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The Pentagon’s U.F.O. Program

nytimes.com

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Re: The Pentagon’s U.F.O. Program

#281

Post by piyh »

harry8 wrote: post #235
golergka wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, the logical step is to stop and think whether or not you should use public money to do this. People in first-world countries are usually OK with spending public money on science. So, if you consider it legit science (and he does), it makes perfect sense for him to lobby spending public money on it.

Legit science. More likely for the money to go to MIT than a politician's friend? No really, show us the public tender and the evidence that the money was well spent by tender won on merit alone. Or we are going to assume it is totally corrupt. Onus of proof used to be the other way around but Washington, yeah, it really does stink like that. This is why outsider populists like Sanders and Trump are popular. Everyone…

The merit is researching potentially existential threats against humanity. It's not testable science, but if it leads to the next manhatten project, we discover that another country has advanced tech, that we aren't alone, or get a null result I am OK with it.

Re: The Pentagon’s U.F.O. Program

#282

Post by sushisource »

gfodor wrote: post #105
api wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the problem is all the crazy mythology around the subject. But strip that off and it has always seemed to me that there is an interesting residue of facts. It's not enough to prove anything but it's enough to be intriguing. One possible answer to the Fermi paradox is that they are here but are just not making overt obvious contact. If this were true we'd probably be talking about a "post-singularity" super in…

After reading "The Dark Forest" I've leaned towards the idea that we are under pervasive observation (likely by hard-to-detect autonomous AI agents of some form, the origin of which is relatively inconsequential) and once the probability tilts towards a non-zero value that we are a threat beyond a certain blast radius we'll be wiped out. If that were true, and the message of that being the case were delivered somehow…

I loved the books but Dark Forest theory makes little sense to me because it more-or-less assumes aliens have no concept of morality (the Trisolarans in the book literally have no morality).

If we became super-advanced, it's hard to imagine given our past (including sci-fi like the series) that we'd just go head and decide to wipe out anyone we encounter, even if we did consider them lowly. Largely for the same reasons there exist animal rights groups, etc.

Re: The Pentagon’s U.F.O. Program

#283

Post by critt34 »

valuearb wrote: post #237
api wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be easy to hide such a vehicle. Just do your final deceleration burn in the outer solar system. The gravity of Jupiter or Saturn would be useful for an interstellar capture maneuver anyway. At that distance we'd be very unlikely to see anything, especially if it happened in 1940. The little things sighted as "UFOs" would not be interstellar craft. They would be probes or local runabouts. The interstellar tra…

Look up project Orion. How hard would it be to hide its deceleration from the system it’s entering. Any successful interstellar ship has to emit at least that much energy, if not far more.

In Zubrin's book Entering Space he says in general you should use the radiation pressure of the destination star or the solar wind to decelerate, and I believe published the work to demonstrate its feasibility.

Re: The Pentagon’s U.F.O. Program

#284

Post by INTPenis »

Military loves funding. I wouldn't be surprised if military guys were fanning the flames of the UFO claims in front of the right legislators to get the funding they want.

Find out what a person truly believes in and you can rule them.

Re: The Pentagon’s U.F.O. Program

#285

Post by armitron »

sushisource wrote: post #282
gfodor wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After reading "The Dark Forest" I've leaned towards the idea that we are under pervasive observation (likely by hard-to-detect autonomous AI agents of some form, the origin of which is relatively inconsequential) and once the probability tilts towards a non-zero value that we are a threat beyond a certain blast radius we'll be wiped out. If that were true, and the message of that being the case were delivered somehow…

I loved the books but Dark Forest theory makes little sense to me because it more-or-less assumes aliens have no concept of morality (the Trisolarans in the book literally have no morality). If we became super-advanced, it's hard to imagine given our past (including sci-fi like the series) that we'd just go head and decide to wipe out anyone we encounter, even if we did consider them lowly. Largely for the same reaso…

Morality is a human construct, tied to self-awareness which isn't necessary for (super)intelligence. There are theories that posit self-awareness as an evolutionary dead-end.

If the stars are teeming with "machinic" intelligence, something far more probable than any sort of biological intelligence, then anthropomorphizing is not going to lead you outside the maze.

Re: The Pentagon’s U.F.O. Program

#286

Post by kamaal »

sushisource wrote: post #282
gfodor wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After reading "The Dark Forest" I've leaned towards the idea that we are under pervasive observation (likely by hard-to-detect autonomous AI agents of some form, the origin of which is relatively inconsequential) and once the probability tilts towards a non-zero value that we are a threat beyond a certain blast radius we'll be wiped out. If that were true, and the message of that being the case were delivered somehow…

I loved the books but Dark Forest theory makes little sense to me because it more-or-less assumes aliens have no concept of morality (the Trisolarans in the book literally have no morality). If we became super-advanced, it's hard to imagine given our past (including sci-fi like the series) that we'd just go head and decide to wipe out anyone we encounter, even if we did consider them lowly. Largely for the same reaso…

Ever heard of antibiotics, pesticides, rat poison, cockroach sprays and mosquito mats?

Humanity is done playing the morality game a few thousands of years back. There were a few socio religious movements in India, which focussed on these things and they more or less concluded these things were beyond impractical.

And yes, even today rats and other animals are used for experiments in manufacturing drugs for humans.

What is to say they don't see as rats?

Re: The Pentagon’s U.F.O. Program

#287

Post by sushisource »

kamaal wrote: post #286
sushisource wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I loved the books but Dark Forest theory makes little sense to me because it more-or-less assumes aliens have no concept of morality (the Trisolarans in the book literally have no morality). If we became super-advanced, it's hard to imagine given our past (including sci-fi like the series) that we'd just go head and decide to wipe out anyone we encounter, even if we did consider them lowly. Largely for the same reaso…

Ever heard of antibiotics, pesticides, rat poison, cockroach sprays and mosquito mats? Humanity is done playing the morality game a few thousands of years back. There were a few socio religious movements in India, which focussed on these things and they more or less concluded these things were beyond impractical. And yes, even today rats and other animals are used for experiments in manufacturing drugs for humans. Wh…

What's to say they necessarily do see us as rats, is my point.
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