“That’s so speculative!” This is seemingly the most common criticism of the content of the video. But as Majesty of Reason explains here, this is to misunderstand the difference between undercutting and rebutting defeaters: th-cam.com/video/ThHsjYx-oEs/w-d-xo.htmlsi=wtvLBQhwcv6lsJgH&t=8763 As I explained in the low priors section and in the conclusion, in many cases we were not arguing that the skeptic’s claims were false (i.e., offering a rebutting defeater), we were instead removing their justification for thinking it’s true (i.e., offering an undercutting defeater). For instance, the skeptic argues that aliens wouldn’t crash their ships on earth because they'd be too advanced to make that sort of mistake, so we shouldn’t be swayed by the evidence presented of crashed UFOs. Jimmy and I in response offered several possibilities explaining how a craft produced by an advanced civilization could end up crashed or abandoned on the surface of the earth. We were obviously not saying we *knew* the various possibilities explored were true, just that they were real possibilities that the skeptic had not bothered to rule out. Why would I think that a particular possibility, like the skeptic's favorite option, is even probably true if it’s supported only by claims about what an unknown alien species would or wouldn’t do? Simply replying that the alternatives we discussed are “speculative” does not rule them out, nor does it provide any real grounds for doubting them, nor does it provide a positive reason to prefer the skeptic’s equally speculative option.
this approach, imo, is acutally less speculative than the skeptics’ arugments due to the fact that you were pointing out how there were in fact other possibilities and therefore there isn’t really much of a need to insist on one scenario especially given our epistemic limitations
Thanks, Arjuna! I was a little salty in my comments here, but I really *hate* seeing people psychologize others' beliefs instead of engaging the arguments and evidence. At the moment, I happen to be reading a book where the author does this extensively, and it just drives me nuts.
I haven't watched the video yet but I want to say that I appreciate what you do. Your channel is a peaceful place with high quality content that proves we can think and debate with mutual respect. It's a bit sad that this doesn't seel as well as "destroying opponents".
On the geography objection, I can add my experience: Latin America has a large culture of UFO/UAP encounters and sightings. It's a strong cultural phenomenon that's tied to new age movements all around the continent. For example, when I was growing up in El Salvador, my mom would regularly get a magazine called "Año Cero" (Year Zero), a Spanish publication with articles about the paranormal and UFOs from all around the world. It was a pretty popular magazine in the UFO/occult scene in El Salvador and many of the friends we visited had one or two of those magazines lying around. There's tons of reported sightings in Latin America, too. I remember seeing news reports of locals seeing strange moving lights in the sky, etc. Hell, I myself saw a UFO appear and disappear in the night sky while being out at night in San Salvador. UFOs are not just an American phenomenon. They're reported all around the globe and the global south is a hotbed of sightings and UFO culture. Saying that it's a strictly American thing really just means you don't bother with news from other countries.
I made the same arguments as well. In general I'm skeptic of "skeptics" because they often overstate their position and baldly assert claims that they can't defend, which is ironic considering their supposed skepticism. Rather than taking the position that psychic or paranormal phenomena are unproven for example, they go into completely irrational territory and deny that it is even remotely possible. Rather than merely stating that there is not enough evidence to assert God's existence, some of them will claim that God does not exist, claiming that these are identical statements on the grounds that we would also flat out deny hypotheticals like invisible dragons that breathe invisible fire. But one case is someone making up a concept out of nowhere, the other is supposed to be based on testimony and historical evidence, which is not analogous. Skepticism on UFOs is another variation on the theme.
Banger from Emerson, as per usual!🔥🔥 I don't know if aliens exist or not, and I guess this video as changed my mind in the sense that (i) I have become even more tentative and uncertain than I already was and (ii) the topic seems more interesting to me than it did before. I guess alot of the points Emerson and Jimmy brought up seemed pretty good to me beforehand, but now they don't seem that great to me anymore. Furthermore, before watching this, I kind of thought the whole "do aliens exist?" conversation didn't really matter that much other than the fact that there would be moral implications if we ever did meet aliens. However, now it seems there are some things which could make for more substantive discussion here. For one thing, it involves epistemological questions; how would we know if there are aliens or not? What should make us lower or heighten our priors? What could we know about their psychology? Also, there might be an interesting existential question here too; assuming aliens do not exist, why is this not the case? Surely, in light of the fact that the Universe is extremely vast and full of countless numbers of planets, solar systems, galaxies, galaxy clusters and so on, surely we would expect that there would at least be some sort of organic life like us out there, or which do not exist yet but might exist at some point in the future as the universe expands and new planets, solar systems, galaxies and galaxy clusters form? Moreover, might this not be evidence for the existence of God, as it would make it more probable that we are, in a way, at the centre of the universe? As if, this universe has come about for us, due to how there is nobody else present? Either way, excellent video and I will end off with a quote;
No, I don’t think it’s terrible. Though I always hesitate when people talk about “Hume’s argument”, because it’s never exactly clear what some dude in history really believed, and plenty of well-informed commentators have different readings of the same philosopher and whether they really said what they’re famous for saying. So who knows, maybe “Hume’s argument” is terrible. I don’t think it really matters. The real conversation is about overcoming prior improbability, which is exactly what we talked about. I didn’t bring Jimmy on to debate what Hume said, whether Darwin was a Christian or agnostic, or whether the moon is a planet. I’m sure I said a couple things in the course of 2.5 hours that he didn’t agree with either, but pursuing every disagreement wouldn’t be productive or relevant. And I’m sure if I made some throwaway comment about evil being dramatic evidence against theism, he wouldn’t have launched into a full debate over the problem of evil. We met up to talk about aliens and UFOs dawg
I agree with criticisms of easy skepticism when it comes to topics like aliens, but there is a serious asymmetry problem when it comes to contextualizing the data and arguing for low priors compared to the posture of being “open-minded” to the alien hypothesis. Of course explaining “some of the cases” does not mean that one can extrapolate a debunked status to all other cases, but some of the explanations are far from trivial and carry implications that can set a reasonable precedent for skepticism and establish a line of inquiry that challenges the otherworldly assumptions. In my opinion, the way the Tic Tac incident is mentioned in this discussion demonstrates a reluctance to engage with the potency of legitimate skepticism toward these declassified stories and footage. Just claiming that aspects have yet to be explained does not mean that skepticism is not an appropriate position in light of what has been examined thus far regarding equipment, optics, human error, eye-witness accounts, etc. Put simply, what we have so far is not enough. The most reasonable position we can take to get to the bottom of this is to demand more classified data points to be declassified. Otherwise, I believe we should be exercising a functional skepticism that is rigorous while not dismissive. But it should be skepticism nonetheless. Full disclosure, I’ve grown up in a family with highly credentialed family members who have always been prone to paranoia even while being incredibly intelligent and holding prominent roles. A current family member claims to be in the same circles as David Grusch with a direct and personal relationship with him. They affirm every single thing Grusch claims. I know these stories very well. For 35 years they’re all I’ve ever known. And they may all be true. But every piece of tangible evidence that has ever been produced has left enough room for reasonable doubt and plausible explanation that I must remain skeptical. So far it's a very unpopular position in my circles and it's earning a label of "cynic" that I find troubling. Presumably, enough information will eventually be declassified that there will be hardly a doubt left to have. I certainly hope for that to be the case so greater clarity and consensus can be established. But it seems that a conclusion can only ever be reached if the conclusion is in the affirmative. And therein lies the rub.
