a similar route, presumably realising that there's a lot more money in his PhD from broaching these ideas with the public than there is in analysing rocks [1] - this being the idea that civilisation goes back [a lot] further than our current understanding suggests