Aliens just seem to love the USA, don't they? Just like giant prehistoric sea monsters seem to love Japan. It's totally not a cover-up for another black project.
The only thing aliens love more than the USA is to troll fighter pilots and military bases. Somehow despite all of the cameras and tracking technology these vehicles and locations have, the aliens still manage to avoid being caught on camera and only make their appearance obvious to a few first-hand observers.
You might appreciate Superman Red Son which explores what could have happened if Kal-El landed on a Ukrainian farm instead of Kansas. It's obviously got bias but it's fun to think about what happens if all the hero "stuff" didn't happen in the US.
Culturally, Godzilla in Japan very much came out of the fear of nuclear weapons and radiation post-Hiroshima and Nagasaki -- a monster awakened and empowered by nuclear weapons [1].
I've never been super clear on what the cultural reason for aliens <-> USA is though. Although I suppose it's different in that Godzilla was an intentional fictional creation, while the fascination with aliens hopes they're actually real.
There have been reports of aliens, alien crashes and recovery, etc. all over the world[0]. The reason it's primarily seen as an American phenomenon is that the whole culture and mythos originated in the US, first in the late 1940s with the Kenneth Arnold sighting[1] (where the term "flying saucer" originated) and later Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Whitley Streiber's Communion codified the "grey alien/abduction" motif (although there were prior stories like the Pascagoula abduction[2], notable for the aliens described as looking nothing like greys) and of course the X-Files. The rest of the world likely absorbed the UFO archetype through cultural osmosis. Also Americans simply aren't going to be aware of UFO reports from other countries unless they go out of their way to look for them.
In 1979, Ricardo Vilchez, one of the project team members, sent the photograph to an organization in the United States called Ground Saucer Watch (GSW) which analyzes these types of cases. GSW determined that the image was true and unadulterated, reported CRHoy.
Sierra [a UFO researcher] said the photograph was analyzed in France and the United States by different organizations that studied the case, and all confirmed the object’s existence.
We only have word of mouth from UFO researchers citing unnamed "organizations" to verify this. I'd want to see an independent, accredited and non UFO related team actually study the negatives and such. Otherwise it's just another picture on the internet. It is a really good picture, though. Classic shiny flying saucer.
Although I am concerned about the shape of the reflections in this "high res" version[0], they don't look right to me.
There are very prosaic reasons for the popularity of UFO sightings in the USA.
1. The gdp per capita per cloudless land area is far higher than anywhere else. Africa and Australia have lots of empty sky but relatively no-one is out and about during night time. Plus USA does some have some interesting weather. So the opportunities to see anomalous (yet very terrestrial) phenomena is high.
2. The concern that comes from being the richest and most powerful country in the history of the world, that others are trying to infiltrate. (I was almost going to use fear or paranoia instead of concern, but some of the concern is warranted)
3. USA is the center of world culture. Everything American is amplified via Hollywood and music.
Supposing (for sake of argument) they're real, Americans' broad deployment of advanced avionics could mean we're simply more likely to detect them. Secondly, cultural factors could increase risk of leaks, compared to Russian and Chinese detections. Third, tight control of Russian and Chinese media can suppress any serious discourse. That's enough to give an impression that UFO encounters are an American thing.
Off topic but somewhat related... As of late, I've really enjoyed watching FPV racing drone footage on YouTube. And it's made wonder - if commercial drones currently on the market are capable of this:
You gotta love the implied premise that there's a problem to be solved, because of course that's all our government is good for: solving problems it creates.
I think the problem here is the government's tendency to lie to its citizens. The solution is unrelated to aliens.
I think one of the most effective strategies of conspiracy theory content relates to exactly this point. You bypass the examination of evidence, and entertain theories that would take evidence as given. I remember a video my stepdad saw about Aliens On The Moon, supposedly there to harvest H3, that, instead of asking whether it was true, asked "what do they want?", and "what are they intending to do?" And there was a part about a grainy picture of the moon, with a narrator suggesting looked like there was a cannon-style weapon, asserting that "experts believe" it is aimed at Earth, implying that it's to keep Earth from challenging them for the precious H3.
Just like that, you are pulled into a story, with all kinds of psychological threads. You run before you're able to walk, essentially, and you get people caught up running, and you can backdoor the presumption that the underlying premise was indeed established.
So, I completely agree at there's such a peculiar note being struck by this implied premise.
If I came across a planet of smart monkeys and one monkey state had the most baddest mfers with the most insane tech and research, I’d want to learn about them.
Everyone’s already encountered the starting conditions in most other countries. US is the only one winning Civilization Earth. I’m a naturalized US citizen, for example. Could have ended up anywhere but it’s best here in terms of opportunity and making new stuff.