Decided to cross post this from Twitter. Just some thoughts about the broader epistemic approach: It was fun to listen to this exploration of the arguments for and against the plausibility of the recent excitement over UFOs. Particularly interesting was how similar UFO believers' arguments are to many of the arguments for God, especially the fact that responses to objections almost entirely ad hoc. You get an argument that some evidence supports the idea we have been visited by UFOs. Then the skeptic offers an objection. Then in response to the objection you get a story about what *could* have happened which serves as a way to undercut the objection - but no independent evidence is offered in favour of the story! The skeptical objections explored in the video aren't always great ones (especially not individually - cumulatively I think they have some force), but what seems entirely clear to me is that the sorts of responses to common objections Akin offers are ad hoc narratives with no independent support at all. The responses are, to me, much less credible even than the objections. The epistemic mistake here is giving weight to the observation that narratives can be constructed which fit any conceivable set of evidence. People think "Because I can tell a story about what might have happened, and because if the story is true it would give rise to what we see, then we have some reason to believe the story." But this is bad epistemic practice. We need constraints on the stories we tell, or we can make up pretty much anything to "explain" an observation. Ideally want our epistemic narratives to be independently motivated and consistent with our other knowledge, as well as simple and plausible etc. I.e. the narratives themselves have to have some epistemic qualities beyond "This fits the data." Telling stories which fit the data is easy. Ensuring those stories are themselves epistemically respectable is hard. I don't think much of Akin's speculations about the psychology of aliens etc. meet that standard. What such responses do show is that the objections you explore are not *logically definitive* or *epistemically indefeasible*. They show that simply saying, for instance, "If aliens had visited, someone would have revealed the conspiracy by now" does not *prove* aliens haven't visited. It is fair to note that if the skeptic is relying on such generalized objections to *prove* their case, they are mistaken. But I don't think that in general such objections are offered with the expectation that they are that strong. Rather, I think they are offered as part of a cumulative case which says: "If this was really happening then it is startling that we have NONE of this sort of evidence." Perhaps it would be good for skeptics to specify this more clearly, or offer their arguments in a slightly different way: "If aliens were visiting us, I see no good reason why they would be mostly visiting the USA. For this reason a cultural explanation seems more plausible." But I think it rather misleading to suggest that skeptics, when they offer such responses, are thinking they have disproved the existence of/visits of aliens. To get to a more epistemically responsible place here it is wise, whenever an ad hoc narrative is presented in response to one objection, to consider if a different ad hoc narrative might lead us to a different conclusion. "Aliens might be visiting the USA more frequently because they are interested in the countries with the most technology. Or they are interested in our nuclear weapons!" So might a believer say. OK, I can tell an ad hoc story on the other side too: "Aliens would prefer to visit countries which are less technologically advanced, because they would be less likely to be observed and less susceptible to local weaponry! They want to AVOID our nuclear weapons!" This is a fun game to play but it doesn't tell us anything helpful about aliens, in large part because we have no psychological data about aliens to enable us to distinguish between narratives. Without *independent evidence* about alien psychology, we are in no position to judge between different hypotheses which rest upon psychological analyses of aliens, and so the most epistemically responsible thing is to lend them little weight (the evolutionary considerations Akin raises are quite interesting but, in my view, far too loose to help us guide epistemic judgments). A bigger picture point: I broadly share your view that we should be open minded, and not reject paranormal stuff out of hand. Epistemic honesty requires us to give at least some considerations to the claims. But we have to be aware of the broader epistemic environment and human psychology. There is clearly a strong desire among many people to believe in aliens - it is a passion, an obsession even with some. They want it to be true (as, on some level, do I!). And so even airing these ad hoc anti-skeptical responses can give people a way to justify their beliefs. We may not wish to do this, especially in a broader epistemic environment which is very unhealthy. Culture is awash with conspiracy thinking and conspiracism is a direct threat to democracy with QAnon, Pizzagate etc. May be better to be more robust with these ideas for a while. Of course it could be that taking these conspiracies seriously and being more genial toward them will actually sap them of their power - it is difficult to tell on a social level how to respond. But it is worth considering whether a sort of uncritical airing is wise. A final note on one specific case you discuss - the Cash-Landrum case. I think it's worth looking at this closely because it shows some deficiencies in Akin's general approach. When assessing a claim such as this, I think the first thing we want to do is determine whether what eye witnesses claim to have observed actually happened. I note that in this interview, and on his Mysterious Worlds episode about the case, Akin reports what the participants *claim* happened as if it really *did* happen - there is no skepticism at all until *after* the basic outlines of the event are described and accepted. This is clearly unsatisfactory epistemic practice in the first instance, and in the Landrum case there is significant reason to doubt even that their basic account actually occurred. Their story changed significantly over time, and there is significant deviation from the claims of the witnesses and the contemporaneous medical records. This, for me, is a major worry. In the video Akin claims that "All three of them [got] symptoms of acute radiation syndrome", and then Emerson continues "...that perfectly correlate with how long they were outside the car." There is no good evidence to support this. The contemporaneous medical records (which are fully documented in books about the incident) do not show *any* evidence of acute radiation syndrome. Cash had some slight sunburn, a headache, and had hair loss which was formally diagnosed as the result of alopecia areata *after a skin biopsy*. There were no blisters or sores recorded (there are apparently photos of the aftermath of some blisters, but I cannot find them anywhere). No evidence of nausea. No diarrhea recorded. No bone marrow syndrome. No gastrointestinal syndrome. No CV or CNS syndrome. Specifically, there was not any evidence higher than normal *radiation*, which is a major problem with that theory. Further problematic is the fact that a dose of radiation large enough to cause ARS is usually fatal, and Cash lived a normal lifespan afterward, while her two companions had *no documented health problems at all*. The medical records of both of the women involved were examined by a radiologist, who found that there was not any evidence of radiation exposure. So the evidence roundly rebuts the specific claims about "acute radiation syndrome". (There are LOTS of other problems with the account, such as documents which demonstrate that Schuessler, the main source of investigative materials regarding the case, chose not to share large amounts of evidence which contradicted the claims which were subsequently made, but the medical stuff is clearest I think). Specifically, the claim that the extent of the witnesses injuries is correlated with the extent of time they spent outside the car - a claim he made in his video on the topic - is not borne out by any information whatsoever. Only one individual contemporaneously reported any sort of injuries at all, and there is only documentation of one person having any sort of medical problems at the time. Further - and crucially - being inside a car offers no protection from radiation. So the theory really has no legs at all. Doesn't the fact that Akin seems very credulous toward this UFO claim despite all these problems show that there is something wrong with his approach? If even this well-documented, well-evidenced, case in which the report simply doesn't match the evidence is in his mind worthy of serious consideration, doesn't that suggest his epistemic filter is too permissive? I think so.
