4 ms·

I don't know that such a thing as "anti extraterrestrial" belief exists. Here's two beliefs/points of view that are compatible: 1. There's a very high chance

by the_af 5y ago

I don't know that such a thing as "anti extraterrestrial" belief exists. Here's two beliefs/points of view that are compatible: 1. There's a very high chance there's life out there in the universe. There may even be intelligent life, too. 2. It's unlikely extraterrestrial intelligent life will be able to reach Earth. Most reports of UFOs are either made up bullshit or the human brain finding patterns where there are none. Or simply classified military tech. Or people craving attention. Not one person that laughs at fake accounts of alien abduction and probing does this because they are afraid of coexisting with alien intelligence. Instead, they do it because fake accounts of alien abduction are hilarious.

motohagiography 5y ago
Regarding whether the anti- view exists, two points. The first is almost every sighting story comes with how their commanding officers and authorities silenced them. The second is I would suggest that if I were a scientist who implied something originated from an extraterrestrial advanced civilization, I would be actively isolated and discredited, which to me implies a very strong anti-ET bias. As an experiment, let's see if this comment comes back to bite me. We know from other disciplines that extraordinary claims do not require extraordinary evidence at all, so I'd speculate it's probably inappropriate to mock the lived experience of people who identify as alien abductees. The OP paper describing the implied necessary physics of unrelated reports makes me think it might be time for a university to create an spacefaring humanities program as an extension of gifted programs, which includes physics and math, engineering, biology, anthropology, theology, philosophy and ethics, or even to include it in the core curriculum of public schools. It's not like they would learn to believe anything dumber than what has already been taught in schools over the last century, and at least a spacefaring humanities curriculum would equip generations with tools for what seems now like an inevitability.
- the_af 5y ago
  > The first is almost every sighting story comes with how their commanding officers and authorities silenced them. This is a telltale symptom of quacks and cranks. "My truth is being suppressed". The more normal explanation of superiors telling someone to shut up is either because it's top secret information about military tech or plain old bullshit. Only quacks come to the conclusion that "they want to shut me up". In fact, it's one of the items in the crackpot index. > The second is I would suggest that if I were a scientist who implied something originated from an extraterrestrial advanced civilization, I would be actively isolated and discredited, which to me implies a very strong anti-ET bias This has trivial counterexamples: SETI exists and it's a real scientific undertaking, if low priority. There's also the search for extraterrestrial life (either existing or traces of past life) in Mars. None of these are met with scorn. But also, as a sibling comment mentioned: UFOlogy is the realm of woo. Therefore, before making assertions about ET life you must have really solid evidence and the patience to weather the association with woo and quackery, but this is not an anti-ET stance, but rather an anti-woo one. Who wants to be associated with some weirdo claiming he was sexually abused by space aliens? But if you have solid proof of real phenomenon, instead of shaky footage and unreliable witnesses, it would be a major scientific achievement.
  - pmarreck 5y ago
    > This is a telltale symptom of quacks and cranks. "My truth is being suppressed". The more normal explanation of superiors telling someone to shut up is either because it's top secret information about military tech or plain old bullshit. Only quacks come to the conclusion that "they want to shut me up". In fact, it's one of the items in the crackpot index. Yes. This is a textbook example of the Conspiracy Fallacy. The problem is that the Conspiracy Fallacy doesn't actually disprove a conspiracy- it only says that you can't use a lack of evidence ("the clintons are hiding the bodies, of course, because they're guilty!") AS evidence. And when it comes to reporting UFO's, talk to anyone in the past 70 years who's reported them and ask them how it affected their reputation; this is a real risk to anyone who may be reporting a real thing. > UFOlogy is the realm of woo So is science, sometimes. Turns out that humans are flawed and bring judgment into everything, such as anyone who initially called out The Ether, Miasma theory or, eh, pretty much all of psychology into question. > Who wants to be associated with some weirdo claiming he was sexually abused by space aliens? No one. Which is why only the weirdos who don't have much to lose, report that. Survivorship fallacy... You don't know any of the reports non-weirdos would make if they could do it without harming their own reputations (disclaimer: I know of at least one, a CEO of a 100+ person firm, who only told me his story if I did not retell it... it's amazing what people will tell you when they feel you will not judge or shame them!). Which is why it's dangerous to bring shame and judgment into any such claim. > instead of shaky footage and unreliable witnesses The footage seems to be getting better and there's such a long list of reliable witnesses at this point that to claim otherwise is extremely willfully ignorant.
