🧵 Erich von Däniken is dead, aged 90.
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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
He was the greatest con-artist of the 1970s! Everyone knew his name and the title of his book. His loony ideas prompted many discussions amongst my school chums and first awakened me to the question of why so many people just 'believe' all sorts of irrational badly argued nonsense.
And on a positive note, let's remember all the great cinematic and televisual art he inspired, not least of which #Stargate #StargateSG1 #SG1I shall definitely miss him!
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@Richard_Littler
He was the greatest con-artist of the 1970s! Everyone knew his name and the title of his book. His loony ideas prompted many discussions amongst my school chums and first awakened me to the question of why so many people just 'believe' all sorts of irrational badly argued nonsense.
And on a positive note, let's remember all the great cinematic and televisual art he inspired, not least of which #Stargate #StargateSG1 #SG1I shall definitely miss him!
@Richard_Littler
That link is to the 25th November 1977 edition of the (once) prestigious Horizon BBC scientific documentary series which brought much greater attention (in Britain) to von Däniken's 'ideas'.
Sadly, the version on archive.org has, rather irritatingly, been dubbed into American.#RIP #ErichVonDäniken
#AIP (ascend in peace)
#woowoo #AncientAstronauts
#BBC #Horizon #documentary -
@cstross @Richard_Littler There's the implied subtext. And then there's the explicit, in-your-face JAQing off, like: "Was the black race a failure and did the extraterrestrials change the genetic code by gene surgery and then programme a white or a yellow race?" (von Däniken, /Signs of the Gods/, 1980, in the chapter “Man Outsmarts Nature” – loads more where that came from)
@noctuaminervae @cstross @Richard_Littler
'Was the black race...'
Yow! Is that an exact quote? Jesus.
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@Richard_Littler oooooh, that's interesting. Any contact between that guy and Claude Vorilhon (also known as Raël)?
@c_chep @Richard_Littler
Probably not directly but it's inconceivable that Vorilhon's 'alien encounter' in 1973 wasn't in some way influenced by von Däniken's publication four years earlier
#woowoo #AncientAstronauts
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When I moved to Switzerland, I discovered he was a local. He built an 'ancient mysteries' theme park, which soon failed, but the buildings still stand. I took some photos a couple of years ago.
@Richard_Littler
When the U.S. descends into full scale civil war (next week or whatever) and all its proper industries/businesses have to migrate to somewhere less idiotic, that would make a brilliant location for the new #Stargate series! -
@cstross Now, that concept worked out *much* better.
My photos of the Giger-designed bar in Gruyères...Cool but I wouldn't want to have to dust all that!
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@Richard_Littler We had raves there.
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@spacemagick @Richard_Littler They shut it down by 2 AM though as the entire Interlaken Valley acted as an echo chamber, carrying the base for 100s of kilometers
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@spacemagick @Richard_Littler They shut it down by 2 AM though as the entire Interlaken Valley acted as an echo chamber, carrying the base for 100s of kilometers
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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 Read him when I was young, took me much longer to see the racism inherent in his arguments. “Because white people didnt do it first it must be aliens “ seems so wrong now.
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@cstross @Richard_Littler There’s a Giger museum and café in Gruyères:
@acb @cstross @Richard_Littler Whoa, will visit the next time I'm flying a virtual glider out of LSGT in Flight Simulator!
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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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@cstross @Richard_Littler There’s even a meme for that…
@aprilfollies @cstross @Richard_Littler to understand some of the problems in America right now, all you have to do is listen to any Art Bell show from the 90s and oooh boy
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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".
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.