"If aliens were visiting us, I see no good reason why they would be mostly visiting the USA." They are not "mostly visiting the USA." Reported UFO sightings occur in thousands annually all over the world. South America, in particular, has a far greater level of putative reports and popular discussion of the issue than the US. The topic is kind of a ubiquitous staple of popular culture there. There is no way to estimate which parts of the world have more reported UFO sightings, as there are no standards for collecting and reporting such information.
Even if you discount all of the hypnotic regression accounts of interactions with non-human intelligences, there is still a significant body of testimony about encounters which began when the subjects were conscious and can freely recall much of what apparently transpired during the encounter. It's not possible to objectively ascertain what happened to these people, but there's abundant evidence that their experiences were anomalous and often traumatic. It is unsound and unjust to wave away this issue as merely the effects of sleep paralysis and/or confabulation in a suggestible state. See also Ralph Blumenthal's book about Prof John Mack's work on the issue.
The ten skeptical objections we respond to: 05:28 The Trump Objection “If the government knew of alien visitations, Trump would have learned about it. If Trump knew about it, he wouldn’t be able to keep his mouth shut about it. But Trump never said anything about UFOs or aliens. Therefore, the government doesn’t have knowledge of alien visitations.” 13:43 The 'Too Many People' Objection “There would have to be too many people involved in a cover-up of alien visitations. Someone would accidentally let it slip or blow the whistle eventually. To quote Bill Nye, ‘The government kinda sucks at keeping secrets’.” 22:47 The Crash Objection “So these super-advanced aliens can build technology that (to us) is nearly indistinguishable from magic, they can travel here with that technology, but then when they get here, they crash? Aliens this advanced wouldn’t crash their ships like that!” 33:50 The Distance Objection “Alien visitations would require traversing vast regions of space faster than the speed of light, since traveling the necessary distances without faster-than-light travel would require a prohibitively long time. But faster-than-light travel is impossible. Therefore, we are not being visited by aliens.” 47:39 The Geography Objection “Why are alien abductions and UFO sightings geographically concentrated in the US? Doesn’t that seem to indicate that they are best explained psychologically or culturally?” 1:02:05 The Historical Objection “Why are alien abductions and UFO sightings temporally concentrated in the present day? Doesn’t that seem to indicate that they are best explained psychologically or culturally?” 1:16:01 The Motivation Objection “Why would advanced aliens come all the way here just to do the things it’s often alleged they do (e.g., mutilate cattle, make crop circles, or run tests on humans)?” 1:38:19 The Low Priors Objection “However unlikely it is that abductees, eyewitnesses, whistleblowers, etc. are lying or mistaken, mundane explanations of their testimony are still more probable than the idea that we are being visited by aliens. In other words, the kind of testimonial evidence we have isn’t sufficient to overcome the low prior probability of genuine alien visitations.” 1:54:43 The Illusion Objection “Many UFO/UAP sightings are produced by illusions: The eyewitnesses are just misjudging how far away the object is. Why couldn’t that explain all the sightings?” 2:03:27 The Psychoanalysis Objection “Belief in UFOs and aliens as a modern manifestation of the religious impulse. Humans are wired to believe in a power greater than themselves, and this explains why the UFO phenomenon arose as religion declined in the west.”
The best way to fight bad skepticism is with better skepticism, not with fanciful speculation. When people say that alien ships would not crash, ask them how they know so much about alien ship engineering. Show them what it really means to be skeptical by pointing out how foolish it is to pretend to know things that we do not know. If instead we make up a story about alien mother ships and alien psychology, then we're just making the same mistake and pretending to know things that we do not know. How do you know that aliens would use mother ships? Obviously we do not know that. We are just tossing speculation back and forth, maybe hoping that one speculation can somehow beat another speculation.
I don't have to be an engineer to assess whether or not my oven is working. Similary I don't think you have to be an expert to come to the conclusion that there's something wrong with the idea of an alien race that has solve deep space travel yet can't figure out how to keep it's inhabitents safe upon arrival. It at the very least requires explanation. I suppose one could try to say that maybe It's something like scientific equipment that basically designed to crash on purpose, but that's speculation on my part. I agree speculation is a problem. I think it plagues this entire video. They seem to be under the impression that if one can come up with any explanation, then that dismantles the objection entirely, which is absolutely not the case. It presents those who are skeptical of aliens as saying that aliens are impossible with a mathematical certainty.
@@jeremyhansen9197I agree with you that better skepticism is the answer to poor skepticism, but there is a deeper problem here. Mere possible explanations are such a low bar, they only require that there be no contradictions in the explanation. These counters to the skeptics are so easy to construct because they just require stacking assumptions and speculation on top of each other with no contradiction and boom the explanation becomes possible. But ultimately for me the bottom line is this: After decades, the alien visitation hypothesis has made no progress, has bore no fruit. It's still just as it was at the beginning about 70 years ago, it started with testimony and vague pictures and now we can add ambiguous videos to that. After so much time we would expect some physical evidence like alien bodies and alien wreckage that can be tested which would settle the whole thing.
