Asklemmy

43945 readers

648 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
!lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

120

How to deal with Ancient aliens in the workplace? (lemmy.blahaj.zone)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by SpaceAce@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

94 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Two of my coworkers frequently mention shows like "Encounters" or "Ancient apocalypse" or whatever. I'm not the best at debating or forming arguments against these though I do feel strongly that bold claims require better evidence than a blurry photo and an eyewitness account. How do you all go about this?

Today I clumsily stumbled through conversation and said "I'll need some evidence" and was hit with "there's plenty of evidence in the episode 'Lights over Fukushima'". I didn't have an answer because I haven't watched it. I'm 99% sure that if I watch it it's gonna be dramatized, designed to scare/freak you out a little and consist of eyewitness accounts and blurry photos set to eerie music. But I'm afraid I just sound like a haughty know-it-all if I do assert this before watching.

These are good people and I want to remain on good terms and not come across as a cynical asshole.

(Sorry if language is too formal or stilted. Not my native tongue)

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Mothra@mander.xyz 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Just ignore and avoid the topic the best you can. Don't confront. Just go, "ohh ok" and move on. Pretend you need to go to the toilet or that you have something else to do if you can't break free from the conversation.

It's about as futile as trying to convince a religious fanatic that their views may not be ideal for everyone; you just don't. Ignore and avoid.

[–] SpaceAce@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 1 year ago

Ignoring is so hard 😅 I never bring it up.

I don't think they're fanatics. I just think their curiousity, with inexperience in healthy skepticism, has found a very easy outlet.

But I guess you're right. The current state of astrobiology isn't as exciting and people want to wonder. Maybe hard science is too difficult to sell in this case.