How to deal with Ancient aliens in the workplace?

SpaceAce@lemmy.blahaj.zone to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 120 points –

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)

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If they take a netflicks show as evidence, I seriously doubt you will be able to convince them otherwise.

Yeah. Also it's not my place to raise adults. But a part of me wishes to plant a seed of skepticism. I have a hard time nodding and going along with it. I feel compelled to question it rather than going along with this kind of small talk.

Your answer is right there. Plant seeds of doubt. Ask questions about it. Wow! Did they get footage?! Really? There must be two sources for such a wild thing to have happened! What does Snopes say? Lmfao

You don't have to convince them but you also don't have to listen either.

You just have to decide that any issues with cutting them off when they start talking about it is worth the effort or if it may cause problems at work.

I've watched some of the shows because they do actually lead to some interesting archeological digs I hadn't heard of before... However there's one thing that always nags me when watching this stuff -- why do they always think ancient humans were so stupid? It is believed that the human brain has not changed for around 100,000 years, which means that no matter how far back you go in our observable history, those people had the same capacity for rational thought as we do. Sure, we have a huge advantage through the knowledge of written history, but even a cave man had the same ability as we do to accomplish a task with the materials at hand.

You'll also note they always ask a modern engineer how they would accomplish tasks such as moving large stones, and the answer is always something like "I would use modern machinery" because of course we've come to rely on them and nobody today ever tries to think of any other way to perform the same task. How were the great pyramids built? They always claim it can't be done today, while conveniently ignoring all of the theories of how they did probably move those blocks.

So I guess my skepticism on those types of shows is that they intentionally leave out significant details to make everything sound more woo-woo (every big claim they make probably already has a wikipedia page providing legitimate answers or at least giving factual details). Sure there are some things that still aren't understood but just because you see some glowing lights doesn't immediately mean aliens are involved. Even though I do believe there is other life out there, I haven't seen any evidence yet on these shows that I would consider "proof" of visitations, but rather just a whole lot of "this is how we interpret the data to fit our conspiracy theory."

why do they always think ancient humans were so stupid?

Because they (and by extension their audience) are not that bright.

If they cannot think of how it was done and they must be smart because they live with all this modern technology (which they didn't create and don't really understand) then there is no way for people in the past to have done it.

Therefore...aliens. Well, that is the modern thought. In the past it you just replace aliens with God or Gods or Demons etc.

Yeah replacing "god" with "aliens" pretty much sums up the mentality here.

One that really gets me (and I can't think offhand of where exactly it is at), is an artificial cave network that appears to date back to the last big ice age, around 10,000 years ago. "But they didn't have anything other than stone tools, so it couldn't have been created by humans!" You're telling me that if the only thing you know about is stone, that you wouldn't have some understanding that some types of stone are harder than others? We're talking about people living in one place for millennia with nothing to do except go out hunting for food and sitting in the cave, and in all that time they couldn't have slowly cut out more caves to make their homes larger? Seems like such a simple idea to me, and yet it seems to go right over the heads of all these people discussing those caves. "Mommy I'm bored!" "Grab a rock and start grinding, dear."

Are you sure they are taking it seriously? I’ve watched a bunch of Ancient Aliens and it was fun entertainment so long as it is recognized as just entertainment. The main voice in the show makes me fall asleep so I’ve technically had most episodes play across my screen. Me and coworkers make comments regularly that “it’s aliens man” as the reason for things. None of us see it as more than humor and maybe that’s the case with your people.

I'm not sure but they do talk about it a lot and I have been cornered with things like "did you know that all fighter pilots since the 1960s have had to take an oath of silence because they keep seeing aliens up there, anyway this whistleblower...".

I'm having a hard time navigating these but letting them have their fun while just asking what they believe and why is probably not a bad approach.

Someone mentioned that going through with debunking them is a spoilsport move that's a lot of work to do right and would probably just sour our relationship at work.

