This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
That is a better argument than most. I will concede that even JWST probably couldn't detect the thermal signatures, assuming the craft coasted in after doing the bulk of the braking by 10 AU away.
You should posit motivations that constrain expectations better than just "they might behave weirdly". We're still requiring a model of alien psychology that has to reconcile some very questionable behavior, conditioning on the observations actually being of something alien.
Why are they here? If they are here, why do they act in a manner that's just at or below the threshold for robust detection by our ever-improving detection capabilities?
And this is exactly the sort of arrival by aliens we should expect if they don't have exotic space propulsion. Some sort of solar or magnetic sail, from what I can tell, is just a more efficient way of traveling long distances than a nuclear rocket. Fewer moving parts and chance of malfunction, too.
To be clear, I do not think that it needs to follow AT ALL that because some of the stories from e.g. fighter pilots and intelligence personnel are true, that all the stories of alien abductions are true. Similarly, even if every single story of alien abduction is true (as understood by the people telling them) I don't think it follows necessarily that any of the strange UFOs/UAPs spotted in the sky and undersea are alien in origin.
According to who? The narrative from former intelligence/DoD/CIA types is that they very much can be tracked (but that they exhibit evasive behavior/attempts at "signature management"). Are you unaware of the "range foulers" that appeared when the Super Hornets got their AESA upgrade, of the declassified US documents discussing a potential UAP spotting via a satellite, of Ratcliffe talking on national television about corroborating UAP tracks from multiple sensors, of the "UAP detection mode" on the S-400 discussed by a former CIA analyst...?
If your argument is "why aren't they detected by civilians," where's the clear photo of NGAD? Of the SR-72? We know (or at least can assess, in the latter case) they were built and flown. The RQ-180 flew operationally for probably a decade before really clear footage was taken of it by civilians. It's not hard to prevent civilians from taking slam-dunk evidence that something exists. Even large organizations with significant amounts of institutional incompetence can do it routinely.
If we detected atmospheric signatures that strongly indicated life in any star within, say, 40 light-years, I think we would attempt to launch a probe to investigate sometime within the next 100 years. Nothing that we put on that probe would be authorized to speak for us in any binding sense (although of course we might opt to put some golden records or something on it).
Which, if you think about it, would explain fairly neatly the behavior we've witnessed:
I don't think there's a monocausal explanation for UFOs, and due to the numerous reports from many angles of what seems to be what might be termed a "spiritual" dimension to them, I tend to suspect part of the true explanation is even less prosaic than modestly advanced aliens from a nearby world. But I try to think through the possibilities with an open mind, and I don't think the broad outline of the reported behavior is very odd for an unmanned scientific mission. And yes, I don't see any tension between an unmanned scientific mission and the reported acquisition of "bodies." Even granting that an advanced civilization saw a bright line between biological and mechanical entities the way that we do, biological entities could be helpful at accomplishing various aspects of the mission, and there's no law of physics that would prevent them from being put together at the destination, or prevent them from utilizing the biological makeup of the native life, adopted as it conveniently is to its native environment.
Also the stealth Blackhawk. If one hadn’t gone down in Pakistan during the Osama Bin Ladin raid, it would still be unknown to the public. I think that one is especially significant since it’s a vehicle that routinely flies low, and and yet it’s hardly ever been seen.
Another good example. People forget how completely low light environments absolutely neuter cameras!
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link