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Comment by lethologica | Hacker News Reader

To preface, I have absolutely no idea about archeology or academia. I watched the first episode and I've been aware of Graham Hancock since his first appearance on the Joe Rogan podcast, but I had to stop watching this new show after the first episode. It felt like he was just purely on the defensive against 'big archeology' from the very get go, rather than presenting an interesting argument for why a civilisation like Atlantis might have existed. I may be misremembering, but I don't remember his style being so defensive when he first came into the public eye with these ideas.

I think I'll still keep a distant eye on what he's saying though. His message definitely tickles a curiosity bone in my body, but I'll take it all with a massive pinch of salt.

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I watched it with my kids (we have 2 more episodes to go). He definitely has a chip on his shoulder about being called out by archeologists, but it's a fun series and I learned a lot. He builds a pretty decent case, but it's not rock solid, but it's fun to hear.

I tell my kids that the show is not proven facts, but that it's an alternate theory and the evidence he brings up sounds reasonable. But just keep it as another theory, and you consider strength of evidence as whether or not to believe it. So even if it's just a story, it's a fun story.

Stuff like Gobeki Tepe, however, is pretty interesting and seems to shatter our understanding of how human civilization started.

After watching the show, next year we intend to visit 2 of those sites he mentioned just for fun.

>Stuff like Gobeki Tepe, however, is pretty interesting and seems to shatter our understanding of how human civilization started.

He stacks alot of speculative but interesting claims on top of each other so it's not an all or nothing theory. I think a flooding/impact event pushing humanity into a dark age during that period is a very compelling idea. The idea that all megalithic structures come from a single lost civilization not so compelling.

He didn't claim that it was a single lost civilization that built the structures.

I think he does. Something like survivors of "Atlantis" spread through the world and taught local hunter gatherer groups in the ways of civilization and megalithic architecture.

You contradict yourself. Teaching is not building.

> Stuff like Gobeki Tepe, however, is pretty interesting and seems to shatter our understanding of how human civilization started.

Does it?

Back when I went to school in the 90s, the fashionable site was Çatalhöyük. It's ~2000 years younger than Göbekli Tepe, but it was a (proto-)city with thousands of people. I remember the teacher saying that Çatalhöyük was notable for its size, not for its age, and that there were plenty of older permanent settlements in the region.

The first time I heard of Göbekli Tepe was 10-15 years ago. It fit pretty well with the established timeline of the Neolithic Revolution. The site was more remarkable for having (what appears to be) ceremonial buildings than for its age. It was also interesting that Göbekli Tepe was buried deliberately rather than being destroyed or built over.

Current scholarship is that it was not deliberately buried, but just filled in over millennia. That happens when your structure is basically a pit to begin with.

I'm not going to pretend to know anything more than what I saw on the tv show or the scant amount of research I did on the internet out of interest. My understanding, which I will not defend because I have zero background, is that the megaliths, ie. huge stone constructions, are considered to be much more advanced than something at that stage in human history. In addition, I think there was suggestions that it was involved in astronomy which was also not expected for something that old.

>It felt like he was just purely on the defensive against 'big archeology' from the very get go,

This is specifically the play though, it's what triggers some kind of mind-blow response in people's minds - don't give any explanation but insinuate that "everything you know is false", because the entire structure that exists is some kind of front, and I'm the only one who will tell you. This is what Qanon and sabine hossenfelder play on

It's absolutely ridiculous to put Hossenfelder in the same camp with Qanon and Hancock.

Agreed… There’s plenty to criticize about Sabine’s content, but I don’t know how these two can even fit in the same sentence.

What criticism do you have?

Valid question downvoted to oblivion (really people? vouched.).

Her content is well within the range of reason. [1][2] However, I feel like in her (honourable) effort to debunk questionable pop science stuff, she sometimes is a little too harsh: she’ll point out that an idea borders on untestable/religious (fair) and nearly ridicule it, failing to reframe it in a more constructive way. For example, things like string theory or multiverses may be untestable, but even as such they are extremely useful tools for thought. These ideas help us take a step back from our intuition and firsthand experiences, and can help us gain more perspective on ourselves. They can help exercise our imagination, and they can help spark curiosity in people. All within certain bounds of reason.

[1] Disclaimer: I’m a scientist (biochem) with an interest in maths, but physics is not my area of expertise.

[2] In contrast, you'd have to have the IQ of a carrot to think QAnon makes sense. Completely insane comparison.

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