I genuinely love Ancient Aliens but it's definitely a comedy for me. I really don't understand how anyone can take it seriously. My husband had someone in one of his college classes who believed an Animal Planet mockumentary about mermaids was real, though, so I guess people have fallen for dumber things.

You replied to the wrong comment @SpaceAce is the one with the alien believing workmates.

Yarrr….im going to blame this on Memmy as I really believe I hit the correct button and Memmy moved my comment. It’s easier to blame the app than move the comment.

All good. I linked spaceace so you wouldn't have to move the comment and they would still be notified.

Highly recommend the podcast 'It's probably not aliens' if you want to find out more about the real history of the claims made in these kind of shows, and how the claims of aliens are often rooted in racism and colonialism

Thanks. I've been needing more podcasts anyway :)

That being the case, the excellent podcast Our Fake History talks about aliens in Who Built The Pyramids part III (obviously you should listen to part 1 and 2 first). This episode builds on some other episodes (Sebastian debunks all kinds of other garbage historical myths) and some familiar names tend to come up over and over. Who Are The Magicians Of The God and Was There A Real Atlantis are other episodes that might have some relevance to the KIND of arguments your coworkers are likely making.

Ignore it or mock it. I start preaching about Great Cthulhu at people who have loonie beliefs, and let them try to debunk me.

I've got good at reciting "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!" in a high-pitched preacher voice.

Patiently explain that "alien encounters" are just the playful trickery of the Fae, who have been pulling this sort of thing for much longer than anyone was imagining spaceships.

If you want to win a fist fight, bring a rocket launcher.

Just remember that shit has a blast radius, your reputation may get hit.

Cass, you idjit! You have been on earth from how long and still don't know how humans work! They are just going to think the OP is delusional!

"How to deal with Ancient aliens in the workplace?"

Man, for a second I thought you are talking about older, immigrant co-workers.

Let people be wrong.

I'm with this. Unless it is about work, let people believe what they want. Or else you end up discussing a lot of stuff like religion and politics in a place it doesn't need to be.

Woah woah woah. Hold on a second. There are actually people who take Ancient Aliens seriously?! I thought we all watched it because it was hilariously stupid.

You already made up your mind that you won't believe alien stuff, and you don't want to offend your coworkers. Then just treat those alien stuff as their hobby. When your coworkers talk about their hobby, what would you usually do? Certainly not trying to shit on their hobby, unless you don't like those coworkers.

This is not worth challenging, especially if you are outnumbered. You are not likely to change their beliefs with evidence. The beliefs are flexible and can be endlessly swapped out with new beliefs that demand new evidence. I don't know what you should do but you definitely shouldn't attempt to change their minds like that.

This isn't the hill you want to die on. If they ask for your input, just say that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and shrug. Most people follow these things because they're exciting in an otherwise unexciting life, not because they're dedicating their lives to discovering alien life or invading area 51.

If they try to debate you, just say ok and smile. You're not going to logic someone out of a position they didn't logic themselves into.

If you're feeling up to it, you could just tell them about the invisible dragon in your garage, or the teapot that's currently orbiting the sun.

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You should pick your battles. Think pretty carefully about what you actually want to debate/pushback on because it's exhaustive and requires you to research the topic. It's probably a waste of your time doing the research to debunk these alien sightings since a new one pops up every few months.

Yeah. Maybe I should ask general questions but not push back on anything. Like "What about this episode convinced you?". "Do you think that's enough evidence or would you like to see something more?". "Wow, so why isn't this all over the news, do you think?"

Or is this line of questioning too obvious?

Those questions are just going to open a can of crazy. Some battles aren't worth fighting and in the workplace you're going to see a lot of them.

To me those shows are fantasy and i let the person enjoy telling me about the episode. I'd ask questions like wow what do you reckon the aliens are doing here or have you had any extra terrestrial experiences. Generic smalltalk stuff that let's the person feel like they are telling you something cool and interesting because to them it is.

"Stilted"?

