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i’ve never seen any great evidence of guaranteed alien visitation but tbqh the government being able to lie about it for 80 yearsish is probably the least unbelievable part of any of it
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Apr 25, 2024 18:42
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DrSunshine posted:Yeah, see this is where I get hung up. I still haven't seen anyone advance a credible sociological/economic/political theory as to why that would be the case. People would still, absolutely and 100%, project their dreams, hopes, and visions of humanity onto the aliens, and at most they would fact-check and integrate with what observable details there were. mediaphage posted:i’ve never seen any great evidence of guaranteed alien visitation but tbqh the government being able to lie about it for 80 yearsish is probably the least unbelievable part of any of it (Of course one of the unstated theses is that there's really only one, if you think about it.)
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Apr 25, 2024 19:12
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a pwn cocktail posted:Can you post the strongest examples of this kind of testimony please, so that we can better discern how useful this analogy is, thanks in advance! sure, here is one: Raenir Salazar posted:Ghosts are absolutely real though.
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Apr 25, 2024 19:17
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Like, the galling thing here, about the "Knowledge about alien vistations would cause the world government to collapse" theory, is that there has been a credible, and scientifically well-supported existential risk that has been drum-beat against for decades, and which actually did receive vast amounts of establishment suppression: climate change. The vast majority of the world at least believes in human-caused climate change now, and substantial action on climate change absolutely requires a complete reordering of the global socioeconomic system and political economy. It is clear to billions of people that the fundamental basics of what they survive on, their food, their access to clean water, their ability to live in a temperate range, is under threat. Yet even widespread awareness of this fact has not produced the kind of up-ending of the social order that alien theorists constantly expound that an "alien revelation" would.
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Apr 25, 2024 19:30
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I think the theory is that finding out there is intelligent life in the universe would totally destroy everyone's brains and they'd go insane in the streets. I don't think this would be the case. It would probably be a really exciting short-term topic and would likely get space programs funded heavily. If the aliens open diplomatic relations of some kind and start handing over the cargo or offering technical assistance on various things, perhaps a different story. One thing that gets cited a lot is the example of Western colonists showing up, murdering, and displacing various native societies, but this wasn't done with their mere presence. (Other than the diseases, but we know, in general terms, how infectuous diseases work.) The assumption that alien contact would work like that is a projection of the vision of human beings onto the concept of the alien.
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Apr 25, 2024 19:39
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a pwn cocktail posted:This would require a definition of hearsay so broad as to literally break science. How many pieces of scientific knowledge do you have that don't fundamentally rest on believing what someone's told you? Have you personally run all the experiments? Did you personally read all the measurements? Confirm all the equations? Oh, for christ’s sake, are you loving making GBS threads me? This has, in a single exchange, devolved into questioning the basics of epistemology? That just shows how weak your position actually is. Show us some loving evidence. poo poo or get off the pot.
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Apr 25, 2024 22:26
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Governments haven't kept alien visitation secret. The intelligence agencies involved promote a taboo around taking leaks and encounters seriously such that "serious minded" liberals and science adjacent people self-censor lest they be deemed unserious. You can see the disconnect when people are more than happy to concede that there's probably other dudes around in the Milky Way, as long as it's kept safely hypothetical. As soon as you take the obvious next step of "maybe they've sent probes to Earth" they shut down and aliens are suddenly ghosts and bigfoot. You'd think science people would snap at the chance to investigate a (hypothetically)~1% chance of aliens being real and have investigated Earth. Instead they use a 100% proof requirement to even be interested to resolve the ego pain of challenging the taboo.
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Apr 26, 2024 01:08
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There is more proof that angels have visited the Earth than aliens.