@@Overonator If I'm interpret you correctly I think I basically agree. People argue crazy things all the time on the internet so I'm not surprised there are people with such a naive view of skepticism. I'm not aware of anyone who literally argues that it's impossible for ufos to be aliens. If all you care about is non contradiction, the explanation that they got here in two seconds by flapping a piece of cardboard against the aether is consistent with the right set of assumptions. It's not a serious argument. The most ironic thing is that as much as Emerson hates skepticism he's the one arguing for the skeptical position. He's arguing against the consensus view that we can say with confidence that aliens don't exist. He's arguing against a knowledge claim. His best argument is that there is some anecdotal evidence, but as you point out it bears no fruit. I suppose you could retort by saying the fruit is hidden in a government lab somewhere, but you could argue that for pretty much anything. Maybe we can't find any unicorns, because the government hunts down any trace of one. Although given Emerson's I wouldn't be surprised if we'll soon see an interview with a cryptozoologist, so who knows? Maybw he would try to argue that. When it comes down to it, anecdotal evidence can be a nice to start, but in cases such as literal aliens it holds little weight. If he and Jimmy actually understood Hume's argument against miracles, they would understand why. Jimmy's understanding of the argument is comically bad, although given how they characterize skeptics I can see why he thinks that way.
@@jeremyhansen9197 I understand that Emerson has become disillusioned with Skeptics TM movement. Bill Nye the "Clown" and Hume's argument against miracles, arguably THE best example of miracle skepticism in western analytic philosophy is terrible according to Jimmy and that gets no push back from Emerson. Maybe Emerson doesn't agree with Jimmy. I don't know. But Emerson sure seems to have an axe to grind against the Skeptics TM. But that's the meta conversation, not the claims being made here. I'm sure it's possible that governments around the world have aliens bodies and alien wreckage that they have managed to hide from the public for decades. But once again I think we are stacking improbable things, multiplying our ontological commitments with no good reason to. The most important event in history, the we are not alone in the universe, is able to be kept secret for so long without someone sneaking out a sample of bio material or wreckage that could be show to be extra-terrestrial.
@@Overonator I think it's more than just problems with the movement but that's a whole can of worms. I agree with your assessment as a whole. To add I find odd that Jimmy couldn't imagine there being a spiritual component to the ufo phenomenona. As you pointed out it would be one of the most important discoveries of all time. Who wants to accept that they're completely alone? I for one would love for there to be aliens, but one has to be rational about it.
With respect to the distance/speed objection, ok well the "loopholes" are almost just as far fetched as saying it's magic. Yes these are logically possible but not plausible in the least. They are akin to saying that if we one could take massive jumps in science and technology to the extent that now seems like the stone age to after the jump. But that's not much different than saying "maybe there are beings for whom the limits of physics don't apply". Then you consider that a society that advanced would have no reason to be secret about it. Or, if they did they would not leave evidence capable of showing they're here.
No, it's not equivalent to magic. We discussed a few ways in which faster-than-light travel could be possible, most of which are perfectly compatible with the currently-recognized laws of physics; and we also discussed ways in which traveling a fraction of the speed of light could bring about a similar result. So it's not necessarily impossible, and it might not be required anyway. Nothing you said seems to engage with those facts. Skeptics, as usual, fail to bring anything of relevance to the table.
There is a well-reasoned estimate that any given alien technological civilization, if it exists at all, would most likely be far older than the modern technological phase of our own civilization, based simply on the knowledge that anything we would call "modern" technology on earth is only about 250 years old. There is no a priori limit to how old an alien civilization might be, so the speculative range would be at least thousands of years. Our 250-year techno history must be considered a very small fraction of that, no matter how long the actual average age of alien techno cultures might be. Furthermore, we know that the time period in which there have been thousands or millions of stellar systems with heavy element planets goes back billions of years prior to the formation of our solar system, so it is likely that if life formation is at all common in our galaxy, the average age of existing life forms is likely to be much older than life on earth. Add to this our knowledge that the development of technology here has advanced on an exponentially rising curve. Therefore, the a priori known facts support the idea that most alien techno cultures, if there are any, are probably in command of a level of scientific and technological knowledge incomprehensibly surpassing our own. The upshot of this is that any reasoning we apply to the distance/speed issue is utterly naive if we base it on our own current understanding of physics. This has nothing to do with the plausibility of speculative ideas like warp drive, rabbit holes in the fabric of spacetime, etc. The distance/speed objection is just wiped out by the fact that it incorporates unwarranted assumptions about the completeness of our own understanding of physics. This is not an argument in favor of alien visitation, but it is a comprehensive defeater of the distance/speed objection. There is nothing intrinsically far-fetched about the idea that there could be a civilization or civilizations that have been sending exploratory probes or colonial expeditions all over the galaxy for millions of years. Once again, I not making an argument to establish that as a probability. But, nevertheless, the argument that it is improbable is just not supported by any sound reasoning about prior probabilities.
@@donnievance1942 it may not be intrinsically far fetched to say it's too far to send probes interstellar distances. But it is far fetched, b its extremely far fetched to think that aliens possessing such tech would feel the need to hide. Or if they did, that there would be any trace of them we would detect.
Seems like for the distance objection, Jimmy is just saying “it’s not impossible”-but I don’t see how that’s not trivial and doesn’t make it not a reasonable objection
The whole objection is over whether aliens from distant planets could feasibly travel here. We outlined like a half dozen ways in which it could be feasible, many of which don’t require traveling the speed of light or faster. We didn’t just say “anything’s possible” and move on.
@@EmersonGreen I guess I don’t consider the distance objection to be one of feasibility, but rather of probability. Construing it in terms of feasibility or mere possibility seems to be the weakest construction of a distance-based objection to extraterrestrial visitation.
@@LostArchivist I am not. I looked it up. Do you mean the “Cheating Reality” video? That is what popped up. But I see there may be a whole series of FTL videos by him.
“That’s so speculative!”
