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UFOs shows government competence as either surprisingly high or low

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Re: UFOs shows government competence as either surprisingly high or low

#121

Post by zhdc1 »

atweiden wrote: post #35
zhdc1 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...any time a more technologically advanced civilization has come across a less technologically advanced civilization, it has never ended well for the less technologically advanced civilization. This assumes resource competition, which isn't a guarantee. Colonialism was driven by the need for open markets, resources, and vanity satisfaction from a declining class of European elites. It's very likely that we don't h…

> This assumes resource competition, which isn't a guarantee. Colonialism was driven by the need for open markets, resources, and vanity satisfaction from a declining class of European elites. What about enslavement? Here Hawkings / Neil deGrasse Tyson make another interesting point: any civilization which could peacefully colonize a galaxy is not the kind of civilization that would colonize the galaxy at all. The ve…

> If extraterrestrials are silently monitoring humans, isn’t it more likely to be for intelligence gathering purposes than for altruistic reasons?

Why? The Gulf War showed that a gap of ~eleven years of advancement was enough to lead to arguably the largest one-sided victory in the history of warfare. There is no need for an advanced civilisation to silently monitor us for nefarious purposes. All they have to do is show up.

> If the monitoring were intended to be altruistic, where’s the proof of the altruism?

If we are being monitored, the fact that we're not aware of it is likely sufficient proof that their intentions aren't inherently malicious. Whether or not this means that their intentions are altruistic is another argument.

However, if we are in fact being monitored, it's far more likely that we're supporting a bunch of intergalactic Ph.D. theses - and maybe a documentary or two - than putting ourselves in the sights of some malevolent conquering race.

Re: UFOs shows government competence as either surprisingly high or low

#122

Post by zhdc1 »

throwaway316943 wrote: post #53
atweiden wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This assumes resource competition, which isn't a guarantee. Colonialism was driven by the need for open markets, resources, and vanity satisfaction from a declining class of European elites. What about enslavement? Here Hawkings / Neil deGrasse Tyson make another interesting point: any civilization which could peacefully colonize a galaxy is not the kind of civilization that would colonize the galaxy at all. The ve…

What would be the point of a galaxy spanning civilization enslaving other species? We’re single planet savages and we’re getting close to building universal robots that can perform all of our labor, at the most it will be another half century. At that point any non bioengineered organism will be slower, weaker, less durable and less replaceable. It’s much more likely that we just don’t have anything they want.

I don't even know if we can argue that there is an economic point to enslaving other humans (look at rates of industrialism in ex-slave owning regions).

Re: UFOs shows government competence as either surprisingly high or low

#123

Post by saberdancer »

tgflynn wrote: post #104
saberdancer wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree with #1. Why would it be surprising government incompetence? Government is not one person with infinite knowledge, plenty of them are elected officials with questionable level of understanding of various phenomena. Most sightings can be easily explained with misinterpretations and mistakes just like Mick West shows. Recent number of videos (gimbal, tic tac, ...) are probably released to muddy the waters…

Because the government presumably has access to large numbers of highly competent individuals, some at least as smart as Mick West, who should have been able to conclude that all of these sightings amount to nothing, if that is indeed the case. They also presumably have access to far more data on the subject than West or anyone else.

My suggestion is that they did conclude that. Best proof is that there is no widespread research into UFOs funded by the government or the military.

Military even released couple of videos captures by their own aircraft, if it was anything sensitive or secretive they wouldn't release these videos to the public (and to the adversaries).

Re: UFOs shows government competence as either surprisingly high or low

#124

Post by smcl »

mrob wrote: post #116
smcl wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah it's gotta be hard to figure out where the line is between helping and interfering. A few accounts of the Sentinelese suggest they don't want any help but I think some of the peaceful exchanges in the past show that they don't mind contact and are happy to receive packages of food and bits of iron for tools. All I know is that I'm not gonna be the one to reach out, an American preacher repeatedly tried to do so…

>on one of his attempts a Sentinelese kid fired an arrow at him that struck his bible which if I was religious I would have taken as a sign to GTFO ... If I was religious I'd have interpreted it as God protecting me, like in the tales of bibles stopping bullets.

Oh funny, I didn't think of it that way but I guess it's about where you imagine the bible was. I visualized him waving the bible around when an arrow pierces it as if to say "god has no power here, this is your only warning, there won't be another"

But if it was in his shirt pocket, then yeah that could indeed be interpreted the other way round!

Re: UFOs shows government competence as either surprisingly high or low

#125

Post by Mediterraneo10 »

mrfusion wrote: post #106
Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generation ships may not be possible, at least for biological lifeforms. Kim Stanley Robinson wrote his novel Aurora in large part to argue this.

I’d be curious what the argument is. They would certainly be able to resupply raw materials if needed. Just plan a stop at a promising star system. Why wouldn’t a long lived nuclear power system provide the energy for food and life support? Beyond that, even five or ten generations is enough to get somewhere at .1C.

I recommend reading the novel. The key line in it is “Life is a planetary phenomenon.” Basically, the argument is that at less than planetary scale, you would be confronted with things like waste products building up too quickly to sustain human life. For example, the generation starship struggles with an excess of salt (which in turn affects food production). The limited confines of the ship also produce deleterious effect on successive human generations akin to those found among species in isolated island ecosystems.

