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I think you have it backwards. I think anybody who is remotely interested in this topic would love for proof of aliens to come out. It's just such an extraordin

I think you have it backwards. I think anybody who is remotely interested in this topic would love for proof of aliens to come out. It's just such an extraordinary claim, that their skepticism demands extraordinary proof. Eyewitness reports and low-res grainy videos are just never going to be enough, no matter who they come from. And that's how it should be. If there is real proof of aliens, it will be on the front page of every newspaper in the world, because it would be the most important discovery of all human history. It will be corroborated with physical evidence that has been examined by multiple experts and professionals. Until that happens, most people are going to be skeptical, and rightly so.

esbranson 3y ago
> extraordinary proof Anti-vaxxers show us there is no such thing.
nobody9999 3y ago
> think you have it backwards. I think anybody who is remotely interested in this topic would love for proof of aliens to come out. It's just such an extraordinary claim, that their skepticism demands extraordinary proof. Eyewitness reports and low-res grainy videos are just never going to be enough, no matter who they come from. And that's how it should be. If there is real proof of aliens, it will be on the front page of every newspaper in the world, because it would be the most important discovery of all human history. It will be corroborated with physical evidence that has been examined by multiple experts and professionals. Until that happens, most people are going to be skeptical, and rightly so. Exactly. I firmly believe that extraterrestrial life exists. My belief comes from the abundance of CHON (Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen) in the universe, combined with extremely long time scales and basic chemistry. Simple/single-celled (or some analog) extraterrestrial life seems almost inevitable based on our understanding of how the universe works. That said, such a belief doesn't include intelligent extraterrestrial life with technological civilizations that might create interstellar spacecraft which regularly visit our little corner of the galaxy. For me to believe that, I'd need a "Klaatu barads nicto"[0] moment. I could be wrong, but there's no compelling evidence that I am. To channel Carl Sagan: "Claims require evidence and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_the_Earth_Stood_Still https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_the_Earth_Stood_Still
- Johnny555 3y ago
  I believe that there's very likely intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, there are ~300 billion stars in just in our galaxy, and the number of stars in the universe are uncountable, one estimate is 7 x 10^22. Not all have planets, of course, and even fewer have planets in what is believed to be a habitable zone. But still, it's just unfathomable that in billions of years across billions of trillions of star systems, that only one developed intelligent life. Even on earth, life was nearly destroyed 5 times, but still survived and evolved. Of course, it's very likely that such life will be forever undetectable by us, and we'll be undetectable by them.
  - nobody9999 3y ago
    You won't get much of an argument about that from me. Again, channeling Carl Sagan[0], "if there's no one else out there, that seems like a huge waste of space." That's a paraphrase but captures the essence of what he wrote. But that doesn't mean it's so. We can be pretty confident that life as we know it has evolved elsewhere, given the chemistry involved, but intelligent, (and more importantly) life that develops technological civilizations is much less certain. Detecting intelligent non-technological life is likely impossible unless we actually visit such a planet. Consider a world where creatures like dolphins or whales are the dominant species. No fire (okay, sodium reactions, but how do you create and store pure sodium ions?), so no metallurgy. As I said, I'd need to see some pretty convincing evidence (even with the vast expanses of both space and time in the universe pushing in that direction) to claim that intelligent, technological life exists elsewhere. That doesn't mean such civilizations don't exist, but given we don't really understand how intelligence (as a prerequisite for a technologically advanced civilization) comes about, except in broad evolutionary terms, making such a claim is premature IMHO. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_(novel)
  - chihuahua 3y ago
    If you like thinking about this sort of thing, there are several (3-6) good episodes of the Lex Fridman podcast that talk about these issues. There's also one that discusses the development of life on earth, it's very interesting and makes it sound like a miracle that we ended up with complex multi-cellular lifeforms.

esbranson 3y ago

> extraordinary proof Anti-vaxxers show us there is no such thing.

nobody9999 3y ago

> think you have it backwards. I think anybody who is remotely interested in this topic would love for proof of aliens to come out. It's just such an extraordinary claim, that their skepticism demands extraordinary proof. Eyewitness reports and low-res grainy videos are just never going to be enough, no matter who they come from. And that's how it should be. If there is real proof of aliens, it will be on the front page of every newspaper in the world, because it would be the most important discovery of all human history. It will be corroborated with physical evidence that has been examined by multiple experts and professionals. Until that happens, most people are going to be skeptical, and rightly so. Exactly. I firmly believe that extraterrestrial life exists. My belief comes from the abundance of CHON (Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen) in the universe, combined with extremely long time scales and basic chemistry. Simple/single-celled (or some analog) extraterrestrial life seems almost inevitable based on our understanding of how the universe works. That said, such a belief doesn't include intelligent extraterrestrial life with technological civilizations that might create interstellar spacecraft which regularly visit our little corner of the galaxy. For me to believe that, I'd need a "Klaatu barads nicto"[0] moment. I could be wrong, but there's no compelling evidence that I am. To channel Carl Sagan: "Claims require evidence and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_the_Earth_Stood_Still https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_the_Earth_Stood_Still

Johnny555 3y ago
I believe that there's very likely intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, there are ~300 billion stars in just in our galaxy, and the number of stars in the universe are uncountable, one estimate is 7 x 10^22. Not all have planets, of course, and even fewer have planets in what is believed to be a habitable zone. But still, it's just unfathomable that in billions of years across billions of trillions of star systems, that only one developed intelligent life. Even on earth, life was nearly destroyed 5 times, but still survived and evolved. Of course, it's very likely that such life will be forever undetectable by us, and we'll be undetectable by them.
- nobody9999 3y ago
  You won't get much of an argument about that from me. Again, channeling Carl Sagan[0], "if there's no one else out there, that seems like a huge waste of space." That's a paraphrase but captures the essence of what he wrote. But that doesn't mean it's so. We can be pretty confident that life as we know it has evolved elsewhere, given the chemistry involved, but intelligent, (and more importantly) life that develops technological civilizations is much less certain. Detecting intelligent non-technological life is likely impossible unless we actually visit such a planet. Consider a world where creatures like dolphins or whales are the dominant species. No fire (okay, sodium reactions, but how do you create and store pure sodium ions?), so no metallurgy. As I said, I'd need to see some pretty convincing evidence (even with the vast expanses of both space and time in the universe pushing in that direction) to claim that intelligent, technological life exists elsewhere. That doesn't mean such civilizations don't exist, but given we don't really understand how intelligence (as a prerequisite for a technologically advanced civilization) comes about, except in broad evolutionary terms, making such a claim is premature IMHO. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_(novel)
- chihuahua 3y ago
  If you like thinking about this sort of thing, there are several (3-6) good episodes of the Lex Fridman podcast that talk about these issues. There's also one that discusses the development of life on earth, it's very interesting and makes it sound like a miracle that we ended up with complex multi-cellular lifeforms.