DocWatts

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

Psilocybin is already decriminalized in Denver as well as Ann Arbor, MI. Oregon has recently decriminalized small amounts of all drugs, including psychedelics. I imagine various psychedelics will follow a similar path that Weed took towards Legalization; (1) Decriminalized in more Progressive cities and States (2) Restrictions are gradually lifted for testing in a clinical setting, paving the way for Medical Legalization (3) Society doesn't fall apart, and as people begin seeing the benefits of clinical use, the Overton window gradually shifts towards public acceptance of full Legalization

@Scholar Okay then, I'll bite. From an epistemological standpoint, explain to me why reserving judgement pending further study informed by a scientific cultural standard is a mistake in this instance? Let's restrict this to the vast majority of people who don't claim to have Direct Experience with these phenomena: 1 ) Whether or not aliens are visiting us is an Empirical (rather than a Subjective or Metaphysical) claim. To the best of my knowledge the claim isn't that these are ethereal experiences akin to DMT entities, but are something that exists and is experienced as a part of 'physical reality' (however you interpret that). 2 ) Even if it's not the 'Last Word' on what is ontologically true, from a pragmatic viewpoint science is extremely useful when set to examining the merits of Empirical claims. 3) Science has helped bolster the claims of diverse fields of study such as History and Anthropology, and in a sense isn't totally separate from them. Likewise, applying Scientific scrutiny to video footage and eyewitness accounts can be clarifying, as it can help account for false positives. Seems like using out knowledge of things like Optics and Psychology should be useful in that regard, no? 4) Unlike say Climate Change, there isn't an obvious downside or Opportunity Cost to withholding judgement on these matters for the time being. 5) Pointing out that an object has unconventional properties that can't be accounted for with conventional explanations doesn't definitively prove that said object is what you claim it is; namely that it's alien in origin; it very well could be, but you're not going to be able to make a definitive statement about that using only Negatives (ie it's not definitely this or that type of thing, so therefore...). Which is sufficient for making more Limited and Modest claims, but seems premature to come to definitive judgements based on that. 6) Agnosticism as to the definitive explanation for seemingly strange phenomena that's yet to be fully explored is I would argue the position of Intellectual Humility. I'd posit that at least some of these objects being extraterrestrial in origin is a not unreasonable Interpretation; going beyond that and claiming anything definitive without some sort of verification process seems grossly premature. If this were an incoming message from SETI or the possible discovery of microbes on one of the moons of Jupiter, there are lengthy verification protocols in place to make pretty damn sure that it was the real deal before saying anything definitive about it.

Did I at any point compare verification of these sorts of claims to the world of physics, or insinuate that Laboratory experimentation is the only way to 'prove' something? It seems obvious that you're projecting an expectation of someone with a Materialist Reductionism worldview, when that's not the case, nor is it what I'm arguing. No one can 'prove' that alien craft aren't visiting us, any more than someone can 'prove' that an undiscovered species of Shark doesn't exist in the Pacific ocean. In either case there's a Verification process that would need to happen before said Discovery is endorsed by the wider community. If you're right, then no doubt that will likely happen at some point.

My overall impression is that David Fravor's account comes across as a highly trained and highly competent professional who is being sincere about what he experienced. The number of corroborating factors that you point out make the incident difficult to dismiss, and gives a much higher degree of credibility than is typical in the vast majority of encounters with unidentified ariel objects. If you recall, I never actually dismissed the possibility of at least some of these incidents actually being aliens. The David Fravor incident offers one of the more compelling Data Points pointing in that direction. In short: yes, I find David Fravor's account about as credible as an incident like this probably could be through eyewitness accounts that have been corroborated with indirect evidence. But for something that would without hyperbole be one of the largest paradigm shifts in the history of Humanity (that intelligent life outside of Earth not only exists but is interacting with us), I would think the bar of Paradigm Shifting Validation should be quite a bit higher than a very small handful of compelling incidents among a vast ocean of claims that either can't be verified or have been debunked. Seems like the bar of evidence should be at least as high as the Verification process that must be cleared when a new animal species is discovered. If that's a completely unreasonable reason to remain agnostic about the issue until it can be verified in a more substantial way, I'd be interested to hear why.

