Ask HN: Do You Believe in Aliens? Seems like a topic that doesn’t come up so much in popular discourse now that we have AI taking up a lot of air time. I personally do, but I wonder if some of you have some thoughts about it |
Ask HN: Do You Believe in Aliens? Seems like a topic that doesn’t come up so much in popular discourse now that we have AI taking up a lot of air time. I personally do, but I wonder if some of you have some thoughts about it |
2. Do I believe other intelligent life forms visit earth in their flying saucers, abduct people, anal probe them, abduct and slaughter cows, build pyramids, and - apparently - crash often? No, not really. I mean, I can't rule it out, but my personal subjective Bayesian prior towards this notion would probably be something like 0.001 or so. But that's actually up from years past, as we learn more about more possibly inhabitable planets that are closer to Earth than was previously known, etc.
I’ve come to believe in the Great Filter theory more and more in recent years.
I don't assume the existence of extraterrestrial life, even intelligent life, means interstellar colonization or the consumption of the galaxy by swarms of Von Neumann probes must be a certainty.
Do I believe any of the transdimensional NHI booga sphere abduction Majestic 12 nonsense? No. I don't believe faster than light travel is possible, I don't believe aliens have ever been here. I think that's just folklore, like Bigfoot, ghosts and Finland.
I do find the great filter theory as an interesting explanation tot he Fermi paradox. We humans sure seem on a path to wipe ourselves out, hopefully we won't destroy the planet entirely but similarly we seem on that path. Maybe all intelligent civilizations destroy themselves before ever reaching the level of intergalactic travel.
Whether it's visited Earth on the other hand... that's a lot less likely. Feels like the distances you need to travel for that kind of space exploration are vast enough that even an advanced species might not take it lightly.
Does it matter whether the aliens have visited earth, or only that life exists elsewhere in the universe?
Do they need to be intelligent aliens, by some definition of intelligent?
And do they have to still exist today, or is it enough to think life may gave existed elsewhere at some point?
I do believe aliens have been to earth many times. The last time was thousands of years ago though. Everyone claiming to be abducted is lying.
To any species capable of interstellar travel, nuclear weapons would be about as threatening as a match is to us.