As a kid, I was an avid reader of Erich von Däniken. My father, although overall a very sensible and knowledgeable person, had been taken in by the pseudoscience shit of Däniken, so he had some of his books in the book shelf, and I borrowed the rest of the books at the library. Although there were things in the books I couldn’t quite swallow because they were just too over the top, my overall impression was that “he’s on to something”, like the author intended. It wasn’t until I reached an age where I could do my own fact checking, and got the tools to do it (actual history books, actual science books, the Internet) that I realized what a scam the whole pseudoscience business is. Unfortunately, the Däniken books were tossed away during a moving-related book culling. I would have liked to have them on display in my bookshelf as a warning and for reference. Just like I have several copies of the Bible (in the fiction section of the book shelf, sorted under G for God).
Mmkay. But what does that have to do with a book I read and dismissed a nonsense?
There will always be ignorant and rather stupid people who will defend Mein Kampf (in the public domain and still in print) or condemn Harry Potter for being demonic.
There are some people with whom I will not bother. You have described one.
PS you commented on Amazon? Why? What about Twitter or perhaps Quora?
There are somethings I simply cannot change. Fascists and homophobes are just two.
Nothing, I’d offered a link to another book of a similar ilk, the rest was tangential to that book.
Again it was tangential, and I thought it might be interesting to someone, nothing Machiavellian involved.
I’m not sure what you mean sorry, Twitter seems like a format for people to promote their views with pithy rhetoric, and or troll others whose opinions differ. Never used Quora if I’m honest.
That doesn’t stop one challenging their claims, when made in the public domain. It may be fruitless where some people of that ilk are concerned, but I think it is unhealthy when such views are left unchallenged.
Sorry if I hijacked your point, it wasn’t meant to derail the conversation. I’m in a different time zone to a lot of posters and often miss much of exchanges in real time.
Ah. Stops me if it’s not something I can change, I have little interest in futile gestures or simply standing on principle.
Doesn’t stop me here, solely because of type of platform. This is anonymous and relatively protected.
I found it reassuring that the majority of posters challenged his vile denials of the holocaust. Though he was absolutely nuts, believed he was a christian but that god was a super intelligent alien life form.
The challenges weren’t to change his mind of course, as you say that would be futile. However I think it reflects a healthy society when such views are challenged with facts and evidence.
He also denied evolution, with the usual creationist canards, like irreducible complexity for example.
On a one to one it was pretty futile, and got old pretty quickly. Though others might be reading who are unaware of the facts, and might be swayed by dishonest and strident claims.
It’s often surprising how much confidence bordering on hubris can sway a lot of people in an argument.
Yair, as with a recent poster and his unfounded claims about the continent of Africa.
Wow! What a textbook example of a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.