this post was submitted on 02 May 2026
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Science Memes

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[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 2 points 5 hours ago

Ancient Aliens was a fun show because you'd get a narration of the real history and then the narrator would be like "but what if these dumbasses were right?" and then it cuts to some old German dude fascinated by the occult studies of the Nazis going "it vas aliens! Zey put magnets in mercury and created antigravity!"

[–] Impractical_Island@lemmy.world 3 points 13 hours ago (1 children)

forget about circles

Oh, so you understand how Trump, Epstein (alive), Hunter Biden, the Clintons, etc are all cops, being part of that elite club you're not a part of and how they catch the actually evil people of the WORLD by being the bait of the sting operation they themselves choose to do with the deep state's help as members of the decentralized autonomous organization of secret police that's described in the New Testament at an eighth grade reading level?

[–] Kratzkopf@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) (1 children)

Ah there is the problem. I didn't know anything about that because I didn't read the bible. Someone spoiled the ending for me, so I quit.

[–] Impractical_Island@lemmy.world 1 points 8 hours ago

But what IS the STORY? Do you even have a clue?

Resurrection? No.

Crucifixion? No.

Trial? No.

Child prostitution? Well, that's how it STARTED.

But it's about crime in the police state.

Jesus, from outside the city, goes to the most trustworthy person of those that live outside and says, "Spare some change? I am one the locusts you eat," y'know, proving he's even more pious than him. Thus starts a series of events; y'know, A STORY.

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 6 points 19 hours ago

This reminds me of MAGAts.

[–] TigerAce@lemmy.dbzer0.com 53 points 1 day ago (5 children)

At the end of the documentary "beyond the curve" the flat earthers manage to get enough money together to buy a gyro laser to prove the earth isn't spinning. It costed the 20.000 dollars. The found out the earth was spinning constantly. They said needed time to come up with an explanation why this would be happening when the earth was flat, but in no way they thought "maybe we were wrong after all".

[–] FatVegan@leminal.space 3 points 8 hours ago

I just showed that to my girlfriend for the first time. It's pretty fascinating. It's pretty clear how many of these people just yearn for community and are just kinda too weird or crazy. But also some of them just want to be right about someting and be smarter than everyone else. Whenecer you see their experiments in tge documentary or on youtube or wherever, it's fascinating how they are clearly smart enough to come up with that stuff, but not smart enough or too.stubborn to draw the right conclusion. Some of them might just ve truly masterful trolls.

[–] Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works 11 points 18 hours ago

I saw that scene. They were 100% thinking it, but they weren't willing to say it on camera.

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 16 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It's bizarre they know enough science to be able to prove the Earth is round, but then ignore it anyway.

That doc showed the whole flat earth movement appeared to be one guy's attempts to get into a milfy redhead's pants. Poor guy was like a little lost puppy.

[–] TigerAce@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) (1 children)

Not strange if you grew up alone in your mom's basement and developed no social skills. Possibly home schooled and not blessed when it comes to intelligence. And the only thing that binds you to the other people is on the brink of falling apart, so they desperately try to hold on to it by refusing the obvious: a globe.

And what's even more sad, is that there are a lot of influences trying to argue with their community, making fun of them and trying to destroy their fantacy. All to hoard in views and followers to make money from ads. Pushing these people even further away from reality and society,. Alienating them.

[–] Sylvartas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 14 hours ago

I'm convinced there are also flat earthers "personalities" that don't believe it at all and are just grifting them.

[–] Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz 5 points 23 hours ago

How do they explain pendulums?

[–] tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 28 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I also like when they got a light to shine through 2 holes and the distance they were at required them to elevate the camera because of the curve of the earth

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFqmDazwb6Y

[–] TigerAce@lemmy.dbzer0.com 19 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Haha yeah! Actually I doubt they believe the earth is flat, I got the feeling it's more an excuse for outcasts to unite and feel unity, the "us against the world" thing. Like: "If no one accepts me, I'll just go all the way into weirdness and find others who are also not accepted, so we won't have to be alone. Let our thing be so damn weird and stupid, no accepted person would dare to join us."

But that's just my hypothesis after watching this docu and some other stuff about and from them.

But there are some fanatics that actually believe it, but I think they need mental help because they strike as people having a constant psychosis. Even the general group finds them weird and extreme.

It's really sad.

[–] Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 11 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

As an intellectual exercise, I rather enjoy flat-earth theories. "Knowing" that the earth is round, without having actually proven it for ourselves, is dogmatism, not science.

Constantly challenging even our most basic assumptions is how science advances.

[–] yesman@lemmy.world 88 points 1 day ago (10 children)

Just some context: Ancient Aliens is racist. It's roots are literally Nazi.

You see, it's only achievements in brown countries that need alien help. The Greeks didn't need ET for the Colosseum, heavens no. We just scratch our head at Africans or Americans building pyramids and stuff.

In the 30s, Nazi "researchers" believed in something I'll call "Ancient Aryans" which is exactly the same as Ancient Aliens except it's pure Germans who are visiting these primitive cultures and raising architecture. What happened to the Germans? They were annihilated by in-breeding with locals of course.

[–] FlowerFan@piefed.blahaj.zone 2 points 5 hours ago

Greeks? Colosseum?

Aryan ≠ German. Aryan would be closer to modern day Afghan, Pakistani, or maybe Ukrainian? Aryans were from the grasslands east of the urals.

