"When we’re talking about very unpopular beliefs, polls can only give a weak signal. Any possible source of noise – jokesters, cognitive biases, or deliberate misbehavior – can easily overwhelm the signal. Therefore, polls that rely on detecting very weak signals should be taken with a grain of salt."
Thanks for the great comment and useful link! I think you are right, most of the flat earthers don't actually believe it. But I do think enough of them do believe it to have tens of thousands, maybe millions, given the size of the US.
I remember this congressional hearing where Congressman Johnson from Georgia asked, apparently seriously, if Guam would tip over if too many people moved there. It seems he really did think islands float! (And these are the ones we elect!) https://www.politico.com/story/2010/07/guam-video-haunts-johnson-039695
Thanks again for your great comment and for reading the post. I really appreciate it and hope to see you in future comment sections!
I think the some of this is the true source of most conspiracy theory beliefs: to signal that you reject the status quo consensus of things, rather than "belief" as meaning "I looked into the claims and actually think they are true, and will take actions based on that."
Thank you for the comment! The Fermi paradox is fascinating, and perhaps we should talk about it in a future post. All the best and thank you for reading Jonathan!
So basically, the odds that there is a government/defense conspiracy is now close to 100%, it just remains to be seen what exactly is the nature of the conspiracy
If you define "conspiracy" as they have information they are not telling us, then I suppose so, but that is not how I would define a conspiracy in most cases. The stated reason, as far as I know, for us not being told this information is that it could reveal information about US imaging and sensor capabilities, which sounds at least plausible, so I am not sure if that is a conspiracy the way most people understand it.
Grusch has claimed he has turned over lots of documents and has that inspector general complaint, so we will see if more is revealed.
As stated in the post, however, UFOs could make themselves known very easily, so if they are indeed here (which we still have no conclusive evidence of) it seems they do not want to be known, which I think is at least worth factoring in to our thoughts on this.
I think I commented something like this in another comment but its like-- the most successful conspiracies are never discovered, so our data on them is inherently limited.
I was thinking of it as: one the one hand maybe there are aliens that are being covered up (not my position). If there aren’t aliens, then there exists a coordinated (but perhaps small in numbers) effort within government / defense to make us falsely think there are aliens being covered up, for motives that aren’t clear yet. Either way something weird and coordinated is going on to manipulate us.
On the second one - it isn’t just isolated individuals - the way official statements have talked about the issue has changed dramatically in the last year or so, coinciding with officials and government officers beginning to speak out. Something is going on in a coordinated way, with a decision made very recently to tease info to make people think they are covering up something wild. I think it is fair to call this a “conspiracy” if it isn’t true. .
First of all, as a side point I’m LDS, and LDS theology is especially fun in that it gives explicit place for other populated planets out there, and of course God, who has ability beyond mortal comprehension. So I guess I do believe in aliens. But non-God interstellar space travel seems unlikely, and even if were possible, it seems absurd that aliens would come here, hang out, crash their high tech ships, etc. So I expect it’s shenanigans. To what end, though, I have no idea. Maybe distract and divide? Really no idea.
Interesting. I don't believe in any conspiracies (beginning with JFK's assassination). But, I wonder about a couple of things:
Military secrets--we know that "Ultra" was kept secret for a number of years.--officially 29 years. There are other military secrets which were successfully maintained--U2 flights, US work on gas warfare, etc. etc. I wonder whether they could be treated as "conspiracies" and used to test the logic of the paper?
Another concern--when is a conspiracy revealed? There are a lot of conspiracies in American history. A lot of military people knew Ultra, at least as the provider of information, not how it was implemented.
Thanks for the comment! I think that is a great idea and I hope someone runs with your ideas to do an even further analysis of the math of conspiracies. Perhaps someone even has and I've just missed it.
I think ultimately the most likely case is that this is US tech/mistaken memories/disinformation because we know for sure that 1) secret US planes exist 2) disinformation campaigns exist and 3) classification exists for a reason
but we have no idea whether
1) aliens exist 2) why they would visit but hide their appearance and 3) why their planes would crash
Of course one of the things about conspiracies is that we will never know the most successful conspiracy of all time, by definition!
Nice post! I think the most compelling point you make is:
"But believing this conspiracy theory also leads us to believe several other implausible things:"
This is almost always the best evidence against specific theories: that, if they were true, it would require that certain other things were true, and those things are verifiably false to anyone who looks.
Worse, the more complex your theory gets to explain why those additional things don't actually matter, it implies even more other things that are required to be true.
It's very apparent when you compare to conspiracy theories are ended up being true, (say: "The US government was spying on tons of people in the US and internationally!") or those that could be true, the "secondary things" they imply must also be true.... are actually true. Like a puzzle piece.
