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Benjamin Cole's avatar

No one has ever accused me of being a member of any elite, anywhere. I want to be in the elite, any elite anywhere, but I never made it.

But this sentiment by Megan McArdle strikes me as daffy:

"Whether we’re being visited, and what they might be up to, is the most important question of anyone’s lifetime, because, if so, everything that currently obsesses us, including the pandemic, will retreat to a historical footnote. …"--MM

OK, say the Earth is being visited by aliens. Somehow proof is generated to back up that claim. Then what? So what?

Will the US dismiss woke politics? Will Latin American governments become less corrupt? Will Putin become a nice guy? The CCP all lightness and liberty? Labor share of income in the US begins to rise again? Pretty girls notice me?

Intellectually, alien visits are fascinating. I hope they are "real." But after a few weeks of media buzz, then....nothing will change.

Our plebeian, prosaic lives lives go on as before. Governments will waste money on military outlays The Shiites will hate the Sunnis.

And most importantly I will not be in an elite even if aliens land on the White House lawn, or in the pool at the Hugh Hefner mansion. Both places I have never been invited.

I suppose if aliens elect me as their spokesman, my lot in life would become elite. A slender reed, indeed.

Aliens! Listen! I can be your spokesman!

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CarlShulman's avatar

OK. Both of those are still pretty taboo-cagey, the first with the disjunction with mundane hoax/lie, and the second with 1000:1 odds. But I can see why you would still want to mostly respect the taboo even while complaining about how others aren't infringing it as much as you.

Also, the taboo isn't about assessing serious consequences given an unlikely antecedent (see, e.g. asteroid impact planning), but about the seemingly crazy belief that it's likely and the bad traits believers statistically tend to have. Taking consequences seriously is just one of several signals of high credence or belief that there are alien UFOs.

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