Well what you're contending with in even the more credible accounts of encounters with these types of phenomena isn't any sort of positive identification of any of these objects, but rather a process of elimination where the object seems as though it's not explainable through more conventional explanations. Now the possibility is certainly open that some of these objects might actually be from another world; but without some method of verification you're not really doing anything more than guessing at this point; there may be possibilities that aren't at all obvious which you're not accounting for. Note that I'm not claiming that the Scientific Method of attempting to empirically Validate claims is the only way of acquiring knowledge (or even always the best way), but I have my doubts that eyewitness accounts from other people of things that lie far outside of most people's lived experience are altogether reliable or trustworthy. Nor is the recorded footage that exists which shows objects recorded from a great distance behaving in strange or unexpected ways necessarily indicative of something from another world, though of course it could be that. If an Alien lands on my lawn tomorrow, or if additional types of evidence further add to the mosiac in a convincing way, I'm of course open to revising my opinions on this matter.

Well fortunately for me I'm comfortable with saying "I don't know" for any of the number of strange incidents that defy easy identification. Sure it could be that a US Navy pilot spotted an actual UFO, or a case of instrumentation error and a alien vessel being the most plausible interpretation given the inputs he had to work with at the time. I don't believe that the people involved in the incident are being dishonest, but even highly experienced professionals can make mistakes, or reach conclusions based on faulty info. Or it could be that the account is %100 genuine. I don't know, and neither do you. Agnosticism seems a perfectly valid response to situations like this. I'm not claiming to possess knowledge that I don't have, but I don't think it's unreasonable to reserve judgement until more conclusive and verifiable evidence is available from reputable sources.

I'm assuming you'd agree that how people interpret the world around them is filtered through whatever cultural paradigm they've been indoctrinated in to, right? Are the vast number of these sightings unambiguous enough where it's crystal clear that the thing that's being looked at is a 'fucking alien', or is it the case that the vast majority of these sightings are of a small blob or series of lights far off in the distance being Interpreted as a UFO because that's become the 'default explanation' for anything strange looking that defies easy categorization? Note : If aliens ever fly thier ship over my fucking head, I'll revise my tune on this ?

@Scholar Not sure if you've ever been on a Jury, but considerations of which account of events being presented is the most truthful is a huge part of what Jurors are asked to do in court cases (in addition to considering things like responsibility for blame in light of extenuating circumstances, of course). The one criminal case that I was a Jury member for revolved entirely around determining whether an ex-convict was in possession of a firearm or not (ie weighing the merits of conflicting factual Truth claims). And for the record while I do posit that aliens visiting Earth is at least possible, it's not a claim I'm inclined to take seriously from the types of evidence presented so far (generally consisting of people elucidating remembered perceptions of strange phenomena, and low quality, hard to decipher video footage). If something more substantial comes to light, I'll reevaluate my opinion. A problem I see with the 'aliens visiting Earth' hypothesis in this thread is that people defending the claim handwave away any Inferences at all that could be made about potential Aliens with a retort that basically boils down to 'nothing at all can be inferred, because reality is infinite and anything is possible'. Which if your metaphysical ontology rests upon the assumption that all of Reality is a creation of Consciousness (which is in assumption, by the way, just as much as Materialism is an assumption) I guess that follows, and is at least internally consistent. But as a way to defend a hypothesis it seems intellectually lazy, and just as inadequate as a skeptic trying to refute said claim on the basis of Materialist Reductionism (ie the Speed of Light cant by bypassed, ergo no interstellar travel). If you're in position of having to use metaphysical axiomatic assumptions to back up your claim, it doesn't make for a very convincing argument for people outside of that particular Paradigm.

You'd think the threshold of evidence to confirm a new paradigm so world changing in its implications (that aliens not only exist but are regularly visiting our planet), would be higher than the threshold a jury would use to convict someone of vandalism to public property (the evidence consisting of hard to decipher low quality security footage, and eyewitness testimony from people too far away to make out distinguishable features beyond just a silhouette, etc). Also: what kind of sense does it make that beings which possess the unfathomable level of technology needed to cross the gulf between stars somehow doesn't have the ability to mask thier crafts from detection? Sure someone might retort that "we have no idea what they're technologically capable of", which is true to some extent, but also misses the obvious point that we can make at least draw some general inferences. It's not unreasonable to assume that a civilization that has mastered interstellar travel would also be knowledgeable about how to hide themselves from detection from a much less technologically sophisticated society. While I posit that agnosticism isn't an unreasonable supposition, I see lots of confirmation bias for people who want aliens to exist... Hell, I want aliens to exist, but I do recognize that the more likely path of discovering microbes or indirect radio spectrometry evidence isn't nearly as exciting for most people as exciting as Intelligent beings that have taken a direct interest in our planet.

Vegetarians / Vegans would do well to put more emphasis on strategies for helping people transition towards a more ethical and sustainable diet, rather than approaching it from a viewpoint of moral absolutism. Vegetarianism/Veganism is a lifestyle change after all. For my part, it took me a good year or two to reach a point where something like %95 of my diet is Vegetarian, something that I wouldn't have been able to stick with if I didn't adopt it gradually.