You sir, are one of those fucking amazing people who profusely apologize for not being a native English speaker and then blurt out 37 paragraphs of perfect English.

You have nothing to be ashamed of - your English is better than a lot of them native speakers ! And always remember this :

"You are speaking English because that is the only language you know; I am speaking English because that is the only language you know. We are not the same."

And as to your original question - if I ever ask them "what evidence did you see which proves X happens?", I have almost always been hit with the reply, "Oh yeah? What proof do you have that says X does not happen???". And then I tell them the anecdote of the Invisible Dragon by Carl Sagan. Look it up if this is new to you, and for a more formal treatment, check out Karl Popper's theory of Falsifiability.

I have personally converted at least one conspiracy theorist to being an Agnostic. So I know it works. Try them out, it's fun.

And I also am not a native English speaker to be honest :-)

Haha thanks. I know I'm being silly, on a certain level, apologizing for my English but as an anxious person I'm being defensive up front. I still feel like I don't sound like a native, an outsider, and I want people to know I'm not native if they pick up on my English being off.

Thanks for the advice. Though reading all them comments I'm starting to lean towards letting them have their fun. I am not great at debating anyway and maybe questioning without confronting is best.

Yeah I agree. Let them die alone, thinking about Alien abduction and crop circles.

I mean, if you are so disinterested in the conversation that you would ask the internet how to have your side of it rather than check out the show, maybe you just shouldn’t have that conversation. Change the subject or tell them you’re not into it. Who cares if they believe there are aliens?

Personally, I find it impossible to believe there isn’t other intelligent life out there. It’s not because of blurry photos or spooky stories. It’s that the universe is just so vast and there’s so much we will never understand about this place we are in. How can it not be out there? Frankly, it takes more faith to believe there isn’t something.

With that perspective, I do occasionally find those shows interesting. Not because it’s proof of anything but because it’s fun to watch and wonder what it is. It doesn’t have to make you a believer or a non-believer. There’s obviously something in the videos. What it is and where it comes from is entirely different. It’s just entertainment for people who like to indulge in a little speculation.

That's fair, thanks. Reading this and other comments I think I'm taking this too seriously and furthernore, they're having fun. It feels silly now to have asked but still, bouncing this off of strangers helped. I can only echo chamber in my own head.

I tried to engage them with exoplanetary research. I am also in the camp that surely we are not alone in the universe. Why assume we're special in a seemingly homogenous universe? I am looking forward to humanity finding their first reliable biomarker in space.

I guess we're just excited about the same thing, really.

Cool! The exo-planetary stuff and astronomy is interesting to me. I’m loving the data we are getting from JWST. There was recently an article about possible biological chemical processes on a faraway planet. The asteroid sample NASA collected also contained the building blocks for life. Not too long ago, we got to see the first picture of a black hole. There’s just so much out there to explore.

I wonder if we would even recognize other intelligent life if we found it. Could we figure out how to communicate? We can barely recognize intelligent life on Earth. Humans eat octopus and it’s one of the most intelligent creatures we are aware of. We still look right past them.

Personally, I find it impossible to believe there isn’t other intelligent life out there.

If the universe is infinite, and there's no reason not to believe that this very well may be the case, then it's almost certain that there is other intelligent life out there. However, just as the vastness of an infinite universe guarantees other intelligent life, it also guarantees that we'll never meet. We may find evidence of them, or they may find evidence of us, but the odds of intelligent life concurrently existing in near enough proximity for our independent geneses, evolution, and advancement to interstellar travel before either people managed to die out is effectively zero. And mere radio communication between interstellar civilizations would literally take generations for a basic conversation at best. Humans may not even last another thousand or even hundred years. Can you imagine history textbooks in 3000 talking about current times the way that we talk about the Norman conquest of England or the first crusade? It's weird to imagine where they'll be to look down upon our ways of life now.

