4 ms·

This flavor of sniffy nothing-to-see-here dismissal stands a fair chance of aging exceedingly poorly. It reflects most of all how successful the US's long-term

This flavor of sniffy nothing-to-see-here dismissal stands a fair chance of aging exceedingly poorly. It reflects most of all how successful the US's long-term project to inculcate dismissive ridicule around UAP has been, but fails to yet understand that there is a pronounced pivot in tone in how official sources are discussing these things. That pivot is much more interesting and significant than any particular video, regardless of the weakness of Follett's criticisms. Part of that pivot which is significant is the change in terminology, from UFO to UAP. This may be simple bureaucratic bike shedding. It is also consistent with a change of framing motivated by aspects of the phenomenon which have not been reconciled with the conventional equation of them with "flying saucers" aka spaceships containing extraterrestrials. Those of us who watch these things over time are genuinely astonished at the rapid and comprehensive change in tone here, and the tea leaf reading going on is sometimes quite interesting. It is plausible that the decision to found a Space Force was one more childish impulse by Trump. It is also plausible that that founding and its continued build out under Biden is not unrelated to this pivot. As with much of the secret history of our times, those of us on the outside can only watch the outlines of the blacked out and redacted spaces, and infer what we can from their changes. This dismissal is understandable in a historical moment offering no shortage of profound quotidian crises. It also partakes of a world-weary cynicism which was taught, not learned; and IMO it misses the real story here. Note that Obama added comments to this fire this week. If this is disinformation and long con, e.g. by a spooked aerospace industry and military industrial complex looking for a new line of revenue, it is a very long con and one with a scale of duplicity, or complicity, inconsistent with the professionalism and careers and understood integrity of a lot of increasingly highly ranked people. That doesn't mean it's not a disinformation campaign. It does mean that if it is, it's unprecedented in potential impact in a way we haven't seen since the days of yellow cake Uranium. Either it's a story to be watched closely, not scoffed at because that's what you have always done in "serious" company.

tsimionescu 5y ago
> Note that Obama added comments to this fire this week. If this is disinformation and long con, e.g. by a spooked aerospace industry and military industrial complex looking for a new line of revenue, it is a very long con and one with a scale of duplicity, or complicity, inconsistent with the professionalism and careers and understood integrity of a lot of increasingly highly ranked people. Perhaps its time to start doubting the integrity and/or professionalism of these people, rather than basic physics. Even if conspiracy theories/government long-cons are not extremely likely (though the government, military and intelligence agencies have a huge documented record of intentionally bold-faced lying to the public, such as the fabricated WMD Irak claims), they are still far and away more likely than physics defying alien spacecraft. Furthermore, even in the most captivating readings of these events, its obvious that these people have no clue what these phenomena actually are, so there is still no reason to actually follow the story other than morbid curiosity.
- DougWebb 5y ago
  There's no such thing as "physics defying". There's physics we understand, and physics we don't understand. The job of physicists is to change the latter into the former. Whatever these phenomena are, sharing all of the information that's available about them can only help us to understand them. If all of that information can be accounted for by physics we know, that's fine. At least we'll know for sure. And if it can't, then we need to work on learning some new physics, as we've been doing for centuries.
  - tsimionescu 5y ago
    > There's no such thing as "physics defying". There's physics we understand, and physics we don't understand. There's no such thing as physics defying phenomena that actually happened. But there are lots of phenomena which don't happen that would be physics defying if they did. For example, a device I claim to produce energy out of nothing is physics defying: it doesn't happen. And more data is not in itself a good thing. If you have low quality data, then sometimes the most scientifically honest thing to do is to throw it away - we don't have infinite energy to explore every shred of information and ascertain it's trustworthiness. For the same reason physicists or doctors don't go investigating every claim of a miracle or faith healing, they shouldn't investigate every blip on the radar. Releasing dumps of such data and insinuating that it's meaningful (while actually saying the truth, that it's simply unexplained, which is the default state of data) is generally against the public interest.
- jk7tarYZAQNpTQa 5y ago
  > Perhaps its time to start doubting the integrity and/or professionalism of these people, rather than basic physics You don't need to doubt basic physics, since they allow this to happen. Spacetime warping has been theorized for more than a century.
  - tsimionescu 5y ago
    Please see my other comment [0], based on what a real theoretical physicist explains about warp drives: FTL warp drives like the famous Alcubierre drive are not physically possible, even though they are mathematical solutions to Einstein's equations. Warp drives could be physically possible, but they would be slower than light and require a constant stream of matter/energy to accelerate. [0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27243900 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27243900

tsimionescu 5y ago

> Note that Obama added comments to this fire this week. If this is disinformation and long con, e.g. by a spooked aerospace industry and military industrial complex looking for a new line of revenue, it is a very long con and one with a scale of duplicity, or complicity, inconsistent with the professionalism and careers and understood integrity of a lot of increasingly highly ranked people. Perhaps its time to start doubting the integrity and/or professionalism of these people, rather than basic physics. Even if conspiracy theories/government long-cons are not extremely likely (though the government, military and intelligence agencies have a huge documented record of intentionally bold-faced lying to the public, such as the fabricated WMD Irak claims), they are still far and away more likely than physics defying alien spacecraft. Furthermore, even in the most captivating readings of these events, its obvious that these people have no clue what these phenomena actually are, so there is still no reason to actually follow the story other than morbid curiosity.

DougWebb 5y ago
There's no such thing as "physics defying". There's physics we understand, and physics we don't understand. The job of physicists is to change the latter into the former. Whatever these phenomena are, sharing all of the information that's available about them can only help us to understand them. If all of that information can be accounted for by physics we know, that's fine. At least we'll know for sure. And if it can't, then we need to work on learning some new physics, as we've been doing for centuries.
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  > There's no such thing as "physics defying". There's physics we understand, and physics we don't understand. There's no such thing as physics defying phenomena that actually happened. But there are lots of phenomena which don't happen that would be physics defying if they did. For example, a device I claim to produce energy out of nothing is physics defying: it doesn't happen. And more data is not in itself a good thing. If you have low quality data, then sometimes the most scientifically honest thing to do is to throw it away - we don't have infinite energy to explore every shred of information and ascertain it's trustworthiness. For the same reason physicists or doctors don't go investigating every claim of a miracle or faith healing, they shouldn't investigate every blip on the radar. Releasing dumps of such data and insinuating that it's meaningful (while actually saying the truth, that it's simply unexplained, which is the default state of data) is generally against the public interest.
jk7tarYZAQNpTQa 5y ago
> Perhaps its time to start doubting the integrity and/or professionalism of these people, rather than basic physics You don't need to doubt basic physics, since they allow this to happen. Spacetime warping has been theorized for more than a century.
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  Please see my other comment [0], based on what a real theoretical physicist explains about warp drives: FTL warp drives like the famous Alcubierre drive are not physically possible, even though they are mathematical solutions to Einstein's equations. Warp drives could be physically possible, but they would be slower than light and require a constant stream of matter/energy to accelerate. [0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27243900 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27243900