This is seemingly the most common criticism of the content of the video. But as Majesty of Reason explains here, this is to misunderstand the difference between undercutting and rebutting defeaters: th-cam.com/video/ThHsjYx-oEs/w-d-xo.htmlsi=wtvLBQhwcv6lsJgH&t=8763 As I explained in the low priors section and in the conclusion, in many cases we were not arguing that the skeptic’s claims were false (i.e., offering a rebutting defeater), we were instead removing their justification for thinking it’s true (i.e., offering an undercutting defeater). For instance, the skeptic argues that aliens wouldn’t crash their ships on earth because they'd be too advanced to make that sort of mistake, so we shouldn’t be swayed by the evidence presented of crashed UFOs. Jimmy and I in response offered several possibilities explaining how a craft produced by an advanced civilization could end up crashed or abandoned on the surface of the earth. We were obviously not saying we *knew* the various possibilities explored were true, just that they were real possibilities that the skeptic had not bothered to rule out. Why would I think that a particular possibility, like the skeptic's favorite option, is even probably true if it’s supported only by claims about what an unknown alien species would or wouldn’t do? Simply replying that the alternatives we discussed are “speculative” does not rule them out, nor does it provide any real grounds for doubting them, nor does it provide a positive reason to prefer the skeptic’s equally speculative option.
this approach, imo, is acutally less speculative than the skeptics’ arugments due to the fact that you were pointing out how there were in fact other possibilities and therefore there isn’t really much of a need to insist on one scenario especially given our epistemic limitations
What a great crossover! Love Jimmy Akin.
I enjoyed hearing all these scifi theories. If nothing else the whole alien phenomena has been fun to wonder about.
2:11:43 this is the best take down of psychologizing I've heard. Good stuff.
Thanks, Arjuna! I was a little salty in my comments here, but I really *hate* seeing people psychologize others' beliefs instead of engaging the arguments and evidence. At the moment, I happen to be reading a book where the author does this extensively, and it just drives me nuts.
I haven't watched the video yet but I want to say that I appreciate what you do. Your channel is a peaceful place with high quality content that proves we can think and debate with mutual respect. It's a bit sad that this doesn't seel as well as "destroying opponents".
On the geography objection, I can add my experience:
Latin America has a large culture of UFO/UAP encounters and sightings. It's a strong cultural phenomenon that's tied to new age movements all around the continent. For example, when I was growing up in El Salvador, my mom would regularly get a magazine called "Año Cero" (Year Zero), a Spanish publication with articles about the paranormal and UFOs from all around the world. It was a pretty popular magazine in the UFO/occult scene in El Salvador and many of the friends we visited had one or two of those magazines lying around. There's tons of reported sightings in Latin America, too. I remember seeing news reports of locals seeing strange moving lights in the sky, etc. Hell, I myself saw a UFO appear and disappear in the night sky while being out at night in San Salvador.
UFOs are not just an American phenomenon. They're reported all around the globe and the global south is a hotbed of sightings and UFO culture. Saying that it's a strictly American thing really just means you don't bother with news from other countries.
I made the same arguments as well. In general I'm skeptic of "skeptics" because they often overstate their position and baldly assert claims that they can't defend, which is ironic considering their supposed skepticism. Rather than taking the position that psychic or paranormal phenomena are unproven for example, they go into completely irrational territory and deny that it is even remotely possible. Rather than merely stating that there is not enough evidence to assert God's existence, some of them will claim that God does not exist, claiming that these are identical statements on the grounds that we would also flat out deny hypotheticals like invisible dragons that breathe invisible fire. But one case is someone making up a concept out of nowhere, the other is supposed to be based on testimony and historical evidence, which is not analogous. Skepticism on UFOs is another variation on the theme.
YOU KNOW TOO MUCH, JIMMY AKIN. 😂❤
Banger from Emerson, as per usual!🔥🔥
I don't know if aliens exist or not, and I guess this video as changed my mind in the sense that (i) I have become even more tentative and uncertain than I already was and (ii) the topic seems more interesting to me than it did before.
I guess alot of the points Emerson and Jimmy brought up seemed pretty good to me beforehand, but now they don't seem that great to me anymore.
Furthermore, before watching this, I kind of thought the whole "do aliens exist?" conversation didn't really matter that much other than the fact that there would be moral implications if we ever did meet aliens. However, now it seems there are some things which could make for more substantive discussion here. For one thing, it involves epistemological questions; how would we know if there are aliens or not? What should make us lower or heighten our priors? What could we know about their psychology? Also, there might be an interesting existential question here too; assuming aliens do not exist, why is this not the case? Surely, in light of the fact that the Universe is extremely vast and full of countless numbers of planets, solar systems, galaxies, galaxy clusters and so on, surely we would expect that there would at least be some sort of organic life like us out there, or which do not exist yet but might exist at some point in the future as the universe expands and new planets, solar systems, galaxies and galaxy clusters form? Moreover, might this not be evidence for the existence of God, as it would make it more probable that we are, in a way, at the centre of the universe? As if, this universe has come about for us, due to how there is nobody else present?
Either way, excellent video and I will end off with a quote;
I have a question for Emerson. Do you agree with Jimmy that Hume's argument against miracles is terrible?
No, I don’t think it’s terrible. Though I always hesitate when people talk about “Hume’s argument”, because it’s never exactly clear what some dude in history really believed, and plenty of well-informed commentators have different readings of the same philosopher and whether they really said what they’re famous for saying. So who knows, maybe “Hume’s argument” is terrible. I don’t think it really matters. The real conversation is about overcoming prior improbability, which is exactly what we talked about.
I didn’t bring Jimmy on to debate what Hume said, whether Darwin was a Christian or agnostic, or whether the moon is a planet. I’m sure I said a couple things in the course of 2.5 hours that he didn’t agree with either, but pursuing every disagreement wouldn’t be productive or relevant. And I’m sure if I made some throwaway comment about evil being dramatic evidence against theism, he wouldn’t have launched into a full debate over the problem of evil. We met up to talk about aliens and UFOs dawg
Great video!
I agree with criticisms of easy skepticism when it comes to topics like aliens, but there is a serious asymmetry problem when it comes to contextualizing the data and arguing for low priors compared to the posture of being “open-minded” to the alien hypothesis. Of course explaining “some of the cases” does not mean that one can extrapolate a debunked status to all other cases, but some of the explanations are far from trivial and carry implications that can set a reasonable precedent for skepticism and establish a line of inquiry that challenges the otherworldly assumptions. In my opinion, the way the Tic Tac incident is mentioned in this discussion demonstrates a reluctance to engage with the potency of legitimate skepticism toward these declassified stories and footage. Just claiming that aspects have yet to be explained does not mean that skepticism is not an appropriate position in light of what has been examined thus far regarding equipment, optics, human error, eye-witness accounts, etc.
Put simply, what we have so far is not enough. The most reasonable position we can take to get to the bottom of this is to demand more classified data points to be declassified. Otherwise, I believe we should be exercising a functional skepticism that is rigorous while not dismissive. But it should be skepticism nonetheless.