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Apr 26, 2024 01:14
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Ratios and Tendency posted:You'd think science people would snap at the chance to investigate a (hypothetically)~1% chance of aliens being real and have investigated Earth. The fact that you are either unaware on unwilling to admit that enormous amounts of resources and investigation has been done - and, indeed, continues to be done - on this very subject shows how profoundly unserious you are. The claims aren't rejected because scientists are unwilling to investigate them. They're rejected because they've either been investigated and dismissed or, as what happens in most of these cases, those seeking to investigate are themselves refused access by the ones who are claiming to have evidence, so no demonstrable evidence is ever produced for investigation in the first place. Once again, I repeat, this time with emphasis: poo poo or get off the pot. Show us everything you've got on this alien spacecraft, these alien bodies, these alien materials. Stop bitching about how 'the cabal' is holding you back because from my perspective, the only thing holding you back is your own lack of substantive evidence and your deference to magical and conspiratorial thinking.
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Apr 26, 2024 02:36
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I want to see the data also. For some reason (it confirms your assumptions, let's be real) the DoD shrugging and saying "it's classified" or "we deleted the data" is enough for you to not be interested.
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Apr 26, 2024 05:35
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Ratios and Tendency posted:I want to see the data also. I'm glad that, on this, we agree. Ratios and Tendency posted:For some reason (it confirms your assumptions, let's be real) the DoD shrugging and saying "it's classified" or "we deleted the data" is enough for you to not be interested. Hey man, it's not my fault that the DoD is so apparently omnipresent and powerful that they can collect and prevent the dissemination of any material evidence of what is presented as a worldwide phenomenon.
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Apr 26, 2024 06:05
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Jesus III posted:There is more proof that angels have visited the Earth than aliens. Excellent username/post combo. But yeah, this is why the UFO topic was spun off into it's own thread where people can huff their farts at their leisure and enjoy the fruit of the chorizo alien, the happy Eid techno chair probe, CGI plane abductions, and hearing after hearing after hearing.
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Apr 26, 2024 07:45
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Ratios and Tendency posted:You'd think science people would snap at the chance to investigate a (hypothetically)~1% chance of aliens being real and have investigated Earth. Instead they use a 100% proof requirement to even be interested to resolve the ego pain of challenging the taboo. But... they are?  https://science.nasa.gov/uap/
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Apr 26, 2024 14:18
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I would also like to point out here, in the space thread with space-minded folks, one of the missions of the James Webb telescope is looking at atmospheres of other planets to try and figure out if they'd be capable of hosting life. Like, that is a rather major piece of scientific apparatus right there. And that's probably the most famous search for extra-terrestrial life since SETI and Arecibo. On a personal note, I never worked with people who do this kind of science personally, but know some socially. It's just absurd to say there isn't "serious science" done on the topic. Of course the OP somewhat muddied the waters with immediately jumping to alien spacecraft visiting us, which is an orders of magnitude size differential in the engineering difficulties. Sure, Voyagers are still beeping along apparently, but it will take them thousands of years to reach a nearby star. What we know of how the cosmos is shaped like, it's very difficult to travel to other star systems. This doesn't mean it's not possible! But if you have to allocate funding for space science, do you try looking for life-bearing planets with a probe situated in our own solar system, or try to make a nuke-fueled rocket ship to reach Alpha Centauri within a human life-span?
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Apr 26, 2024 14:30
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to the extent that it’s possible at all in the near term i’m way more confident about the ska finding technosignatures than i am the jwst finding undeniable biosignatures
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Apr 26, 2024 14:37
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Rappaport posted:I would also like to point out here, in the space thread with space-minded folks, one of the missions of the James Webb telescope is looking at atmospheres of other planets to try and figure out if they'd be capable of hosting life. Like, that is a rather major piece of scientific apparatus right there. And that's probably the most famous search for extra-terrestrial life since SETI and Arecibo. I wonder if we want to be honest about it, to make a good-faith effort, the ol' college try, we should change our horizons for what a space-exploration project should look like. Perhaps reorient our perspective and time-scales. In the past, during the middle ages, or in the Classical age, people did not seem to care that a cathedral or pyramid or Great Wall would take more than a human lifetime to build. Instead, those projects were embarked with the idea of honoring God, or surpassing the afterlife, or what-have-you. A higher ideological purpose went into these multi-lifespan projects, and they seemingly were embarked upon with no immediate tangible benefit. Likewise, space exploration and the search for alien life might also need to have the same perspective applied to them. Might it not actually degrade the value of these efforts by subjecting them to limits like delivering answers within a human lifespan?
