Joshe

He won't answer without appealing to his own special awareness or rank hierarchy. Here's what my process looks like (non-authority-based): The best tool I've found for evaluating evidence that can't be verified is making reads on the source. Assess for all these and you get a very good base from which to start a more rigorous assessment if you want. But often, this assessment alone - combined with 30 minutes of evidence gathering is enough to arrive very close to the truth, as long as you don't blunder in your assessment. Incentives are VERY important. There's a motive behind EVERY claim, true or false. I always ask "what does the one making this claim stand to gain?". Credibility assessment first, verification second. The process is usually non-linear and often doesn't begin and end with an answer in a single session, especially when evaluating things like political pundits and influencers. It takes time to accumulate and process the data, which is both a conscious and unconscious process. What I'm describing is more of an intuitive form of cognition where the gain is speed and context sensitivity with a tradeoff of some explicit traceability. You could think of it like a triage layer where if a source fails your motive/integrity read, it might not deserve a deep audit. Obviously, this "people-and-incentive" heuristic is just one tool and not a replacement for a more robust epistemic framework, but I found it gets me closer to accurate than most, and much faster than evaluating things like the full chain of custody for every piece of evidence. You need to develop high-quality heuristics and constantly refine them through the process of observation and critical thinking. Lastly, any time realize you believed something false was true, you have to get to the bottom of that ASAP and figure out how the seed of falsehood was planted, then patch that exploit for good. If you make the same mistakes 3 times, you aren't refining properly. This is just how I operate. I'm not sure how compatible it is for others. If you have access to ChatGPT, you could use it to develop your own epistemic framework, which might start off looking something like this:

Thanks, I’ll look into them.

😂

Leo may have proven it to himself, but he has shown no proofs, and when asked for them, he simply says the proofs are in the various books he's recommended. The problem with this is a collection of books is insufficient to arrive at his conclusion, because you would need his interpretive frame to arrive at it, which books can't provide. You can read fairy tales until you're blue in the face. Just stick with it - sooner or later you'll know the dragons are real.

Serious epistemology doesn't seek to flatten all claims. It asks that we adjust our confidence based on the strength and coherence of the evidence. The key distinction in Napoleon and aliens on earth is to be found in the evidentiary weight and corroboration of the two claims. Napoleon: massive convergent corroboration - thousands of consistent records from independent sources. UFOs: no corroboration or weak at best, unverifiable anecdotes, blurry media, no physical artifacts confirmed by independent analysis. You can rationally believe Napoleon existed without direct evidence because the network of corroboration is overwhelming. You can rationally reject "aliens visiting earth" because it's not and you have not empirically verified it. This is not a double standard. It's a proper respect for evidentiary weight.

Haha, yes, I know. No, but maybe that's my next target since you instigated me! lol

Nothing is at stake. I sometimes just like to swat down bullshit for fun, especially when there's a puzzle that I have to work through to do it. Pathological? Probably. I'm always emotional - some days I just mask it better. I mean no harm or disrespect, even if it seems like it.

Yes, I understood that point when you made it years ago. However, there's a huge difference in trusting a verified historical consensus vs believing anecdotal conspiracy and emotionally compelling narratives. Many would do well to understand the nuance. "Don't believe me - believe the books I tell you to read" 😂 I don't have a bone to pick with you about your "aliens are here" belief because I know you've came to the conclusion on your own and no amount of words anyone says can change it. I have lots of respect for your epistemic rigor and know it's solid, but we all make mistakes, including you. Obviously, it's a matter of connecting dots, which I haven't done. But the few dots I've seen you drop would not pass muster for dots in the matrix of my aliens-are-here belief.

Nothing tricky about using critical thinking and evidence-based reasoning as tools to check what you let in as facts.

I'm completely open-minded about it. I have yet seen any solid evidence. The things being called "facts" are not facts. That's not a me problem. I'm not going to blindly believe an alien UFO was found in 1930s Italy because Leo says he read it in a book. I need more than that.

