Weird to see so many people stanning for Graham Hancock in the comments when anyone with even a cursory understanding of history knows that it was refugees from the Battlestar Galactica who settled on Earth and taught primitive humans everything they know.

Really interesting. I hadn't really thought before about how KZfaq could be a way for academics to break the walls of their scholarly research being hidden behind the academic journal paywall.

Rule 1: speak politely Rule 2: Present evidence without jargon Rule 3: Sell your ideas instead of pushing them

I was not expecting this to be riveting, but somehow, it was. At this point, I would click on a 45-minute Premodernist video about a piece of stale bread.

This channel is easily one of the top 10 channels on KZfaq.

7:20 this is exactly why (i think) lot of people love this channel. The respect, the good faith, the way you say what you say.

premodernist uploads, i click

This channel is proof that you dont need flashy presentation, sound effects or animation to interest people, educate people or engage people. They can work, but they arent necessary

Couldn’t agree more. Very insightful video. The pay wall on academic research is a massive massive problem. Contributes hugely to the common perception of elitist academia in its ivory tower. Really difficult to refute when the research is simply not available to the general public.

Extremely important message. Try not to hold evidence like a cudgel. Approaching someone with respect is the best way of changing their mind about something. And of course changing someone's mind is kinda like asking them to change clothes in front of you. It's kinda embarrassing and doubly so if it's in front of strangers.

Hi! I'm an archaeologists and I just found your channel. I really appreciate your points about engaging with alternative ideas, as well as your encouragement of academics to hop on KZfaq. You're absolutely right that it takes more time to create researched videos vs. vibes videos. I hope to see more academics join KZfaq and it's so encouraging to see the desire for it from your comments section alone. On a personal note, I'm looking forward to diving into your backlog!

Graham Hancock was very slippery on what his theory even is. If you keep track during that Joe Rogan debate, he disavows any belief that his "civilization" had metallurgy, agriculture, empire, organized religion, that they were the ones who built the pyramids, etc. By the end of it he is only proposing that there were some people who could calculate longitude, and they built the Sphinx. He retreated almost to the point of surrender.

Total tangent but related: Paul Harrel, a gun and survival guy, mentions in his clips about a mistake made by most people when it comes to survaival in the wilderness: thinking you have a skill, a talent or a knowledge about something that you don’t really have

Also a big problem is that academic communicators are completely different people from actual academics, especially in the internet age. So we need more people who know stuff to talk about it, because even many who are the spokesmen of the traditional narratives of their subject don’t know the nitty gritty of how it actually works and just blindly parrot what actual academics tell them without understanding it.

i've always had a soft spot for pseudo archeology. then i've found David Miano's channel world of antiquity, and he does exactly all the things you suggested. he made me realize that human history is so fascinating and mysterious without recurring to advanced technology, or aliens, or whatever. we as human are able to do amazing things and also to believe to the stupidest bs.

6:12 Part of the issue is that the maxim “assume good faith” can be exploited through bad faith rhetoric. Sealioning for example. There isn’t enough time in the day to argue from first principles if the bad faith “interrogator” wants to debate from first principles. It takes 10 minutes do undo a lie that takes 10 seconds to say.

It's way easier to fool people than it is to convince them that they have been fooled.

It's honestly hard to find channels where someone like you makes content that is high quality, entertaining, and cites sources. I'm just a simple carpenter, so I really appreciate you doing these videos on KZfaq. You're right when you say people just find these topics entertaining, and just want to know more about them. I'm really drawn to historical mysteries and the like, and I have watched JREs Graham podcasts, not this last one, but he proposes a lot of cool ideas, though I do think that they're just that. I sometimes think that maybe archeologists need to do more digging in a sense, but maybe they are, and I don't know about it, because it's behind a pay wall in a journal that even if i got my hands on it, i might not be able to make sense of what I'm reading. Great video, really enjoy your work here!

22:55 lol, "science advances one funeral at a time" 😅

An excellent example of the difference on the subject is right here in this excellent video. An academic admits "I could be wrong, please correct me in that case". A pseudo-academic proclaims "I am right, and everybody else is wrong".

