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Would The Government Hide Aliens From Us?
Topic Started: Feb 21 2016, 06:43 PM (1,049 Views)
LittleLazyLass
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Victorbrine
Feb 22 2016, 11:16 AM
I was going to be very disappointed in you if that was not what it turned out to be.
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lamna
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I expect the US government would try to control the flow of information, maybe try to hold it back for a short while to get all their ducks in a row, but I don't think they will try to stop it coming out.

I also doubt anything short of "WE'RE COMING TO EAT YOUR BRAINS" would cause much of a panic. People don't really give a shit, I expect you'd get worse panics to do with snow.
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Niedfaru
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See, I often hear the "conspiracy can't exist because people are incompetent" line. And I almost buy it.

But then I think about the Brave New World theory, and conclude that the conspirators could be as incompetent as you like, and no-one would care until aliens publicly announced themselves. I think the X-Files does a pretty good job of showing how conspiracy theorists are actually helping create white noise to mask any real conspiracies that may exist.

Basically, it doesn't matter how incompetent the people in power are. The public are more incompetent, and the media will only exacerbate the problem.
Edited by Niedfaru, Feb 22 2016, 04:01 PM.
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Kamidio
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That's a very cynical view.

It's a very stupid view.
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whachamacallit2
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It really has nothing to do with incompetence, it pretty much has to do with entropy. Conspiracies do obviously exist, but they rarely last more than a decade as the chance of leaks increase. The larger the number of conspirators, the more likely that a leak will form. Take the NSA's PRISM program for example; the program lasted only 6 years before getting revealed and directly involved a few ten thousand people at most. A conspiracy lasting half a century (a la aliens stuff) and having to involve millions of people would be extremely difficult to nearly impossible.

Also, Kameneigh, what he said wasn't stupid. Obviously there are things nations are doing that are not known to the public, and those can be called conspiracies. To assume there are none in the world is equally as foolish as thinking ancient conspiracies perpetually exist.
Edited by whachamacallit2, Feb 22 2016, 04:46 PM.
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Niedfaru
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Let me be clear here: I don't believe there is an alien conspiracy. But assume for a moment there actually was one. Then any number of the rumours that have circulated in the past 70 years could actually be a leak. How would we, the public, tell the difference between a leak and a rumour. Especially once the leak gets out to a small number of people, and those people pass it on in a distorted form and boom, a rumour is born from the leak. And so it becomes more and more difficult. A really canny organisations could enhance this by deliberately spreading misinformation. But I'm not sure they'd need to.

In honesty, I think there a far more relevant and pressing concerns that are being obfuscated by the same means, and I don't think aliens have ever made contact with Earth. But I also don't think we can claim that either entropy or incompetence will necessarily unveil any conspiracies that may exist. There is a point at which that could happen, but once that has passed, those same mechanisms will only serve to help confuse things. Perhaps the more meaningful thing to take away from this is that conspiracies don't usually last very long because they don't need to.
Edited by Niedfaru, Feb 22 2016, 04:54 PM.
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lamna
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You could probably tell the real from the fake if there was real stuff. I mean there are plausible rumours and conspiracies all the time, but they fade while the true ones stand the test of time.

Plus, while the security would probably be as high as it possibly could be, the motivation to spill the beans would be equally high. Not only is this important information some whistler blower would feel people have a right to know, but you could make a good living off books and interviews as they person who revealed this stuff.
Edited by lamna, Feb 22 2016, 05:59 PM.
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LittleLazyLass
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but you could make a good living off books and interviews as they person who revealed this stuff.
While you're exiled in Russia.
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Flisch
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whachamacallit2
Feb 22 2016, 04:32 PM
A conspiracy lasting half a century (a la aliens stuff) and having to involve millions of people would be extremely difficult to nearly impossible.

Millions of people? Where the hell does that number come from?

LittleIslander
Feb 22 2016, 08:04 PM
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but you could make a good living off books and interviews as they person who revealed this stuff.
While you're exiled in Russia.

Confirmed: Lamna's living standards are not very high.




