🧵 Erich von Däniken is dead, aged 90.
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@Richard_Littler Just noting that there's a very skeevy racist subtext running just below the surface of Von Daniken's thesis—that ancient people *couldn't* have built the monumental structures they left behind, so they must have been "helped" by aliens (clearly white savior-coded).
@cstross @Richard_Littler There’s even a meme for that…
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🧵 Erich von Däniken is dead, aged 90. Many of my generation will remember him as a proponent of the pseudoscientific 'ancient aliens' theory, just one of the many sensationalist supernatural topics that flooded culture in the 1970s.
I've had this book since I was a little kid.@Richard_Littler Now the ancient aliens-guy has to do all the heavy bullshit lifting himself!
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Nearby, he even has his own walking path based around the events of his life.
@Richard_Littler I like the idea of placing someone’s biography along a path.
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@Richard_Littler
Co-writer & editor was a literal NAZI. I didn't know that till yesterday.
It all makes more sense now, the "Indigenous peoples can't do the clever stuff" A White Supremacist Ideology makes more sense of it,I read "Chariot of the Gods" in 1972 approx.
Very plausible if you are ignorant.
I read a good debunking maybe the next year.
Debunked over 50 years ago and yet was on a Digital Pay TV "factual" channel in UK & Ireland.It was also dishonest in the presentation of facts!
@raymaccarthy @Richard_Littler Yeah, lots of that stuff comes from the Nazis and specifically the Ahnenerbe, and their attempts to prove Nordicism and suchlike bullshit.
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@isaackuo @cstross @Richard_Littler Maybe not quite so profitable but Graham Hancock has still made a lot of money and been given a highish profile perpetuating the same racist pseudoscience in the past few decades: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Hancock
@JonnyT @isaackuo @cstross @Richard_Littler And this stuff is all over TikTok and YouTube shorts. It seems to be impossible to stamp it out.
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I have never heard of this and just found out, it's near Interlaken and around a children's fun fair, called "Mysty Land".
Mysty Land - Grösster Indoor- und Outdoor-Spielplatz im Berner Oberland
Das Mysty Land ist ein zauberhafter Ort, an dem Kinderaugen zum Funkeln gebracht werden und Erwachsene wieder zu Kindern werden. Auf dem Trampolin, in der Hüpfburg oder im Ballpool kommt auch der Spass garantiert nicht zu kurz.
JungfrauPark (jungfraupark.ch)
We were in Interlaken! With two kids! And I had no idea I had the perfect opportunity to introduce them to the fascinating world of slightly racist pseudoscience.
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🧵 Erich von Däniken is dead, aged 90. Many of my generation will remember him as a proponent of the pseudoscientific 'ancient aliens' theory, just one of the many sensationalist supernatural topics that flooded culture in the 1970s.
I've had this book since I was a little kid.His theory in a nutshell:
Brown people couldn't possibly have been smart enough to do engineering.
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@cstross @Richard_Littler It's curious that the Egyptians and Maya had to have some help from aliens but the Romans didn't, isn't it?
@datarama @cstross @Richard_Littler
I don't think the Romans built anywhere near that tall. I think it wasn't until well into the middle ages that buildings surpassed the pyramids in height.
There's a popular idea that the Eiffel Tower was the first structure taller than the pyramids, but that's false. People in the middle ages got ridiculously good at building tall from all those cathedrals.
The Lincoln Cathedral in 1311 surpassed it, but it's possible that the Yongning Pagoda already briefly surpassed it in 516.
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🧵 Erich von Däniken is dead, aged 90. Many of my generation will remember him as a proponent of the pseudoscientific 'ancient aliens' theory, just one of the many sensationalist supernatural topics that flooded culture in the 1970s.
I've had this book since I was a little kid.@Richard_Littler I remember bringing this book to my freshman high school honors biology class. My teacher rapped me gently on the head with a 1m ruler and said "You know that's all bullshit, right?" (It was a Catholic school, so the ruler was expected.)
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🧵 Erich von Däniken is dead, aged 90. Many of my generation will remember him as a proponent of the pseudoscientific 'ancient aliens' theory, just one of the many sensationalist supernatural topics that flooded culture in the 1970s.
I've had this book since I was a little kid.@Richard_Littler The PBS show Nova here in the USA did some great shows about how it was possible for all of this stuff to be done by so-called "primitives" - when you've got a motivated populace that intrinsically understands their environment and landscape, anything is possible, given enough time.
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Däniken's 'paleo-contact' claims of extraterrestrial influences on early human development, attracted a dedicated following, despite his earlier convictions for theft, fraud and embezzlement (and robust debunking of his theories). Films, soundtracks, and even prog concept albums followed his books.
@Richard_Littler Why the f*ck is the Saturn V in that illustration?
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@cstross Now, that concept worked out *much* better.
My photos of the Giger-designed bar in Gruyères...@Richard_Littler @cstross post alien my next childhood encounter with Giger's work was the use of "Landscape #XX" for the Dead Kennedy's album "Frankenchrist". I think its use as cover art was banned, at least I never saw a copy in the wild, but was included as a poster insert. (It also almost lead to having Jello Biafra locked up for distributing harmful material to minors and bankrupting the Alternative Tentacles record label.)
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🧵 Erich von Däniken is dead, aged 90. Many of my generation will remember him as a proponent of the pseudoscientific 'ancient aliens' theory, just one of the many sensationalist supernatural topics that flooded culture in the 1970s.
I've had this book since I was a little kid.@Richard_Littler @cmthiede If I’d known about Betteridge’s Law of Headlines 50 years ago, I would never have read that book.
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We were in Interlaken! With two kids! And I had no idea I had the perfect opportunity to introduce them to the fascinating world of slightly racist pseudoscience.
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@Richard_Littler Just noting that there's a very skeevy racist subtext running just below the surface of Von Daniken's thesis—that ancient people *couldn't* have built the monumental structures they left behind, so they must have been "helped" by aliens (clearly white savior-coded).
@cstross @Richard_Littler This is why I've always liked the Woodman hypothesis. He says "OK, let's suppose Von Daniken is right about the Nazca lines: they were meant to be viewed from the sky. Does this really necessitate aliens? Or is it possible that the people of ancient Peru simply invented flight?" And then he goes and demonstrates that it is indeed possible by building a hot air balloon using only materials and tech known to have been available to the builders of the Nazca lines.
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@cstross @Richard_Littler This is why I've always liked the Woodman hypothesis. He says "OK, let's suppose Von Daniken is right about the Nazca lines: they were meant to be viewed from the sky. Does this really necessitate aliens? Or is it possible that the people of ancient Peru simply invented flight?" And then he goes and demonstrates that it is indeed possible by building a hot air balloon using only materials and tech known to have been available to the builders of the Nazca lines.
@cstross @Richard_Littler And, like, it's still basically a crackpot theory with no real evidence behind it, but it's a crackpot theory that's more plausible AND less insulting than the crackpot theory it's reacting to
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Däniken's 'paleo-contact' claims of extraterrestrial influences on early human development, attracted a dedicated following, despite his earlier convictions for theft, fraud and embezzlement (and robust debunking of his theories). Films, soundtracks, and even prog concept albums followed his books.
@Richard_Littler
I have that album. I like it. Though I don’t concur with Von Däniken’s theories -
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