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The assumption that people's lives would change requires scrutiny. For most I think it would be a promotion of Enquirer headlines to premiere news, but little e

by bdamm 8y ago

The assumption that people's lives would change requires scrutiny. For most I think it would be a promotion of Enquirer headlines to premiere news, but little else. SpaceX would soon become a public company. But what else? Life goes on, unaffected. People still would need to pay their taxes.

mattlondon 8y ago
I think it would change a lot of people's belief systems in a major way. E.g. how would the major organised religions cope with the revelation (pun intended) that there was life that originated off of Earth/outside of the garden of eden? For a lot of people who take religion seriously, I feel like this could be a major upset. It might not affect "day to day life" in terms of the lights staying on and there being food on the shelves, but there could be a significant personal impact on a lot of people which may lead to a lot of things like depression/substance-abuse/suicides/general-"fuck it, its the end end of world, I am going to <x>"-sentiment/etc that will have knock-on effects (e.g. not turning up for work, abandoning family/responsibilities, running away to live as a hermit in the woods, gun hoarding etc)
- fifnir 8y ago
  > how would the major organised religions cope with the revelation (pun intended) that there was life that originated off of Earth/outside of the garden of eden? Like they've dealt with every other scientific advancement that killed their beliefs. They will deny it as much and as long as they can until they will be forced to admit it, at which point "god" will shrink to an even meaningful pocket of scientific ignorance. Some of them will keep denying it forever
- JulianMorrison 8y ago
  The Catholics address the question every so often. https://www.theguardian.com/science/shortcuts/2014/may/14/pope-francis-baptise-martian-would-they-want-our-religions https://www.theguardian.com/science/shortcuts/2014/may/14/po...
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    Not just us Catholics; I think the real big takeaway from that article is this: “Three years ago, a paper for the Royal Society found that roughly 90% of believers did not think they would suffer a crisis of faith should intelligent extraterrestrial life be discovered, though two-thirds of them believed other religions would have a crisis.” Nearly everyone is fine with this idea, but most everyone also thinks people with religious views different than their own will have trouble with it.
- hardlianotion 8y ago
  Easy. No need to claim the Garden of Eden is on Earth.
  - krapp 8y ago
    Except the Genesis account pretty clearly establishes that it is.
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      The garden of Eden story isn't even consistent with the other creation story in Genesis, though; if a literalist can accept it as true on faith despite that, they can do so despite any inconsistency with mere sense data, which unlike the conflicting text in the Bible they don't hold to be infallibly accurate as a matter of religious doctrine.
- helloindia 8y ago
  "organised Abhrahamic religion" Non-abrahamic religions like Hinduism,Jainism, Buddhism, believes in existence of world systems other than current one. Buddhism is especially is accommodative in terms of acceptance, of evidences that refutes Buddhist world view[0]. [0]http://www.openculture.com/2016/09/carl-sagan-the-dalai-lama-meet-discuss-when-science-can-answer-big-questions-better-than-religion.html http://www.openculture.com/2016/09/carl-sagan-the-dalai-lama...
  - apta 8y ago
    Not quite. At the very beginning of the first chapter in the Quran: https://quran.com/1/2 https://quran.com/1/2
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > how would the major organised religions cope with the revelation (pun intended) that there was life that originated off of Earth/outside of the garden of eden? The major religions have already shown how they deal with evidence of outside of the garden of Eden. Several don't care, because the garden isn't part of their belief system to start with, and most of the rest have no problem with it (because they don't view the garden as literal), and the remainder just dismiss the evidence and distrust the entire field of science associated with it. I don't think expanding that to off Earth is likely to change a thing about those responses, though the details of exactly which groups have each response might be a little different (though I suspect not much.)
  - bn0 8y ago
    Expanding on this idea, it is unlikely that another inconsistency between a belief system and reality is going to change a believers mind when there are so many inconsistencies (in every belief system) explained away already. This is the nature of belief - it persists despite all evidence to the contrary, because it is belief, not reason. E.g. belief in flat earth persists, despite all evidence to the contrary.
  - oldway 8y ago
    I know most people on hackernews think this but how do you categorize the following https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fqQrT84kjc4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fqQrT84kjc4
- jesus_h_christ 8y ago