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Apr 26, 2024 14:59
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DrSunshine posted:I wonder if we want to be honest about it, to make a good-faith effort, the ol' college try, we should change our horizons for what a space-exploration project should look like. Perhaps reorient our perspective and time-scales. In the past, during the middle ages, or in the Classical age, people did not seem to care that a cathedral or pyramid or Great Wall would take more than a human lifetime to build. Instead, those projects were embarked with the idea of honoring God, or surpassing the afterlife, or what-have-you. A higher ideological purpose went into these multi-lifespan projects, and they seemingly were embarked upon with no immediate tangible benefit. Things like astronomy do span multiple human lifespans, at least talking professional career wise. poo poo, the Voyager probes are pretty old too. The problem is that you can shoot a robot into space and it will keep doing what it does, because Star Wars rules say robots aren't people, except R2-D2. I'm not sure what kind of science missions we could do with human beings. Imagine trying to sell people going on a generational star-ship. I have to drink recycled pee water every day, have kids and I won't be able to Instagram any of it? Our (Western) ideology doesn't really have answers for this. Plus the people you'd need would have to be fit, although a multi-generational space craft mission does sound like a hilarious goon project
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Apr 26, 2024 15:10
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I think one of the benefits of human space exploration comes from subjective information, actually. A robot can send back telemetry, data, samples, and so on, but what does it feel like to stand on the surface of Mars? To watch the sun rise from 180 million kilometers? To see the sunlight reflect off the wispy dry ice clouds? A future Mars mission should have an artist, writer, or poet onboard, honestly. That said, what I meant was the Alpha Centauri probe shouldn't be expected to be a one human lifespan kind of deal. I didn't mean "Generation Ship", hah.
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Apr 26, 2024 15:16
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I was thinking about telescopes last night and this may have been considered, but I thought I would say it anyway in case there are problems I can't really infer. Would it be possible to put, say, several JWST-grade telescopes in Earth's leading and trailing Lagrange points and use that distance as one of those virtual telescope, "it actually works like a telescope the size of the space between them" things whose proper name I misremember?
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Apr 26, 2024 15:36
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Nessus posted:I was thinking about telescopes last night and this may have been considered, but I thought I would say it anyway in case there are problems I can't really infer. This may be what you are looking for. Apologies for the wiki dump.
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Apr 26, 2024 15:39
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DrSunshine posted:I think one of the benefits of human space exploration comes from subjective information, actually. A robot can send back telemetry, data, samples, and so on, but what does it feel like to stand on the surface of Mars? To watch the sun rise from 180 million kilometers? To see the sunlight reflect off the wispy dry ice clouds? A future Mars mission should have an artist, writer, or poet onboard, honestly. that’s absolutely true. i’d also point out that one scientist with some kit on mars could probably do all the work that’s been done by all the rovers ever sent there in a very short amount of time. and then all the other tests that we haven’t. is that sufficiently worthwhile to develop the capability to do so in a relatively safe manner? ¯\_(ツ)_/ idk
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Apr 26, 2024 15:39
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Rappaport posted:This may be what you are looking for. Apologies for the wiki dump.
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Apr 26, 2024 15:40
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DrSunshine posted:I think one of the benefits of human space exploration comes from subjective information, actually. A robot can send back telemetry, data, samples, and so on, but what does it feel like to stand on the surface of Mars? To watch the sun rise from 180 million kilometers? To see the sunlight reflect off the wispy dry ice clouds? A future Mars mission should have an artist, writer, or poet onboard, honestly. In this context, we also have to remember that we've never done anything in space with the intent of (relatively) faster inter system travel. If we actually cared to send a probe to Alpha Centauri, we could get one there in 50 years at .086c plus breaking time which is still in the range of a full single lifetime, especially professionally but still single. For all the things we have done, we've basically done next to nothing out of the full scope of things we have the technical capabilities to do because we've had other priorities.