Full disclosure, I’ve grown up in a family with highly credentialed family members who have always been prone to paranoia even while being incredibly intelligent and holding prominent roles. A current family member claims to be in the same circles as David Grusch with a direct and personal relationship with him. They affirm every single thing Grusch claims. I know these stories very well. For 35 years they’re all I’ve ever known. And they may all be true. But every piece of tangible evidence that has ever been produced has left enough room for reasonable doubt and plausible explanation that I must remain skeptical. So far it's a very unpopular position in my circles and it's earning a label of "cynic" that I find troubling.
Presumably, enough information will eventually be declassified that there will be hardly a doubt left to have. I certainly hope for that to be the case so greater clarity and consensus can be established. But it seems that a conclusion can only ever be reached if the conclusion is in the affirmative. And therein lies the rub.
Decided to cross post this from Twitter. Just some thoughts about the broader epistemic approach:
It was fun to listen to this exploration of the arguments for and against the plausibility of the recent excitement over UFOs. Particularly interesting was how similar UFO believers' arguments are to many of the arguments for God, especially the fact that responses to objections almost entirely ad hoc.
You get an argument that some evidence supports the idea we have been visited by UFOs. Then the skeptic offers an objection. Then in response to the objection you get a story about what *could* have happened which serves as a way to undercut the objection - but no independent evidence is offered in favour of the story!
The skeptical objections explored in the video aren't always great ones (especially not individually - cumulatively I think they have some force), but what seems entirely clear to me is that the sorts of responses to common objections Akin offers are ad hoc narratives with no independent support at all. The responses are, to me, much less credible even than the objections.
The epistemic mistake here is giving weight to the observation that narratives can be constructed which fit any conceivable set of evidence. People think "Because I can tell a story about what might have happened, and because if the story is true it would give rise to what we see, then we have some reason to believe the story." But this is bad epistemic practice. We need constraints on the stories we tell, or we can make up pretty much anything to "explain" an observation.
Ideally want our epistemic narratives to be independently motivated and consistent with our other knowledge, as well as simple and plausible etc. I.e. the narratives themselves have to have some epistemic qualities beyond "This fits the data." Telling stories which fit the data is easy. Ensuring those stories are themselves epistemically respectable is hard. I don't think much of Akin's speculations about the psychology of aliens etc. meet that standard.
What such responses do show is that the objections you explore are not *logically definitive* or *epistemically indefeasible*. They show that simply saying, for instance, "If aliens had visited, someone would have revealed the conspiracy by now" does not *prove* aliens haven't visited. It is fair to note that if the skeptic is relying on such generalized objections to *prove* their case, they are mistaken.
But I don't think that in general such objections are offered with the expectation that they are that strong. Rather, I think they are offered as part of a cumulative case which says: "If this was really happening then it is startling that we have NONE of this sort of evidence."
Perhaps it would be good for skeptics to specify this more clearly, or offer their arguments in a slightly different way: "If aliens were visiting us, I see no good reason why they would be mostly visiting the USA. For this reason a cultural explanation seems more plausible." But I think it rather misleading to suggest that skeptics, when they offer such responses, are thinking they have disproved the existence of/visits of aliens.
To get to a more epistemically responsible place here it is wise, whenever an ad hoc narrative is presented in response to one objection, to consider if a different ad hoc narrative might lead us to a different conclusion. "Aliens might be visiting the USA more frequently because they are interested in the countries with the most technology. Or they are interested in our nuclear weapons!" So might a believer say. OK, I can tell an ad hoc story on the other side too: "Aliens would prefer to visit countries which are less technologically advanced, because they would be less likely to be observed and less susceptible to local weaponry! They want to AVOID our nuclear weapons!"
This is a fun game to play but it doesn't tell us anything helpful about aliens, in large part because we have no psychological data about aliens to enable us to distinguish between narratives. Without *independent evidence* about alien psychology, we are in no position to judge between different hypotheses which rest upon psychological analyses of aliens, and so the most epistemically responsible thing is to lend them little weight (the evolutionary considerations Akin raises are quite interesting but, in my view, far too loose to help us guide epistemic judgments).
A bigger picture point: I broadly share your view that we should be open minded, and not reject paranormal stuff out of hand. Epistemic honesty requires us to give at least some considerations to the claims. But we have to be aware of the broader epistemic environment and human psychology. There is clearly a strong desire among many people to believe in aliens - it is a passion, an obsession even with some. They want it to be true (as, on some level, do I!). And so even airing these ad hoc anti-skeptical responses can give people a way to justify their beliefs.
We may not wish to do this, especially in a broader epistemic environment which is very unhealthy. Culture is awash with conspiracy thinking and conspiracism is a direct threat to democracy with QAnon, Pizzagate etc. May be better to be more robust with these ideas for a while. Of course it could be that taking these conspiracies seriously and being more genial toward them will actually sap them of their power - it is difficult to tell on a social level how to respond. But it is worth considering whether a sort of uncritical airing is wise.
A final note on one specific case you discuss - the Cash-Landrum case. I think it's worth looking at this closely because it shows some deficiencies in Akin's general approach. When assessing a claim such as this, I think the first thing we want to do is determine whether what eye witnesses claim to have observed actually happened. I note that in this interview, and on his Mysterious Worlds episode about the case, Akin reports what the participants *claim* happened as if it really *did* happen - there is no skepticism at all until *after* the basic outlines of the event are described and accepted.
This is clearly unsatisfactory epistemic practice in the first instance, and in the Landrum case there is significant reason to doubt even that their basic account actually occurred. Their story changed significantly over time, and there is significant deviation from the claims of the witnesses and the contemporaneous medical records. This, for me, is a major worry.
In the video Akin claims that "All three of them [got] symptoms of acute radiation syndrome", and then Emerson continues "...that perfectly correlate with how long they were outside the car." There is no good evidence to support this. The contemporaneous medical records (which are fully documented in books about the incident) do not show *any* evidence of acute radiation syndrome. Cash had some slight sunburn, a headache, and had hair loss which was formally diagnosed as the result of alopecia areata *after a skin biopsy*.
There were no blisters or sores recorded (there are apparently photos of the aftermath of some blisters, but I cannot find them anywhere). No evidence of nausea. No diarrhea recorded. No bone marrow syndrome. No gastrointestinal syndrome. No CV or CNS syndrome. Specifically, there was not any evidence higher than normal *radiation*, which is a major problem with that theory. Further problematic is the fact that a dose of radiation large enough to cause ARS is usually fatal, and Cash lived a normal lifespan afterward, while her two companions had *no documented health problems at all*. The medical records of both of the women involved were examined by a radiologist, who found that there was not any evidence of radiation exposure.
