this post was submitted on 02 May 2026
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Science Memes

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[–] grozzle@lemmy.zip 139 points 6 days ago (1 children)

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

[–] human@slrpnk.net 104 points 6 days ago (2 children)
[–] rainwall@piefed.social 25 points 6 days ago (1 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.

[–] SmoothLiquidation@lemmy.world 14 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I don’t remember it much other than enjoying watching it.

I also remember playing the theme song for it in my middle schools band.

[–] chaogomu@lemmy.world 15 points 6 days ago (1 children)

The ending was pretty dark, and came a bit before the widespread acceptance of the Chicxulub impact.

[–] gesshoku@lemmy.zip 11 points 6 days ago (1 children)

For those interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Changing_Nature

Quite sad, but really well done and very realistic.

[–] W98BSoD@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 6 days ago

Holy cow that was 1994‽

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[–] yesman@lemmy.world 91 points 6 days ago (8 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.

[–] mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 36 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days 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 5 days 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 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days 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 6 days ago (1 children)
[–] Leonixster@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 5 days 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

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[–] Jax@sh.itjust.works 25 points 6 days ago (2 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.

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[–] BlackLaZoR@lemmy.world 9 points 6 days ago

The Greeks didn’t need ET for the Colosseum

[–] AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world 7 points 5 days ago

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

[–] nednobbins@lemmy.zip 8 points 6 days ago (3 children)

Even if Nazis believed in Ancient Aliens as some sort of weird ubermensch theory, that doesn't make the idea itself racist at all.

People are fascinated by aliens. Before aliens people tended to attribute giant structures to gods and spirits when they lost the historical records. You don't need racism to believe in crazy fantasy ideas, you just need to be a bit too credulous.

[–] Smeagol666@mander.xyz 10 points 6 days ago

I hate "ubermensch" theory because it puts Nietzsche in a negative light when he wasn't an antisemite.

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

Greeks? Colosseum?

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[–] TigerAce@lemmy.dbzer0.com 55 points 6 days 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".

[–] tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip 29 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days 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 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days 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 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days 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.

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 17 points 5 days 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 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days 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 5 days ago

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

[–] Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works 11 points 5 days ago

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

[–] FatVegan@leminal.space 5 points 5 days 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.

[–] Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz 5 points 5 days ago

How do they explain pendulums?

[–] trashboypro@lemmy.blahaj.zone 65 points 6 days 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 6 days ago (1 children)

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.

[–] trashboypro@lemmy.blahaj.zone 0 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Holy hell I was misinformed then, I'm really sorry.

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

No worries - we do have some weirdo’s here

[–] Rothe@piefed.social 10 points 6 days ago

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

[–] SwifferWetjet@thelemmy.club 39 points 6 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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[–] jaybone@lemmy.zip 24 points 6 days 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 25 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (7 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.

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[–] dustyData@lemmy.world 12 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (4 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.

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[–] DeadDigger@lemmy.zip 7 points 6 days ago

Because this was how you did geometry and math in general in ancient times even till around year 500. The biggest problem was to easily construct exact angles. because it is rly hard to construct a triangle ruler with old materials. but a circle can be constructed with a pencil and a string and with 2 circles you can easily construct exact angles.

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[–] Email@lemmy.world 23 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

Are we implicitly using their units? Metric factors of pi would be quite surprising.

[–] groet@feddit.org 64 points 6 days ago (10 children)

If you compare distances like 14 wheel rotations to 5 wheel diameters, then the size of the wheel does not matter. Your ratios will be related to PI.

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[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 7 points 5 days ago

This reminds me of MAGAts.

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 3 points 5 days 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 5 days ago (2 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?

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[–] Thebeardedsinglemalt@lemmy.world 8 points 6 days ago (2 children)

A wheel, no! They just had 1 guy with a really long tape measure

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