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Either: - These objects are ours - Or the military is lying - Or our understanding of the world is about to change drastically If these are not ours, and we

Either: - These objects are ours - Or the military is lying - Or our understanding of the world is about to change drastically If these are not ours, and we truly do not understand how they are able to fly, and they’re made by a state actor/adversary, that implies a shift in technological dominance. If they are not made by humans, worldviews shift for obvious reasons. I tend to believe there’s a simpler explanation for all of this, but when I do indulge my imagination, my extremely unlikely-to-be-true theory goes something like: An ancient human civilization figured out that the development of certain technologies was responsible for their downfall, and instituted measures to prevent such a downfall from recurring. And so these things have always been here, waiting for humanity to once again trigger the conditions of such a downfall, at which point they emerge. The sudden explosion of AI tech - both in the tech community and the public consciousness - seems like a trigger event as good as any. I really hope we get the real story about these soon Edit: I don't really believe we're dealing with aliens or ancient civilizations, but whether you like or dislike wacky theories about this, they're going to emerge one way or another when the military says they're stumped, and they're more fun to think about than the alternatives.

mc32 4y ago
I think you had something there in the first half but took a turn into fantasy at the end.
- haswell 4y ago
  To be fair, I fully agree with you.
wongarsu 4y ago
Or there wasn't much left after being shot by 20mm Gatling rounds and falling from considerable height.
- akmarinov 4y ago
  They use missiles according to the news stories. If they're balloons, they probably cost way less than the hundreds of thousands of dollars a missile costs.
KoftaBob 4y ago
> An ancient human civilization figured out that the development of certain technologies was responsible for their downfall, and instituted measures to prevent such a downfall from recurring. Sounds like the plot of Dune
WastingMyTime89 4y ago
That’s extremely far fetched. You don’t need to go that far to find a plaisible explanation. Realistically if I was part of a country army and I had just picked up a foreign object to study, I would want to give its originator the least information possible about what I know and what I’m doing. Telling the media the object was fully destroyed and we don’t know anything about it is both a convenient and easy way to do just that.
- haswell 4y ago
  Yes, I agree and alluded to that. The only reason to bring the far fetched theories into these conversations is because most of the standard (and more likely) explanations have been beaten to death.
lm28469 4y ago
> The sudden explosion of AI tech - both in the tech community and the public consciousness - seems like a trigger event as good as any. Aliens when humanity comes up with the atom bomb * shrugs * Aliens when humanity invents a chatbot that can semi coherently talk about stuff "Oh my god this is a paradigm shift, singularity is so close, quick deploy the BALLOONS"
- haswell 4y ago
  Setting aside the obviously far-fetched notion of aliens, I think it is unwise to downplay the potential future impact of recent AI advances and the progress that is sure to follow. Nuclear weapons just make bigger and more hazardous explosions. That’s obviously a big deal. But the doomsday scenarios for AI are arguably scarier because of the current climate of unrestricted proliferation, and the potential impact on human cognition and future forms of warfare in the long term. That also doesn’t make those doomsday scenarios likely, but the impact of such scenarios is
balderdash 4y ago
Isn’t it more plausible that these are simply technologies that are classified/not acknowledged by either side? If the military were to identify the technology employed by an adversary, then they’d get the question of do they possess the same capability, which is a conversation they’d probably not want to have
- haswell 4y ago
  Yes, I agree that this is far more plausible.

mc32 4y ago

I think you had something there in the first half but took a turn into fantasy at the end.

haswell 4y ago
To be fair, I fully agree with you.

wongarsu 4y ago

Or there wasn't much left after being shot by 20mm Gatling rounds and falling from considerable height.

akmarinov 4y ago
They use missiles according to the news stories. If they're balloons, they probably cost way less than the hundreds of thousands of dollars a missile costs.

KoftaBob 4y ago

> An ancient human civilization figured out that the development of certain technologies was responsible for their downfall, and instituted measures to prevent such a downfall from recurring. Sounds like the plot of Dune

WastingMyTime89 4y ago

That’s extremely far fetched. You don’t need to go that far to find a plaisible explanation. Realistically if I was part of a country army and I had just picked up a foreign object to study, I would want to give its originator the least information possible about what I know and what I’m doing. Telling the media the object was fully destroyed and we don’t know anything about it is both a convenient and easy way to do just that.

haswell 4y ago
Yes, I agree and alluded to that. The only reason to bring the far fetched theories into these conversations is because most of the standard (and more likely) explanations have been beaten to death.

lm28469 4y ago

> The sudden explosion of AI tech - both in the tech community and the public consciousness - seems like a trigger event as good as any. Aliens when humanity comes up with the atom bomb * shrugs * Aliens when humanity invents a chatbot that can semi coherently talk about stuff "Oh my god this is a paradigm shift, singularity is so close, quick deploy the BALLOONS"

haswell 4y ago
Setting aside the obviously far-fetched notion of aliens, I think it is unwise to downplay the potential future impact of recent AI advances and the progress that is sure to follow. Nuclear weapons just make bigger and more hazardous explosions. That’s obviously a big deal. But the doomsday scenarios for AI are arguably scarier because of the current climate of unrestricted proliferation, and the potential impact on human cognition and future forms of warfare in the long term. That also doesn’t make those doomsday scenarios likely, but the impact of such scenarios is

balderdash 4y ago

Isn’t it more plausible that these are simply technologies that are classified/not acknowledged by either side? If the military were to identify the technology employed by an adversary, then they’d get the question of do they possess the same capability, which is a conversation they’d probably not want to have

haswell 4y ago
Yes, I agree that this is far more plausible.