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Apr 26, 2024 16:11
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Dameius posted:In this context, we also have to remember that we've never done anything in space with the intent of (relatively) faster inter system travel. If we actually cared to send a probe to Alpha Centauri, we could get one there in 50 years at .086c plus breaking time which is still in the range of a full single lifetime, especially professionally but still single. Was that an idea based on the nuclear pulse rocket (Daedalus) concept, or the Project Starshot effort they're working on right now with the mini solar sail swarm?
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Apr 26, 2024 16:20
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Nessus posted:I was thinking about telescopes last night and this may have been considered, but I thought I would say it anyway in case there are problems I can't really infer. Optical interferometry is very difficult and has only been done in a limited range and with modest results from the ground. NASA did have plans for a Space Interferometry Mission with much more modest separations (like, meters) on board one telescope but it was cancelled. Also note you can do plain old parallax with a single telescope over larger baselines than Earth orbit but it takes a while to get a spacescraft out to, say, Neptune. I see there are new proposals (see also the mention of LIFE at the bottom) but I don't think these have much of a chance of actually happening. I would guess that a space-based radio interferometer is more likely to happen if someone develops a large but strong and lightweight folding dish. In fact it already exists to some extent. LISA has a higher chance of actually happening than any AU-scale optical or radio interferometer.
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Apr 26, 2024 18:19
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DrSunshine posted:Was that an idea based on the nuclear pulse rocket (Daedalus) concept, or the Project Starshot effort they're working on right now with the mini solar sail swarm? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fission-fragment_rocket cat botherer fucked around with this message at 18:38 on Apr 26, 2024 |
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Apr 26, 2024 18:35
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 Alright folks, new goon project: let's build an Alpha Centauri rocket with a stack of used HDDs.
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Apr 26, 2024 18:41
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DrSunshine posted:
Enough of us either work in or have professional access to data centers, we could build quite the stockpile.
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Apr 26, 2024 18:50
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DrSunshine posted:
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Apr 26, 2024 19:30
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DrSunshine posted:I wonder if we want to be honest about it, to make a good-faith effort, the ol' college try, we should change our horizons for what a space-exploration project should look like. Perhaps reorient our perspective and time-scales. In the past, during the middle ages, or in the Classical age, people did not seem to care that a cathedral or pyramid or Great Wall would take more than a human lifetime to build. Instead, those projects were embarked with the idea of honoring God, or surpassing the afterlife, or what-have-you. A higher ideological purpose went into these multi-lifespan projects, and they seemingly were embarked upon with no immediate tangible benefit. We just need an absolute tyrant willing to put a significant proportion of his empire’s resources toward the project of interstellar travel. Maybe someone could make a religion all about humanity becoming an interstellar species. But without all the zealotry and mass murder of Earth religions, just in case we find another civilization somewhere.
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Apr 27, 2024 02:41
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I fully believe we'll get an Expanse like space future just from good ol' capitalism but you can generally see my arguments for this in the previous version of the thread.
