[catigula]

Non-human intelligence sharing the planet with us is a mundane explanation. It's a completely trivial possibility in the vastly expansive fields of biology and physics. Earth is known to host extremely complex life and is the only known planet to do so. To look for unknown forms of life one need only look at their feet. Bacteria was a previously unknown, extremely expansive form of life on Earth.

We unlocked the secrets of the atom and gained within it the capability of ending all life on earth trivially. Other secrets being locked behind physics isn't a radical speculation. In fact, it's surprising that we haven't really seen any since.

[crackrook]

Before we had the instruments to observe them directly we could theorize about the existence of bacteria because we could indirectly observe them through their effects on our biology and even their macroscopic effects on populations, effects that had no better explanations. I am not aware of any mysteries that are most simply explained by a hitherto unobserved, technologically advanced (I assume we're not talking about dolphins when we say) "non-human intelligence", whether they supposedly dwell in the depths of the ocean, the Earth's crust, Titan, or anywhere else in the universe. SETI has been listening for ~60 years and hasn't heard a peep from any of the billions (trillions?) exoplanet's worth of radio signals that could have reached us in that time.

The available-to-me evidence suggests that technologically advanced species are exceedingly rare, and the only such species we're aware of emits an overwhelming number of artifacts that would serve as evidence for its existence, so it would be very much not mundane to discover that another one has been living under our noses this whole time.

I am not making a truth claim here, as in "it's definitively untrue that there are non-human intelligences sharing the planet with us," I'm just arguing that it's an extraordinary claim that should require extraordinary evidence - grainy footage and hearsay isn't enough for me.

[catigula]

>I am not aware of any mysteries that are most simply explained by a hitherto unobserved, technologically advanced (I assume we're not talking about dolphins when we say) "non-human intelligence"

This is precisely the point. You aren't aware of these mysteries, despite the earnest attempts of many to bring them to your direct attention.

There is no longer any attempt to hide the mysteries categorically, so this lack of information is now on you.

>I am not making a truth claim here, as in "it's definitively untrue that there are non-human intelligences sharing the planet with us," I'm just arguing that it's an extraordinary claim that should require extraordinary evidence - grainy footage and hearsay isn't enough for me.

Yes, that's why the correct scenario is wide declassification of the premises that are asserted in this regard, i.e. to make general knowledge of unidentifiable phenomena which have no definitive known cause or origin, communication with these entities, capture of their technology, etc. All of these things could be explained by various competing theories, some of them "simple" (funny how Occam's razor is always just what I prefer), but this information, which has been trickling out from credible sources, needs to be brought into the public space and then we get to decide what it implies or doesn't imply.

Right now there is a deliberate veil of secrecy and serious mysteries that aren't denied by anybody serious. They definitively exist.

[IAmBroom]

> Right now there is a deliberate veil of secrecy and serious mysteries that aren't denied by anybody serious. They definitively exist.

OK, I get that you're a cryptozoology/"aliens walk among us!" kinda person, but...

A lack of evidence against a theory is never evidence for the theory. It's very hard to prove a negative.

[catigula]

Curious that you immediately descend into partisan thought short-circuiting and now that that didn't work, you come up with a new angle.

[crackrook]

The person you're replying to wasn't the one who invoked what you call "partisan thought short circuiting," (which, I have to say, reads a lot like parody). It was me. Occam's razor is not at all about "what I prefer" and is entirely about preferring theories with evidence over those that are lacking (instead of inventing new theories to explain away the lack of evidence).

[crackrook]

Sorry, dumb thing to write. That's not at all Occam's razor is and I clearly need to get educated.

[crackrook]

> the correct scenario is wide declassification

It sounds to me like you and I see the same expansive hole where the evidence should be. My preference would be to say "show me a claim without a hole or stop wasting my time," you appear to assume that the evidence exists - because someone "credible" said it's so - and demand that the hole be filled immediately.

To claim there exists a grand conspiracy and web of well-kept secrets, ironically, is to try to explain away the first substanceless claim with a new one.

[catigula]

I'm trying to soft-land you on this but this is specifically because you don't know and haven't been curious about it, not because there isn't any evidence.

Nobody denies David Grusch is exactly who he says he is with the access he says he had. His lawyer was the former inspector general of the intelligence community for God's sake.