Haha, not at all. Leo's logic is flawed regarding his alien theories. His entire alien belief rests upon anecdotal evidence and bad logic. Claiming a UFO was found in 1930s Italy isn't a "basic fact". It's speculation based on hearsay. Don't let Leo's authoritative tone sway you on anything an everything. Go see if you can actually prove it's a fact that an alien UFO was found in 1930s Italy. Let me know if you can do that.

I watched the video. Oh boy! lol. Surprise surprise - Levengood, the scientist who posited the radiation theory worked for a company whose very existence depended on crop circles being real, and the whole point of his job was to prove that they were. All of their funding and publicity revolved around the idea that crop circles were not hoaxes. "Hey, let's get a scientist in here to prove our case - cha-ching". Oldest trick in the book. lol His work collapsed under scrutiny. Why would you believe this one particular scientist over the hundreds that call him a quack? There's more than one way to flatten crops. Different methods would impact the plants differently. The video does a good job of making it seem like they are being good-faith, but it's a channel who makes millions from such topics (15 million subscribers). They tried to get me to watch more alien hoaxes at the end of the video. Basically like the Inquirer tabloid in digital form. My 25-year-old self would have believed the video because I didn't know better. It is convincing until you understand the incentive structure propping the whole thing up along with all the psychological components that become invested in the narrative being true. If a scientist who didn't stand to earn a fortune could have reproduced his findings (they tried and failed), I'd give the idea more plausibility. But being able to see the incentives, delusions, and deceptions intertwined with it all, it's just a more sophisticated, profitable lie.

Open-minded Japanese scientists went to Britain with 5 millions euros to investigate the crop circles in earnest. lol

The whole point of epistemology is to separate what feels true from what is true. It puts feelings and desires aside. Also, I don't think scientists fully operate in the way you describe. Sure, they might be close-minded when it comes to certain things like the materialist paradigm, but that's different from things like crop circles and actual physical phenomena. The truth of the matter is humans have been known to create crop circles. Here's a devastating article: https://devantaylorpublications.medium.com/crop-circles-9f5f9462aac0 , which I assume you will ignore because it's detrimental to your belief. So, here's an excerpt: The full article featuring Bower’s and Chorley’s admission can be read here. People have made millions spreading crop circle delusions/propaganda. This is a clue. The more believable you can make them, the more money you stand to earn. Cha-ching! C'mon bro. Don't fall for the same decades old con job.

But at that point, you would simply say the double-checkers are in on the discrediting scheme, because that's how protecting belief works. What makes you assume those who discredited it have a "clear bias" and lack integrity? Most scientists would love to discover some actual paranormal activity. Their entire careers run on discovery. Nothing would make them more famous than proving something paranormal. Drones are not necessary, just a modern quality assurance tool. True, but can you admit it seems silly that aliens would reproduce human prank art? There is a litany of problems with human testimony. Credibility is just one problem. If you understood the whole litany, you could not apply significant weight to testimonial evidence alone, even when there's corroborating testimony. Humans convinced they witnessed paranormal activity isn't enough, even from credentialed sources. Human perception is not a good instrument for measuring truth. This is why courts don't allow hearsay and impose statues of limitation, among other things. Actual physical or logical proof should be the bar. Which scientist would devote several months and considerable resources to debunking what is easily debunked from their armchair? I'm guessing not many. Maybe they aren't so much afraid of looking woo-woo as they are afraid of the reputational cost of spending considerable resources debunking something that could be debunked in an afternoon. No I'm not, but I am assuming drawing them on the medium of a crop field is a human invention. Because humans drawing circles in fields has been observed and their modern-day techniques have been documented. Crop circles in no way defy modern logic - you just think they do because you had no good explanation for how they are constructed. And upon finding out, if you were epistemically serious, you would have allowed the weight of that knowledge to take it's natural place in the chain of reason. Exactly. Which is why we don't need to fabricate mystery.

