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Gah. This is why I hate the History channel. Aliens have no place there, but...

Damn you Erich von Daniken. Damn you! I blame you for this!

warpcrafter wrote:

Ma55ter_fett wrote:Don't worry, be happy.

Personally I just put these kinds of things out of my mind. I have enough real gak to worry about.

Congratulations, you've found the secret to happiness. Personally, I've discovered so much about what I thought was real in the last twenty years that actually was a lie or illusion that now I have developed the ability to compartmentalize to such a degree that it's like I have three or four complete realities going on in my head at any given time. I pick and choose from them like music to make up a playlist. I'm not exactly happy, but I am well entertained.

The term we're looking for is cognitive dissonance. It's useful to make you sound smarter than you really are.

That's about all I can contribute here.

LordofHats wrote:Damn you Erich von Daniken. Damn you! I blame you for this!

He's got nothing on David Icke.

Lizard People for the win.

Brother Azul wrote:

Spoiler:

I wouldn't call my self an expert, but I think that this could be a bizarre alien ritual, maybe a funeral or something? notice the white pyramidal shape on the right hand side of the BOP, I think that it is very symbolic of the pain that the "person" in black must have gone through in this transition from life to death

Vulcan wrote:Nowadays, we can't get a company to undertake a 20-month project without a bankruptingly-huge down payment. No wonder we can't figure out how we would recreate the wonders of the ancients; we don't think in terms of tens of thousands of workers over entire decades when it comes to getting work done.


And here this guy comes, "We can't do it today, obviously it was aliens!" Way to sell your ancestors short, dude!

The original motivation behind the ancient aliens stories was from white folk, noticing that it was the ancestors of all kinds of black and brown folk that build all these incredible ancient wonders. They couldn't reconcile their beliefs in their own genetic supremacy with the achievements of other race's civilisations, so they decided all that awesome stuff must have been created by aliens.

It's evolved since then, and the racism has faded into the background. But in the beginning it was there just to explain the shortcomings of our own ancestors.

sebster wrote:

Vulcan wrote:Nowadays, we can't get a company to undertake a 20-month project without a bankruptingly-huge down payment. No wonder we can't figure out how we would recreate the wonders of the ancients; we don't think in terms of tens of thousands of workers over entire decades when it comes to getting work done.


And here this guy comes, "We can't do it today, obviously it was aliens!" Way to sell your ancestors short, dude!

The original motivation behind the ancient aliens stories was from white folk, noticing that it was the ancestors of all kinds of black and brown folk that build all these incredible ancient wonders. They couldn't reconcile their beliefs in their own genetic supremacy with the achievements of other race's civilisations, so they decided all that awesome stuff must have been created by aliens.

It's evolved since then, and the racism has faded into the background. But in the beginning it was there just to explain the shortcomings of our own ancestors.

Can you provide textual evidence or sources for that sebster? That's not a view I've encountered before, and it sounds interesting.

sebster wrote:The original motivation behind the ancient aliens stories was from white folk, noticing that it was the ancestors of all kinds of black and brown folk that build all these incredible ancient wonders. They couldn't reconcile their beliefs in their own genetic supremacy with the achievements of other race's civilisations, so they decided all that awesome stuff must have been created by aliens.

It's evolved since then, and the racism has faded into the background. But in the beginning it was there just to explain the shortcomings of our own ancestors.

I find that a little hard to believe. That may have been a fringe concept, but I doubt it has any connection to the current trend which is a continuation of that from the 1960's and can trace its origin to the growth in the popularity of science-fiction media and amounted to nothing more than a cultural reaction. The ancient aliens bull is a relatively recent phenomena. Sure you can probably find theories going back a long time (The guy who discovered the double helix also proposed that humans originally came from space), but its only in the latter half last century that the idea of ancient aliens coming to Earth and bestowing their awesome stone working skills on us got started.

EDIT: The alien astronaut theory actually comes from science-fiction culture, not racism (is what I'm saying).

One would think that aliens from space could teach us more than how to pile rocks.

Yeah, 'aliens were created by racists' is certainly a new line of thinking for me.

H.B.M.C. wrote:Yeah, 'aliens were created by racists' is certainly a new line of thinking for me.

For once, you made me laugh.


Im open minded to the ancient alien theory. They can and do make some rather chin scratching points. And sometimes the truth really can be weirder then fiction. Im not saying that the Pharaohs couldnt use a gak ton of slaves to build pyramids, because that I think is totally how most of the ancient structures were built, the will to do it, and enough slaves to pull it off. But what gets me wondering, is when you have stone slabs that weigh over 20-100 tons, and they are rested on top of a couple other slabs of equal size, and they are perfectly aligned. Yes, today we can move objects that weigh that much, and get their edges lined up perfectly, but we have to use incredibly powerful cranes with hydraulics and steel cables that can handle the weight. They had rope and wooden tools. Does make you wonder just how the feth they pulled it off.

Not to mention alot of the ancients accounts of wars and such, that today we would say really sounded like a flying craft, or rokkits. And theres one place I think in India, that supposedly the gods got into a war, and one of the gods made the Earth shake and spewed great fire from its mouth. And the place is irradiated alot more then it should be, and they also found bodies buried with signs of radiation poisoning. Sure it could of been an asteroid or comet of some kind that was irradiated and it impacted the earth. Dunno, but like I said, makes ya wonder

Ketara wrote:Can you provide textual evidence or sources for that sebster? That's not a view I've encountered before, and it sounds interesting.

Donna Kossy's Strange Creations is a good place to start.