Also one thing in this thread is laughable: The notion that we apparently know all major conspiracies. People, it's called a conspiracy precisely because the population at large does not know about it. How do you even begin to determine how much of the conspiracy-sphere, past or present, we have uncovered?

I mean look, most conspiracies are hogwash, because people love a good secret agent drama story. (Except for the flat earth conspiracy! Wake up sheople!) But arguing against conspiracies, because otherwise we would know about them is literally one of the most nonsensical arguments I have ever read in an intentionally unhumorous context.

As for the entropy of conspiracies: You have to factor in the momentum of social pressure. This is the entire reason why it is so hard to tell leaks from rumors, as someone has already brought up. Even if we are presented with a leak, how many people are going to believe it apart from the people who believe every conspiracy? Nobody, because it would make them look like nutjobs. The population is keeping itself in check. Once you have established a conspiracy theory in the regular conspiracy theorists circles it's super-easy to let it fly under the radar, because every piece of information will be disregarded immediately as either insufficient evidence or some guy's insane ramblings.

Do I believe in, for example, the alien conspiracy? Not really, but mostly for meta reasons. The chance of sapient life evolving in the same galaxy at roughly the same time with only a distance of, say, a million years is so astronomically low, that it is simply extremely improbable.

And yet, I find your guys' naiveté to be droll to a comedic degree.
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Mr Mysterio
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Well, to be fair, we're not talking about whether or not an alien conspiracy is actually possible. We're speaking entirely in hypotheticals here. So, hypothetically, as unlikely a situation as it is, if a sapient alien species either equally or far more technologically advanced than us were to make private contact with, say, the American government, would the government keep first contact secret? If so, how, and why, and how long would it take for the truth to leak?
It's a hell of a lot of ifs, to be sure, and 90% of this scenario is extremely unlikely (like I've said, I personally think America would love the idea of announcing that they, not anyone else, were the first to make contact), but nonetheless, it's a pretty fun thought experiment.
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LittleLazyLass
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Mr Mysterio
Feb 24 2016, 02:56 PM
(like I've said, I personally think America would love the idea of announcing that they, not anyone else, were the first to make contact)
I mean, it depends on whether or not this happens during Trump's term.

I can already see public hysteria happening to the reveal, and him blaming the muslims and/or mexicans in response.
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LittleIslander
Feb 24 2016, 03:47 PM
Mr Mysterio
Feb 24 2016, 02:56 PM
(like I've said, I personally think America would love the idea of announcing that they, not anyone else, were the first to make contact)
I mean, it depends on whether or not this happens during Trump's term.

I can already see public hysteria happening to the reveal, and him blaming the muslims and/or mexicans in response.
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Martin
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The chance of sapient life evolving in the same galaxy at roughly the same time with only a distance of, say, a million years is so astronomically low, that it is simply extremely improbable.

It's not really that low, considering the number of stars our galaxy alone has (roughly 100 billion stars, at least according to Space.com). And besides, who said that the sapient had to have evolved within the last million years?

Otherwise, I largely agree with Flisch and Niedfaru.
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Feb 24 2016, 02:22 PM
whachamacallit2
Feb 22 2016, 04:32 PM
A conspiracy lasting half a century (a la aliens stuff) and having to involve millions of people would be extremely difficult to nearly impossible.

Millions of people? Where the hell does that number come from?
Pretty much every astronomer, casual or professional ? They would all have to be payed off to not make report about aliens zooming through the sky. I'm not talking about more realistic conspiratories, should've made that more clear.

Also, I would like to point out I even agreed that conspiracies are likely existant, just not the ones that people still say are happening since a long time ago, a la illuminati and ancient aliens. Not a la sponsoring regime change variety.
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Maybe I just have a naively positive view of how humans react to new things (which goes great with my generally cynical view on most humans), but I'd like to think that MIB was wrong and people wouldn't have a mass panic if the discovery of sapient alien life was announced.
I'm not saying that I think we'd react entirely positively. I'm just saying I don't think it'd be "everyone running around and screaming panic" kind of bad reaction, and more of "Fox News people act shitty about it" kind of bad reaction.
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