  "fuck it, its the end end of world, I am going to <x>" I think that underestimates the cognitive realization lot of people will confront. You’re taking the belief system that people retain, and introducing space aliens, and then making the leap to an automatic assumption of “apocalypse, thus rapture, thus cut loose and play Russian roulette because we’re all gonna die, so who cares.” But these videos certainly don’t portend apocalypse. If official channels announced a message confirming alien life forms, and space craft from other planets and star systems, that does not read as The End Of The World. Tomorrow’s headline saying “ALIENS” with a frame of this video as the leading image wouldn’t cause panic. Would it cause a stir? Yeah, but it’s simply not threatening. So the the world view wouldn’t shift the way you claim. It would more likely upset the idea of souls, afterlife, eternal consequences, good and evil, heavan and hell, resurrections, fate and lots more in the western religions, but those effect would probably be pretty temporary. Those sorts of realizations grip kids in high school and college all the time, and yeah, during those phases people often cut loose, but soon relocate the genuine practical consequences that form the rational basis of pious restraint. Things like catching unpleasant diseases, destroying trust and reputation among peers, and so on. So, the idea that restricting factual information protects the sheltered pedestrian psyche, at least when it comes to space aliens, is the stuff of TV shows and low budget movies. It’s fine for a plot device, but space aliens threaten behavioral norms about as much as the idea of sentient, talking sea slugs. No matter how pained a cry the sea slugs let slip, if they taste good, people wouldn’t hesitate to batter dip and deep fry them, and only stop to mull the existential dread over indigestion. Sometimes keeping the sheltered unaware of The Truth does protect their sanity, but not within the context of space aliens. Space aliens are existential weak sauce. If they weren’t, we wouldn’t gobble up most sci-fi as comedy. We’d find it irreverent and disrespectful, and almost nobody takes such a stance. Invariably, people pay extra money for an entire cable TV channel devoted to it.
- ryandvm 8y ago
  > For a lot of people who take religion seriously, I feel like this could be a major upset. I doubt it. If the last few years have taught me anything, it's that no amount of evidence can dissuade someone from believing something they want to believe in.
- Udo 8y ago
  > For a lot of people who take religion seriously, I feel like this could be a major upset. I don't think it would change anything for them. We're living in a golden age of science, and that did not change anything for them. The existence of aliens would just be one more thing to either reject or literally bedevil.
  - bdamm 8y ago
    Or, accept in a greater sense. Like, "God is so great, he created all these planets, and the Garden of Eden is representative of that creation everywhere." That's what I would hope for, anyway. Certainly in the event that the aliens turn out to be ones that do sexual reproduction.
- sam_goody 8y ago
  The same God that created life on Earth could have done so on any number of other planets for the same effort. Humans began in the Garden of Eden, but that's only one species, albeit an important one. It is easier to square religion with life on other planets than it is to square the odds of evolution happening in a similar way on multiple planets.
fit2rule 8y ago
Certainly, the rationale for spending $21Trillion on military superiority instead of investing it in a healthy society, would be minimised. If it turns out that aliens are on the planet and have advanced technology that could ruin us all, maybe the Pentagon and the Kremlin would find a reason to stop starving their own people for the sake of assumed dominance over the planet, and instead unite to either befriend, or defeat, the common alien friend/foe. One can imagine the reason all of these events are couched in such secrecy might be, indeed, militaristic hubris. Or, in other words, FOMO at a grand scale ..
- krageon 8y ago
  You can just as easily argue the opposite. If the aliens are so much more advanced, maybe we need to spend even more in order to catch up. I'm not saying I think these things, I'm just trying to point out that your conclusion is not a given.
  - close04 8y ago
    If intelligent aliens get to our planet and have any kind of aggressive intentions no amount of spending would save us. It means they already have capabilities far beyond what we could achieve in a generation and proved them by just getting to us.
    - krageon 8y ago
      > It means they already have capabilities far beyond what we could achieve It certainly means that they have those capabilities as pertains to travel, but it is not a given that they would have those capabilities in a military sense. Of course the argument can be made that you can convert that kind of power into a weapon, but I'd hazard to say that a haphazard conversion does not in fact impart upon you a godlike ability to ignore everything we could possibly do. I'm definitely not arguing that this means we should increase military spending. I think that is fundamentally not a great idea for us in the first place. Instead, I am arguing that while the things you are talking about are widely used as sci-fi tropes and held as beliefs by a lot of people, I do not think they stand on their own merits.

