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Articles like this won't age well if it turns out they've been here for decades already, which we may imminently find out. Instead of a reasonable position giv

Articles like this won't age well if it turns out they've been here for decades already, which we may imminently find out. Instead of a reasonable position given a lack of physical evidence, it will look like a gross mistrust of a mass quantity of qualified eyewitness testimony

leon_theremin 3y ago
[flagged]
netsharc 3y ago
An announcement of the existence of alien life (even alien life on this planet) doesn't equal confirmation that UFO sightings (objects in the sky that couldn't be identified) are actually sightings of extra-terrestrial crafts...
- pmarreck 3y ago
  Strictly correct, but also improbably correct, given the claimed performance envelopes and behavior of these craft (I'm talking the ones pinging on radar, not just the visual reports)
NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
Why would they be here? I'm just physically incapable of the superhuman levels of narcissism that are required to think that if intelligent aliens were aware of us that they'd spend the effort to bother to come here. Either that effort is itself measured at godlike superhuman levels, or it's effortless for them (or any point along that spectrum). As if becomes less effort for them, we become less interesting. As it becomes more effort. There isn't even any happy medium for this. If there is some middle ground that would have them visit other civilizations... then why ours? Someone's closer to them. Someone looks like they might be worth meeting. We're the ugly guy on Galactic Tindr, and by virtue of their ability to do interstellar travel, they're the hot 9.8s. They're not going to swipe right on us, they'll pick someone else. Maybe some flying saucer stopped by because it was along the way and they like doing quick surveys... but we've been more or less the same level of interesting for the last 4 billion years. That it just happened during the 20th century instead of 400 million years ago seems improbable. Superhumanly narcissistic.
- revscat 3y ago
  What strikes me as narcissistic is the presumption that you know what is narcissistic. It’s possible that the reasons for their presence is simply a mystery that we have not figured out yet.
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
    We're so full of awesome mysteries, they can't help themselves!
    - revscat 3y ago
      So you believe that humanity’s current knowledge is complete enough that an advanced civilization — say 100,000 years ahead of us — would behave in ways that are wholly understandable to us, is that correct? Or are you going to offer up more sarcasm and/or ridicule? That in an of itself is problematic, by the way. The refusal to treat this subject honestly and in good faith by so many is deeply unscientific.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
        [dead]
    - pmarreck 3y ago
      If you're smart enough to think you have something to say about this, you're also smart enough to know that "appeal to ridicule" is fallacious. What if we're the new kid on the interstellar space-travel block? What if we have more water than any of them have ever seen on one planet in their lives, and they want to start trading? What if one of their species is dying out and needs genetic input from us to make longer-lasting hybrids (this was one claim from all the butt-probing abduction reports)? What if our music (if it turns out that music is a universally appreciable phenomenon by any intelligent species with sound detection/"ears") is actually the most popular in the universe right now and they actually owe us a tremendous amount of galactic currency from "borrowing" our recordings, and just want to settle up? What if we are actually headed towards a worse climate catastrophe than we think, and they are desperate to warn us? What if they feel an intellectual kinship with us but are frustrated by our lack of accepting them, but can't land on the White House lawn without risking incurring an immediate armed counterattack because (as it may turn out), "being deeply initially afraid of aliens" (xenophobia) is a fundamental fact of the universe and the only way to acclimatize us is AVOIDING leaving hard physical evidence behind (which would be too shocking/abrupt a worldview shift) and instead doing systematic desensitization of this xenophobia by using an increasingly frequent pattern of "indirect evidence" (which by the way, looks a heck of a lot like what's actually going on)? (by the way, this is a real thing we're already aware of in human psychology- systematic desensitization is the only known way to cure phobias) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systematic_desensitization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systematic_desensitization The point is, you have no fucking idea what the reason(s) might be, dude. Or how interesting we'd be to others, or why.

leon_theremin 3y ago

[flagged]

netsharc 3y ago

An announcement of the existence of alien life (even alien life on this planet) doesn't equal confirmation that UFO sightings (objects in the sky that couldn't be identified) are actually sightings of extra-terrestrial crafts...

pmarreck 3y ago
Strictly correct, but also improbably correct, given the claimed performance envelopes and behavior of these craft (I'm talking the ones pinging on radar, not just the visual reports)

NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago

Why would they be here? I'm just physically incapable of the superhuman levels of narcissism that are required to think that if intelligent aliens were aware of us that they'd spend the effort to bother to come here. Either that effort is itself measured at godlike superhuman levels, or it's effortless for them (or any point along that spectrum). As if becomes less effort for them, we become less interesting. As it becomes more effort. There isn't even any happy medium for this. If there is some middle ground that would have them visit other civilizations... then why ours? Someone's closer to them. Someone looks like they might be worth meeting. We're the ugly guy on Galactic Tindr, and by virtue of their ability to do interstellar travel, they're the hot 9.8s. They're not going to swipe right on us, they'll pick someone else. Maybe some flying saucer stopped by because it was along the way and they like doing quick surveys... but we've been more or less the same level of interesting for the last 4 billion years. That it just happened during the 20th century instead of 400 million years ago seems improbable. Superhumanly narcissistic.

revscat 3y ago
What strikes me as narcissistic is the presumption that you know what is narcissistic. It’s possible that the reasons for their presence is simply a mystery that we have not figured out yet.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
  We're so full of awesome mysteries, they can't help themselves!
  - revscat 3y ago
    So you believe that humanity’s current knowledge is complete enough that an advanced civilization — say 100,000 years ahead of us — would behave in ways that are wholly understandable to us, is that correct? Or are you going to offer up more sarcasm and/or ridicule? That in an of itself is problematic, by the way. The refusal to treat this subject honestly and in good faith by so many is deeply unscientific.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
      [dead]
  - pmarreck 3y ago
    If you're smart enough to think you have something to say about this, you're also smart enough to know that "appeal to ridicule" is fallacious. What if we're the new kid on the interstellar space-travel block? What if we have more water than any of them have ever seen on one planet in their lives, and they want to start trading? What if one of their species is dying out and needs genetic input from us to make longer-lasting hybrids (this was one claim from all the butt-probing abduction reports)? What if our music (if it turns out that music is a universally appreciable phenomenon by any intelligent species with sound detection/"ears") is actually the most popular in the universe right now and they actually owe us a tremendous amount of galactic currency from "borrowing" our recordings, and just want to settle up? What if we are actually headed towards a worse climate catastrophe than we think, and they are desperate to warn us? What if they feel an intellectual kinship with us but are frustrated by our lack of accepting them, but can't land on the White House lawn without risking incurring an immediate armed counterattack because (as it may turn out), "being deeply initially afraid of aliens" (xenophobia) is a fundamental fact of the universe and the only way to acclimatize us is AVOIDING leaving hard physical evidence behind (which would be too shocking/abrupt a worldview shift) and instead doing systematic desensitization of this xenophobia by using an increasingly frequent pattern of "indirect evidence" (which by the way, looks a heck of a lot like what's actually going on)? (by the way, this is a real thing we're already aware of in human psychology- systematic desensitization is the only known way to cure phobias) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systematic_desensitization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systematic_desensitization The point is, you have no fucking idea what the reason(s) might be, dude. Or how interesting we'd be to others, or why.