comment: >
  
  We asked ancient alien theorists if they believe these were made by extraterrestrial life forms. The answer was “yes”.
context: Wonder how they could’ve missed them all these years: they’re outlined and even labeled right in the hillside! >
  
  Searches found them decades ago. Researchers only found them again recently. >
  
  Newer researchers discovered those earlier researchers up on the hills, lost. >
  
  The joke is good, but also an analogy on how poor documentation can lead to no difference between knowing nothing about a subject and having a thousand page paper on the subject. 
  Stuff gets filed away and the relevant people can't find it 20 years later all the time. >
  
  Didn’t the US have that problem with the space program? Stuff didn’t get documented well, and they had to pull the engineers out of retirement? >
  
  I wouldn't doubt it given my experience in the field. 
  There was a project for a sensor that I've lead through validation and the documentation for field failures from the previous iteration were fairly poor. 
  As a result, it's highly susceptible to temperature and if it gets hot, there's a chance for some epoxy to crack and let water in. 
  This gap of knowledge was as small as 8 years. The more egregious matter is the project engineer falsified the test reports. They reported out pass rather than failures. Tests can't be replicated. 
  Whoever goes into engineering, don't take it as a free pass to stop learning english, ethics, and how to communicate. >
  
  They may not have falsified the reports, something outside of their, and your, control may have changed. >
  
  True but that's what makes documentation all the more important. If the original engineer had measured and recorded as many known relevant variables as possible, it would be all the more clear the validity of their results, and less likely their ethics could be called into question. >
  
  The photos should have side by side option with and without outline. >
  
  This is so cool. Some of the designs make me wonder if they were just having fun! >
  
  Ancient graffiti >
  
  Look at my hooves! >
  
  chalking this up to aliens is irritating and underestimates human power and creativity, especially of the ancient indigenous people of peru. it helped harvesting season! >
  
  The ancient aliens "theory" is at its heart just garden variety racism. "Such stupid uneducated primitive brown savages couldn't have made something so incredible, therefore it must have been literal aliens from deep space who came and made it for them! Especially because my white ancestors at the time were living in warring tribes in mud huts." It's racism. >
  
  I made a joke about ancient aliens on r/artefactporn the other day, and a guy basically called me racist. Id never heard this take on it before.
  I gave it some thought. There is probably overlap in terms of racist people and ancient aliens conspiracists. Maybe its a similar thought process in the sense that racism is basically a conspiracy theory in itself.
  However I doubt people who believe that sort of thing are typically motivated (consciously or unconsciously) by racism. It seems more like a Dunning Kruger, idiots wanting to be right sort of thing. 
  To be clear I love all people and believe that humans very much accomplished society on their own, with the help of some animals.
  The guy who called me racist, unsurprisingly, didnt want to have a discussion. Maybe you do.
  Is my take naive? I admittedly dont know many openly racist people. To me, you could have brown people believing in ancient aliens just as much as any other colour of person. They just need to be insecure enough to reject science. >
  
  
  Is my take naive?
  
  A little bit. It's not so much that people who are openly racist will claim aliens because natives are so primitive and backwards and unrefined out loud so explicitly. It's from a historic, implicit bias that has carried on. 
  A similar thing is called "orientalism" in anthropology - it's this notion that "Eastern" things are exotic and different and alluringly mysterious, and then that plays out in a variety of ways, from how Asian ethnicities are portrayed in media to how "Westerners" interact with Chinese food from immigrant communities to intersectional issues like how East Asian women get fetishized so frequently. Lots of overlap with old fashioned racism, and lots of accidental stereotyping from a society that has absorbed those ideas for several hundred+ years. 
  It isn't on purpose, but it does come from racist/Western-supremacist/colonial thought patterns and stereotypes of indigenous peoples of the places they wanted to colonize. >
  
  Thanks for taking the time to answer, I appreciate you.
  So Im still not really convinced. The ancient alien nutjobs seem to doubt the capacity of ancient humans broadly, regardless of race. I looked it up and they cite the bible as having aliens. They cite ancient Irish people. Im pretty sure stonehenge is supposed to be aliens. They talk about cave drawings in Europe. They talk about vikings. These were white and/or western people, no? Any religion involving heaven or gods in the sky seems to get ancient alienized. It seems like they dont discriminate on which societies got help from aliens lol.
  Like I said there probably are some ancient alien people who also are racist; idiots do idiot things. Maybe a few are actually racially motivated. But broadly, based on evidence I dont see it as that plausible.
  Orientalism is another one that I just havent given much thought to; would love to discuss more. I can see how painting “the east” as a monolith/unchanging could present an opportunity to marginalize it in the eyes of objective viewers. Like you said media depictions historically havent been the best. 
  But to me there is a reality that all cultures ARE different from each other and there WAS historically kind of a west/east divide created by the steppes/vast distance and cultural/language differences. There were different spheres of influence which kept largely to themselves for long periods, mostly due to convenience the way I see it. Im sure this created/reinforced a lot of racist ideas, but the divide EXISTED and still does to an extent. Is it really that problematic to simply point this out? Is it problematic that it still exists? It goes the other way too. A lot of asian cultures (especially China it would seem) view the west in similar ways as exotic and “different” and monolithic.
  Full disclosure, my girlfriend is taiwanese. Im a canadian, blonde white guy. I like her for her kindness and her courage, among many other things which any girl from any place COULD have. I also like learning about her culture which is super different from my own. She grew up very different from how I did. She has slightly different values and expectations, which I like because it forces me to look at things differently. I also love all the new food shes shown me; just today I made myself some taiwanese style noodles with dumplings. Hot pot!! Am I being subtly racist or fetishizing her for appreciating the differences between us? How is one supposed to approach a culture they’re curious about, if not by finding it “mysterious” or “alluring”?
  Sorry for making you read all of that. All this is to say that the way Ive learned it, racism is racial supremacy or marginalization; its an insecure, frankly dumb BELIEF system. 
  Curiosity, misunderstanding, ignorance, even stereotyping if its in good faith; all these seem too innocent to call them racism. To me racism is about intent.
  Im sure you’ll disagree and I hope you can come up with a counterpoint to convince me. Id like to learn something. >
  