    - the_af 5y ago
      > only the weirdos who don't have much to lose, report that. Survivorship fallacy... You don't know any of the reports non-weirdos would make if they could do it without harming their own reputations But this is again a non-argument. It proves nothing and adds nothing of value. "Of course you are only hearing from bullshitters, reasonable people are afraid to speak" is indistinguishable from "reasonable people don't believe in this stuff". CEOs believe in all sort of bizarre stuff and fads, what sort of evidence is that? And in any case you (someone I don't know writing on the internet) claiming a CEO he/she knows that claims to have a funny story about UFOs is meaningless. I hope you understand why. > it's amazing what people will tell you when they feel you will not judge or shame them! But that's anecdote. It's the job of science and scientists to judge claims. Especially contentious, extraordinary claims must be examined more closely. Since UFOlogy is a religion that attracts quacks, it must be judged extra super carefully and all non-alien explanations must be carefully considered first. But UFOlogists react defensively to this, they want their claims to be taken at face value, "with an open mind", another telltale sign of conspiracies ("don't be narrow minded!"). > The footage seems to be getting better and there's such a long list of reliable witnesses at this point that to claim otherwise is extremely willfully ignorant. The footage of the Ghost of Kyiv was convincing, and it turned out to be DCS (a realistic flightsim). What you want is solid scientific evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence visiting us, of which there is none. Not that there is realistic footage of extraterrestrial life either. There is no long list of reliable witnesses nor solid scientific evidence, contrary to your claims.
TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
I expect those doing the laughing couldn't possibly be fooling themselves about their motivations. Only other people do that. It's obvious there's a huge amount of woo around all of this, but it's equally obvious there are real phenomena which are unexplained. For example, the Hessdalen Lights. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hessdalen_lights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hessdalen_lights The scientific approach is to collect data and generate theories which try to explain it. Condescending nyucking is self-indulgence, not science. Meanwhile we have no idea what alien intelligence would be like, or what it would be capable of. Assuming it would be recognisable, never mind interested in interaction, is naive in the extreme.
- the_af 5y ago
  > I expect those doing the laughing couldn't possibly be fooling themselves about their motivations. Only other people do that. That's a non-answer. > but it's equally obvious there are real phenomena which are unexplained. Yes, that's how the natural world works, and it's science's mission to try to understand it. There's almost no logical connection or implication from "unexplained phenomena" to "evidence of extraterrestrial life". > For example, the Hessdalen Lights. Well, the case for ET life there is really tenuous and the people and organizations jumping to that conclusion are suspect. > The scientific approach is to collect data and generate theories which try to explain it. Yes, and UFOlogists really fail to understand this. Or rather, they do not want to, because for various reasons they cling to their need for intelligent ET life visiting us and abducting people or doing flyovers over their houses. > Meanwhile we have no idea what alien intelligence would be like, or what it would be capable of. We do have some ideas. The universe of possibilities for intelligent life is finite. If your ET life is unrecognizable as such, uninterested in meaningful interaction with us, and essentially invisible to our perception, then that's... a not very interesting perspective, is it? By all means it's indistinguishable from the nonexistence of ET life, except maybe in a faith-like sort of manner, which is uninteresting to science. In many ways UFOlogy is a modern religion.

