Flesh and bone by the telephone
Lift up the receiver, I'll make you a believer"
Depeche Mode - Personal Jesus
Oddly enough, my previous post on first encounter scenarios in ST:TNG had been planned for months in advance, ever since re-watching the episode First Contact (the one with the kinky nurse.) It was sheer dumb luck that I decided to write it up just as the American government publicly admitted three short "UFO" videos are real. Which is to say, they really are videos and they really do show grainy grains on the grainy horizon, and that's all they show. The usual lens flare or "aluminum pie pan on a string" crap. A couple of days ago when I finally became aware of last week's "news" I immediately felt as though I should have something to say about it. After all, here I am a Chaotic Neutral SciFi fanboy three decades running and confessed former squinter after unidentified flying bigfoots. Should I not be first in line to cheer the loosening of our nefarious shadowy overlords' obfuscation of the Truth which Is surely Out There?
Well, no. Because you see, my cryptid/psychics/UFO phase was part of my intellectual growth as an individual, which implies growing past childish credulity. So that phase started at about ten years old and ended at about twelve. Thus, this post is not about exceedingly-identified flying artifacts of data-gathering. This post is about credulity. In fact the topic takes me back to 2012, when this blog had already gone on several months longer than I thought it would. I'd listened to a religious nut railing against Bill Maher. The cri de coeur of "you hate God!" finally made me realize that religion precludes realism, and the religious erroneously view atheism as a religious conflict. And it's not. Realists don't hate gods. Realists can't hate gods. There's nothing there to hate.
By the same token I find myself amused at articles and TV interviews decrying the lack of interest in this latest expedition up Mount Molehill. How come the whole world isn't talking about this a-may-zing discovery of extraterrestrials!?!
...
Well, in our defense, most of us here in the States are a little distracted by our commander in chump and his cartel deliberately murdering their constituents by refusing to treat a pandemic seriously. But, more to the point, we're not discussing it because there are no extraterrestrials to discuss. If there even was a government cover-up until now, I doubt it required more than a handkerchief. A glorified lens flare, wishful thinking and pareidolia do not an alien invasion make.
First off, it's been remarked that our brain is a pattern-seeking device. Most impressively, it seeks intentionality, deliberate action or presence, in the sensory data we receive. Optimists will tell you it helped our ancestors avoid leopards and bears when they heard a rustle in the grass, by assuming the worst. Me, I don't buy it. There was always a worse predator to kill-or-be-killed much closer to home: we, ourselves, each other. In any case, your brain is primed to see the Virgin Mary in the burn pattern on a pancake and to see little green men in an errant pixel on a video screen, leaping past the myriad more likely but less exciting explanations like temperature gradients, electromagnetism, abnormalities in albedo, flotsam and balloons, seagulls or hoaxes, etc. (It amazes me that the same conspiracy theorists so ready to believe their government is screwing them over by hiding information will never consider the same government would also screw them over by fabricating distractions... in an election year.)
Second off: nothing. No, really, think about that. Think about the nothing. Void. Think about the endless, lifeless, airless, heatless void, quintillions of kilometers in every direction, as you cling to the comparative safety of this transient little marble spinning about one insignificant star. Getting dizzy? Not a pleasant thought, is it? Wouldn't it be nice if there were other, smarter people out there for us to share it with? People who might actually know what the fuck is going on with the universe instead of fumbling from cradle to grave like we do? Humans are a heavily neotenized species. Perhaps not the most extreme such example in strict anatomic terms but certainly an obvious one, and given our extensive behavioral repertoire is rooted in such instincts we should not be surprised that we continue to seek protectors and caretakers, parental figures, even into adulthood. Hero worship provides one outlet for this instinct. Religion provides another. It's hardly surprising that when our mythical extraterrestrials are not described in strictly xenophobic terms as wolves rustling in the interstellar grass, they tend to toe the Messianic line, holding promises of golden ages and life after death. Our crops used to be withered by witches. Now it's flying saucers. We used to get possessed by demons. Now it's "thetans". Zeus used to ride around on a cloud. Now it's a pimped-out X-Wing.
There is a great and superhuman presence our there... and it cares enough to personally probe you.
If I told you there's a pot of gold at the bottom of a canyon based on three pixels on an infrared camera, would you dive down after it? Here's the funny thing: even if alien visitation turned out to be real, you would still be a moron for believing in it. Even if, tomorrow, Klaatu stepped out of his superluminal aluminum boob clad in his futuristic belted condom and welcomed humanity into the galactic community (pending GalacticEPA compliance) you would still be an imbecile for having believed in it before Klaatu showed up. When every theory that was held up based on such flimsy evidence, from mermaids to angels to the Cottingley fairies, has fallen flat throughout history, believing in the latest one doesn't make you a transcendent visionary. It makes you the retard who buys a lottery ticket. Even if you win, your belief in the likelihood of such an event, based on the evidence at hand, is not retroactively validated.
It was still retarded.
I Want To Believe, but belief follows reason.
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