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)
Jason Colavito does the hard work so you don’t have to. There’s such a firehose of claims that it is almost possible to keep up with it all unless you are a fan. Colavito does a good job of keeping on the various series and pointing out the problems.
If you wanted to engage with people who are promoting this kind of thing you could try and engage on a more meta level rather than slog through each claim. They often rely on the argument from disbelief: I can’t believe the ancients were capable of this, therefore it was aliens. Or you could point out that not believing ancient people were capable of building some monument and had to rely on aliens of Atlanteans is a bit racist. However, be warned, you’ll soon be considered the Fun Police and you are better off letting it slide unless someone won’t stop banging on about it.