I’m the OP of that bigfoot discussion on r/ssc. My views haven’t substantially changed on that subject.
I agree with the great-grandparent that aliens being real is an enormously bigger change from the standard worldview than bigfoot being real.
I give < 10% likelihood to these UAPs being genuine aliens as stereotypically imagined, and < 50% likelihood of being some significant scientific update (e.g. weather phenomenon, spoofing technology).
However, assuming actual aliens in spaceships were here and trying halfheartedly to hide from us, I would expect the photo and video evidence to be about as crap as it is. So I agree with the conclusion of this OP, but disagree with the rationale.
You’ve convinced me! I don’t want to defend the claim you quoted, so I’ll modify “arguably” into something much weaker.
Also perhaps of interest might be this discussion from the SSC subreddit awhile back where someone detailed their pro-Bigfoot case.
I’m the OP of that bigfoot discussion on r/ssc. My views haven’t substantially changed on that subject.
I agree with the great-grandparent that aliens being real is an enormously bigger change from the standard worldview than bigfoot being real.
I give < 10% likelihood to these UAPs being genuine aliens as stereotypically imagined, and < 50% likelihood of being some significant scientific update (e.g. weather phenomenon, spoofing technology).
However, assuming actual aliens in spaceships were here and trying halfheartedly to hide from us, I would expect the photo and video evidence to be about as crap as it is. So I agree with the conclusion of this OP, but disagree with the rationale.
Edit 19-JUN-2023: Upon reflection, I think assigning <10% likelihood is overconfident of me. I realized this when I read the recent post asking for UAP bets https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/t5W87hQF5gKyTofQB/ufo-betting-put-up-or-shut-up and thought about the real reasons why I wouldn’t take the bet.
The aliens are here and they’re super advanced, but they’re also kind of klutzes.