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I believe intelligent life is likely out there, I just think this stuff with the govt is 100% horseshit

rsmurphy wrote: Thu Jul 27, 2023 8:13 pm

Anthony Flack wrote: Thu Jul 27, 2023 7:31 pm Well that wouldn't be a very exciting alien story, would it? Did you expect he would say "look, I don't want to perjure myself under oath. This is all crap, I got nothing, but I'll be way more specific in my book."

You seem fun!

Really, is that where we're bottoming out to? Boo hoo, I think charlatans are charlatans, what a party pooper I am.

Ew...now I take it back.

llllllllllllllllllll wrote: Thu Jul 27, 2023 8:18 pm I believe intelligent life is likely out there, I just think this stuff with the govt is 100% horseshit

The wild thing is, if the universe is infinite in extent (and right now nobody can say it isn't; all we know is that it's bigger than we can know), then not only is intelligent life out there, but an infinite number of duplicate Earths are out there too, an infinite number of you and me, in every possible permutation. But separated by unimaginable distance. The infinite monkeys type out the works of Shakespeare an infinite number of times in an infinite cosmos but we never get word of it.

I read a lot of science fiction as a kid, and as an adult I want to know what's out there so I want to know what we know. I want to have at least a layman's understanding of what we understand about physics, cosmology and human consciousness, roughly at least. Just a baseline understanding of what we're dealing with. Because I'm INTERESTED. The thing that frustrates me about UFO truthers (I've known a few) is they are bored by all of that, and they sure aren't interested in entertaining the notion that it could be a hoax or a delusion (thanks for demonstrating, RSMurphy). They just want their beliefs reinforced. Anyone who doesn't play along is close-minded, or just not fun.

All I see is the same motivated reasoning that you get with cranks and truthers of all stripes.

Anthony Flack wrote: Thu Jul 27, 2023 7:23 pmWhat I do know is that the human capacity for lies, hoaxes, self-delusion, confirmation bias, hallucination and believing third-hand information from people who are clearly cray-cray is easily capable of encompassing aliens, ESP, psychokinesis, ghosts, magic, miracles, cryptozoology and the other beliefs that remain stubbornly resistant to producing any concrete evidence of their existence.

While I can conceive of and am optimistic about the potential existence of at least some of these things, I agree completely.

Anthony Flack wrote:thanks for demonstrating, RSMurphy

Lighten up, Francis, I'm just playing with you. My stars. If you care to take even a cursory look back through this thread you will find that I am no truther. I enjoy UAPs. I think something strange is happening. I think there is intelligent life out there or in *there*. Waiting for confirmation. I also think police officers are a prime component of drive-by shootings, but that's for another thread.

Cynics! So fun.

Anthony Flack wrote: Thu Jul 27, 2023 7:23 pmWhat I do know is that the human capacity for lies, hoaxes, self-delusion, confirmation bias, hallucination and believing third-hand information from people who are clearly cray-cray is easily capable of encompassing aliens, ESP, psychokinesis, ghosts, magic, miracles, cryptozoology and the other beliefs that remain stubbornly resistant to producing any concrete evidence of their existence.

This is true. And yet you could have 99% of cited cases proven to be bunk and if just that remaining 1% (or less) are somehow real, then all the bunk shit is negligible.

I generally abide by some sort of "skeptic's ethos" after going down various rabbit holes with these things. But it's important to remember that while the human race being tragically flawed can mean we're deluded about any number of things (like specific alien sightings), it can also mean we don't have a handle on it all.

We're not it, in other words, the be all and end all. We don't reside at the end of the evolutionary scale. Science will tell you this. Imagine, for a second, another species from a distant planet, collectively far less prone to self-destruction and iniquity; they've got a few thousand or maybe even ten thousand years of a head start on us, never went through some kind of Dark Ages and aren't prone to regressive behavioral patterns, etc. Well I think they'd probably have interstellar travel figured out by now, even it were just done by drone or some sort of Von Neumann probe (which we aren't even that far off from doing ourselves).

This doesn't make a given claim any more credible, but it's at least somewhere within the realm of possibility that piloted things not of this world could visit here.

If there was any hard proof of aliens, trump would've blabbed his big mouth about it over and over.

twelvepoint wrote: Fri Jul 28, 2023 7:52 am If there was any hard proof of aliens, trump would've blabbed his big mouth about it over and over.

Right? He would have given one to the Saudis.

No matter what you believe, you can't believe that if the CIA had this intel they're sharing it with the fucking elected - and therefore transient - POTUS. Especially Trump lol, but still.

Evidence changes over time. Datasets increase, the understanding of Einstein's theory of relativity, dark matter...the shit we don't know is - historically speaking - absolutely fucking massive. I mean, we're not even 100 years into the jet propulsion age, We're only 80 years into the nuclear age, and we're not even 40 years into the information age. To think that discoveries will somehow slow down, or that we as mankind are incapable of harnessing energies we don't yet understand....I don't believe that. For all the garbage and horror that we're capable of - fucking virus that humans are - there's some really remarkable shit that's happened in just the last 50 years alone, and I expect that will continue. Likely exponentially.

Human nature is to reject these hugely unknowable things out of hand - it's a biological defense mechanism hard coded into our little brain glands. I'm not prepared to reject anything related to alien life - there's not enough evidence yet to say that, so until then, the question will remain. We barely know about how life works here lol and we're planning on declaring how life will or won't work elsewhere? Not buying it.