Up for a debate

[AndyC]

Anyone wanna debate with me about something, preferably something partly philosophical, metaphysical, etc.?
Casual debate w/ any number of users.

 

[Rixus]

Here's some options:

1) The benefits of the ease of communication offered by the internet outweighs the possible damage it has done to society and local economies.
2) Gender roles are the protect of society.
3) The Fermi Paradox merely illustrates the scale of the universe.
4) The fact that UFO sightings have declined since the invention of camera phones proves the whole thing completely bogus.
5) Some people need to have religious beliefs in order to not only make sense of the world around them but to help them to function as a member of society.

 

[PmjPmj]

4) is a no go.

Sightings have increased exponentially in recent times. We have so much evidence for the existence of UFOs (specifically, objects in our airspace which demonstrate capabilities far beyond our own) that the phenomenon is absolutely irrefutable, and anyone denying that fact simply hasn't looked at the evidence available.

We aren't talking 'a few shitty photos and some shifty cunt, eye-witness testimony'. We're talking IR footage captured by military craft with corresponding radar data. We're talking extremely credible individuals coming from the highest echelons of the military and scientific world(s) gathering en masse to confirm the existence of these things / any personal experiences with them.

Bruh.

Nobody knows what the fuck they are or where they come from - but they're most certainly there.

[EDIT] full disclosure for the sake of fairness and objectivity: having seen such an object myself up close and personal, I am rather bias.

Regardless, the evidence is readily available. A cursory glance will confirm this.

Just stay away from the 'It's aliens!1!!1' crowd.

 

[Cognisant]

4) The fact that UFO sightings have declined since the invention of camera phones proves the whole thing completely bogus.

How would you convince anyone your photos/video are of a real spaceship or aliens?

Any alien form a human could conceivably fit into could walk down a city street and be dismissed as a costume, people might even pose and take photos with it completely oblivious to the fact that it's real.

 

[AndyC]

I like 3.
Agree or disagree? Your choice.

 

[PmjPmj]

How would you convince anyone your photos/video are of a real spaceship or aliens?

Any alien form a human could conceivably fit into could walk down a city street and be dismissed as a costume, people might even pose and take photos with it completely oblivious to the fact that it's real.

I do wish people would stop conflating 'UFO' with 'Aliens'.

No. Just... no.

We 100% have objects in our airspace which defy convention at every turn. We have a vast repository of excellent, verified data to prove this.

To then go on and assume it's fucking aliens is to miss the point entirely. It also robs the real phenomenon of a lot of credibility, because you suddenly depart from 'An interesting and verifiable phenomena' to 'oh shit - get the tin foil, Mary'.



[EDIT] - To clarify, I was commenting on something prevalent within 'the field', not having a go directly at yourself Cognisant.

 

[Cognisant]

I understand where your frustration is coming from and I was speaking hypothetically, we live in such an "alien" culture now that actual aliens may be less bizarre to us than we might expect.

For me the frustration comes from people who make the jump from speculation to assumption, just because there could be aliens among us doesn't mean there are, nor that they're specifically reptiles intent on collapsing our society from within and consuming us.

 

[Rixus]

I like 3.
Agree or disagree? Your choice.

What you've got to think of is the vastness of time as well as the vastness of physical space. If the universe has been around for 14bn years and our planet has been able to support life for around 1bn years (roughly 2.5bn years after the formation of our parent star), it stands to reason we are not the first star that was capable of this even if you think of the fact that each generation of star has progressively more heavier elements to allow for complex life.

And if that's the case - why is there no evidence left on Earth over the past hundreds of millions of years? Why did no one colonise Earth? We would if we found Earth 10 aeons years ago.

Especially as we now have evidence that life could exist in several other places within this system, and that microbial life existed on Earth as long as there were the conditions for it so you've got to figure life can't be that rare. Probability wise, that means that there must be at least a few races far more advanced than we are.

However, we have only existed on Earth for a tiny fraction of that time. And we have to be at the right level of advancement at the same time as a race within range. Let's say there is someone 3,000 light years away. And that is quite hopeful - but that means travelling for 3 millennia at the maximum cosmic speed possible, which would simply not be practical. Which suggests that true FTL drives are not in fact possible, and that would indeed explain the paradox.