So the evidence roundly rebuts the specific claims about "acute radiation syndrome". (There are LOTS of other problems with the account, such as documents which demonstrate that Schuessler, the main source of investigative materials regarding the case, chose not to share large amounts of evidence which contradicted the claims which were subsequently made, but the medical stuff is clearest I think). Specifically, the claim that the extent of the witnesses injuries is correlated with the extent of time they spent outside the car - a claim he made in his video on the topic - is not borne out by any information whatsoever. Only one individual contemporaneously reported any sort of injuries at all, and there is only documentation of one person having any sort of medical problems at the time. Further - and crucially - being inside a car offers no protection from radiation. So the theory really has no legs at all.
Doesn't the fact that Akin seems very credulous toward this UFO claim despite all these problems show that there is something wrong with his approach? If even this well-documented, well-evidenced, case in which the report simply doesn't match the evidence is in his mind worthy of serious consideration, doesn't that suggest his epistemic filter is too permissive?
I think so.
"If aliens were visiting us, I see no good reason why they would be mostly visiting the USA." They are not "mostly visiting the USA." Reported UFO sightings occur in thousands annually all over the world. South America, in particular, has a far greater level of putative reports and popular discussion of the issue than the US. The topic is kind of a ubiquitous staple of popular culture there. There is no way to estimate which parts of the world have more reported UFO sightings, as there are no standards for collecting and reporting such information.
Even if you discount all of the hypnotic regression accounts of interactions with non-human intelligences, there is still a significant body of testimony about encounters which began when the subjects were conscious and can freely recall much of what apparently transpired during the encounter. It's not possible to objectively ascertain what happened to these people, but there's abundant evidence that their experiences were anomalous and often traumatic. It is unsound and unjust to wave away this issue as merely the effects of sleep paralysis and/or confabulation in a suggestible state. See also Ralph Blumenthal's book about Prof John Mack's work on the issue.
The ten skeptical objections we respond to:
05:28 The Trump Objection
“If the government knew of alien visitations, Trump would have learned about it. If Trump knew about it, he wouldn’t be able to keep his mouth shut about it. But Trump never said anything about UFOs or aliens. Therefore, the government doesn’t have knowledge of alien visitations.”
13:43 The 'Too Many People' Objection
“There would have to be too many people involved in a cover-up of alien visitations. Someone would accidentally let it slip or blow the whistle eventually. To quote Bill Nye, ‘The government kinda sucks at keeping secrets’.”
22:47 The Crash Objection
“So these super-advanced aliens can build technology that (to us) is nearly indistinguishable from magic, they can travel here with that technology, but then when they get here, they crash? Aliens this advanced wouldn’t crash their ships like that!”
33:50 The Distance Objection
“Alien visitations would require traversing vast regions of space faster than the speed of light, since traveling the necessary distances without faster-than-light travel would require a prohibitively long time. But faster-than-light travel is impossible. Therefore, we are not being visited by aliens.”
47:39 The Geography Objection
“Why are alien abductions and UFO sightings geographically concentrated in the US? Doesn’t that seem to indicate that they are best explained psychologically or culturally?”
1:02:05 The Historical Objection
“Why are alien abductions and UFO sightings temporally concentrated in the present day? Doesn’t that seem to indicate that they are best explained psychologically or culturally?”
1:16:01 The Motivation Objection
“Why would advanced aliens come all the way here just to do the things it’s often alleged they do (e.g., mutilate cattle, make crop circles, or run tests on humans)?”
1:38:19 The Low Priors Objection
“However unlikely it is that abductees, eyewitnesses, whistleblowers, etc. are lying or mistaken, mundane explanations of their testimony are still more probable than the idea that we are being visited by aliens. In other words, the kind of testimonial evidence we have isn’t sufficient to overcome the low prior probability of genuine alien visitations.”
1:54:43 The Illusion Objection
“Many UFO/UAP sightings are produced by illusions: The eyewitnesses are just misjudging how far away the object is. Why couldn’t that explain all the sightings?”
2:03:27 The Psychoanalysis Objection
“Belief in UFOs and aliens as a modern manifestation of the religious impulse. Humans are wired to believe in a power greater than themselves, and this explains why the UFO phenomenon arose as religion declined in the west.”
Does anyone know how I can get more information on this subject?
(Mick West)
Why in brackets?@@josephtnied
Can't demons travel faster than light?
I am anti-chimp.
Aliens are so much more epistemically affordable than god(s), lot of fun *what ifs*, no eternal consequences.
The best way to fight bad skepticism is with better skepticism, not with fanciful speculation. When people say that alien ships would not crash, ask them how they know so much about alien ship engineering. Show them what it really means to be skeptical by pointing out how foolish it is to pretend to know things that we do not know. If instead we make up a story about alien mother ships and alien psychology, then we're just making the same mistake and pretending to know things that we do not know. How do you know that aliens would use mother ships? Obviously we do not know that. We are just tossing speculation back and forth, maybe hoping that one speculation can somehow beat another speculation.
I don't have to be an engineer to assess whether or not my oven is working. Similary I don't think you have to be an expert to come to the conclusion that there's something wrong with the idea of an alien race that has solve deep space travel yet can't figure out how to keep it's inhabitents safe upon arrival. It at the very least requires explanation. I suppose one could try to say that maybe It's something like scientific equipment that basically designed to crash on purpose, but that's speculation on my part. I agree speculation is a problem. I think it plagues this entire video.
They seem to be under the impression that if one can come up with any explanation, then that dismantles the objection entirely, which is absolutely not the case. It presents those who are skeptical of aliens as saying that aliens are impossible with a mathematical certainty.
@@jeremyhansen9197I agree with you that better skepticism is the answer to poor skepticism, but there is a deeper problem here. Mere possible explanations are such a low bar, they only require that there be no contradictions in the explanation. These counters to the skeptics are so easy to construct because they just require stacking assumptions and speculation on top of each other with no contradiction and boom the explanation becomes possible.
But ultimately for me the bottom line is this: After decades, the alien visitation hypothesis has made no progress, has bore no fruit. It's still just as it was at the beginning about 70 years ago, it started with testimony and vague pictures and now we can add ambiguous videos to that. After so much time we would expect some physical evidence like alien bodies and alien wreckage that can be tested which would settle the whole thing.