@LfcCharlie4 You bring up some Valid points. Even if the Crony Capitalism is often used as a cop out by more Libertarian leaning types when discussing structural problems at the Heart of Capitalism, they are absolutely right to point out that the government is often in bed with private industry in corrupt ways that distort the Market. So no disagreement there. What I would argue though is that the incentive structure of Capitalism is such that Crony Capitalism is its inevitable outcome, unless safeguards are put in place to prevent that from happening. Which means things like regulation, transparency laws, publicly funded election campaigns, etc. While Free Markets are great in theory, and sometimes in Practice as well, the problem is that certain Industries/Services are much more well suited to Market Dynamics than others, for a variety of structural reasons. Going back to the Comcast example, even if the government did nothing at all to prop up Comcast's monopolistic businesses practices, it's not like a 'mom and pop' ISP has any chance at all to enter thr marketplace and compete with Comcast, due to the incredibly high barrier of entry for Internet Providers, as for most Utilities. And that's leaving aside the issue of Oligopolies, where companies form tacit agreements not to compete with one another, further limiting the amount of 'choice' a potential consumer has, which the ISP Industry is notorious for. In other instances, consumers are constrained in how much of a choice they really have. In a country with privatized medicine like the US, someone who needs an ambulance because they're having a Heart Attack can't really Shop Around for different ambulance services that offer the best price. (Be glad you don't live over here if you happen to get sick at any point in your life, ambulance bills are thousands of dollars). And yet another problem with Market Dynamics is when the incentive structure of Markets conflicts with people's being able to meet thier basic survival needs; the Housing Market being a prime example of this. Where you have something that's a basic necessity treated as an Investment by Market Incentives, with the result that a basic need (Housing) has become unobtainable for many people. Here in America you ha e this absurd situation where there's something like twenty unoccupied houses for each Homeless person who lives here. My non-original take on the issue is that Markets are a tool, one which has the capacity to be helpful or harmful depending on where and how they are used.

@LfcCharlie4 I try my best to be relatively non-ideological about what to leave in the public vs private sphere, and am all for means testing government programs to make sure they're fulfilling thier intended purpose. That said, there are some human necessities where introducing a Profit motive creates a Moral Hazard. I'm assuming you probably wouldn't be okay with someone selling thier Organs to pay thier bills, or someone agreeing to become an Indentured Servant with no Legal Rights for ten years to pay off thier Student Loan Debts. Likewise, introducing a profit motive in to things like Prisons or Healthcare creates perverse incentives where organizations directly benefit from Harming people. Hence, they become Predatory. In addition, when people mention that government programs can become bloated and inefficient (sometimes true), they fail to see how the same can be true of Private Industry. Hell, Comcast is still around, and they're one of the worst companies in existence, providing truly terrible service for a premium cost. In addition, public programs have a huge advantage over privatized ones; Public programs can be run at Cost, and not have to skim a Profit from people using thier services. A government program would have to be very inefficient indeed to not be able to compete with a Privatized Service which must provide Investors with a quarterly return, and CEOs with millions of dollars in compensation. Also, you'll notice that at no point did I mention that any public services were free: they're tax payer supported. What I will argue is that something supported by taxes will often be both more inexpensive and better than its privatized alternative.

While the above videos offer a valid critique of Spiral Dynamics and Ken Wilber, if you're interested in this topic, I would highly recommend the book The Listening Society by Hanzi Freinacht. The book is a Metamodern text on Developmental Psychology and Sociology, and deals quite explicitly with both Spiral Dynamics and Ken Wilber. The book points out some of the strengths and weaknesses of both models, and presents a more refined version of Spiral Dynamics that accounts for some of its weaknesses, a refinement that the author calls an Effective Value Meme. Some of the problems about the Spiral Dynamics model which the author points out is that it attempts to merge several different areas of human development on to a single axis, and doesn't account for how people may have a level of cognitive complexity (or Wisdom) that's either below or above what Spiral Dynamics stage they've been imprinted with. It also points out that Turquoise is something that really doesn't exist at this point of time, and is more indicative of the limitations of Spiral Dynamics as a model to integrate people who have reached a level of wisdom and sophistication beyond their current SD-Stage. A nice illustration of the limitations of SD as a model is that it doesn't provide a clear and unambiguous answer to the following question : Which of the following people is at a 'Higher' level of psychological and personal development - Aristotle (roughly SD-Blue), or a 15 year old contemporary hippy girl (roughly SD-Green)?