It does often seem to be correlated to reactionary conspiracy sentiments. There is the "non-white people could not have possibly stacked rocks this big!" thing
I guess also flat earth?
It does often seem to be correlated to reactionary conspiracy sentiments. There is the "non-white people could not have possibly stacked rocks this big!" thing
I guess also flat earth?
It actually has its roots in hyperdiffusionism, an early 1900s idea that some lost civilization invented all these technologies and did all the impressive things, and anyone who did anything neat is descended from them. This lost master race - surprise! This is totally a nazi thing. The people who came up with this were nazis.
The modern appeal comes from a lot of racism (it's never aimed at, say, Romans), a lot from anti-intellectualism (the news constantly peddles bald-faced lies through "experts" so all experts are untrustworthy), and sadly I think a lot comes from the US de-funding schools (you never got a real history class so the first youtube conspiracy theorist you hear is your first exposure to "history" and you don't know better). And some of it is still nazis.
The swarthy Italians would never have had the intellectual base to produce the scutum, it must have been tower shield wielding aliens that brought them such technology!
(really though, the idea that people aren't constantly thinking about their environment and how to improve it is kind of insulting to the intelligence of all of humanity)
The version where it's re-framed as the us highway system being made by aliens is my favorite "americans don't have the technology to accomplish this! They barely understand how it works and can't maintain it!
typical german whinging about the superior roman brainpan. you people up north are too cold blooded. people down south in africa are too warm blooded. only we romans are JUUUUUUST right. (this is what actual romans thought, IIRC)