The one thing everybody fails to point out about Graham Hancock is that he's been pushing these ideas for 30 years now. He could have easily spent a few of those years studying archeology himself. He could even have his own PhD by now. Even if there is any truth to his claims, that's a huge Factor on why nobody takes him seriously because he's trying to LeapFrog over all of the academics to make his ideas the mainstream theories.

As a new science professor thank you for this video! It’s crazy how powerful assuming good faith and treating others with respect can be. It’s the only way to win hearts and minds and I saw this alot during covid. It’s crazy to me that this isn’t the dominant culture in academia…

Atun-shei also had a great video on the same thing. Really interesting to see it get so much coverage!

A really good video. For me as a viewer who is interested in History but doesn't want to read academic papers all day but rather listen to a history video while doing housework, the biggest difficulty is to distinguish between content creators who do proper research and know what they're talking about and those who want to push their predetermined narrative. It helps to judge the credibility if the content creator has a Ph.D in the relevant field, like 'toldinstone' who makes videos about the ancient romans and greeks, but that doesn't mean that other people don't know what they're talking about. As an example, the creator of the Welsh history channel 'Cambrian Chronicles' is to my knowledge, not a historian with an academic title in the fields of Welsh history but for all I can judge as an amateur, he seems to really know the stuff about the extremely niche area of history. I also like 'Historia Civilis', but the creator seems to prefer to ignore the controversy of some historical accounts for the sake of telling a coherent story without disruping the flow. I don't think there is any malintent but it's rather a choice for the type of story telling the creator wants to do and overall I think it's a great channel. I think it would be helpful if credible channels like premodernist would recommend history channels they like to watch. I saw a premodernist comment on the channel 'Ancient Americas' which is another interesting history channel I like, so it would be cool if those types of creators would get a shout out here sort of as a badge of approval.

Great video! Your point regarding the 1988 presidential debate was particularly poignant. When often confronted with common historical misconceptions, or pseudo-history, it can be easy to become a bit jaded. This is something I’ll keep in mind when communicating about History to others. Thanks!

Love the videos, looking forward to listening to this

love the new microphone setup

As someone who read Jared Diamonds Guns Germs and Steel and thought it was interesting, I would love it if you could do a video on it. Or maybe just those kinds of books (I wonder what you think of Sapiens).

There is a thirst for truth, sure, but one issue not addressed in this video is the thirst for a simple black or white, yes or no, truth - anything that takes time or nuance, and is just work with no exciting payoff at the end, full of maybes and whatifs with no overarching narrative, is not really the object of that thirst.

Comment before watching for transparency. I was just watching one of your older videos at the gym of all places and hoping to see a new one soon… was so happy seeing the post notification!! Big fan of your work and the way you present information.

I actually do believe Hancock is a grifter. He's no Carl Sagan, and that comparison only reinforced my feelings about him. Spreading this narrative is his business, and he is very aware of what he's doing.

if you havent done a crossover video with miniminuteman, I think I would really enjoy that, he sort of shook me out of my lingering desire to latch onto the fantastical narratives put forth in the pseudo-archeological arguments from the likes of Hancock.

i respect your position towards the alternative fact types of people. i think it takes a significant level of maturity to not only internalize it but also to enumerate the problem in the first place.

I'm a PhD student in accounting (yes we exist). I'm inspired by your suggestion that we use KZfaq to communicate *good* research. You acknowledge/mention that presentation skills are often not academics' strong suit. As someone with an apparent knack for it, can you provide a more detailed guide to constructing short, interesting, informative videos? 🙏 There are several acct papers that would be worth presenting to a KZfaq audience, but I don't have the foggiest clue where I would start with recording a video about them.

i love your videos so much, i could listen to you speak about history for hours. you are so polite and well spoken and the material is always incredibly interesting:) thank you for another great upload

Coming from archeology, i can absolutly confirm that general knowledge is decades behind the academical consensus. Concerning some keys topics (politcal ones), the gap get go past 100 years

I’m a graduate student in climate science, and the way you talk about pseudoarchaelogy reminds me a lot of climate change denial. One of the reasons it feels hard for scientists to talk to deniers is because the scientist has seen proof hundreds of times and is surrounded by it, whereas a denier may have only seen two or three headlines a year about the climate. Learning how to separate the “belief” from the person is key.

Dude your videos are so soothing. Every time I watch one it feels like I'm listening to a friend. You would be great at making podcasts !!

