Ancient Aliens and the New World Order

[NotHardUp1]

It's the name of a "movie" that was just finishing on the Gravitas channel as I stumbled across it.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4694072/

The program was little more than a paranoid delusional rant by some old guy stringing together the most disjoint, unfounded, illogical "theories" about why the planet is not overpopulated and how the entire slate of current problems humanity faces is only because we are manipulated by this cabal of evil world leaders.

Talk about the Mother of All Conspiracy Theories. Sheesh.

A central tenet was that the late Prince Philip of Great Britain was a central figure in this. The film was produced in 2014 when he was yet alive.

What's the significance? It is evidence that educational philosophy, like a liberal arts approach, matters. The host of the program was apparently educated enough that he COULD have seen the irrationality of his theories, but his philosophy blinded him to the truth, or even just a more logical explanation for his various factoids.

This has been a growing problem in society as higher education has democritized and moved further away from the classic models into self-learning via the interweb and just a mercenary approach to university as nothing more than vocational preparation.

When that happens, it leaves the society increasingly vulnerable to exactly this sort of rot, with "learned" individuals leading cults of delusion in a spectrum of craziness and instability. This particular film appeals to the recurring syndrome of believing massive powers are our puppetmasters behind the curtains, so we must not be responsible or able to deal with the big crises we face. It offers vindication and exemption to the complexities of modern life by denying the issues are even real.

Unchecked, this growing flaw will undo more societies than just America's.

 

[Araucaria]

Ah, this sounds like another iteration of ideas floating around, echoes of the Trilateral Commission Conspiracy Theory. Wasn't that the one that said that the planet is really being ruled by the descendants of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene, and involves everything from the American founding fathers to European royalty to the pope to the Russian Communists to Chairman Mao?

Your point about semi-educated people leading people astray reminds of an occasion some years ago, when I got a ride home from a woman coworker. She had the radio tuned to this Christian radio station. They had this guy speaking in a fake affected British accent (amazing how easily that fools Americans) arguing that global warming was wrong, that in fact the earth was cooling. He used all the sophisticated scientific terminology to make his point. But I knew from my college chemistry and physics courses that he based his whole "theory" on a violation of the laws of thermodynamics: The earth is not a closed system, as it receives light and heat energy from the sun, but his whole argument would only be valid if the earth was a closed system (no matter or energy escaping to or coming in from the outside).

But I realized that many of the listeners would be fooled. They'd hear him using all that terminology and, not being educated in science themselves, would go "uh, this guy must know what he's talking about," and swallow what they heard hook, line, and sinker.

 

[Peloso]

Of course. More unripened fruit from the idiot brigade.

The host of the program was apparently educated enough that he COULD have seen the irrationality of his theories, but his philosophy blinded him to the truth, or even just a more logical explanation for his various factoids.

. . ."learned" individuals leading cults of delusion in a spectrum of craziness and instability.

The gap between religious leaders and conspiracy theorists continues to shrink. Sounds like somebody wants to be the next L. Ron Hubbard.

This illustrates the difference between people who approach their religious faith from their hearts versus those who approach it intellectually.

SInce its conception, America's main export has been bad ideas.

 

[unloadonme]

Sounds a bit like Chariots of the Gods? nonsense by Erich von Däniken.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chariots_of_the_Gods?

There's also the theory, also complete nonsense, that the world is run by an extra-terrestrial race of reptiles which includes the British royal family, so another Prince Philip connection.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reptilian_conspiracy_theory

https://www.news24.com/channel/goss...st-bizarre-royal-conspiracy-theories-20200615

 

[fabulouslyghetto]

As long as education is for-profit people gonna get in where they fit in. There is no shining "classic model", that's more generational vanity hogwash. Before THIS textbooks were "Boys work on cars and girls iron his clothes." We've never had a functional education system, we started crawling towards one in the 80s and 90s when cis white men lost their vice-like grip on the school system but lately they've taken the reigns back and are steering us once again towards being trained like dogs to work and pay taxes and do little else with our minds.

 

[Peloso]

^ This is why republicans are losing their shit about college debt relief. An educated workforce is bad for their precious capitalism.

 

[rareboy]

^ This is why republicans are losing their shit about college debt relief. An educated workforce is bad for their precious capitalism.

Kind of what I was thinking.

Oh dear.

There are the mentally fragile. There are the delusional. There are the grifters.

For some bizarre reason known only to neuro-chemistry, there is a point of perfect confluence.

 

[gsdx]

 

[NotHardUp1]

That is funny.

I wish the film were comical.

Sadly, it's a scary and misguided as any of the fantasy racist bullshit that is posted on JUB, and we see signs that at least some gullible souls believe it.