Re: UFOs shows government competence as either surprisingly high or low

#126

Post by tobr »

graderjs wrote: post #99
ericmay wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s the middle of “something definitely exists” and “nothing exists”? Seems like it would err on the side of “maybe something exists” which doesn’t quite feel like a middle ground. Replace UFOs with Sasquatch. “Sasquatch exists and here is the picture and Sasquatch tracks to prove it!” “You made that up. It’s a guy in a costume. Why can’t we find any single dead Sasquatch? Why are all the pictures and videos crapp…

I think we should all be engaging in this topic critically and openly. With curiosity rather than certainty, when none exists. I think we should not be so casual or strident in just dismissing or discounting other human beings personal experiences. Especially when there are so many people with stories. These humans are valuable, and their stories are valuable. We shouldn't dismiss that, or disrespect them. But also,…

I never really understood this line of argument. It’s possible to engage with something openly, yet reach a conclusion about what the available evidence says about factual circumstances. Interpreting someone’s account of an experience differently than they do themselves does not mean they didn’t have the experience, or that you are dismissing them.

For example, I’m an atheist, but I don’t doubt that many people frequently have religious experiences. I just think that there are more likely explanations of those experiences than that they are caused by a god. I still find religion and accounts of religious experiences fascinating, and I very much respect that it’s a fundamental part of many people’s lives.

Having an opinion doesn’t mean you dismiss everyone who has a different opinion.

Re: UFOs shows government competence as either surprisingly high or low

#127

Post by tgflynn »

saberdancer wrote: post #123
tgflynn wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the government presumably has access to large numbers of highly competent individuals, some at least as smart as Mick West, who should have been able to conclude that all of these sightings amount to nothing, if that is indeed the case. They also presumably have access to far more data on the subject than West or anyone else.

My suggestion is that they did conclude that. Best proof is that there is no widespread research into UFOs funded by the government or the military. Military even released couple of videos captures by their own aircraft, if it was anything sensitive or secretive they wouldn't release these videos to the public (and to the adversaries).

> My suggestion is that they did conclude that.

Then why haven't they said so instead of telling the American people and Congress that the objects shown in the videos are considered unidentified, to the extent that Congress has ordered a report on UAP's and that an investigation by the DoD Inspector General has been initiated ?

Re: UFOs shows government competence as either surprisingly high or low

#128

Post by zhdc1 »

atweiden wrote: post #35
zhdc1 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...any time a more technologically advanced civilization has come across a less technologically advanced civilization, it has never ended well for the less technologically advanced civilization. This assumes resource competition, which isn't a guarantee. Colonialism was driven by the need for open markets, resources, and vanity satisfaction from a declining class of European elites. It's very likely that we don't h…

> This assumes resource competition, which isn't a guarantee. Colonialism was driven by the need for open markets, resources, and vanity satisfaction from a declining class of European elites. What about enslavement? Here Hawkings / Neil deGrasse Tyson make another interesting point: any civilization which could peacefully colonize a galaxy is not the kind of civilization that would colonize the galaxy at all. The ve…

Splitting my response into two comments.

> any civilization which could peacefully colonize a galaxy is not the kind of civilization that would colonize the galaxy at all. The very act of wanting to colonize self-selects for violence/exploitation.

This isn't necessarily true. Colonizing is simply the act of moving to a different piece of land. Violence and exploitation occurs when colonists are engaged in resource competition. It's not hard to imagine that, given high enough levels of technological development and the overall size of the universe, a colonizing civilisation can pre-select and coexist with existing occupants.

To put it another way, two hundred years ago, if I wanted to move a bunch of Europeans to what are now Addis Ababa or Bangkok, I would have to "colonize" the area. Now, all I would have to do is buy (multiple) apartments, or a plot of land or two and build a gated retirement community.

Re: UFOs shows government competence as either surprisingly high or low

#129

Post by elboru »

smcl wrote: post #18
atweiden wrote: post #12

As Stephen Hawkings and Neil deGrasse Tyson have quipped, in Earth’s history, any time a more technologically advanced civilization has come across a less technologically advanced civilization, it has never ended well for the less technologically advanced civilization. Any hypothetical which places a group of extraterrestrials capable of interstellar travel on Earth is fundamentally a catastrophe. It’s a lot like dis…

I have one counter-example for you - North Sentinel Island. This is a small island in the Indian Ocean where people live who are completely isolated from the rest of the world and as such are probably the least technologically advanced civilization on earth. They're able to remain this way because it's generally been agreed that we should leave them alone (you can't go within 5 nm, of the island) but India does try t…

It would be awesome to hear their stories and myths regarding the external world. How do they explain boats and planes, how do they tell the encounter stories, etc

Re: UFOs shows government competence as either surprisingly high or low

#130

Post by Sacho »

graderjs wrote: post #68
notahacker wrote: post #27

The whole thing is a masterpiece of bizarre statements dressed up as reasoning Take: Second, between (Ca) spontaneous decentralized hoaxes and lies, and (Cb) hoaxes and lies coordinated by a big central organization, (Cb) seems much more likely. Apply this to reports of something other than UFOs, like, say fairies, ghosts or angels. You don't need to be an Oxford research associate writing about overcoming bias to re…

It's possible that your bias against believing this means your interpretation is a lot of bizarre takes dressed up as the only possible conclusions. What I don't get is the arrogance of every side about this subject. We have no answers. We have no understanding. The government seems to be about to admit as much. But the true believers are sure, and the true debunkers, yourself included, are sure. To me, you're both j…

The evidence in question is shaky at best, but even taking it at face value, it's evidence of...something. Our limited understanding and ability to collect and categorize information, perhaps. It's quite the stretch for it to be evidence of aliens, particulary of the kind that can be covered up by a government conspiracy. The whole theory is based on incredibly shaky foundations - we struggle to define what is sentience(what if we're not sentient? what if stars are?), what is life, whether there even is life in the solar system, what that life would look like(why would it use spaceships?), whether it would be even detectable with our senses and apparatus, and many more questionable assumptions to arrive to our concept of aliens "visiting" us.

"Somewhere in the middle" would be "yeah, I don't know what causes that, but neither do you" - that leaves us pretty much nowhere, very very far from aliens.

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