Two of my coworkers frequently mention shows like “Encounters” or “Ancient apocalypse” or whatever. I’m not the best at debating or forming arguments against these though I do feel strongly that bold claims require better evidence than a blurry photo and an eyewitness account. How do you all go about this?
Today I clumsily stumbled through conversation and said “I’ll need some evidence” and was hit with “there’s plenty of evidence in the episode ‘Lights over Fukushima’”. I didn’t have an answer because I haven’t watched it. I’m 99% sure that if I watch it it’s gonna be dramatized, designed to scare/freak you out a little and consist of eyewitness accounts and blurry photos set to eerie music. But I’m afraid I just sound like a haughty know-it-all if I do assert this before watching.
These are good people and I want to remain on good terms and not come across as a cynical asshole.
(Sorry if language is too formal or stilted. Not my native tongue)
If they take a netflicks show as evidence, I seriously doubt you will be able to convince them otherwise.
Yeah. Also it’s not my place to raise adults. But a part of me wishes to plant a seed of skepticism. I have a hard time nodding and going along with it. I feel compelled to question it rather than going along with this kind of small talk.
Your answer is right there. Plant seeds of doubt. Ask questions about it. Wow! Did they get footage?! Really? There must be two sources for such a wild thing to have happened! What does Snopes say? Lmfao
You don’t have to convince them but you also don’t have to listen either.
You just have to decide that any issues with cutting them off when they start talking about it is worth the effort or if it may cause problems at work.
I’ll think on this. Thank you :)
I’ve watched some of the shows because they do actually lead to some interesting archeological digs I hadn’t heard of before… However there’s one thing that always nags me when watching this stuff – why do they always think ancient humans were so stupid? It is believed that the human brain has not changed for around 100,000 years, which means that no matter how far back you go in our observable history, those people had the same capacity for rational thought as we do. Sure, we have a huge advantage through the knowledge of written history, but even a cave man had the same ability as we do to accomplish a task with the materials at hand.
You’ll also note they always ask a modern engineer how they would accomplish tasks such as moving large stones, and the answer is always something like “I would use modern machinery” because of course we’ve come to rely on them and nobody today ever tries to think of any other way to perform the same task. How were the great pyramids built? They always claim it can’t be done today, while conveniently ignoring all of the theories of how they did probably move those blocks.
So I guess my skepticism on those types of shows is that they intentionally leave out significant details to make everything sound more woo-woo (every big claim they make probably already has a wikipedia page providing legitimate answers or at least giving factual details). Sure there are some things that still aren’t understood but just because you see some glowing lights doesn’t immediately mean aliens are involved. Even though I do believe there is other life out there, I haven’t seen any evidence yet on these shows that I would consider “proof” of visitations, but rather just a whole lot of “this is how we interpret the data to fit our conspiracy theory.”
Because they (and by extension their audience) are not that bright.
If they cannot think of how it was done and they must be smart because they live with all this modern technology (which they didn’t create and don’t really understand) then there is no way for people in the past to have done it.
Therefore…aliens. Well, that is the modern thought. In the past it you just replace aliens with God or Gods or Demons etc.
Yeah replacing “god” with “aliens” pretty much sums up the mentality here.
One that really gets me (and I can’t think offhand of where exactly it is at), is an artificial cave network that appears to date back to the last big ice age, around 10,000 years ago. “But they didn’t have anything other than stone tools, so it couldn’t have been created by humans!” You’re telling me that if the only thing you know about is stone, that you wouldn’t have some understanding that some types of stone are harder than others? We’re talking about people living in one place for millennia with nothing to do except go out hunting for food and sitting in the cave, and in all that time they couldn’t have slowly cut out more caves to make their homes larger? Seems like such a simple idea to me, and yet it seems to go right over the heads of all these people discussing those caves. “Mommy I’m bored!” “Grab a rock and start grinding, dear.”
Are you sure they are taking it seriously? I’ve watched a bunch of Ancient Aliens and it was fun entertainment so long as it is recognized as just entertainment. The main voice in the show makes me fall asleep so I’ve technically had most episodes play across my screen. Me and coworkers make comments regularly that “it’s aliens man” as the reason for things. None of us see it as more than humor and maybe that’s the case with your people.
I’m not sure but they do talk about it a lot and I have been cornered with things like “did you know that all fighter pilots since the 1960s have had to take an oath of silence because they keep seeing aliens up there, anyway this whistleblower…”.
I’m having a hard time navigating these but letting them have their fun while just asking what they believe and why is probably not a bad approach.
Someone mentioned that going through with debunking them is a spoilsport move that’s a lot of work to do right and would probably just sour our relationship at work.
I genuinely love Ancient Aliens but it’s definitely a comedy for me. I really don’t understand how anyone can take it seriously. My husband had someone in one of his college classes who believed an Animal Planet mockumentary about mermaids was real, though, so I guess people have fallen for dumber things.
You replied to the wrong comment @SpaceAce is the one with the alien believing workmates.
Yarrr….im going to blame this on Memmy as I really believe I hit the correct button and Memmy moved my comment. It’s easier to blame the app than move the comment.
All good. I linked spaceace so you wouldn’t have to move the comment and they would still be notified.