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niksphy9's avatar

Chances of something being true has a lot to do with how many top scientists are working on it. And if people really are working on it, there would be progress, in material sciences atleast , not least fuel etc. If other countries know it, then it is a race where people will devote significant $ on it, we saw that with nukes across the world. consider AI right now. govts might want to keep it secret to stop other countries (that dont yet know) from pursuing it/ searching for such materials (search ocean beds?). The idea of secret race with no country spending to match the degree of technical change it would bring means, it is likely low probability.And what about secret agencies of other countries , not finding it out till now?. Either cult has it and are keeping it from being explored, thinking its some trojan horse danger something. Or it is not true, Even if it were true, we dont see the dynamic of other country spy agencies not finding it out till now. Or govt not doing everything in their power to find the secrets and exploit it for technology, growth, military etc. None of it makes sense.

Ben Finn's avatar

“it should be clear that disclosure would in fact give us a big boost to our other goals” - how, and what other goals?

Thrawn's avatar

"Our govt military and intelligence communities must be quite aware that citizens are only willing to give them a limited fraction of GDP, which clearly shows that the “security” goals we assign to them are not an overwhelming priority"

What an actually insane thing to say.

Thrawn's avatar

Because the idea that something has to be assigned a high fraction of GDP to be an overwhelming priority is an insane way to sort things. According to that:

Overwhelming priorities:

1. Social Security

2. Medicare

3. Medicaid and other health

4. Net interest on the debt

Not that important:

1. Drinking water

2. Love

3. Reproduction

4. Science

TGGP's avatar

> 1. Drinking water

See the diamond-water paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_value

Thrawn's avatar

Shorter version: fractional share of GDP does in fact not denote importance or priority, as inconvenient as that is to some very odd religions.