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LordofHats wrote:I find that a little hard to believe. That may have been a fringe concept, but I doubt it has any connection to the current trend which is a continuation of that from the 1960's and can trace its origin to the growth in the popularity of science-fiction media and amounted to nothing more than a cultural reaction. The ancient aliens bull is a relatively recent phenomena.

The ancient astronaut theory can trace its origin to the early part of the 20th century. I can assue racism was alive and well at that time.

As I stated above, the revival of this idea has stripped away most of the racist notions, instead relying on a general assumption about the stupidity of our ancestors, and ironically exaggerating the genius of the ancient artifacts. I wouldn't for one second believe that someone who fell for von Daniken's frauds to be racist, but there's no denying the origin of the theory as a way to explain away the achievements of ancient not-white people.


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H.B.M.C. wrote:Yeah, 'aliens were created by racists' is certainly a new line of thinking for me.

It'd be a new line of thinking for everyone, because it's something you just made up inside your own head.

I didn't say the idea of aliens was made up by racists, I said that aliens as an explanation for ancient wonders found outside of historically white areas had a clear racist origin. No-one spent any time wondering how the greeks built the parthenon, but when it looked like brown people had built the pyramids, well then aliens was surely a more sensible option.

We can't explain where the idea that aliens were created by racists comes from. Therefor, it must have come from aliens.

Ancient alienception?

KingCracker wrote:Im not saying that the Pharaohs couldnt use a gak ton of slaves to build pyramids, because that I think is totally how most of the ancient structures were built, the will to do it, and enough slaves to pull it off. But what gets me wondering, is when you have stone slabs that weigh over 20-100 tons, and they are rested on top of a couple other slabs of equal size, and they are perfectly aligned. Yes, today we can move objects that weigh that much, and get their edges lined up perfectly, but we have to use incredibly powerful cranes with hydraulics and steel cables that can handle the weight. They had rope and wooden tools. Does make you wonder just how the feth they pulled it off.

Some believe that it was actually synthetic stone.

Link.

sebster wrote:As I stated above, the revival of this idea has stripped away most of the racist notions, instead relying on a general assumption about the stupidity of our ancestors, and ironically exaggerating the genius of the ancient artifacts. I wouldn't for one second believe that someone who fell for von Daniken's frauds to be racist, but there's no denying the origin of the theory as a way to explain away the achievements of ancient not-white people.

I think this is trying a bit too hard to inject racism somewhere, frankly.

I'm not saying I agree with the stuff, but a lot of the "Aliens built the Pyramids" stuff comes from the fact that it would be pretty hard to do, according to the engineering "experts" on these shows, even using today's technology.

I don't see how this is in any way relevant to the race of the people involved. I'm sure they don't think that the Ancient Celts or whatever would have been able to do it better than the Nubians or Egyptians.

Monster Rain wrote:I'm not saying I agree with the stuff, but a lot of the "Aliens built the Pyramids" stuff comes from the fact that it would be pretty hard to do, according to the engineering "experts" on these shows, even using today's technology.

I don't see how this is in any way relevant to the race of the people involved. I'm sure they don't think that the Ancient Celts or whatever would have been able to do it better than the Nubians or Egyptians.

I'm pretty sure I've seen aliens mentioned as being involved with Stonehenge. Doesn't that throw a wrench in the "racists made up the aliens" theory?

The whole "aliens built stonehenge" thing is a continuation of the ancient aliens thing that is considerably more recent.

I have heard what sebster mentioned a few times before and it is a perfectly logical conclusion that there was a racial element given when and where the idea came about.

In fact I am more than a little surprised so many people are so defensive over the idea.

Most people have WGS (White Guilt Syndrome).

Got it. So when folks longer ago couldn't explain something as hard to explain as the pyramids, so went with the alien theory, they did so because they were racist.

But more modern folks who use that theory for Stonehenge are just screwballs.

corpsesarefun wrote:In fact I am more than a little surprised so many people are so defensive over the idea.

I for one am not defensive, I just disagree with the idea. I'm sure there are some people that have a racist angle on it, but I can't imagine this is true of the majority of people that subscribe to the idea.

CptJake wrote:Got it. So when folks longer ago couldn't explain something as hard to explain as the pyramids, so went with the alien theory, they did so because they were racist.

But more modern folks who use that theory for Stonehenge are just screwballs.

No, it's that White people of yesteryear couldn't believe that something like the Pyramids or stonehenge were not built by their "Master Race", and so they came up with that they were made by Aliens as a coping method.

The problem with that theory, chowderhead, is that Stonehenge likely would have been built by white people.

Which is why when the theory of "aliens did it" first came about stone henge wasn't mentioned.

So if the Pyramids had been located in, say, Sweden people wouldn't have the same questions?

Monster Rain wrote:The problem with that theory, chowderhead, is that Stonehenge likely would have been built by white people.

No, silly, they were filthy savages.

Filthy savages =/= White people in the past.

I don't know what that means.

Monster Rain wrote:I don't know what that means.

Back in the olden days, if you didn't take tea with 2 lumps, you weren't white.

I think it would have been a very different situation if they had, people tend to notice when things don't fit the pattern considerably more than when they do.

In said racists mind (the racism may not even have been conscious) he saw the pyramids as an abnormallity, the achievements of the greeks (who weren't really white to be honest) was taken to be obvious whereas the people viewed as inferior achieving something was strange.

Stonehenge was built by people that we would recognise as being white europeans. It's not even that old - there are stone houses in the British Isles that pre-date it by around 1000 years.

Stonehenge isn't really comparable to the pyramids anyway to be honest.

In fact stone henge is pretty crap, I live relatively close to it and there are far better stone circles near me.