Yeah, it probably comes down to how you process, what you're reading and why you're reading it. I only prefer reading if I need to do things like reference or follow specific instructions. If I'm just exploring ideas (which is the only reason I consume books), audio-processing is much cheaper than visual decoding. Every cognitive process has an energy cost.

What are the odds that a civilization advanced enough to cross galaxies would coincidentally choose the same medium (fields) and visual language (geometric circles) humans already use for art and pranks? Lol. Think about it bro! The only move I see from here is: "The aliens created them first and humans copied them." 🤦‍♂️

That's because to replicate the more intricate ones like in your picture, you'd need to take it very seriously and invest considerable resources to implement it. You'd have to take it as seriously as the artists themselves. That would be my guess as to why the more intricate ones haven't been reproduced, if that is indeed true. Also, ChatGPT says cardboard is an outdated method. These days, they use GPS, lasers, pre-cut ropes for measuring distance and laying the crop down, night-vision, drones, etc. Here's how it's done:

To build the alien case, you'd have to contend with these and more:

It’s reasonable to believe life exists elsewhere in our seemingly infinite 14 billion year old universe. It’s not reasonable to assume those beings traveled light-years to flatten barley. 😂 Have you really considered what it would take for aliens to make it here and what the implications of that would be? They'd need to travel light years and/or through wormholes. If you're that sophisticated (mastered energy, space, time), I'm gonna go out on a limb and say they have better things to do than make crop art on our little planet. I could write pages of logic showing the absurdity. What's more likely? That some humans made the crop art or aliens? You'll find it's easy to build the case for the natural explanation and you'll find it's easy for the the paranormal explanation to collapse, because as far as I can tell, the entire case would rest on anecdotes and highly questionable sources. If that's what you use to arrive at "likely", well, that's not great.

No, I think aliens almost certainly exist. My skepticism isn't avoidance - it's just unmotivated reasoning. I don't have a horse in the race. As far as I can tell, most of these stories can be explained by human games. So long as they can, I will lean towards that over paranormal phenomena, because it's the smart thing to do, as opposed to believing what some people on the internet profess to be true. The simpler, human explanations take precedence until ruled out. There's a huge market for this stuff and a lot of people trying to capitalize on it. And it it can seem believable because many believe their own bullshit.

The problem is, what you call "evidence" is not what passes as evidence for me. You tell me to look at evidence and share with me a clip from a guy who has the epistemic rigor of a child. For example, who measured the radiation? I'm betting it wasn't an unbiased scientific measurement. If not, then the "radiation" angle should be thrown out. And this applies to any and all other evidence that hasn't been verified by reputable sources. If you can scientifically verify these things without relying on anecdotal or 3rd party testimony of people whose characters you have zero knowledge of, that's how I buy in. Also, I don't dismiss the possibilty, but without sufficient evidence, I don't lean towards paranormal phenomena. I'm betting that if you were to do an honest assessment of the evidence you'd find your entire position is propped up by unfalsifiable, anecdotal claims. Given what I know about humans and the games they play, I don't put much weight on such evidence. People say "look into it before you judge it", and every time I do, its the same thing. Simple explanations that explain it that get swept under the rug by motivated reasoning. I'm not the one making the mistake here. Crop circles are man-made.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The jump to "non-human" is an extraordinary claim. Just because you can't fathom how it could be done doesn't mean it can't be done. This is kind of the whole point of magicians, artists, etc. These types of people exist and are driven to create extraordinary spectacles. This is the simplest and most reasonable explanation. If you gave me a month or two, I could figure out how to produce those crop circles in your photo. Totally doable. You could map all the measurements out on paper and then just scale up as needed. Would it be easy? No. But that's why elaborate crop circles boggle the mind - because they're not easy to make sense of. Hence the point of their existence - spectacle. People create mystery because mystery captures attention.

Have you personally verified how difficult it would be to produce the geometrically precise circles and run a demo study on the likelihood an average bloke could pull it off? Or did you simply take for granted those documentaries and tv shows were being honest and good faith, putting integrity before sensationalist profit?