Aaron Rodgers is Diving Into a New Conspiracy Theory and it's a Doozy

If there's one lasting result of the last four years, it's that everything that transpired beginning right around this time in 2020 lowered the bar of crazy theories I'm willing to consider. If not out-and-out accept as plausible. A lot of ideas that as recently as 2019 sounded way too outlandish to deserve anything more than scorn and ridicule have turned out to be at least partially true. So I find myself rethinking some strongly held beliefs such as JFK being killed by a lone gunman. And it's gotten to the point that if you want to try to convince me that there's a secret base under the Denver Airport inhabited by Lizard People:

… I'm all ears. It'll take some doing for you to prove it to me, but I'm not dismissing it out of hand. As more and more people seem to be saying, the difference between conspiracy theory and truth is about six months. 

Perhaps no American celebrity - and certainly no athlete - has been more willing to discuss unorthodox theories than Aaron Rodgers. And while they haven't all be winners for him:

… the ayahuasca and darkness retreat-enthusiast has been open to exploring theories about the nature of the universe and humankind in ways that you don't get from your average, run-of-the-mill first ballot Hall of Famer in any sport. And the latest one he's put the coveted Aaron Rodgers Stamp of Approval on will break your brain:

Source - Does a conspiracy theory exist that is so implausible, so floridly bonkers that noted conspiracy theorist and future Hall of Fame quarterback Aaron Rodgers won’t at least consider it? Apparently not, if Rodgers’ recent podcast appearance is any indication. …

The revelation came last month during an appearance on a podcast hosted by jujitsu magnate and QAnon promoter Eddie Bravo, where the pair stumped on behalf of the Tartarian conspiracy.

Briefly, once upon a time, and not that long ago, there existed the nation-state of Tartaria. This utopian and highly technologically advanced civilization was founded somewhere in central Asia, possibly created by giants or aliens, and spanned the entire globe. Life in Tartaria was an abundant paradise, powered by unlimited renewable energy, and jam-packed with architectural marvels, the likes of which humans at that time could never dream of erecting.

As was the case with Atlantis, some undefinable cataclysmic event wiped Tartaria off the face of the earth–an apocalyptic flood of mud, or perhaps a super-charged electrical storm of some sort, according to Bravo—leaving zero concrete proof it ever existed. Or almost no proof. Namely: sumptuous cathedrals, spires that seemed to reach the heavens, the Beaux-Arts buildings, and any pre-modern structures, really, ranging from the Pyramids to the White House.

Tartaria’s destruction was a boon for the people left behind, who simply stole the now-abandoned buildings and asserted they were responsible for creating them, reaping untold riches to boot. How all of human history prior to 1900—books, newspapers, scholarly works, photographs, oil paintings, everything—could have been rewritten or scrubbed to hide the greatest act of theft ever perpetrated is never clearly explained. 

For Rodgers, it’s extremely real.

“It’s very interesting stuff,” Rodgers told Bravo about the theory that a lost, ultra-advanced civilization of maybe aliens or giants built the 1915 World’s Fair or the Singer Building in New York City. “What is actually true that we’ve been told and what is a lie. They go, ‘Why does that fucking matter?’ Because if they can lie about that, what else can they lie about?”

As Aristotle famously said, "It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." And since Rodgers went to Cal and I graduated from Bridgewater State, it's not bragging to call us two gentlemen with educated minds. That said, I think I'm going to have to part company with him when it comes to the idea that everything we know about human history, art and architecture was made up at the beginning of the 20th century. 

Which is not to say technologically advanced societies haven't been lost to history. Or that civilization itself doesn't have its rises and falls. As Dan Carlin points out in his book The End is Always Near, we tend to think of human existence as perpetually getting better with each successful generation. But it's not like that. Just look at what happened in Western Europe after the fall of Rome. Another example he cites is the city of Nineveh in Mesopotamia. It was the crown jewel of the Assyrian Empire around 650 BC. With walls 50 feet high, 50 feet thick, and 18 miles around. Yet 200 years later, the Greek general Xenophon came upon it abandoned, and had no idea who had built it or who lived in it. Worse still, even the people who lived in the area had no idea. Nineveh's existence had been forgotten. 

I'll admit this is the first time I've ever heard of Tartaria. Or Eddie Bravo. And while I respect a good jiujistu magnate as much as the next guy, I'll die before I give anyone the impression I'm endorsing the theories of a QAnon promoter. Besides, it seems to me that an undefinable event that wipes out an advanced civilization but leaves the 1915 World's Fair and the White House standing is a pretty halfassed cataclysm by any standard. I've been in the White House. And trust me, it wouldn't stand up to your garden variety New England Nor'easter, much less a flood of mud or electrical storm. It's an insult to the word "apocalypse" to suggest it would still be there for a bunch of early 1990s guys in straw hats and handlebar mustaches to move in and start rewriting human history. 

My suggestion to both these guys is that if you're going to start banging the drum for civilizations that got wiped out by calamities, stick with the aforementioned Atlantis myth. Watch the Graham Hancock Netflix series Ancient Apocalypse and just go with that. Sure he's been dismissed as a hack by mainstream archaeologists. But he presents some compelling hypotheses about how every culture around the world has a flood myth and a story of a godlike-figure emerging from the sea to share advanced knowledge with them. Plus it has the added benefit of being thousands of years old. As opposed to this dipshit Tartaria theory, which claims history as we know it not as old as Major League Baseball.

But that said, I'll always be grateful Rodgers is even more willing to accept crackpot ideas than even I am. I can't wait until his next nutty theory.