I was just checking your channel earlier today and thought "Hmm, it's been a minute since he's uploaded. I wonder if we'll get a video soon." Now here are! With some juicy drama too! Thank you for your time, good sir!

You’re my favorite channel. Please continue making more videos.

Your channel is awesome! Always insightful content to get my brain going. Was a fan of Hancock in my younger years, read several of his books, listened to many interviews , and I agree he believes what he is saying. He seems like a smart guy who so wants to believe this stuff that sounds really cool, that he doesn’t apply the same level of skepticism to other things. Keep up the great videos, this sort of rational discourse is needed in every field represented on youtube.

i genuinely love your approach, its academics like you that inspire me. thank you :)

Hard not to assume bad faith from Hancock when he had a book named The Mars Mystery that he never mentioned again after cash grab

Absolutely amazing video by the way. Please keep uploading anything; it's all incredibly interesting.

Something I really want to stress is not to be dismissive or too snarky when debunking misinformation - I mean, not as an absolute rule, snarky content is fine sometimes, but it isn't the most effective way to change someone's mind. And I struggle with this because I tend to be a pretty sarcastic person in real life, but if you want to change someone's mind about anything you don't want to make them feel attacked; if someone feels like you're belittling them, dismissing them, or insulting them, they're much more likely to double-down on whatever position they hold rather than to change their perspective. If anything they'll just have reason to characterize academics as bullies. The only time snark works is for making people who might be on the fence about pseudoarcheology/pseudohistory think "Oh, people who believe this pseudo stuff are dumb, I don't want to be like them", which is all well and good for keeping more people from going down the rabbit hole, but if the goal it to pull people out of the rabbit hole then it doesn't work so well.

Much love from an archaeology undergraduate. Your suggested approach to treat people in good faith is spot on. I could tell Graham Hancock definitely believed in what he was saying, and all the people who bring up his writings definitely have the same enthusiasm about the past. You want to engage with that enthusiasm, instead of rebuking people for being incorrect through no fault of their own.

Always the best thing to see a new vid! Thanks

We need more videos from you, Professor! Please keep 'em coming!

top notch content, and I'm always in awe of the haircut

Really appreciate your perspectives on this. Thank you for making this video.

13:29 length in; your point to "marvel together" is the total essence that most everyone seems to forget these days. It's so hard to get that point across to someone who's high on being argumentative, and make them feel it...but I completely agree and am proud to see you say so on this video.

I discovered this channel a day ago. Incredible content. Keep posting :)

Pseudo archeology/history is less rigorous research and more vibes stuff is such a perfect take. I love your channel so much and I’ve rewatched your time travel advice video like 4 times. You should do one about time traveling to the Middle East.

The nuance in this man's videos is what I miss in today's world.

Amazing video. I think this set of advice is not just limited to history, its general advice on how to have healthy, respectable discussion in daily life.

I'm not an academic, but I feel this advice to apply to nearly everyone with a range of topics. Those basic ideas of "Assume good faith, you are you planting a seed for them to question it later, people are going off their one source, etc." are all good mindsets and guides for any debate, discussion, or argument. I found your channel a few weeks ago and I really am stressing that you have very "Big KZfaqr" energy. Keep up with the videos, this channel had 256k subscribers as of May 2024, I feel you getting a million would be a piece of cake if you keep giving out your level of content.

This is an interesting topic. I think the presence of "ententainers" like Mr. Hancock shows us how important legends and myths or generally speaking just spirituality is important to humanity. His audience are just people who enjoy listening to potential myths and secrets which they would love to believe therefore rely more on their emotions than logic.