Even if there's a vast 10,000 light year empire on the other side of the galaxy, we might not even see it. And even at FTL speeds it might even take them centuries or decades to get here.

I think it just means it's unlikely that we're gonna go outside and find a Star Trek like universe out there. Even if it is relatively common and there are dozens of races like us in this galaxy alone, I think it will seem rare enough amongst the millions of stars to find life as complex as us all over the place.

So, agree.

 

[ummidk]

^ Agreed, Id like to add it could also indicate species at (or above) our technological achievement have relatively short lifespans in that zone.

 

[Rixus]

4) is a no go.

Sightings have increased exponentially in recent times. We have so much evidence for the existence of UFOs (specifically, objects in our airspace which demonstrate capabilities far beyond our own) that the phenomenon is absolutely irrefutable, and anyone denying that fact simply hasn't looked at the evidence available.

We aren't talking 'a few shitty photos and some shifty cunt, eye-witness testimony'. We're talking IR footage captured by military craft with corresponding radar data. We're talking extremely credible individuals coming from the highest echelons of the military and scientific world(s) gathering en masse to confirm the existence of these things / any personal experiences with them.

Bruh.

Nobody knows what the fuck they are or where they come from - but they're most certainly there.

[EDIT] full disclosure for the sake of fairness and objectivity: having seen such an object myself up close and personal, I am rather bias.

Regardless, the evidence is readily available. A cursory glance will confirm this.

Just stay away from the 'It's aliens!1!!1' crowd.

That list was made off hand and a little tongue in cheek.
That particular one was based on an article I saw somewhere (I can't even remember where - I think it might have even been on MSN so only taken semi-seriously at best), after the new X-Files series came back recently. Involved a few "experts" in the field saying that the reported sightings were highest back in the late eighties / early nineties. Now they've dropped off substantially. Granted, I haven't done much research into it as it's something that hasn't interested me greatly for a while (though I did used to read a UFO magazine when I was a teenager, but mostly for amusement).

Plus, I haven't heard a lot about sightings or seen anything resembling a UFO sighting going around any social media sites in years even though everyone carries around a camera phone now; so it corresponded with what I see around me.

Personally, I've always believed that what people refer to as UFO's are mostly mistaken sightings of various rational things, but given that these days we have nuclear powered warships with laser weapons, various countries testing rail-gun weaponry and stealth VTOL attack plain I don't doubt that our technological capabilities are beyond my understanding and would technically be a UFO to my eyes.

 

[AndyC]

First of all, consider the chances that there is life that is extremely intelligent, had the appropriate motives that did not interfere with other species' motives, was in close enough proximity and within the time frame of 1b years, left some trace we can detect with modern technology that isn't kept a secret from the public.
The aliens' may not even have a thing called 'motives', their minds would be radically different to that of our own minds, and we cannot conclusively assert the significance of Earth with our current understanding of how life originates, possibly beyond the mechanisms by which we came about (you reference more complex life as a result of heavier stars).
It is unlikely that there will be a Star Trek universe out there but it doesn't take away the credibility of the expansion of space as evidence of other intelligent life.

 

[AndyC]

Anyone else up for a debate? Something obscure, something interesting, something abstract, something mystical, something original, something that tingles the excitement experienced when exploring radically new perspectives and ideas that enter new domains of reality and ambiguate our own

 

[PmjPmj]

If you want to go off the deep end, DMT is a good starting point.

 

[AndyC]

So Rixus, you're surely not giving up right?

 

[ummidk]

So Rixus, you're surely not giving up right?

you didn't really refute his point

 

[AndyC]

Maybe there was an misinterpretation on one end.

 

[AndyC]

My point was that Rixus overestimated the probability that the appropriate conditions would be met

 

[Kuu]

If UFOs are not man-made, and not human or instrument error, why not aliens? Its as reasonable a guess as one can make. What else could they be?

 

[AndyC]

Not sure what happened to the first debate. Anyone up to debate me in round 2?

 

[PmjPmj]

If UFOs are not man-made, and not human or instrument error, why not aliens? Its as reasonable a guess as one can make. What else could they be?

Time travellers?

Inter-dimensional beings?

Sysadmin?