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Certainly, the rationale for spending $21Trillion on military superiority instead of investing it in a healthy society, would be minimised. If it turns out tha

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.
    - mrob 8y ago
      The most deadly terrorist attack on the US used civilian passenger planes. A UFO doesn't need weapons to be massively destructive. E = 0.5 * m * v^2, and UFOs reportedly go a lot faster than a 767. And if they're too agile to shoot down, and never need to land or refuel, that's "a godlike ability to ignore everything we could possibly do".
    - homonculus1 8y ago
      If you can project an object to another planet in any reasonable span of time, you already have vast military capabilities against that planet. All you have to do is not decelerate.
      - sergioj97 8y ago
        No reason to believe the UFOs reached the Earth in a "reasonable" amount of time, though. There are many other interesting possibilities.
  - exoesquitur 8y ago
    Logistics. A well equipped squad of marines would still eventually succumb to a gird of barbarians unless they could resupply.
    - close04 8y ago
      I think the magnitude of the difference between the opposing parties is a lot greater when it comes to comparing humans to an alien civilization capable of projecting some force light years away from their home in a reasonable amount of time. It's more like neolithic man meets nuclear submarine... but worse. We have 0 tools at our disposal to fight anything that's farther away than the edge of the atmosphere. "They" can take a few decades to accelerate a really massive "civilization ending" object and slam it into us. It's not like we can go anywhere to avoid it.
      - sergioj97 8y ago
        Why do you assume these UFOs reached the Earth in a "reasonable" amount of time? The possibility that they were roaming the space for hundreds or even thousands of years before reaching our planet is as reasonable as any other. Even if an alien civilization finds our planet, I don't see why that would imply we are inside their logistic operational range.
p1esk 8y ago
The need to “defend from aliens” would become the rationale to spend $60T. Oh, and after the money is gone it would turn out there are no aliens after all. Similar to what happened in Iraq.
- brtknr 8y ago
  I am amused by the idea of "infidels" from space.
  - pmontra 8y ago
    Poul Anderson's The Word to Space is a 1960 novelette about missionarism from an alien planet.
mrob 8y ago
If they're real, and if they have their claimed technology level, why do they only reveal themselves in such a bizarre way? The argument that it's to gradually condition humanity into accepting extraterrestrial life is implausible, because there has been no significant change in their alleged activities for many decades. Why wouldn't they instead plant microbes on Mars, or something like that? They could gradually increase the surprise level until they can reveal themselves openly. Assuming they are real, the aliens do not act in a way consistent with a goal-directed intelligence, which means they are not the product of evolution, which means they are something so strange that the idea of befriending or defeating them makes no sense. They're something more like this story: https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/04/21/universal-love-said-the-cactus-person/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/04/21/universal-love-said-th...
- narag 8y ago
  If they're real, and if they have their claimed technology level, why do they only reveal themselves in such a bizarre way? They only have a tiny poorly manned outpost?
- behnamoh 8y ago
  You make valid points. For a long time I was looking for such answers. Unfortunately, there aren't many clever arguments like yours anywhere outside of HN. >> Assuming they are real, the aliens do not act in a way consistent with a goal-directed intelligence, which means they are not the product of evolution, which means they are something so strange that the idea of befriending or defeating them makes no sense. This. If - and that's a big if - we assume previous bizarre aerial activities observed by humans were in fact of ET origin, then it's only natural to think of those ETs more like AI (robots) that don't necessarily share our goal-oriented intelligence, but rather possess higher levels of intelligence and their own agenda. As a result, you're right; we wouldn't even begin to understand their purpose cause theirs just has no counterpart in humans.
  - MockObject 8y ago
    Even humans don't always behave in clearly goal-oriented activities. Consider how hard it is to explain practical jokes, religious ritual, or modern performance art. ET intelligence would presumably have equally inscrutable motivations. Given the distances and ages required for interstellar travel, these things are more likely unmanned probes than busses filled with tourists. > It has been theorized that a self-replicating starship utilizing relatively conventional theoretical methods of interstellar travel (i.e., no exotic faster-than-light propulsion, and speeds limited to an "average cruising speed" of 0.1c.) could spread throughout a galaxy the size of the Milky Way in as little as half a million years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_spacecraft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_spacecraft
emiliobumachar 8y ago
I don't know if faster-than-light travel would necessarily accompany other technologies indistinguishable from magic. The Romans were arguably a flash of insight away from the hot air balloon, they had good uses for it and all the prerequisite techs. Analogously, we might be one really good flash of insight away from technology we'll just actually get a thousand years from now. So the aliens could be otherwise on our tech level, but they just figured out warp drive.
- jacobush 8y ago
  Very interesting thought. Imagine optical telegraph relay stations, or scouting with moored hot air balloons. Nothing could probably shoot them down, either.
- DuskStar 8y ago
  Who says that warp drive even requires most of the things in our tech tree? I'm reminded of Turtledove's "The Road Not Taken" here: https://eyeofmidas.com/scifi/Turtledove_RoadNotTaken.pdf https://eyeofmidas.com/scifi/Turtledove_RoadNotTaken.pdf
  - emiliobumachar 8y ago
    +1, what a brilliant piece of fiction, thanks!
oldjokes 8y ago
So we're using an imaginary alien threat to justify massive military spending while literally destroying billions of dollars by just eliminating it from the economy through stock buybacks. Fictional times indeed. Just don't think too hard about the money.
hallihax 8y ago
You're assuming that an alien race isn't partisan. Any intelligent alien species intent on harming humans would probably seek to exploit existing weaknesses and increase division. Who's to say they wouldn't ally with the worst humans imaginable in order to prevent humanity coming together in the first place?

