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The psychological predilection for belief in conspiracy theories is depressing. It's depressing because to me it feels like the other side of the coin for relig
by cletus 6y ago
The psychological predilection for belief in conspiracy theories is depressing. It's depressing because to me it feels like the other side of the coin for religious devotees. It seems to be seated in a deep need for a higher purpose and meaning.
When I was a kid I found all the talk of UFOs interesting. I had a fascination with space (and still do) and wanted to believe in that future.
What changed is in more recent years I inadvertently approached the problem from the other direction. By that I mean you look at what mankind's future is likely to be like which can be extrapolated to the future other other spacefaring civilizations and the implications of that on the Fermi Paradox.
It's a deep topic but basically the obvious energy future is to use all the Sun's energy output (rather than <1 billionth) and it's essentially just an engineering problem (albeit a massive one) to collect and use that power. And that future is a Dyson swarm. And those aren't the least bit subtle.
There are two parts I like about this:
1. It is based on the current understanding of physics. No magic tech or negative mass is required. If FTL is possible (and I include wormholes under FTL) or if breaking thermodynamics is possible we should be seeing a ton more not less of these things; and
2. The beauty of a lot of thought experiments with the Fermi Paradox is we don't need to decide what civilizations will do on average. Instead, if any one civilization doesn't fit that mold the whole argument falls apart. The more civilizations there are the less likely that counterargument becomes.
So with regards to UFOs, there are two common explanations among devotees:
1. Aliens and alien technology; or
2. Advanced technology governments are hiding.
In a world where the speed of light is a universal speed limit, (1) just becomes preposterous. The idea that someone would spend thousands of years getting here, hiding their presence and cooperating with governments just defies logic.
As for advanced technology... in 1947? Really? I just don't believe people are capable of that AND keeping it secret for decades. Of course people will say they haven't kept it secret and disinformation has made us all not believe it.
This fascination with UFOs just seems so... pointless.
- TheOtherHobbes 6y agoEverything you have written is terrestrial speculation based on the same mistaken assumption - that human intelligence is as smart as it gets. If aliens exist they will be alien. They will not be a bit weird with our naive ideas of sort-of-better alien tech. They will be something entirely different, and very likely able to do entirely unexpected things. Imagine a species which has roughly the same intelligence advantage over humans as humans have over cats. Most of what humans spend their time doing today is incomprehensible to cats. Virtually all of math, physics, the Internet, the arts, philosophy is far beyond the imagination of an animal which hasn't evolved past a need to find food, sex, and occasional snuggles. Now imagine a species which stretches the comparison to human-vs-ant. Not only are humans activities unimaginable, they're invisible. Even though ants live in the middle of them. Ant perception is tuned to pheromone trails, foraging, and occasional ant wars, and ants don't have much of a concept of freeways, telecommuting, corner supermarkets, house renovation projects, or Amazon Prime - even though they may be surrounded by them. Not only do ants not understand them, they cannot see them, except for those rare occasions where ants become a nuisance and a human decides to wipe them out. It's irrational and naive to assume that we are the most evolved of all possible intelligences in a universe which is as big as this one is, and whose operation we really don't understand. We could be well surrounded by alien activities which are far outside our conceptual grasp - except for those occasions when the aliens take a passing interest, with strange and incomprehensible consequences.
- eitland 6y agoTo add to this: it is way less than 100 years since we learned to use fission and fusion. Until the two first bombs were dropped it was either unknown or, to those who realized the potential: considered impossible with the technology available at the time. I wonder what is just out of reach for us today, or what scientists are secretly working on today. Also, one step ahead, like you I also think what we are capable of seeing and understanding might be very limited compared to other beings.
- NikolaeVarius 6y agoThat really isn't a valid comparison. The bombs were built specifically because scientists theorized that it would be possible to generate large bombs with their knowledge of atomic energy. They underestimated the scale of the bombs. Govt's dont pour billions of dollars into impossible technologies.
- shiftpgdn 6y agoHow much have MK Ultra, MK demon, etc cost?
- InfiniteRand 6y agoThere was the Stargate Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargate_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargate_Project
- NikolaeVarius 6y agoI think moonshot research projects are a different scenario.
- eitland 6y ago> The bombs were built specifically because scientists theorized that it would be possible to generate large bombs with their knowledge of atomic energy. Below is my attempt to add a little more detail so it doesn't sound unrealistically straightforward: ...because a few scientists theorized that it could be possible to generate large bombs with their knowledge of atomic energy and because politicians became desperate enough to give it a chance.