DocWatts

America's an awesome place to live if you're Rich. It's very easy to isolate yourself from the problems of the rest of the society over here, or wish to see those problems continue because you've managed to place yourself in a position to directly benefit from them. For ordinary people without access to vast financial and social capital, things are decidedly less awesome, and a working class person would almost certainly enjoy a higher standard of living in just about any other developed democracy.

So what a alot of people outside the US don't realize that what we have in the States is basically a Tiered system, where wealthy and upper middle class people are often fortunate enough to have access to high quality Healthcare thier whole lives, and aren't really concerned that the system is a nightmare for the bottom half or two thirds of the country. Americans are also relentlessly propagandized by Bad Faith news media that adopting a system similar to what's common in the rest of the developed world is a gateway to Socialism, and it would mean waiting months or years for a knee surgery. Of course such arguments are ridiculous, but that doesn't mean that Propaganda hasn't been highly successful at getting at least some portion of Americans to advocate against thier own best interest.

Trying to disabuse Trump's cult of any of thier delusions is about as productive as trying to have a discussion with an angry drunk person who's throwing bottles across the room. The main difference being that unlike the alcoholic who's causing problems down at the local pub, most of Trump's sycophants won't be sobering up any time soon. Because American Democracy will be what get smeared across the road if the drunk drivers are the ones who keep ending up at the Wheel.

I half suspect that people on the extreme end of Moral Relativism don't fully believe what they're advocating; if only because they value thier own autonomy, and wouldn't be happy if society devolved to a level where Slavery was openly practiced again. It seems far more sensible that the truth is probably somewhere in between the extremes of Morality being completely Relative and Morality being Absolutist. The idea that Societies haven't made any Moral Progress at all in thousands of years seems overly pessimistic. At the same time, the desire to avoid shovanism about the Morality of one's own Society in and of itself is ironically a sign of Moral Progress I'd argue. It doesn't seem unreasonable to propose that while Morality is undeniably a Social Construct that's highly contextual, it doesn't necessarily follow that every Moral System is equally functional or well adapted to the Survival Conditions that are present. An 'Eye for an Eye, Tooth for a Tooth' moral system makes sense when Survival Conditions are brutal enough to warrant such an approach. Does it make as much sense for places with a functional Justice system? Not so much. Morality being more or less well adapted to the Survival Conditions that are present seems like a better way to look at the issue. At the same time, we can recognize that not all Survival Conditions are equally conducive to human flourishing and happiness. This allows for Morality to be highly Contextual without misconstruing every type of Moral system as "equal".

I think it's more more useful and more accurate to say that Morality is contextual rather than relative. More useful because the term Moral Relativism brings with it some baggage, namely that it has heavy connotations with Postmodern theory. Which can serve as a distraction because disagreements over Moral Relativism inevitably tend to become disagreements over Postmodernism. I'd also argue that morality being Contextual rather than Relative is more accurate as well, because Morality only has any meaning if placed within some sort of broader Context; it can't exist within a vacuum. Thinking of Morality a Contextual rather than Relative also has the additional advantage that a Contextual conception isn't completely groundless like Relativity. At the very least you can say that all human morality is grounded at the broadest level by the fact that we're social creatures that need to find ways to live and interact with one another. Any further Moral considerations will then have to take place within a more clearly defined Context, that can either be somewhat broad or somewhat narrow depending on what Goals you're trying to achieve.

I would never argue that eyewitness testimony is worthless, but it does have serious limitations as a methodology for validating empirical claims that lie far outside of most people's lived experience. Is eyewitness testimony useful for more mundane things such as a recalled conversation, or the make and model of a car that pulled away from a building? Sure. But for bizarre things that completely outside of normal everyday experience, do I trust most people to be able to correctly interpret whatever the hell it is that they think they're seeing? Not so much. Now I am willing to give more of a benefit of the doubt to people like David Fravor who at least have several years of expertise that's directly relevant to their claim, and is part of the reason I'm not completely dismissive of the alien hypothesis. If nothing else, it at least demonstrates that there's something worth looking in to. Of course Scientific investigation has limitations as well, but it's a much better methodology for making sense of these types of claims than just taking people at their word. If the conclusions that were being made from eyewitness testimony were much more modest in their ontological claims, most reasonable people wouldn't have a problem with it, ie: "There have been sightings of many strange areal phenomena over the last 50 years that could be interpreted as aliens." Even if eyewitness testimony could tell us beyond a shadow of a doubt that we were dealing with is alien technology, we would still want to know what these objects actually are, what they're doing here, how, etc. Which would warrant further investigation using other methodologies.

