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tehpope said:
what a name. Dick Dull. Up there with Dick Armey
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but not very exciting.
Wot Zit Too Yah0996 said:
One of the last great Descendants of the Khans.
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khan.gif
 
Introvertigo said:

Erich von Däniken, Swiss UFO expert writer known for writing the book Chariots Of The Gods, died at the age of 90.
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ChompChomp said:
Wouldn't they just be an FO, then?

Sounds more like an SO** or BS Expert. 🤣

Snake Oil
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He came up with the Ancient Aliens theory (or, as some argue, plagiarized it from H.P. Lovecraft) and projected it onto religion.
 
The "Chariots of the Gods" thing was huge back in the day and almost single-handedly launched a tidal wave of pseudo-science stuff into (or onto) the public consciousness. von Däniken was a bullshitter, no doubt. His technique relies on claiming opinion as fact or evidence, and if someone can debunk it, it's because they're crooked or didn't read said [phony or non-existant] evidence "correctly". And since it can't be disproved he counted it as a win.

He was a lying loser, but without him you wouldn't have had all those movies and shows about Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, Psychic Phenomena, and so on brought to such prominence. And those are still a lot of fun to watch. Everything from Noah's Ark to UFOs pretty much took off thanks to his book and the resulting "documentary" movie. "In Search Of...", "That's Incredible", "The X Files" and even the modern ghost hunter shows can all trace their lineage back to von Däniken in one way or another. So on the one hand, good for him, but on the other he shat up legit research into some of these topics with his baseless bullshit.

So I will raise a glass to von Däniken tonight. But later, I will piss that drink out and flush it with no remorse.
 
UtopiaGuy said:
His technique relies on claiming opinion as fact or evidence, and if someone can debunk it, it's because they're crooked or didn't read said [phony or non-existant] evidence "correctly". And since it can't be disproved he counted it as a win.

He was a lying loser
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So he was a redditor
 
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UtopiaGuy said:
The "Chariots of the Gods" thing was huge back in the day and almost single-handedly launched a tidal wave of pseudo-science stuff into (or onto) the public consciousness. von Däniken was a bullshitter, no doubt. His technique relies on claiming opinion as fact or evidence, and if someone can debunk it, it's because they're crooked or didn't read said [phony or non-existant] evidence "correctly". And since it can't be disproved he counted it as a win.
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This is still one of the funniest things I saw as a kid. I had it on an old tape.

 
I was asking myself whether von Daniken really believed his shit or was a huckster, and saw this (sorry for Wikipedia but I don't care about him enough to look deeper than this):

Early in his career, he was convicted and served time for several counts of fraud or embezzlement and wrote one of his books in prison.

Then, even more interesting:

The draft of the book [Chariots of the Gods] was turned down by several publishers. Econ Verlag (now part of Ullstein Verlag) was willing to publish the book after a complete reworking by a professional author, Utz Utermann, who used the pseudonym of Wilhelm Roggersdorf. Utermann was a former editor of the Nazi Party's newspaper Volkischer Beobachter and had been a Nazi bestselling author.

Fascinating.
 
I love Erich von Daniken, and all of his wacky ideas about aliums are still much more convincing than the idea of brown people ever doing anything constructive ever.
 
If you take Chariot Of The Gods and all the pseudoscientific stuff that it spawned as entertainment, it's a brilliant piece of work. Hell, most of the modern History Channel, TLC and others are some form of "Aliens and the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids for Hitler" are offshoots of that and hilarious as long as you don't take it seriously.
 
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