What makes it so obnoxious to talk about something we know in history or archeology is that the “evidence is being ignored” mantra has made its way outside of academics and into the mouths of people who are not actually academics, and believe that their singular piece of evidence (from any source, even if not itself dubious) trumps the larger scientific body. They believe the specific evidence is being ignored rather than that it has already been considered and has not had enough weight to tip the scales the other way. The most frustrating part is in trying to get them to understand that their evidence wasn’t ignored in the first place and either was or actively is being studied, debated, and juxtaposed with the larger body of study. I think often this comes from an unawareness of the size of the body of evidence and sources that have piled up in any field of study. The reason it’s frustrating to talk to these people is because they will probably believe you are brainwashed unless you offhand are able to explain the entire body of current academic knowledge to counter their singular source. Unfortunately that is a tough proposition for anyone, given the length of time even small portions of that study take to learn and incorporate. It can’t be done in a conversation. So, the person will continue to cling to their singular evidence and spread it to everyone who doesn’t know better, and ignore and look down upon all the people who do. Meanwhile, the people who do know better are not often sharing their knowledge to the general public since to them it’s either “common” or too convoluted to explain. So the pseudo-science grows. It has virtually no counter possible in media since the only thing capable of countering pseudo-scientific claims is the communication of deep understanding in the appropriate topic of a tiny and likely cautious minority.

Thank you very much. I hope a lot of people see this. I am a retired construction expert whose career included many serious disputes. A lot of professional medications. Your advice about how to speak with people whose ideas are not well formed is really good. Thank you.

I've mainly been attracted to your historical videos but this is an absolute gem of a video. This is an amazing demonstration of how to communicate with anybody of an opposing view beside the context of psueo-history, just an effective way of embracing any challenging topic. I really hope more people can see this video!

I think this is far too generous. 8:40 Yes, but Carl Sagan did not do this repeatedly for decades and based his whole livelhood on these wrong ideas. He also was not constantly confronted with evidence to the contrary and ignored it. This was one episode of many, that is a huge difference to people peddling the same stuff over and over again. There definitely are a lot of grifters out there, and pseudoarchaeology often also has a darker side rooted in nationalism and racism. To assume good faith really cannot be done in many cases. It is far too obvious that the motive is not the discovery of truth.

Can you recommend any good academic critiques of Guns, Germs, and Steel, written for lay people?

Super important point to get across to everyday ordinary folks who are not well versed in a particular topic, and read about something in the media. Media is often very separated by time from current research. Glad you brought that point up

Love this channel, I wish uploads were more frequent

Guns, Germs, and Steel is a great example for this. Despite its many issues, its theories were a massive break from the racism pervasive in almost all primary, secondary, and popular education on world history in 1997. I specifically recall what a revelation this book was for people raised in those milieus and saw how it opened people's eyes to the role of environments in history. Academics in my experience are extremely mean about the book and on social media often make counterclaims that require as much scrutiny as anything Jared Diamond makes. I've never seen a layman leave an interaction about it with their curiosity intact.

Karl Popper's book about falsification blew my mind when I read it for a class in college. It's so hard to reach certain conclusions, and most science is built on what we can rule out, and usually it is not possible to give sweeping statements about things, all you can say is "We haven't found a case where x is true" or something like that. I hate how so many people in pseudoscience have a really poor understanding of how science works and then they claim scientists have dogma or whatever. I personally feel like that is projection, but i can't prove that, so...

Dude i love your channel. You would be great at making podcasts. Great voice, no annoying effects and pictures. This is really soothing and nice to listen to

I’m just about to start my PhD and the idea of doing YT on top of that terrifies me haha

Love the video! Would you ever be interested in dismantling why Guns, Germs and Steel is an example of pseudo-history? As you mentioned in the video, it was indeed my first introduction to a macro- historical worldview, and while I have since moved on from his firm geographic determinism, I would appreciate your specific take on the book!

This has become one of my favourite channels, what an excellent topic to discuss

I love the message of this video! (as a non-academic) I appreciate the empathy/understanding in your approach rather than just 'fueling the fire' of an "us vs. them" argument.

I can no longer in good conscience watch these videos without paying something. They are incredible. My life mantra is that unless you're a billionaire the only way to make the world a better place is through patience and compassion, and this hits that idea home perfectly. Thank you.

I love that Carl Sagan was referenced with regard to history and knowledge. He ignored the Islamic Collage in ancient Bagdad which gave the Renaissance to Europe, that was destroyed by the Mongolian hoards in 1258. There was no dark ages between the destruction of the library of Alexandrea and the founding of the Bagdad Collage. It was not all common knowledges that were lost with each event, but something still held onto to rebuild the next generation...

You are one of my favorite creators. Thanks for the interesting content!

I really admire you offering advice that acknowledges that people who enjoy or consume the fantastical stuff are getting real things from it. Community, comfort, understanding. Even if it is not real, it can have real impacts.