  Yeah I could see it as being a vulnerable community of sorts lol. Like I mentioned earlier, racism as a belief is basically conspiracy too, so it isnt too much of a jump.
  But that doesn't mean that believing in ancient aliens makes you a racist. Nor does it mean that the ideas pushed by these people are racist, or motivated by race. Its just pseudo-science pushed by wannabe smart people and probably tv networks to get ratings. 
  Ive put way more time into thinking about this than I should, lol. At this point Im an ancient alien expert-expert. As I mentioned, they go after ALL cultures, including the western/white ones. They literally talk about the mythical aryans (not actually a real thing) possibly being aliens. Thats counter to the traditional Nazi view of a master race. They question the Book of Genesis. It isnt 'brown people cant make big stuff', its 'people cant make big stuff'. I just dont see a coherent agenda other than spreading sensationalized misinformation to rile up idiots and generate more tv money/renown for these 'experts'.
  Stupid and unethical, yes. But calling it fascist or racist seems like a reach to me.
  How is there money in misinforming people to be racist? Where is the money in subtle racism? >
  
  I never said believing in ancient aliens makes someone racist. Racism isn't a binary, most people aren't "black and white" racist or not racist. 
  There's definitely a distinction you need to make between overt and subtle/unconscious racism. Google "racism unconscious bias" for more on this topic. Implicit bias is another phrasing. It has a huge impact on why policing often ends of being racist, even if the individual cops aren't overtly racist.
  
  How is there money in misinforming people to be racist?
  
  "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
  Lyndon B. Johnson
  I'm short, for the modern day and the past 50+ yrs, while Democrats and Republicans both serve corporations more than voters, this is undeniably more true of Republicans. If you convince the poor to vote against their own interest through a bit of marketing, that's a great return on investment. Propoganda is cheap and effective. This is how/why racism is sold to conservatives.
  For question two, by selling "benign" racism, especially as it's explained in the video I linked, you can maintain the status quo which fucks over the poor. This is how/why racism is sold to liberals. Please do watch that video.
  "The mythical aliens being Aryan" is a huge dog whistle. They are saying the "ancient race" that "helped" all these brown people were Aryans. Are you familiar with the idea of "white saviordom"? 
  This is a point for how racist these beliefs are, not against. It's propping up whiteness/Aryans as productive while denigrating the brown people as incapable. It's setting white people up to thinking they are literally divine descendants of these benevolent aliens lol
  I also never called it fascist. I said fascists are in it, and use it as a recruiting tool. Once again. Ancient alien believers are not a monolith - they are not all the same. Some are overtly racist, some are not, some are fascists, some are not. Some are preying on the vulnerable, others are vulnerable. The one commonality though, is that if you're believing poorly founded theories like "ancient aliens", you're likely to believe others. Hence why it's a gateway to holocaust denial, similar to "flat earth" stuff.
  I feel like your thinking is a bit binary on these topics. Rarely is anything ever black and white. Everything is shades of grey. Me saying there are fascists in ancient aliens and other conspiracy circles, does not mean I'm saying it's a fascist belief system. I'm merely relating to things, not conflating them >
  
  I did watch the video and it was very informative. Thanks for linking. If you havent already, Id recommend reading some more modern works on the root causes of the trans-atlantic slave trade. Similar themes and conclusions.
  I was more referencing OP saying that it doesnt make you racist. You seem more reasonable.
  And of course there is implicit bias in almost every unique perspective. Economic class, colour of skin, culture, sex, dog owners vs cat owners, skiiers vs snowboarders, EVERYTHING creates bias. Good people recognize this and try to see past it. Idiots categorically do not.
  The fact that people focus so much on race kind of astounds me. Maybe thats my privilege showing lol. To me if you really care about creating a better world for ANYONE, you dont do it by hating people or complaining or being anti-anything. Imagine constructing an identity around what you oppose. 
  If you dont like the rules of the house, or the foundation is rotting out, you dont change that by complaining to the owners, or destroying what remains of your floor. You create change by building a better house and letting people in.
  Disagree on the Aryans thing being a dogwhistle. Theyre saying that the Aryans were aliens. Not that they were white saviors. Alien saviors lol. >
  
  273 is interesting. A man-headed animal. >
  
  "Draw me one with the head of a man" "You got it boss" >
  
  Draw me like one of your French head of a man girls >
  
  Hopefully they won't let some idiots fuck them up during an ad campaign this time around. >
  
  Wait what? >
  
  Peru's government let Greenpeace shoot an ad about protecting the environment. The people who went caused permanent damage to the Nazca Hummingbird. >
  
  A lot of work for a prank! >
  
  Dude, I really love lamas.  Like a lot.  I've been thinking about drawing some on that hill..... >
  
  Is this in reference to The Emperor's New Groove? It inspired me to rewatch it for the about 20th time. As a 39 year old gay man, it is absolutely one of the funniest movies I've ever seen, I'm dying. >
  
  It wasn't,  but I'm always down for an ENG reference.   Definitely in my top 3 movies