@@Overonator If I'm interpret you correctly I think I basically agree. People argue crazy things all the time on the internet so I'm not surprised there are people with such a naive view of skepticism. I'm not aware of anyone who literally argues that it's impossible for ufos to be aliens. If all you care about is non contradiction, the explanation that they got here in two seconds by flapping a piece of cardboard against the aether is consistent with the right set of assumptions. It's not a serious argument.
The most ironic thing is that as much as Emerson hates skepticism he's the one arguing for the skeptical position. He's arguing against the consensus view that we can say with confidence that aliens don't exist. He's arguing against a knowledge claim.
His best argument is that there is some anecdotal evidence, but as you point out it bears no fruit. I suppose you could retort by saying the fruit is hidden in a government lab somewhere, but you could argue that for pretty much anything. Maybe we can't find any unicorns, because the government hunts down any trace of one. Although given Emerson's I wouldn't be surprised if we'll soon see an interview with a cryptozoologist, so who knows? Maybw he would try to argue that.
When it comes down to it, anecdotal evidence can be a nice to start, but in cases such as literal aliens it holds little weight. If he and Jimmy actually understood Hume's argument against miracles, they would understand why. Jimmy's understanding of the argument is comically bad, although given how they characterize skeptics I can see why he thinks that way.
@@jeremyhansen9197 I understand that Emerson has become disillusioned with Skeptics TM movement. Bill Nye the "Clown" and Hume's argument against miracles, arguably THE best example of miracle skepticism in western analytic philosophy is terrible according to Jimmy and that gets no push back from Emerson. Maybe Emerson doesn't agree with Jimmy. I don't know. But Emerson sure seems to have an axe to grind against the Skeptics TM. But that's the meta conversation, not the claims being made here.
I'm sure it's possible that governments around the world have aliens bodies and alien wreckage that they have managed to hide from the public for decades. But once again I think we are stacking improbable things, multiplying our ontological commitments with no good reason to. The most important event in history, the we are not alone in the universe, is able to be kept secret for so long without someone sneaking out a sample of bio material or wreckage that could be show to be extra-terrestrial.
@@Overonator I think it's more than just problems with the movement but that's a whole can of worms. I agree with your assessment as a whole. To add I find odd that Jimmy couldn't imagine there being a spiritual component to the ufo phenomenona. As you pointed out it would be one of the most important discoveries of all time. Who wants to accept that they're completely alone? I for one would love for there to be aliens, but one has to be rational about it.
With respect to the distance/speed objection, ok well the "loopholes" are almost just as far fetched as saying it's magic. Yes these are logically possible but not plausible in the least. They are akin to saying that if we one could take massive jumps in science and technology to the extent that now seems like the stone age to after the jump. But that's not much different than saying "maybe there are beings for whom the limits of physics don't apply". Then you consider that a society that advanced would have no reason to be secret about it. Or, if they did they would not leave evidence capable of showing they're here.
No, it's not equivalent to magic. We discussed a few ways in which faster-than-light travel could be possible, most of which are perfectly compatible with the currently-recognized laws of physics; and we also discussed ways in which traveling a fraction of the speed of light could bring about a similar result. So it's not necessarily impossible, and it might not be required anyway. Nothing you said seems to engage with those facts. Skeptics, as usual, fail to bring anything of relevance to the table.
There is a well-reasoned estimate that any given alien technological civilization, if it exists at all, would most likely be far older than the modern technological phase of our own civilization, based simply on the knowledge that anything we would call "modern" technology on earth is only about 250 years old. There is no a priori limit to how old an alien civilization might be, so the speculative range would be at least thousands of years. Our 250-year techno history must be considered a very small fraction of that, no matter how long the actual average age of alien techno cultures might be.
Furthermore, we know that the time period in which there have been thousands or millions of stellar systems with heavy element planets goes back billions of years prior to the formation of our solar system, so it is likely that if life formation is at all common in our galaxy, the average age of existing life forms is likely to be much older than life on earth.
Add to this our knowledge that the development of technology here has advanced on an exponentially rising curve. Therefore, the a priori known facts support the idea that most alien techno cultures, if there are any, are probably in command of a level of scientific and technological knowledge incomprehensibly surpassing our own.
The upshot of this is that any reasoning we apply to the distance/speed issue is utterly naive if we base it on our own current understanding of physics. This has nothing to do with the plausibility of speculative ideas like warp drive, rabbit holes in the fabric of spacetime, etc. The distance/speed objection is just wiped out by the fact that it incorporates unwarranted assumptions about the completeness of our own understanding of physics. This is not an argument in favor of alien visitation, but it is a comprehensive defeater of the distance/speed objection. There is nothing intrinsically far-fetched about the idea that there could be a civilization or civilizations that have been sending exploratory probes or colonial expeditions all over the galaxy for millions of years. Once again, I not making an argument to establish that as a probability. But, nevertheless, the argument that it is improbable is just not supported by any sound reasoning about prior probabilities.
@@donnievance1942 it may not be intrinsically far fetched to say it's too far to send probes interstellar distances. But it is far fetched, b
its extremely far fetched to think that aliens possessing such tech would feel the need to hide. Or if they did, that there would be any trace of them we would detect.
Extremely unrelated comment: Emerson would be a very pretty woman if he shaved his mustache and took estrogen for a few months 💃
Lol
Seems like for the distance objection, Jimmy is just saying “it’s not impossible”-but I don’t see how that’s not trivial and doesn’t make it not a reasonable objection
The whole objection is over whether aliens from distant planets could feasibly travel here. We outlined like a half dozen ways in which it could be feasible, many of which don’t require traveling the speed of light or faster. We didn’t just say “anything’s possible” and move on.
@@EmersonGreen I guess I don’t consider the distance objection to be one of feasibility, but rather of probability. Construing it in terms of feasibility or mere possibility seems to be the weakest construction of a distance-based objection to extraterrestrial visitation.
@@Lmaoh5150Are you familiar with Issac Arthur's videos regarding FTL or sub-FTL colonization and regarding the Fermi Paradox?
@@LostArchivist I am not. I looked it up. Do you mean the “Cheating Reality” video? That is what popped up. But I see there may be a whole series of FTL videos by him.
@@Lmaoh5150Honestly he has tons of relevant ones. He and John Michael Godier I would highly recommend, for differing reasons I might say.
This guy is Vaush from the future