I find "conspiracies can't be true" a tiresome point. Any secret is a conspiracy and many are kept. Are the technical details of the F-47 or nuclear physics not true because these secrets have been kept? Nuclear physics have been classified and protected for going on 90 years now.

You can transform your claim to accommodate this, but it becomes suspicious.

[crackrook]

First, "conspiracies can't be true" was definitely not the point. You're right, conspiracies happen, governments do keep secrets! The point was: if a conspiracy theory with poor evidence were to be a reasonable explanation for another claim's poor evidence, I could claim whatever outlandish thing I wanted, e.g. "Unicorns are real, our puppet masters just don't want you to know about them!" This explanation is hard to falsify, and (in my view) shouldn't be our top choice, it's definitely not enough for me to regard the ultimate unicorn claim as "well-established fact."

If I wanted to make a compelling argument for my conspiracy theory, I would not only want to explain how the government has managed to keep this profound secret about unicorns, I'd want to to explain why it was theirs to keep in the first place. In a world with many sovereign nations with a vast array of publicly and privately-funded research institutions, camera-toting citizens, security cameras, wildlife cameras, etc., why is the U.S. government holding all of the compelling evidence? Or is not just the U.S.? Maybe we explain this with more conspiracies? Or maybe one really big conspiracy? Do you think it's likely that the government could keep narwhals a secret?

I haven't/wouldn't make any claims about David Grusch being who he says is, I haven't intentionally made any truth claims at all here; that said, whatever titles Grusch formerly held, and whatever title his lawyers formerly held, those titles don't, in my view, grant him credibility in perpetuity, maybe one could argue that they didn't grant much in the first place. The same goes for members of Congress. Should we believe Marjorie Taylor Greene if she tells us "The Jews" are starting forest fires with their space lasers to serve their malicious globalist agendas, on the basis that she's a congresswoman?

If you or anyone else has evidence, I'd urge them to be agents of truth and go update Grusch's Wikipedia article, at the time of writing this it states: > No evidence supporting Grusch's UFO claims has been presented and they have been dismissed by multiple, independent experts.

Or, perhaps we go searching for explanations as to why Wikipedia or the news organizations it accepts citations from are mere puppets of the conspirators, but at that point, who's being tiresome?

[catigula]

1. It is trivial to "falsify" unexplained UAP. Simply provide a credible explanation, or say they're explained. In fact, president Obama did the opposite, and confirmed that they aren't explained or explicable. Our government has been leaking these things for quite some time now.

2. Because you're a fan of Occam's razor, can you take your razor and say "Shucks, this guy Luis Elizondo was confirmed as a legitimate knowledgeable operator by former senate majority leader Harry Reid, a member of gang of eight, privy to the most classified intelligence in the United States, full stop, there isn't a higher position except for the president of the united states. This guy Dave Grusch has as his lawyer the former inspector general of the US intelligence communities. For some reason he's also outlining a scenario where we know about non human intelligences and they pose a serious existential threat to humanity, that's odd. Ah, well, can't be anything!"? The thing is, something deeply, deeply, deeply odd is going on and the shape of the leaks (something you should LOVE if you love Occam and 'debunking', because you've already predicted leaks in your no conspiracies modality) is consistent and absolutely disturbing, concerning, and a clear matter worthy of sustained attention. Why are all of these people at the highest level of our government talking about this? You're not at all concerned or curious, you're merely drifting through life, confident you passively have the answers? I find this incredible.

3. The US government hasn't kept the secret, as explicated. Just like the nuclear program, certain things have leaked.

4. If you continue to see mounting credible operators repeating the same story with absolutely no curiosity, no desire to know more, certainty that the entire thing is impossible or somehow debunked due to your meager cognitive abilities and patterns of thought that you don't even own, I don't know what to tell you. It's literally impossible for you to come across this information because you've immunized yourself to it. The fact that it's here and we're facing an overwhelming, nauseating story from the highest levels of government is worthy of serious consideration and we do not require your assessment to make that basic, obvious determination.

>If you or anyone else has evidence, I'd urge them to be agents of truth and go update Grusch's Wikipedia article, at the time of writing this it states: > No evidence supporting Grusch's UFO claims has been presented and they have been dismissed by multiple, independent experts.

I'd love to collect on this debt somehow when you're proven wrong in our lifetimes.