@Joker I believe in alien life forms too, but Ancient Aliens is hot garbage about earth that requires you to pretend you don't know a lot of facts about engineering, the laws of physics, and history in order to swallow their nonsense.

Have fun man. Start coming up with even crazier theories and one up them to the extreme with ever bolder madness, get creative. "Pfft you think Japan it real? They don't want you to know that we bombed them out of existence and we gave the country to the Venusians! It was all part of Reagan's contract in exchange for more nuclear power, but he was a lizard…"

The Italian military has been simulating Japan with AI for centuries now. The Italians took one of their own words, tiramisu, and made up a whole language from that.

It's no coincidence ちらみす looks like spaghetti. They literally made this alphabet by throwing spaghetti at the wall and then started borrowing evolved bone-script from the Chinese when they got bored with pasta-to-wall terrorism!

I used to get annoyed too but then I started doing this! I NEVER disagree or challenge their opinions I just always agree with everything and answer "wow! really?? I don't watch much tv, then what ?!!" They LOVE me, and helped me a lot at work being friends with thos guys.

It's imoortant to focus on the silliness, they are not hurting anyone let them talk nonsense and have fun

I used to watch this YouTube channel ~5 years ago, called Lets Chat, where a guy would go to different places and have conversations with people about their beliefs.

Digging through my history, it looks like the technique is called Street Epistemology. It's basically a way to understand deeply held beliefs without coming across rudely. Here's a site I found that explains the process well

This might sound like a crazy answer from a crazy person but hear me out. If they are good people and you're somewhat familiar with them, just call them kooks, say that shit's all made up and dismiss it. just don't be aggressive about it, people can still be on good terms without agreeing on everything. Just be like "nah man, no way that happened these shows are just people who want attention, if it was real there'd be better evidence and it'd be all over the news."

I honestly think this is the best way to go, you're engaging them honestly, attacking the show, not them. And so long as you don't get hung up on their response or 'winning the argument' I think you can all remain on good terms. How you go about this obviously depends on how friendly you are with them but if they're good people they'll still be your friend even if you're too dumb to see the truth about aliens.

Bingo. People are MUCH more willing to put aside what they'd consider absolute deal breaking things when they're forced to interact with you anyway. Arguing with someone about this sort of shit wouldn't change their minds and is a waste of time even if it somehow did. Be who you are and move along in your work relationship and expect them to do the same for you. That's how you maintain a healthy work environment. It's a good way to foster mutual respect.

For the sort of thing you describe, unless it affects the operation of the company, I just ignore it. I don't feel the need to correct other people's beliefs unless it's getting in the way of my work. Or socialize at work, beyond a purely practical amount.

If it's mandatory that I socialize with them for some reason, and they cannot abide people who don't believe everything they do, I try to change the subject to something where there's more common ground. If they force the matter, and leaving is not permitted, I just lie -- if they're being that dense, it's not like they value my true thoughts much anyway.

Carl Sagan wrote a book, The Demon Haunted World, which is all about why people get sucked into nonsense like ancient aliens, and how to deal with it.

You can't reason people out of a belief they didn't reason themselves into.

Just say you're not interested in their weird hobby.

If they didn’t use reason and logic to make up their minds, you don’t stand much of a chance using them to change their minds.

I went to training with coworkers from another site. They were raving about some "documentary" that said the government had alien technology. They kept trying to get me to watch it all week but I just kept saying I forgot.

In reality I watched about 10 minutes and it just set up these alternative history hypothese then reenacted them. It was moronic so I just steered the convo to football or whatever to get them to shutup.

Just ignore and avoid the topic the best you can. Don't confront. Just go, "ohh ok" and move on. Pretend you need to go to the toilet or that you have something else to do if you can't break free from the conversation.

It's about as futile as trying to convince a religious fanatic that their views may not be ideal for everyone; you just don't. Ignore and avoid.

Ignoring is so hard 😅 I never bring it up.

I don't think they're fanatics. I just think their curiousity, with inexperience in healthy skepticism, has found a very easy outlet.