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.
  - mrob 8y ago
    The most deadly terrorist attack on the US used civilian passenger planes. A UFO doesn't need weapons to be massively destructive. E = 0.5 * m * v^2, and UFOs reportedly go a lot faster than a 767. And if they're too agile to shoot down, and never need to land or refuel, that's "a godlike ability to ignore everything we could possibly do".
  - homonculus1 8y ago
    If you can project an object to another planet in any reasonable span of time, you already have vast military capabilities against that planet. All you have to do is not decelerate.
    - sergioj97 8y ago
      No reason to believe the UFOs reached the Earth in a "reasonable" amount of time, though. There are many other interesting possibilities.
- exoesquitur 8y ago
  Logistics. A well equipped squad of marines would still eventually succumb to a gird of barbarians unless they could resupply.
  - close04 8y ago
    I think the magnitude of the difference between the opposing parties is a lot greater when it comes to comparing humans to an alien civilization capable of projecting some force light years away from their home in a reasonable amount of time. It's more like neolithic man meets nuclear submarine... but worse. We have 0 tools at our disposal to fight anything that's farther away than the edge of the atmosphere. "They" can take a few decades to accelerate a really massive "civilization ending" object and slam it into us. It's not like we can go anywhere to avoid it.
    - sergioj97 8y ago
      Why do you assume these UFOs reached the Earth in a "reasonable" amount of time? The possibility that they were roaming the space for hundreds or even thousands of years before reaching our planet is as reasonable as any other. Even if an alien civilization finds our planet, I don't see why that would imply we are inside their logistic operational range.

p1esk 8y ago

The need to “defend from aliens” would become the rationale to spend $60T. Oh, and after the money is gone it would turn out there are no aliens after all. Similar to what happened in Iraq.

brtknr 8y ago
I am amused by the idea of "infidels" from space.
- pmontra 8y ago
  Poul Anderson's The Word to Space is a 1960 novelette about missionarism from an alien planet.

mrob 8y ago

If they're real, and if they have their claimed technology level, why do they only reveal themselves in such a bizarre way? The argument that it's to gradually condition humanity into accepting extraterrestrial life is implausible, because there has been no significant change in their alleged activities for many decades. Why wouldn't they instead plant microbes on Mars, or something like that? They could gradually increase the surprise level until they can reveal themselves openly. Assuming they are real, the aliens do not act in a way consistent with a goal-directed intelligence, which means they are not the product of evolution, which means they are something so strange that the idea of befriending or defeating them makes no sense. They're something more like this story: https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/04/21/universal-love-said-the-cactus-person/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/04/21/universal-love-said-th...

narag 8y ago
If they're real, and if they have their claimed technology level, why do they only reveal themselves in such a bizarre way? They only have a tiny poorly manned outpost?
behnamoh 8y ago
You make valid points. For a long time I was looking for such answers. Unfortunately, there aren't many clever arguments like yours anywhere outside of HN. >> Assuming they are real, the aliens do not act in a way consistent with a goal-directed intelligence, which means they are not the product of evolution, which means they are something so strange that the idea of befriending or defeating them makes no sense. This. If - and that's a big if - we assume previous bizarre aerial activities observed by humans were in fact of ET origin, then it's only natural to think of those ETs more like AI (robots) that don't necessarily share our goal-oriented intelligence, but rather possess higher levels of intelligence and their own agenda. As a result, you're right; we wouldn't even begin to understand their purpose cause theirs just has no counterpart in humans.
- MockObject 8y ago
  Even humans don't always behave in clearly goal-oriented activities. Consider how hard it is to explain practical jokes, religious ritual, or modern performance art. ET intelligence would presumably have equally inscrutable motivations. Given the distances and ages required for interstellar travel, these things are more likely unmanned probes than busses filled with tourists. > It has been theorized that a self-replicating starship utilizing relatively conventional theoretical methods of interstellar travel (i.e., no exotic faster-than-light propulsion, and speeds limited to an "average cruising speed" of 0.1c.) could spread throughout a galaxy the size of the Milky Way in as little as half a million years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_spacecraft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-replicating_spacecraft

emiliobumachar 8y ago

I don't know if faster-than-light travel would necessarily accompany other technologies indistinguishable from magic. The Romans were arguably a flash of insight away from the hot air balloon, they had good uses for it and all the prerequisite techs. Analogously, we might be one really good flash of insight away from technology we'll just actually get a thousand years from now. So the aliens could be otherwise on our tech level, but they just figured out warp drive.

jacobush 8y ago
Very interesting thought. Imagine optical telegraph relay stations, or scouting with moored hot air balloons. Nothing could probably shoot them down, either.
DuskStar 8y ago
Who says that warp drive even requires most of the things in our tech tree? I'm reminded of Turtledove's "The Road Not Taken" here: https://eyeofmidas.com/scifi/Turtledove_RoadNotTaken.pdf https://eyeofmidas.com/scifi/Turtledove_RoadNotTaken.pdf
- emiliobumachar 8y ago
  +1, what a brilliant piece of fiction, thanks!

oldjokes 8y ago

So we're using an imaginary alien threat to justify massive military spending while literally destroying billions of dollars by just eliminating it from the economy through stock buybacks. Fictional times indeed. Just don't think too hard about the money.

hallihax 8y ago

You're assuming that an alien race isn't partisan. Any intelligent alien species intent on harming humans would probably seek to exploit existing weaknesses and increase division. Who's to say they wouldn't ally with the worst humans imaginable in order to prevent humanity coming together in the first place?