First Milo Rossi, now this? Good week for pseudoarchaeology debunking vids

I studied history in college, and did quite well, but it's been a while. A couple days ago, my nephew hit me with fifty conceptually difficult and broad questions concerning the entirety of human history, to include pre-history, human evolutionary biology, and even cosmic evolution as an aside. Now I dabbled in that later pair for a couple years while shedding the inherited worldview of my upbringing, but outside of my outdated knowledge of timelines, I was struggling to answer his questions in a way that made it clear that honest, intelligent people are not so sure of the facts as the unenlightened are. Whether I was successful, I do not know, but in any event, I want to thank you for demonstrating how it is done. Cheers.

7:37 "Everyone is capable of believing in a false narrative" Love this quote, though you said it in passing, I feel like we all forget this way too often.

God I love this channel. So refreshing to hear people speak from evidence based positions about how to win back hearts and minds

The new microphone makes it look like you're DJing a birthday party.

Great video. Again. I’m definitely someone who gets impatient with conspiracy theorists or pseudo sciency types in general. Great advice. I think the one question I’d ask Graham Hancock or Flint Dibble is, “what is the definition of a civilization? How do you define it? What does it look like?” Are Paleolithic villages a ‘civilization’? If that is Graham’s definition than I guess he’s right, but I don’t think that’s it…

You are easily my favorite account on KZfaq, I really hope you keep coming out with videos.

Another great video! Keep up the great work!

Wow I'm early, good thing I brought my popcorn and soda *slurp noises*

So wait the Pyramid of Giza was not a nuclear fusion energy supply?

Brings me back to my classes on business of all things: that effective, quality communication is often the most important thing we can do to try to get along with people. We have to be able to hear each other and talk at length to work out the truth.

This channel is such a breath of fresh air, it's crazy

This is very sane and helpful. I'm an art historian and I'm often asked to teach 100-tier courses that are significantly outside my specialist area. (Like so many others.). I enjoy it. Tremendously. That includes the doubting task of navigating the scholarship on fields that are FAR more archeological than my own. But I do get students who have watched a bit too much junk information somewhere online. Most of it ... I can counter in my ordinary happy-go-lucky way. Sometimes, it is a fine point of misinformation that I need to fact check. And then sometimes .. it's "ancient aliens.". That one, I confess, sets me off a bit. I'll have to work on that.

"These are great questions Professor however have you ever tried DMT?" -Joe Rogan.

As a history nerd and a mental health therapist, I feel like two of my worlds just collided! Thank you for acknowledging that these beliefs are not a matter of lack of intelligence or malintent but rather a result of psychological biases. And thank you for encouraging people towards curiosity and empathy rather than judgment. In our very polarized time, you have presented a great recipe for how to connect with people that who hold worldviews that challenge our own.

"They're not trying to believe in falsehood-SO DONT TREAT THEM LIKE THEY ARE" Ah! Shivers. I love it when academics are olive branchers. Beautifully, compellingly said. Our duty is to truth and knowledge and each other, not ego and ideology.

Hancock's arguments in the JRE debate felt very much like a 'god of the gaps' situation.

No, Graham Hancock definitely is a grifter.

Overall an excellent conversation with actionable advice sprinkled in. You spoil us.

You are amazing. So thoughtful and empathetic. I really appreciate all of your videos, but particularly this, ‘ways of listening’ are so rarely talked about and so important. Thank you.

I dont think graham has a blindside, he has definitely heard all the contradicting evidence. I just think he is too deeply invested in his theory to turn back. Its sort of like a religion to him, not to mention that writing about his theory is making him a lot of money, and why give that up?

I think it’s nice to believe you can communicate with these people, but if they wanted to actually learn history (or science or whatever studied subject), they would. They want to be “smarter” than the experts. They want to be in the secret “in” crowd. Facts and arguments and evidence don’t matter these types. They are just counter the experts.

This channel is a gem. It's so different to all other content I use to watch. It's like a stop parade from everthing, and just watch a simply calm video of someone just simply calmly talking

Fantastic video, fantastic channel, wish you uploaded more.

Sagon had a philosophical anti- religious world view and fitted the facts around that view . He did it in good faith ,brcause he genuinely believed it was the only understanding of the facts as he saw them.