by bdamm 8y ago

mattlondon 8y ago

I think it would change a lot of people's belief systems in a major way. E.g. how would the major organised religions cope with the revelation (pun intended) that there was life that originated off of Earth/outside of the garden of eden? For a lot of people who take religion seriously, I feel like this could be a major upset. It might not affect "day to day life" in terms of the lights staying on and there being food on the shelves, but there could be a significant personal impact on a lot of people which may lead to a lot of things like depression/substance-abuse/suicides/general-"fuck it, its the end end of world, I am going to <x>"-sentiment/etc that will have knock-on effects (e.g. not turning up for work, abandoning family/responsibilities, running away to live as a hermit in the woods, gun hoarding etc)

fifnir 8y ago
> how would the major organised religions cope with the revelation (pun intended) that there was life that originated off of Earth/outside of the garden of eden? Like they've dealt with every other scientific advancement that killed their beliefs. They will deny it as much and as long as they can until they will be forced to admit it, at which point "god" will shrink to an even meaningful pocket of scientific ignorance. Some of them will keep denying it forever
JulianMorrison 8y ago
The Catholics address the question every so often. https://www.theguardian.com/science/shortcuts/2014/may/14/pope-francis-baptise-martian-would-they-want-our-religions https://www.theguardian.com/science/shortcuts/2014/may/14/po...
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  Not just us Catholics; I think the real big takeaway from that article is this: “Three years ago, a paper for the Royal Society found that roughly 90% of believers did not think they would suffer a crisis of faith should intelligent extraterrestrial life be discovered, though two-thirds of them believed other religions would have a crisis.” Nearly everyone is fine with this idea, but most everyone also thinks people with religious views different than their own will have trouble with it.
hardlianotion 8y ago
Easy. No need to claim the Garden of Eden is on Earth.
- krapp 8y ago
  Except the Genesis account pretty clearly establishes that it is.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    The garden of Eden story isn't even consistent with the other creation story in Genesis, though; if a literalist can accept it as true on faith despite that, they can do so despite any inconsistency with mere sense data, which unlike the conflicting text in the Bible they don't hold to be infallibly accurate as a matter of religious doctrine.
helloindia 8y ago
"organised Abhrahamic religion" Non-abrahamic religions like Hinduism,Jainism, Buddhism, believes in existence of world systems other than current one. Buddhism is especially is accommodative in terms of acceptance, of evidences that refutes Buddhist world view[0]. [0]http://www.openculture.com/2016/09/carl-sagan-the-dalai-lama-meet-discuss-when-science-can-answer-big-questions-better-than-religion.html http://www.openculture.com/2016/09/carl-sagan-the-dalai-lama...
- apta 8y ago
  Not quite. At the very beginning of the first chapter in the Quran: https://quran.com/1/2 https://quran.com/1/2
dragonwriter 8y ago
> how would the major organised religions cope with the revelation (pun intended) that there was life that originated off of Earth/outside of the garden of eden? The major religions have already shown how they deal with evidence of outside of the garden of Eden. Several don't care, because the garden isn't part of their belief system to start with, and most of the rest have no problem with it (because they don't view the garden as literal), and the remainder just dismiss the evidence and distrust the entire field of science associated with it. I don't think expanding that to off Earth is likely to change a thing about those responses, though the details of exactly which groups have each response might be a little different (though I suspect not much.)
- bn0 8y ago
  Expanding on this idea, it is unlikely that another inconsistency between a belief system and reality is going to change a believers mind when there are so many inconsistencies (in every belief system) explained away already. This is the nature of belief - it persists despite all evidence to the contrary, because it is belief, not reason. E.g. belief in flat earth persists, despite all evidence to the contrary.
- oldway 8y ago
  I know most people on hackernews think this but how do you categorize the following https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fqQrT84kjc4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fqQrT84kjc4
jesus_h_christ 8y ago
"fuck it, its the end end of world, I am going to <x>" I think that underestimates the cognitive realization lot of people will confront. You’re taking the belief system that people retain, and introducing space aliens, and then making the leap to an automatic assumption of “apocalypse, thus rapture, thus cut loose and play Russian roulette because we’re all gonna die, so who cares.” But these videos certainly don’t portend apocalypse. If official channels announced a message confirming alien life forms, and space craft from other planets and star systems, that does not read as The End Of The World. Tomorrow’s headline saying “ALIENS” with a frame of this video as the leading image wouldn’t cause panic. Would it cause a stir? Yeah, but it’s simply not threatening. So the the world view wouldn’t shift the way you claim. It would more likely upset the idea of souls, afterlife, eternal consequences, good and evil, heavan and hell, resurrections, fate and lots more in the western religions, but those effect would probably be pretty temporary. Those sorts of realizations grip kids in high school and college all the time, and yeah, during those phases people often cut loose, but soon relocate the genuine practical consequences that form the rational basis of pious restraint. Things like catching unpleasant diseases, destroying trust and reputation among peers, and so on. So, the idea that restricting factual information protects the sheltered pedestrian psyche, at least when it comes to space aliens, is the stuff of TV shows and low budget movies. It’s fine for a plot device, but space aliens threaten behavioral norms about as much as the idea of sentient, talking sea slugs. No matter how pained a cry the sea slugs let slip, if they taste good, people wouldn’t hesitate to batter dip and deep fry them, and only stop to mull the existential dread over indigestion. Sometimes keeping the sheltered unaware of The Truth does protect their sanity, but not within the context of space aliens. Space aliens are existential weak sauce. If they weren’t, we wouldn’t gobble up most sci-fi as comedy. We’d find it irreverent and disrespectful, and almost nobody takes such a stance. Invariably, people pay extra money for an entire cable TV channel devoted to it.
ryandvm 8y ago
> For a lot of people who take religion seriously, I feel like this could be a major upset. I doubt it. If the last few years have taught me anything, it's that no amount of evidence can dissuade someone from believing something they want to believe in.
Udo 8y ago
> For a lot of people who take religion seriously, I feel like this could be a major upset. I don't think it would change anything for them. We're living in a golden age of science, and that did not change anything for them. The existence of aliens would just be one more thing to either reject or literally bedevil.
- bdamm 8y ago
  Or, accept in a greater sense. Like, "God is so great, he created all these planets, and the Garden of Eden is representative of that creation everywhere." That's what I would hope for, anyway. Certainly in the event that the aliens turn out to be ones that do sexual reproduction.
sam_goody 8y ago
The same God that created life on Earth could have done so on any number of other planets for the same effort. Humans began in the Garden of Eden, but that's only one species, albeit an important one. It is easier to square religion with life on other planets than it is to square the odds of evolution happening in a similar way on multiple planets.