Our legal system (at least in the US) has sentenced plenty of innocent people based on mistaken eyewitness testimony (that was later overturned by DNA evidence), so I'm not so sure that the methods of the Legal System is what you want to be using as a Benchmark for Truth.

I'm of a similar mind that nothing conclusive has been proven, but I do recognize that it's at least a possiblity (even if it's not necessarily the most likely explanation). While I've yet to be fully convinced, I think that aliens are actually less unlikely than some of the alternative explanations that have been proposed (such as the idea that some nation or military has technology that's massively more advanced than anything that currently exists, and has somehow kept hidden from the rest of the world). Both hard skeptics and hard believers are mistaken in my view, which is that aliens are a plausible interpretation for at least some of these events, but not one that's supported by conclusive evidence (at least so far).

I suspect that this is correct, and it's a very good point. As an aside, I find it endlessly Interesting how one of the visionary scientists whose discoveries paved the way for quantum mechanics (namely the photoelectric effect and brownian motion) could never come to fully accept the eventual implications of his discoveries. The additional irony being that Einstein's Relativity Theory was itself built upon the work of previous scientists (such as Max Planck) who themselves wouldn't or couldn't accept the implications of their own discoveries.

@Consilience I'm far from a diehard defender of the Materialist paradigm, but a number of very prominent scientists from that community have posited methods for skirting the edge of known physics to travel faster than light (including Stephen Hawking, Michio Kaku, etc). There's no reason to believe why Faster than Light travel would shatter the underlying assumptions of Materialism any more than the discovery of Quantum Mechanics did. Materialism might have its limitations, but not like its completely unable to adapt to new discoveries. Virtually every Materialist has come to accept the reality of quantum mechanics (even if they don't fully accept all of its implications). Quantum Mechanics ended up being folded in to the Materialist paradigm, and I see no reason why the same thing wouldn't happen with the discovery of aliens who can break the light speed barrier. I would think that as far things which would toss Materialist Reductionism on to the rubbish heap, discoveries as to the nature of consciousness (say if Consciousness were scientifically proven to be as fundamental to reality as gravity or electromagnetism) would be far more likely to achieve this than having to revise concepts about the speed of light.

How so? It's my understanding that the Materialist Reductionism paradigm allows for the possiblity both of interstellar travel and intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe. How does the existence of aliens overturn the underlying assumption that Matter/Energy is all that exists of Reality?

Even if it does turn out to be the case that aliens spacecraft are visiting us, we're still a long way from having conclusive evidence available to the public which demonstrates that in an unambiguous way. Claiming off handedly that the 'US military has known about UFOs for years' isn't very conclusive without an official statement backed up by some hard evidence, or a whistleblower akin to an Edward Snowden who achieves something to that same effect. Low quality video footage that's highly ambiguous and interpretable as to its phenomenological cause is not hard evidence. Someone like David Fravor relating an experience that's corroborated by the accounts of a handful of other highly trained professionals saw is a lot better, and is enough to give the hypothesis some legs, but it still doesn't tell us what the phenomenological cause is of whatever these things are. And even if you believe that beyond a shadow of doubt that alien craft are visiting us, categorizing them as alien in origin still doesn't explain what these things are, what they're doing here, etc. About as useful saying something is human in origin; helpful in some ways, but there's still so much that it doesn't tell you. Are these types of phenomena worth studying further? Absolutely; the fact that there's a non negligible chance that some of these may be aliens warrants that. But it's just too early to say anything definitive about them for the time being.

Yeah so long as my disagreements with Leo aren't because of anything I find ethically problematic, arriving at different conclusions for esoteric topics isn't unexpected or even undesirable.

I agree with this, but I also think that it's not too difficult to compartmentalize one's beliefs, and it's completely possible to be highly knowledgeable in some areas while being mistaken in others. I mean if you're already assigning ontological reality to DMT entities, it's not too much of a stretch to buy into UFOs being aliens. I don't see it as a big deal, since I don't have to agree with someone on everything to learn from them. I can see Pope Francis as an admirable figure without having to believe in the resurrection Jesus, or think that Karl Marx had important things to say without being a Communist.