[–] BlackLaZoR@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago

The Greeks didn’t need ET for the Colosseum

[–] mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 35 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

The Greeks didn't need ET for the Colosseum

Just to be pedantic, the Romans built the Colosseum. While they did cosplay as Greeks, they weren't actually Greeks themzelves

[–] AFallingAnvil@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 day ago

To be further pedantic, the Greeks started calling themselves the Romioi in late antiquity, so some Greeks were in fact Romans, but not all Romans were Greek.

[–] Leonixster@lemmy.blahaj.zone 28 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

I'll take this opportunity to shill for one of my favorite content creators, Miniminuteman, who just so happens to have a video debunking Ancient Aliens (two parter actually)

[–] bluesheep@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] Leonixster@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

It is both surprising and completely expected that Milo would have fans that not only are active in Lemmy, but also commenting in a science-based community

[–] Warl0k3@lemmy.world 1 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

Another googledebunker chiming in - wonderful content. Gives me hope for my generation.

[–] rockerface@lemmy.cafe 3 points 1 day ago

There are dozens of us!

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[–] Jax@sh.itjust.works 25 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yeah Ancient Aliens has always been real weird, and I'm gonna be honest I've never heard of the Ancient Aryans thing so... yeah the similarities are weird for sure. Few things to note.

The Parthenon is Greek, the Romans built the coliseum — also, the Native Americans didn't have a unified name for the Americas. If it makes you feel better you can say indigenous people of the American continents, or even Indigenous Americans, but calling them strictly American is genuinely awful.

My mom was born in Keams Canyon, and I've visited. If you went there calling the people there Americans they would not appreciate it. They're Hopi, or maybe Navajo.

[–] Quill7513@slrpnk.net 3 points 18 hours ago

Amerigo Vespucci was a genocide collaborator, in case anyone's wondering why it would be awful to call the indigenous people of the continents of the western hemisphere "Americans"

it's referring to a people using the language of their oppressor. each indigenous group has their own signifier like "First Nation People," "Indigenous American," "Native American," or "American Indian." you're going to have to make a choice about how to refer to people, but as @Jax@sh.itjust.works said, about the only wrong answer is "American"

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[–] grozzle@lemmy.zip 139 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Paleontologist? probably was just there for his "dinosaurs built the pyramids" theory.

[–] human@slrpnk.net 104 points 2 days ago (2 children)
[–] tgirlschierke@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 13 hours ago

oh my god that show

[–] rainwall@piefed.social 25 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Not the mama!

Apparently the show was one of Jim hensen's ideas, and the concept was what he was working on when he passed away. Wikipedia says it was only greenlit because of the success of the Simpsons, which showed an oddball sitcom could work, which it did for 4 years.

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[–] trashboypro@lemmy.blahaj.zone 65 points 1 day ago (2 children)

When I realized that the whole Ancient Aliens bullshit was written by a butthurt Dane who has no real contribution to the civilization other than white supremacy as pseudoscience, that whole conspiracy theory became easier to debunk.

[–] vandsjov@feddit.dk 20 points 1 day ago

When I tried to figure out who the “Dane” is, and so far it seems you mean Erich von Däniken, whom is not Danish but Swiss.

[–] Rothe@piefed.social 10 points 1 day ago

Please leave us Danes out of this, we have nothing to do with this, you seem to be misunderstanding something.

[–] jaybone@lemmy.zip 24 points 1 day ago (4 children)

I never understood this. Any measurement you do with a wheel you could do with a line of length equal to the circumference. So whether they knew about pi or not is irrelevant?

[–] Juice@midwest.social 24 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

You're doing a measurement, and using a wheel to measure. There's a mark on the wheel, so that one turn = one unit of measure. So if all of your measurements are x turns of the wheel, then all of your measurements will be x/pi.

So mathematicians studying it will discover the measurements are all some multiple of pi. Journalists unlucky enough to have to write about this stuff know like 1 thing about archeology but like 2 things about math and 10000000 things about sensationalism, so they write articles about the one thing they know about archaology, the two things they know about math, and the 10000000 things they know about writing a sensationalist article, rinse repeat.

[–] bequirtle@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

mathematicians studying it will discover the measurements are all some multiple of pi.

Only if you measured it in wheel-lengths... In meters it would just be an arbitrary number

[–] erev@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (5 children)

The ratios will still apply

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[–] dustyData@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

Wheels are always a fraction of pi. Whether you like it or not. Lengths of string can be arbitrary, but a circle's dimensions are always tightly related to and proportional to pi in some way. I also recall that wheel measurements are more precise for large scale building because, unlike rope, leather and cloth, a wooden wheel doesnt stretch. Two wheels made similar will stay more between a much tighter error factor than two pieces of rope. The rope might start at the same length but will deform differently as they are used.

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I don't know if I'd say wooden wheels "stretch" per se, but wood absolutely warps due to all sorts of factors

[–] dustyData@lemmy.world 1 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

I didn't make clear, that I mean using something for measuring really large distances, like the length and width of a large building's base. A typical measure stick would have less stretching than rope, sure, but would also be tedious to measure with. Counting the spins of a wheel as you roll it is trivially easy and quick in comparison. Wood warps, but not really that much.

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[–] SwifferWetjet@thelemmy.club 39 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Tiered looking. Dog was in full German chocolate cake mode. That's how he remembered the circles.

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