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Apr 27, 2024 03:04
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It's hard to express how wrong the conspiracy-filled are about scientists. The assumption that we ignore things because of dogma couldn't be further from the truth. There's little that would excite a scientist more than evidence of contact with aliens. I grant that we are a fickle bunch. Our requirements for what qualifies as "good evidence" have high standards. But give us that evidence? Far from being embarrassed at being wrong, we'd be celebrating how right you are. We know we're wrong to some extent, that's literally the point of science, correcting what's wrong about our knowledge. Give us some new insight and we'll give you a prize. Overthrow our best theory with one with better evidence and we'll celebrate you for as long as we exist. We'll name elements and units of measurement after you. People will debate which ideas of yours were correct and which were wrong for ages. Scientists aren't your enemies; prove your claim and scientists will be your bitches. No one wants to be shown how wrong they are more than scientists. But on the other hand, no one is dicked around with about these ideas more than scientists. It gets pretty tiresome when a community keeps announcing that they have evidence, convincing evidence, and it'll blow your mind, just wait until you see it...and then never delivers. This dance isn't new. Thinking you've got the truth and believing you've got the truth isn't the same thing as demonstrating that you've got the truth. But once again, I can't stress this enough: there's nothing we'd like more then for you to be right and for egg to be on our faces. ashpanash fucked around with this message at 05:36 on Apr 27, 2024 |
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Apr 27, 2024 05:30
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ashpanash posted:It's hard to express how wrong the conspiracy-filled are about scientists. The assumption that we ignore things because of dogma couldn't be further from the truth. There's little that would excite a scientist more than evidence of contact with aliens. As an example, I don't think there is a single physicist alive today that hasn't day dreamed at least once about being the person who proved Einstein wrong.
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Apr 27, 2024 07:29
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my fav are all the cancer cures scientists have made that are just being kept hidden away to make money or something
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Apr 27, 2024 10:57
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mediaphage posted:my fav are all the cancer cures scientists have made that are just being kept hidden away to make money or something The secrete scientists got so bored after they found the cures to all existing cancers, they invented dozens more cancers just so they could make the cures to them as well! The cover up about bored secrete scientists the government doesn't want you to know!!!
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Apr 27, 2024 11:09
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dr_rat posted:The secrete scientists got so bored after they found the cures to all existing cancers, they invented dozens more cancers just so they could make the cures to them as well!  there is that rise in younger cancers
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Apr 27, 2024 11:39
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ashpanash posted:It's hard to express how wrong the conspiracy-filled are about scientists. The assumption that we ignore things because of dogma couldn't be further from the truth. There's little that would excite a scientist more than evidence of contact with aliens. Conspiracists contest the very idea of evidence, though. So when you tell then their evidence isn’t good enough to be taken seriously, they take it as an invalidation of their entire worldview. Which of course it is.
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Apr 27, 2024 11:53
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ashpanash posted:It's hard to express how wrong the conspiracy-filled are about scientists. The assumption that we ignore things because of dogma couldn't be further from the truth. There's little that would excite a scientist more than evidence of contact with aliens. Some of the most rewarding conversations I've had as a scientist have been the ones where all the participants try to wrap their minds around an issue, no one gives a poo poo who gets something right and who gets something wrong, just as long as the iteration leads into a good solution. Maybe to the lay-man it's hard to understand this kind of thinking, since normally people desperately want to be right, on an emotional level. But if we're doing  no one cares who gets the flux capacitor working, we all did it and now we're going back in time to make our parents hook up with each other. Or, you know, study some minutiae of physical processes that are hard to explain to the everyman, but it's all in the end! I genuinely wonder how much cultural "damage" the X-Files did to the communal psyche about how much conspiracy nonsense was real. We can't disprove the counter-factual that something actually came down at Roswell, or at Tunguska, or wherever, that had alien life if no one is permitted to study it. "Secret science" exists in the sense that companies want to keep their intellectual properties to themselves, and governments want to keep dangerous poo poo like nuclear weapons hidden away. But the scientific community at large would, as you say, go absolutely crazy happy if we got some good sign that there are extra-terrestrials. I AM GRANDO posted:We just need an absolute tyrant willing to put a significant proportion of his empire’s resources toward the project of interstellar travel. We just need the Man-Kzin wars. Nothing like an existential battle for survival that makes every politician want to fund whatever crazy space poo poo you want done.
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Apr 27, 2024 12:29
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The conspiracy theory in question is coming from senior intelligence agents within the US government.
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Apr 27, 2024 13:34
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Ratios and Tendency posted:The conspiracy theory in question is coming from senior intelligence agents within the US government. Sure, but as was discussed up-thread, there is a certain level of rigour asked of evidence that can be deemed scientific. If your agents can do an info-dump on the science community, everyone would be happy.
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Apr 27, 2024 13:43
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