@dlof If your aim is to have these sorts of phenomena taken seriously enough to be studied further, it would be advantageous to separate the few more credible claims (such as David Fravor) from the field of 'UFO-ology'. The reason why the scientifically minded people don't take abduction stories seriously (aside from just a general lack of evidence) is that the whole field reeks of what I'll call magical thinking, akin to ghost hunting and the search for bigfoot.

While I think it's silly to be a hard skeptic (dismissing even the possiblity of aliens out of hand), I do find it amusing how eager some are to consider the issue settled. The vast majority of these claims being debunked should at least give one pause when considering the small handful of cases that are more plausible, even if you do end up accepting them as credible. What's really going on here is that aliens are a reasonable hypothesis that has been put forward, that has yet to be validated in a definitive way. Definitely worth of further study. I really appreciate the approach Lex Fridman takes in his discussion with David Fravor, approaching the topic from a standpoint of scientific inquiry that avoids falling in to either of the two hardline camps (either hard skeptic or uncritical believer). Interesting to note that I went in expecting to hear about the Tic Tac incident, and left learning a ton about aviation and what it's like to be a fighter pilot. Good on Lex for giving him an opportunity to discuss something other than just the Tic Tac incident, as you could hear how excited he was when Lex was asking him about aviation and about his career.

Any evidence at all to back up this hunch besides just taking people who make these sorts of conspiratorial claims at thier word? At least Edward Snowdon had the good sense to leak evidence to Investigative journalists to validate his claims; he wouldn't have gotten very far if he went the Bob Lazar route of just hoping people take his word about it.

Lots of Confirmation Bias on both sides. Not like UFO believers don't do the same thing when a sighting they're excited about gets debunked as an optical illusion that's caused for mundane reasons.. What's ironic is that the bottom part of that quote fits Conspiracy Theorists of all stripes like a glove.

Sounds to me like you're conflating the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (which has been considered legitimate for at least the last half century) with explorations of the paranormal (which is disdained by the scientific community). Carl Sagan spearheaded efforts to communicate with extraterrestrials in the 70s and 80s, both through SETI and through the Golden Records attached to the Voyager space probes. Exobiology is a legitimate scientific field these days. An actual set of Protocols have been put in place should a civilization outside of Earth attempt to make contact with us. You criticize the scientific community for not taking UFO sightings more seriously, but what would a scientific exploration of these types of phenomena look like at this point? Scattered handfuls of people seeing something strange in the sky at different times and places isn't exactly something you can plan for. I suppose you could try and track the frequency of where and when these incidents took place, maybe get optics and imaging experts to flag false positives in recorded footage, but it doesn't seem like there's a ton that scientists could actually do with the types of evidence that exist. Let's imagine that the equivalent of NASA's budget was set aside for the study of these phenomena. How would you suggest these resources be put to use for that purpose?

C. While I don't necessarily think that the two options are equally likely, that's purely speculation on my part. Not like I'd have any real justification for whatever percentages I'd come up with, other than just a hunch. And even if you're right and it's only a %5 chance that it's aliens, things with a 1 in 20 chance happen all the time. It's not like those are Lottery odds; if you had to go in for a Medical Procedure where there was a %5 of dying on the operating table, you'd take that 1 in 20 chance very seriously.

This seems like more of an Open Minded way of approaching this issue than drawing a Line in the Sand in either direction.

Welp, nothing but a benefit to have the flaws in one's epistemology pointed out, heh.

Source?

Perhaps, but I'd argue that doing so is more a case of Intellectual Humility, and recognizing the limitations of my own viewpoint. I'm assuming you didn't do months of painstaking Independent Research to come to the realization that it was in your best interest to get a Covid vaccine, rather than just deferring to the advice of people and organizations with more expertise in that area than yourself. Sure we can come to know some things through direct experience and contemplation, but we're still highly dependent on other people for knowledge about most things. But I'll stop myself before this thread gets completely derailed by arguments over epistemology.

That could very well be, but I don't see an obvious downside to maintaining agnosticism about these phenomena until something more definitive can been demonstrated. I'd maintain that Aliens aren't an unreasonable Interpretation for at least some small proportion of these incidents, but all you're really going on is a process of elimination. Which seems epistemologically shaky, because there will always be possibilities that aren't obvious, and which haven't been accounted for (be they in the realms of imaging technology, optics, etc). Are there any Institutions that you would consider highly credible which have thrown thier weight behind the hypothesis that some of these objects are aliens? Because it's the Conspiracy Community that's by far the most vocal on this issue, whom I'm willing to trust about as much as antivaxxers to so thier own Research on how epidemiologists are lying to us