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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   3256 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for October 11, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Try to set aside the question of aliens for a second and look at it this way.

The Pentagon gave a briefing to NASA on UFOs. This briefing included lots of pictures. They're telling us we're not allowed to see the pictures. So my question is... why? If they're not hiding anything then why not just let us see for ourselves? Yes they might just all turn out to be Chinese weather balloons made of swamp gas, certainly. But I still want to see and judge for myself. Why would anyone not want to?

I don't buy the "national security" excuse. The world's not going to implode just because we got pictures of an advanced spy drone. (Not that I get the impression that that's what this briefing was about in the first place. The fact that these photographs were in a briefing entitled "UFOs" instead of something more pedestrian is pretty odd!)

The reason why anyone should be sceptical of secret aliens is that there is no reason for them to be hidden.

If aliens had landed in Nevada in 1950, we would know about them. This is because the explanation that UFO fans have for secrecy (muh Cold War, muh secret ailyun technology) is bullshit, because any plausible theory of secret alien landings almost certainly involves the likelihood of them landing in Russia and probably China too, not to mention plenty of non-aligned countries without highly capable security states, thus rendering any fantasy advantage of speshul technology useless.

There is no evidence of [intelligent] aliens (…having visited earth in living memory).

I mostly agree with your viewpoint, but the alien enthusiasts have a simple explanation for the visitation pattern: nuclear weapons.

This would also explain ongoing secrecy about Aliens. If the Aliens have any degree of control over nuclear arsenals, then part of the illusion of world powers is shattered.

I do think we have had unusually good luck in that nuclear weapons have been used exactly twice in a real conflict and then never again.

I'm not sure, what nuclear weapons are meant to explain?

Why only visit certain countries?

Why only be in contact with certain governments?

Why only now and not earlier?

OK got it but how do they explain it? I mean, ok, they did not contact us because we didn't have nukes, and now they contacted us because we do have nukes. But why? Why nukes are so important? Civilization that can travel interstellar distances should have stuff that is to our nukes like our nukes are to a bronze spear.

They offer quite a few reasons:

  1. If the Aliens are benevolent then nukes are the first time humans really have the chance to extinct ourselves.
  2. If the Aliens care about habitable worlds we could mess up one of their gardens.
  3. Nukes might be more noticeablr to casual observers.
  4. Maybe there are threshold technologies required for joining some galactic community, and nukes is a threshold.

Nukes are unique enough.

  1. is nice I guess, though experience shows me that "fixing" other civilization often results in the death of the one being fixed, or in making it much, much worse.

  2. You imply Earth is their garden? How comes if they never been here before?

  3. Only if you happen to be very close exactly at the time it's tested, and open tests have been banned a while ago, very unlikely

  4. That would be weird. It doesn't allow one to neither physically join any galactic communities nor even communicate with them meaningfully, why would that be a threshold? I'd expect if not FTL transport/communication than at least Expanse-style long range propulsion that makes at least populating the Solar system possible. Without it, the only think nukes allow us is hurt ourselves really badly. That's not a good criteria to join anything but an extreme introvert BSDM club.

I said it up above, but ill have to say it again. I don't believe aliens are actively visiting earth. I guess I'm just around alien enthusiasts often enough that I know many of their arguments.

I originally responded when someone was asking "why don't they have an explanation for X". I then answered ... they do have an explanation for it. If we are going to get into how good the explanation actually is then I just want to stop, because I don't really think they are good explanations. I'm just saying the explanations and the answers are there.

At some point it is closer to a creative writing exercise for them. Making the most elaborate explanation for the presence of aliens while fitting all the available data. Asking them more in depth questions is not a path towards convincing them, its a path towards more fun for them because it adds on an additional challenge to the mass creative writing exercise they are all involved in.

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