Ancient Aliens

[applejuice]

So, let the debate begin!
In recent times, History Channel has changed History for speculation, pawn shops, taxidermy, conspiracy theory (even involving the founding stone of the White House in the Freemasons' conspiracy), the end of the world (brought to you, courtesy of the Maya Civilization (TM)) and more. However, letting aside those matters, there's one that called my attention remarkably: Ancient Aliens and their advocates, especially Giorgio Tsoukalos (or however it is spelled) who attributes almost any technological knowledge in Human Civilization to Extraterrestrial Intelligence of unknown origins. Although a large part of the series' premise can be explained with simple human evolution and its consequences, it remains a small part which cannot simply be taken as a consequence of our knowledge or invention. As crazy as it sounds, Tsoukalos is right in some parts, like the extended use of 'magic' in our folklore. 'Magic' being the term used to describe an unknown technology. Imagine taking a trivial device to most of us to uncontacted tribes or people, like a cell phone or a portable television, you probably know what it is like.
That and many more things that somehow fit more adequately in the Ancient Alien theory than just pure imagination (though that would be a more reasonable explanation). Tsoukalos is also right when he says that our ancestors were not stupid but fails to mention that they might have been naive. Anyway, an interesting topic of debate.
So, ancient aliens could be real, but, if that's true, why have they not contacted us? What happened to them? Why did they come here?
Food for thought!

[Crickett]

[Clarke]

I happen to be writing a novel on this premise. The alien in question is lying to Tsoukalos.

[applejuice]

LOL! Remember, that we are unable to do some stuff does not necessarily imply that aliens can't!!!
Loved the South Park view of that peculiar aspect:

[Moco Loco]

I secretly hope this turns into a meme thread and dies. But if there's really someone here who thinks there were ancient aliens, I guess I wouldn't mind actually talking about it.

[iron_jones]

Originally Posted by Moco Loco

I secretly hope this turns into a meme thread and dies.

Or, you know, we could forget about the memes.

[Moco Loco]

Originally Posted by Moco Loco

I secretly hope this turns into a meme thread and dies.

This turned into a thread of silliness and memes. I am happy.

Originally Posted by iron_jones

Or, you know, we could forget about the memes.

You wish, sucker.

[auroraglacialis]

As much as I dislike organized religion, I think to demonize ( ) religions in general is also not apt. I was a religion-basher for a while but I realize that a society needs some base values to hold on to. If those are 10 commandmends or 10 amendments does not really matter by principle, though I guess they should be a bit more sophisticated in our times than they were 2000 years ago and they might be different in Europe than in the near east. But basically those 10 commandments are kin to what we now call our constitutions or human rights. There are ways to make such moral statements without religion, though not without some form of nonscientific and non-economic altruism. If that comes from humanism as the "modern alternative" to religion, from religion or from something people might call spirituality does not matter, but to operate ONLY under scientific or economic rule would be a serious problem because under those systems, all that one can pull off is possible, there are no ethics or moral issues implied if the operating system one works with is neodarwinism or neoliberalism (which basically is related to each other). In both cases, the rule is that everythign is based on competition of individuals that are profoundly self-centered and interested only in personal gain and the "more successful" ones will win. Ethics, Philosophy, Religion, Spirituality, Morale are all constructs that prevent such a "dog eat dog" scenario to unfold with humans and I think Atheism has an obligation to present at least a very solid and emotionally(!) binding alternative if it is crushing Religion.

[Clarke]

Originally Posted by auroraglacialis

As much as I dislike organized religion, I think to demonize ( ) religions in general is also not apt. I was a religion-basher for a while but I realize that a society needs some base values to hold on to. If those are 10 commandmends or 10 amendments does not really matter by principle, though I guess they should be a bit more sophisticated in our times than they were 2000 years ago and they might be different in Europe than in the near east. But basically those 10 commandments are kin to what we now call our constitutions or human rights. There are ways to make such moral statements without religion, though not without some form of nonscientific and non-economic altruism. If that comes from humanism as the "modern alternative" to religion, from religion or from something people might call spirituality does not matter, but to operate ONLY under scientific or economic rule would be a serious problem because under those systems, all that one can pull off is possible, there are no ethics or moral issues implied if the operating system one works with is neodarwinism or neoliberalism (which basically is related to each other). In both cases, the rule is that everythign is based on competition of individuals that are profoundly self-centered and interested only in personal gain and the "more successful" ones will win. Ethics, Philosophy, Religion, Spirituality, Morale are all constructs that prevent such a "dog eat dog" scenario to unfold with humans and I think Atheism has an obligation to present at least a very solid and emotionally(!) binding alternative if it is crushing Religion.

The entire premise of "neodarwinism" conflates what is (evolution in various environments and various scales) with what ought to be, and thus commits an appeal to nature.

Also, attempting to sway you by appealing to your emotions would be illogical, Cap'm.

[applejuice]

I think that there's a possibility of (ancient) aliens visiting the Earth, though there's no conclusive evidence of such events, there isn't evidence they did not come. Besides, there's a lot of circumstantial evidence of "heavenly people" or "visitors from the stars. Unfortunately, that bit of proof needed to validate or invalidate the hypothesis, seems to be running away from us. Maybe in a not far future humans may say "look, they had all the evidence around them and yet, they didn't see it". Or simply, ancient aliens will be put to rest by a more solid science knowledge.
I believe it is a balanced point of view, much better than Tsoukalos attributing everything to aliens.
By the way, optic fiber and transistors were invented/developed by humans, there's no doubt about it!

[iron_jones]

Someone wanna tell me the difference between aliens and ancient aliens?

[Aaron]

Well...

You *could* regard the human genome as self-refining biotechnology "bestowed" on us by our "alien" ancestors. After all, Earth was a very different planet millions of years ago--far away, even!

So yeah!! Ancient aliens all the way.

[Fosus]

I've been thinking about this lately. It's an interesting idea.

It would make sense to have an external affluence like aliens that kickstarted the development and taught humans how to destructively exploit the Earth. Otherwise it was just all evolution and there's no one to blame for this mess.

[Moco Loco]

This ancient aliens deal really reminds me of religion, which is funny, because many "researchers" attribute religions to possible ancient aliens. Both hypotheses have come about because we, as a society, feel we need to assign blame and cause to something external to ourselves.

[iron_jones]

Originally Posted by Moco Loco

This ancient aliens deal really reminds me of religion, which is funny, because many "researchers" attribute religions to possible ancient aliens. Both hypotheses have come about because we, as a society, feel we need to assign blame and cause to something external to ourselves.

What if I blame you for everything that's happened in the world?