4 ms·

I think 3I/Atlas is a comet. But I also think the question "what if it wasn't" is useful to consider. I'd label anyone unwilling to discuss that topic a crank

• ceejayoz 1y ago
  “What if” is just fine. Loeb goes quite a bit further than that.
  • philbo 1y ago
    Does he though? Honestly I haven't seen it. I've been through the last ~10 or ~15 posts on his Medium this evening, to check. Sentence-by-sentence I don't see anything that goes beyond "what if". Can you share some of the quotes you have in mind? I think this is an interesting phenomenon, because it seems that lots of people throw personal insults at him (not saying that's you btw) without addressing the meat of whatever they're reacting to. And lest we forget! One of the founding essays [1] of this very website discusses it: if you're slinging ad hominem attacks or personal insults around, you're by definition losing the "argument" (not that I think this qualifies as an "argument"). [1]: https://paulgraham.com/disagree.html https://paulgraham.com/disagree.html
    • ceejayoz 1y ago
      https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/alien-technology-ocean/ https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/alien-technology-oce... as an example.