fit2rule 8y ago

Certainly, the rationale for spending $21Trillion on military superiority instead of investing it in a healthy society, would be minimised. If it turns out that aliens are on the planet and have advanced technology that could ruin us all, maybe the Pentagon and the Kremlin would find a reason to stop starving their own people for the sake of assumed dominance over the planet, and instead unite to either befriend, or defeat, the common alien friend/foe. One can imagine the reason all of these events are couched in such secrecy might be, indeed, militaristic hubris. Or, in other words, FOMO at a grand scale ..

krageon 8y ago
You can just as easily argue the opposite. If the aliens are so much more advanced, maybe we need to spend even more in order to catch up. I'm not saying I think these things, I'm just trying to point out that your conclusion is not a given.
- close04 8y ago
  If intelligent aliens get to our planet and have any kind of aggressive intentions no amount of spending would save us. It means they already have capabilities far beyond what we could achieve in a generation and proved them by just getting to us.
  - krageon 8y ago
    > It means they already have capabilities far beyond what we could achieve It certainly means that they have those capabilities as pertains to travel, but it is not a given that they would have those capabilities in a military sense. Of course the argument can be made that you can convert that kind of power into a weapon, but I'd hazard to say that a haphazard conversion does not in fact impart upon you a godlike ability to ignore everything we could possibly do. I'm definitely not arguing that this means we should increase military spending. I think that is fundamentally not a great idea for us in the first place. Instead, I am arguing that while the things you are talking about are widely used as sci-fi tropes and held as beliefs by a lot of people, I do not think they stand on their own merits.