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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

#201

Post by twic »

dsugarman wrote: post #176

The author doesn't present a single logical argument that I could follow. The entire piece is just hand waving with a self proclamation of logic. I'm confused how this could reach the front page of hn. My best guess is people just want to discuss their own theories on UFOs and it presented a forum for that, but it feels like we are collectively giving this piece credibility. The first line sets up the entire charade:…

A lot of people hold the Rationalists, of whom Robin Hanson is a leading light, in high regard. So, even if a particular post is not very good, it will be received positively because of its authorship.

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

#202

Post by BlueTemplar »

antibuddy wrote: post #39
BlueTemplar wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why ? I've heard that things might have changed 80k years ago when thanks to cultural progress autism went from negative to positive (for the community), but otherwise AFAIK there haven't been any significant changes since the apparition of homo sapiens 350k-400k years ago ?

Autism is by (original) definition a disorder. If everyone has that disorder, then it is no longer a disorder. I think many people confuse specializaiton, focus and/or intellect with autism.

I feel that is just one of the definitions of autism ?

Anyway, I didn't want to suggest that everyone had to have it :

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25484160

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

#203

Post by whimsicalism »

chmike wrote: post #88
DrBazza wrote: post #7

UFOs exist. Alien spaceships do not. Occam's Razor. Also, having the technology to fly light years through interstellar space, means that you should surely be able to construct a craft that doesn't crash on Earth (Roswell), or waste your time flying for years to dip into the atmosphere, do a little light show and fly off, or harassing a farmer in the middle of nowhere vs landing in Central Park. The gimbal video and…

Occam's Razor is a heuristic. It does not determine what is real or not. According to your usage of the Occam's Razor, relativity and quantum mechanics would be invalid because classic mechanics is much simpler. That's not how science works.

No, because classic mechanics isn't an "explanation" for observed reality.

God this is such an awful thread.

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

#204

Post by stevenhuang »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #97
tgflynn wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apply this to reports of something other than UFOs, like, say fairies, ghosts or angels. Fairies, ghosts and angels don't show up on radar or FLIR and the Inspector General of the DoD has never launched an investigation into how they have been handled by that department.

Are we talking about the three US military videos that surfaced in recent years? I've seen all of them clearly and thoroughly explained away. In one case, you could literally use the numbers on the recording and some middle-school level geometry skills to calculate that the tracked object is a bird. And it's quite easy to guess why these videos were released. They're technology demonstrators. The general public can t…

I've been following this topic closely and it was never the case that there was a definitive explanation.

There were many theories and counter theories. It would be misleading to say the matter is settled.

It's also doubtful to propose this is a technology demonstration. The ability to track objects is not a differentiator; there are plenty videos online showing similar HUDs. In any case the public release has been degraded specifically to withhold information on their optical capabilities.

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

#205

Post by avaldes »

maweaver wrote: post #196

It seems to me that aliens as an explanation for UFO sightings is inherently contradictory. If you assume they came and are attempting stealth, then they've done a terrible job of what should have been a trivial task. Assuming they have the technology to detect intelligent life on our planet from many light-years away, one would think they could safely observe us from inside our solar system but outside the atmospher…

That's a lot of assumptions about alien psychology and behavior. We barely understand animal psychology and language. There's literally zero ground to begin to understand an intelligent alien species capable of interstellar travel.

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

#206

Post by stevenhuang »

mjburgess wrote: post #74
BoardsOfCanada wrote: post #56

So I'm reluctant to post this but here we go.. In this case it is most probably high competence. Coming out of WW2 it wasn't difficult to take national security extremely serious. I thought that there wasn't much to the crash(es) near Corona in 1947 but the witness testimonies are just very very convincing, I actually changed my mind after reading up on the subject recently (before I would have said I don't know anyt…

The speed of light essentially prohibits space travel. The fastest possible speed for any material object to travel at is incredibly slow compared to any meaningful distance. It is millenia just from the sun to the edge of our solar system, let alone to anything "near by". The universe is not the kind of place where living things can travel "between worlds". This is scifi -- and it is no coincidence UFO sightings pea…

Your argument is invalid since you incorrectly assume that:

- all known chemistry is all there is to know about chemistry, thus there is no basis to state all life must be organic

- it's impossible biological systems can be made sufficiently error correcting, by technological or other means

- conventional travel is the only form of space travel

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

#207

Post by grawprog »

thrav wrote: post #185
Atlantium wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being uncertain is in the middle. It's a position that too few humans are willing to take on any issue, treating it as if it were madness. If you are uncertain your options are to either ignore the issue or explore all the options.

That’s the point though, isn’t it? Many people have devoted their entire lives to “exploring the options” and still come up with basically nothing.

To be fair though, that can also be said about a lot of actual historical discoveries and scientific breakthroughs.

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

#208

Post by stevenhuang »

simonh wrote: post #173
tgflynn wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mick West's explanation of the FLIR1 video (the one from the Nimitz incident), that it was an ordinary aircraft, makes zero sense because given the quantity and quality of situational awareness data available to the pilots who captured the video it would require an extraordinary degree of incompetence to make such a mistake. I'm no expert on naval technology but given my limited understanding of carrier strike group…

It doesn't take incompetence to make a mistake, any of us can make mistakes even in things we're highly competent in. Optical artefacts are particularly difficult to account for. Take Go Fast for example, they're highly competent experienced aviators, but they still very clearly completely misidentified what, in hindsight, is obviously a bird. Clearly if trained operators can make a mistake like that, other mistakes…

Consider for a moment that it's not a bird. Have the epistemic humility to realize that such pedestrian explanations are likely to have been proposed and ruled out during internal analysis, before public release.

Also, birds don't move like that on radar.

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

#209

Post by dogma1138 »

pacman2 wrote: post #197
dogma1138 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really since we do have DNA sequencing of prehistoric humans. Whilst we don’t understand the correlation between genetics and intelligence on a sufficient level there aren’t that many genetic differences in fact you can’t necessarily distinguish the age of the sample that easily either unless you are looking at very specific groups. And as far as modern hunter gatherers go we know that they aren’t less intelligen…

People have also claimed, hunters may have been smarter on average. BTW, DNA sequencing does not tell you much. You would need an extremely big sample for comparisons, and even this would exclude methylation patterns and other things.

People claim a lot of things, it doesn’t mean they are of substance.

We have sufficient evidence of advanced tool making and culture spanning back far enough through human history to indicate that intelligence isn't a modern fluke, heck copper mining and smelting dates back to at least 9000 BCE, the pyramids in Giza date back to 2600 BCE which means that we are closer to Caesar to today than Caesar was to the pyramids.

While I’m open to discussion that over 350-400K years some evolutionary steps happened as far as our intelligence goes. But I am more than comfortable with stating that plucking a human from 10K BCE and exposing them to modern education would yield an average human today.

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