Thank you! The UFO thing is strange to me since it causes us to question which "trusted" sources are reliable. I am not sure what to make of the fact the NYT printed that off world vehicles quote. I am not sure what to make of the fact Harry Reid seemed deadly serious to me that this stuff was real.
The interesting thing about this conspiracy theory is that few will believe you if you do claim "it's aliens" so perhaps this has enabled the conspiracy to persist, if there is one.
I deleted this from a draft piece but I think one "fun" possibility is that there really were 1-2 unexplainable alien visitations a while back which could not be explained, then elements of the government, not believing it, ran away with it as a disinformation campaign, and only recently found out some element of it was true. That might explain the classification, the cultural memes, and the weird evidence we see.
That said, what I just wrote in this comment is more fanfiction than fact, and I have no evidence that is true except for the fact it would make one hell of a documentary, should it prove to be true.
I also think there is some small chance the UFO documents Grusch claimed to see are really just a loyalty test given to people privy to hardcore secrets. Those who take the documents seriously and uncritically are weeded out, as Grusch presumably has been.
Again, that is total speculation not based on any facts.
I am going to be very interested to see where this one goes.
Someone wrote an article about "bounded trust" - I trust the NYT (and even Harry Reid) on certain things, and don't on others. "Aliens have visited earth and we have their craft/bodies/tech" is one I wouldn't "believe" from anyone, because the things I would need to persuade me - and it would be easy to do so, as you point out - are material evidence rather than just someone saying that. 7 billion people could tell me this and I'm still gonna need to see an actual, legitimate picture of a chunk of alien spacecraft, complete with an experiment demonstrating some non-terrestrial trait - and a comprehensive explanation about why those "other things" were true or irrelevant.
When I was young, it was hard to believe that chunks of the moon or mars could've been knocked off and landed on earth - but when I saw someone show the analysis of the metals, then I agreed it was probably true.
The problem is that, as anyone who flies knows, there are just plain tons of things that you "see" that don't always make sense. That people saw things and thought "those seem like aliens" is totally believeable to me.
Regarding many of the claims about public belief made in this essay, you should keep in mind the Lizardman Constant (https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/12/noisy-poll-results-and-reptilian-muslim-climatologists-from-mars/). To quote the conclusion:
"When we’re talking about very unpopular beliefs, polls can only give a weak signal. Any possible source of noise – jokesters, cognitive biases, or deliberate misbehavior – can easily overwhelm the signal. Therefore, polls that rely on detecting very weak signals should be taken with a grain of salt."
Thanks for the great comment and useful link! I think you are right, most of the flat earthers don't actually believe it. But I do think enough of them do believe it to have tens of thousands, maybe millions, given the size of the US.
I remember this congressional hearing where Congressman Johnson from Georgia asked, apparently seriously, if Guam would tip over if too many people moved there. It seems he really did think islands float! (And these are the ones we elect!) https://www.politico.com/story/2010/07/guam-video-haunts-johnson-039695
Thanks again for your great comment and for reading the post. I really appreciate it and hope to see you in future comment sections!
I think the some of this is the true source of most conspiracy theory beliefs: to signal that you reject the status quo consensus of things, rather than "belief" as meaning "I looked into the claims and actually think they are true, and will take actions based on that."
And don't forget the Fermi Paradox - https://www.space.com/25325-fermi-paradox.html
Thank you for the comment! The Fermi paradox is fascinating, and perhaps we should talk about it in a future post. All the best and thank you for reading Jonathan!
So basically, the odds that there is a government/defense conspiracy is now close to 100%, it just remains to be seen what exactly is the nature of the conspiracy
thank you for your comment, by the way
If you define "conspiracy" as they have information they are not telling us, then I suppose so, but that is not how I would define a conspiracy in most cases. The stated reason, as far as I know, for us not being told this information is that it could reveal information about US imaging and sensor capabilities, which sounds at least plausible, so I am not sure if that is a conspiracy the way most people understand it.
Grusch has claimed he has turned over lots of documents and has that inspector general complaint, so we will see if more is revealed.
As stated in the post, however, UFOs could make themselves known very easily, so if they are indeed here (which we still have no conclusive evidence of) it seems they do not want to be known, which I think is at least worth factoring in to our thoughts on this.
I think I commented something like this in another comment but its like-- the most successful conspiracies are never discovered, so our data on them is inherently limited.
I was thinking of it as: one the one hand maybe there are aliens that are being covered up (not my position). If there aren’t aliens, then there exists a coordinated (but perhaps small in numbers) effort within government / defense to make us falsely think there are aliens being covered up, for motives that aren’t clear yet. Either way something weird and coordinated is going on to manipulate us.
On the second one - it isn’t just isolated individuals - the way official statements have talked about the issue has changed dramatically in the last year or so, coinciding with officials and government officers beginning to speak out. Something is going on in a coordinated way, with a decision made very recently to tease info to make people think they are covering up something wild. I think it is fair to call this a “conspiracy” if it isn’t true. .