But I guess you're right. The current state of astrobiology isn't as exciting and people want to wonder. Maybe hard science is too difficult to sell in this case.

Start attributing your local cultural heritage to aliens. That fancy building? Aliens.

It may force your coworkers to clarify their statements to racism, but then you can hide behind the "but how do they steel beam?" logic.

https://youtube.com/@miniminuteman773?si=AKDf4v0VQ4xR9KrQ

Dude is legit entertaining while debunking this nonsense. You’ll learn a lot not just about the science, but about how they constructed their faulty arguments and where to push to make them fall apart like playdoh.

Enjoy the shows as fiction and have conversations with the mindset of "but wouldn't it be cool if that was real?". Sometimes it's good to escape reality and pretend for a while. And it sounds like this would help you build a good rapport with your colleagues.

"I was unsure of whether I could trust y'all with this info, but after talking with you a bit I think it's time to come clean." And then start talking about Second Impact as if it happened IRL and not in a famous anime. (Spoilers for Evangelion in the link.) There's already in-lore conspiracies and coverups to use as talking points.

  1. your written English is great

  2. conversation does not need to be debate. What these people really want is to talk. Ask questions, like "what evidence did you find most convincing?" Odds are they won't even notice you didn't agree with them, they just want to be heard.

  3. there doesn't need to be a conversation at all. Drift out of these sorts of conversations or change the topic. I can't imagine a scenario in which debating the existence of aliens with a coworker would be worth my energy.

I agree with others that it might not be worth it

If you do want something though, to pass the time or whatever, this is a pretty good video on how to address them

Ultimate Conspiracy Debunker - Kurzgesagt (typing on the bus, sorry for mispelling it)

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

Link

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

Thank you. I'll check it out tomorrow. Currently resisting sleep longer than I ought to.

Cheers, have a good sleep

Lmao, just watched it. Thought it was gonna be longer than 2 minutes. However this is a fun little hack, though it doesn't work for everything.

@SpaceAce this is firmly in the "I could teach you, but I'd have to charge" category. You're not their mother or their teacher so if they want to believe nonsense then let them.

There are some documentaries debunking Ancient Aliens though.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjhctHjnIbUgvin0ZlrsHg87l\_k1RrKdf This playlist is very long, but this is a historian dunking on any sort of ancient alien or lost ancient technology theories.

Off topic, but

(Sorry if language is too formal or stilted. Not my native tongue)

is unnecessary. You sound great! Completely natural. I would have assumed you were a native English speaker.

Anyway, as others have said, don’t waste your time arguing. Just have fun with it. They may be entertaining to listen to, and might turn into good friends. You’ll go crazy trying to debate them, though.

Thank you :)

I'm just so used to my English falling apart completely when forced to speak it in real time, instead of writing it. I feel like I am not great at making it sound casual either when writing.

Yeah, the common thread here seems to be not to argue and that's likely good advice.

I'm a skeptic at heart, but it's fun and ultimately harmless to pretend or even vehemently believe that aliens exist and have visited earth. In my opinion there's no reason to shut them down or try to prove them wrong. Of course unless they're taking it to a degree in which it's likely to harm others.

If nobody challenges them on the harmless stupidity it will fester into greater ignorance they feel entitled to perpetuate.

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.

You might be taking some friendly debate as more sinister than it is. It's okay to tell them you straight up don't believe and need some better evidence than a show on Netflix. When they tell you to watch it, ask them to sum it up for you, and go from there.

You can laugh at the absurdity without being mean-spirited. Most people who get hooked into that stuff don't really believe, they like the "but what if?" Aspect of it.

The thing is that other than the odd true believer, most people who watch these things are not interested in engaging in an intellectual debate about them. It's essentially a diversion and light entertainment.

Why do you feel the need to "deal with it"?

You can express your opinion without pushing it on others or trying to convince them. Is this a mystery to the social media generation?