by the_af 5y ago

motohagiography 5y ago

Regarding whether the anti- view exists, two points. The first is almost every sighting story comes with how their commanding officers and authorities silenced them. The second is I would suggest that if I were a scientist who implied something originated from an extraterrestrial advanced civilization, I would be actively isolated and discredited, which to me implies a very strong anti-ET bias. As an experiment, let's see if this comment comes back to bite me. We know from other disciplines that extraordinary claims do not require extraordinary evidence at all, so I'd speculate it's probably inappropriate to mock the lived experience of people who identify as alien abductees. The OP paper describing the implied necessary physics of unrelated reports makes me think it might be time for a university to create an spacefaring humanities program as an extension of gifted programs, which includes physics and math, engineering, biology, anthropology, theology, philosophy and ethics, or even to include it in the core curriculum of public schools. It's not like they would learn to believe anything dumber than what has already been taught in schools over the last century, and at least a spacefaring humanities curriculum would equip generations with tools for what seems now like an inevitability.

the_af 5y ago
> The first is almost every sighting story comes with how their commanding officers and authorities silenced them. This is a telltale symptom of quacks and cranks. "My truth is being suppressed". The more normal explanation of superiors telling someone to shut up is either because it's top secret information about military tech or plain old bullshit. Only quacks come to the conclusion that "they want to shut me up". In fact, it's one of the items in the crackpot index. > The second is I would suggest that if I were a scientist who implied something originated from an extraterrestrial advanced civilization, I would be actively isolated and discredited, which to me implies a very strong anti-ET bias This has trivial counterexamples: SETI exists and it's a real scientific undertaking, if low priority. There's also the search for extraterrestrial life (either existing or traces of past life) in Mars. None of these are met with scorn. But also, as a sibling comment mentioned: UFOlogy is the realm of woo. Therefore, before making assertions about ET life you must have really solid evidence and the patience to weather the association with woo and quackery, but this is not an anti-ET stance, but rather an anti-woo one. Who wants to be associated with some weirdo claiming he was sexually abused by space aliens? But if you have solid proof of real phenomenon, instead of shaky footage and unreliable witnesses, it would be a major scientific achievement.
- pmarreck 5y ago
  > This is a telltale symptom of quacks and cranks. "My truth is being suppressed". The more normal explanation of superiors telling someone to shut up is either because it's top secret information about military tech or plain old bullshit. Only quacks come to the conclusion that "they want to shut me up". In fact, it's one of the items in the crackpot index. Yes. This is a textbook example of the Conspiracy Fallacy. The problem is that the Conspiracy Fallacy doesn't actually disprove a conspiracy- it only says that you can't use a lack of evidence ("the clintons are hiding the bodies, of course, because they're guilty!") AS evidence. And when it comes to reporting UFO's, talk to anyone in the past 70 years who's reported them and ask them how it affected their reputation; this is a real risk to anyone who may be reporting a real thing. > UFOlogy is the realm of woo So is science, sometimes. Turns out that humans are flawed and bring judgment into everything, such as anyone who initially called out The Ether, Miasma theory or, eh, pretty much all of psychology into question. > Who wants to be associated with some weirdo claiming he was sexually abused by space aliens? No one. Which is why only the weirdos who don't have much to lose, report that. Survivorship fallacy... You don't know any of the reports non-weirdos would make if they could do it without harming their own reputations (disclaimer: I know of at least one, a CEO of a 100+ person firm, who only told me his story if I did not retell it... it's amazing what people will tell you when they feel you will not judge or shame them!). Which is why it's dangerous to bring shame and judgment into any such claim. > instead of shaky footage and unreliable witnesses The footage seems to be getting better and there's such a long list of reliable witnesses at this point that to claim otherwise is extremely willfully ignorant.
  - the_af 5y ago
    > only the weirdos who don't have much to lose, report that. Survivorship fallacy... You don't know any of the reports non-weirdos would make if they could do it without harming their own reputations But this is again a non-argument. It proves nothing and adds nothing of value. "Of course you are only hearing from bullshitters, reasonable people are afraid to speak" is indistinguishable from "reasonable people don't believe in this stuff". CEOs believe in all sort of bizarre stuff and fads, what sort of evidence is that? And in any case you (someone I don't know writing on the internet) claiming a CEO he/she knows that claims to have a funny story about UFOs is meaningless. I hope you understand why. > it's amazing what people will tell you when they feel you will not judge or shame them! But that's anecdote. It's the job of science and scientists to judge claims. Especially contentious, extraordinary claims must be examined more closely. Since UFOlogy is a religion that attracts quacks, it must be judged extra super carefully and all non-alien explanations must be carefully considered first. But UFOlogists react defensively to this, they want their claims to be taken at face value, "with an open mind", another telltale sign of conspiracies ("don't be narrow minded!"). > The footage seems to be getting better and there's such a long list of reliable witnesses at this point that to claim otherwise is extremely willfully ignorant. The footage of the Ghost of Kyiv was convincing, and it turned out to be DCS (a realistic flightsim). What you want is solid scientific evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence visiting us, of which there is none. Not that there is realistic footage of extraterrestrial life either. There is no long list of reliable witnesses nor solid scientific evidence, contrary to your claims.

TheOtherHobbes 5y ago

I expect those doing the laughing couldn't possibly be fooling themselves about their motivations. Only other people do that. It's obvious there's a huge amount of woo around all of this, but it's equally obvious there are real phenomena which are unexplained. For example, the Hessdalen Lights. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hessdalen_lights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hessdalen_lights The scientific approach is to collect data and generate theories which try to explain it. Condescending nyucking is self-indulgence, not science. Meanwhile we have no idea what alien intelligence would be like, or what it would be capable of. Assuming it would be recognisable, never mind interested in interaction, is naive in the extreme.

the_af 5y ago
> I expect those doing the laughing couldn't possibly be fooling themselves about their motivations. Only other people do that. That's a non-answer. > but it's equally obvious there are real phenomena which are unexplained. Yes, that's how the natural world works, and it's science's mission to try to understand it. There's almost no logical connection or implication from "unexplained phenomena" to "evidence of extraterrestrial life". > For example, the Hessdalen Lights. Well, the case for ET life there is really tenuous and the people and organizations jumping to that conclusion are suspect. > The scientific approach is to collect data and generate theories which try to explain it. Yes, and UFOlogists really fail to understand this. Or rather, they do not want to, because for various reasons they cling to their need for intelligent ET life visiting us and abducting people or doing flyovers over their houses. > Meanwhile we have no idea what alien intelligence would be like, or what it would be capable of. We do have some ideas. The universe of possibilities for intelligent life is finite. If your ET life is unrecognizable as such, uninterested in meaningful interaction with us, and essentially invisible to our perception, then that's... a not very interesting perspective, is it? By all means it's indistinguishable from the nonexistence of ET life, except maybe in a faith-like sort of manner, which is uninteresting to science. In many ways UFOlogy is a modern religion.