With that definition I think it's possible! The whole thing is strange.
What do you think is the most likely scenario?
First of all, as a side point I’m LDS, and LDS theology is especially fun in that it gives explicit place for other populated planets out there, and of course God, who has ability beyond mortal comprehension. So I guess I do believe in aliens. But non-God interstellar space travel seems unlikely, and even if were possible, it seems absurd that aliens would come here, hang out, crash their high tech ships, etc. So I expect it’s shenanigans. To what end, though, I have no idea. Maybe distract and divide? Really no idea.
Interesting. I don't believe in any conspiracies (beginning with JFK's assassination). But, I wonder about a couple of things:
Military secrets--we know that "Ultra" was kept secret for a number of years.--officially 29 years. There are other military secrets which were successfully maintained--U2 flights, US work on gas warfare, etc. etc. I wonder whether they could be treated as "conspiracies" and used to test the logic of the paper?
Another concern--when is a conspiracy revealed? There are a lot of conspiracies in American history. A lot of military people knew Ultra, at least as the provider of information, not how it was implemented.
Thanks for the comment! I think that is a great idea and I hope someone runs with your ideas to do an even further analysis of the math of conspiracies. Perhaps someone even has and I've just missed it.
I think ultimately the most likely case is that this is US tech/mistaken memories/disinformation because we know for sure that 1) secret US planes exist 2) disinformation campaigns exist and 3) classification exists for a reason
but we have no idea whether
1) aliens exist 2) why they would visit but hide their appearance and 3) why their planes would crash
Of course one of the things about conspiracies is that we will never know the most successful conspiracy of all time, by definition!
Nice post! I think the most compelling point you make is:
"But believing this conspiracy theory also leads us to believe several other implausible things:"
This is almost always the best evidence against specific theories: that, if they were true, it would require that certain other things were true, and those things are verifiably false to anyone who looks.
Worse, the more complex your theory gets to explain why those additional things don't actually matter, it implies even more other things that are required to be true.
It's very apparent when you compare to conspiracy theories are ended up being true, (say: "The US government was spying on tons of people in the US and internationally!") or those that could be true, the "secondary things" they imply must also be true.... are actually true. Like a puzzle piece.
Makes me think of the xkcd: The Economic Argument against pseudoscientific/magical beliefs: https://xkcd.com/808/
There's Always A Relevant xkcd! :)
So true! Thanks for that share
Thank you! The UFO thing is strange to me since it causes us to question which "trusted" sources are reliable. I am not sure what to make of the fact the NYT printed that off world vehicles quote. I am not sure what to make of the fact Harry Reid seemed deadly serious to me that this stuff was real.
The interesting thing about this conspiracy theory is that few will believe you if you do claim "it's aliens" so perhaps this has enabled the conspiracy to persist, if there is one.
I deleted this from a draft piece but I think one "fun" possibility is that there really were 1-2 unexplainable alien visitations a while back which could not be explained, then elements of the government, not believing it, ran away with it as a disinformation campaign, and only recently found out some element of it was true. That might explain the classification, the cultural memes, and the weird evidence we see.
That said, what I just wrote in this comment is more fanfiction than fact, and I have no evidence that is true except for the fact it would make one hell of a documentary, should it prove to be true.
I also think there is some small chance the UFO documents Grusch claimed to see are really just a loyalty test given to people privy to hardcore secrets. Those who take the documents seriously and uncritically are weeded out, as Grusch presumably has been.
Again, that is total speculation not based on any facts.
I am going to be very interested to see where this one goes.
Someone wrote an article about "bounded trust" - I trust the NYT (and even Harry Reid) on certain things, and don't on others. "Aliens have visited earth and we have their craft/bodies/tech" is one I wouldn't "believe" from anyone, because the things I would need to persuade me - and it would be easy to do so, as you point out - are material evidence rather than just someone saying that. 7 billion people could tell me this and I'm still gonna need to see an actual, legitimate picture of a chunk of alien spacecraft, complete with an experiment demonstrating some non-terrestrial trait - and a comprehensive explanation about why those "other things" were true or irrelevant.
When I was young, it was hard to believe that chunks of the moon or mars could've been knocked off and landed on earth - but when I saw someone show the analysis of the metals, then I agreed it was probably true.
The problem is that, as anyone who flies knows, there are just plain tons of things that you "see" that don't always make sense. That people saw things and thought "those seem like aliens" is totally believeable to me.
Great points and reply. Was that bounded (dis)trust article this one?
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/bounded-distrust
yep
Thanks for sharing, it’s nice to know something new👏👏 KEEP GOING
Thank you!
Some "interesting" epistemology and (binary) logic going on in this essay. Far from surprising, but always interesting.
Thank you for the comment! Any suggestions for improvements or future areas to look into are welcomed.