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This has also been a hobby of mine. Regardless of anything about aliens or technology, this area says something very interesting about the way our society proce
by DanielBMarkham 7y ago
This has also been a hobby of mine. Regardless of anything about aliens or technology, this area says something very interesting about the way our society processes information, about how scientists and organizations deal with non-reproducible information, for example.
From watching social media over the past few years, especially the various foreign authoritarian governments, we can see an easy pattern: some bit of truth comes out, then the organization trying to suppress conversation floods the conversation with tons of half-truths, lies, conspiracy theories, and so forth. In the firehose of bullshit, the only thing the average observer can do is throw up their hands and give up.
Based on this general pattern of information and disinformation, I'm quite confident that the western mostly-free (?) countries are trying to have an honest conversation with themselves. About what, I have no idea. What I find particularly interesting are the professional, multi-sourced observations of various things happening that seem to just get eaten up by the system itself. Whether incompetence, secrecy, crackpots, or whatnot, it says something really fascinating about how groups of people deal with things they don't want to deal with.
Yes, there are crackpots and liars in the world. Yes, there are people who are honestly mistaken. There are also people who avoid controversy and just throw out the "crackpot" label instead of thinking through things. These are all easy responses. Even putting all the options together, something very interesting is going on that we're not dealing with so well.
- electrograv 7y agoI think the need for most people to assign the label “crackpot” vs “credible” almost immediately to any claim (especially to the more far-out claims) is an aspect of human nature: a desire to break down and simplify our view of the world into discrete categories as early as possible. I think we do this not because this is the most accurate way to think, but because our minds are finite, and we need some simplifying approximation (e.g. quantization of a continuum into categories, or binary decisions) in order to make thinking about the immensely complicated world even possible. For example, we tend to seek conclusions like “we have decided that A is good, B is bad, C is bunk, and D is science — case closed!” When in reality, our understanding of truth is far more a continuous and constantly evolving thing, as new information and ideas flow through. Put simply, I think most people are just uncomfortable answering important questions with “I don’t know”, and avoid that answer at all costs, even when it is the correct answer.
- DanielBMarkham 7y agoA long, long time ago, some generation looked up into the sky and saw a somewhat nearby supernova. Visible during the day! Incredible spectacle! Within a short amount of time of those folks dying off, however, it all became BS. It was the sky god. It was an optical illusion. It was a bunch of liars. It was stupid people. It was people making stuff up. These knee-jerk, easy answers come because in most cases they're true. But even more true is the fact that there are a ton of people who just have to know. Whether it's aliens or swamp gas, they have to know one way or the other. Just looking up in the sky and saying "Did you see that? Beats me what it is" isn't good enough. Non-reproducible phenomenon is still phenomenon. The point the former Assistant SecDef was making in his recent opinion piece is extremely valid. If we can't control our skies that's a DoD/Security matter, even if the data is coming to us in such a way as to be very difficult for us to process. Easy answers aren't going to cut it.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]