Depends what you mean by winning. Other countries have different priorities, for instance the health and welfare of the population over individual wealth. That doesn't make one right or wrong, but it really this reflects on your priorities more than anything else. And that's ok! I'm just saying it's subjective, not objective, and there's no reason to believe that some aliens would share your personal beliefs in re: superiority and therefore prioritize observations there.
What other win conditions would you add? The US is not the only country that conquers and exports culture, civilizations have been doing that since the first hunter gatherer planted some cereals on the banks of their closest river.
Some members of the Chinese government take the view that anyone of Chinese ancestry is fundamentally Chinese, regardless of where they live or to whom they pledge allegiance; they would presumably consider "our descendants are X% of the world population" to be as much of a victory condition as "we control X% of the world's surface area".
Some members of the Russian government take the view that anyone who can speak Russian is fundamentally Russian; they would presumably consider "X% of the world population speaks Russian" to be a victory condition.
Many religious groups consider "X% of the world shares our beliefs" to be a victory condition, of course.
I don't share any of these positions, but of course I come from a Western Liberal background.
I can never understand the desire to pretend that human nature isn't the same around the world. I think it's the same instinct that causes people to pine for the good old days.
Right. Like everyone has the same instincts as the Japanese to clean up their spaces after their are used. It’s why our stadiums in the US are so clean and well maintained.
That's not an instinct, it's a cultural norm strictly enforced by societal pressure. You also seem to have forgotten that the Japanese made one of the biggest plays for military dominance in the modern era. They followed that up with a really good attempt at economic dominance.
Well if we’re making silly reductive arguments I’m not sure they’d care how many zeroes are in Warren Buffets brokerage account. But you know EADS/Airbus headquarters is in Toulouse if that’s more your speed. There’s also Alstom and SNCF off hand. TotalEnergies. Hermes. Dior. Sanofi. Schneider Electric. Air Liquide. Essilor. You didn’t think they were agrarians did you? They’re the second biggest economy in Europe!
Definitely. There are some cool badass things in EU. There is also the French military industrial complex, a mini version of US. That said, I was shocked to learn about average software engineering salaries in Europe. Why can't Europe build amazing high margin software businesses or any hyper growth companies? And pay their engineers like kings? That'd be cool and give a strong reality check for California.
For now, I'll honestly take 2.5x salary in US over pretty much any other place. And I love guns (own several).
> Why can't Europe build amazing high margin software businesses or any hyper growth companies?
The regulations are onerous and the taxes are high. Why would anyone take the extreme risks associated with building a high-risk high-reward business when everyone gets in your way and most of the reward upside would just get taken from you anyway?
Because if you fail, you're not destitute and without healthcare - while success still leads to a materially better lifestyle.
Specifically because the risks aren't nearly as extreme and the rewards are still very good.
You really don’t get materially more of your yield taken from you in France than you do in California where top marginal tax rate is over 50%. And that rate clearly doesn’t stop anyone in California. Imagine Steve Jobs going hmmm, I would start Apple but the top tax rate is like 5% higher than it could be, I’m just going back to bed then.
Comparing top marginal tax rates is kinda silly - makes much more sense to pick some "normal" ish salary or salary range (or just your current salary or expected future salary) and compare total percentage taken at that level.
The top federal and (California) state tax brackets both start at over 500k, and you'd have to be earning significantly more than that even for it to start affecting your overall tax percentage very much.
Why would anyone take the extreme risk of starting any business at all in the United States unless they were already financially independent?
Also this idea that taxes are lower in the US is mostly bullshit - once you add together state income + sales + federal + healthcare insurance costs it's not meaningfully different from many European/Australasian nations.
> Why can't Europe build amazing high margin software businesses or any hyper growth companies?
It's a good question, my guess is network effects. The people who would want to do this want to be near other people who would want to do this - and the biggest extant pool is in California.
> For now, I'll honestly take 2.5x salary in US over pretty much any other place.
Yeah, that's basically my situation too. Honestly probably closer to 4-5X annually what I'd make back home. Nominally, not adjusted for PPP of course.
> And I love guns (own several).
Haha, we don't have to agree on this one - although I will say they are super fun to shoot.
> Haha, we don't have to agree on this one - although I will say they are super fun to shoot.
I am the opposite. I own them for the philosophy of autonomy, freedom and individualism that guns imbibe. Target shooting isn't that much fun in cities (indoor ranges), only if you go out to the country.
This tweet describes it all:
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The Bill of Rights feels intense today, but try reading it in the mindset of someone in 1791.
A few years removed from Louis XVI selling Divine Right of Kings.
Then suddenly “Hell no, also we’re gonna say and print whatever we want, you can’t search us, and everyone gets guns.”
lol, 1791 was a long-ass time ago, and the flintlock era is long past. Also they all had slaves and didn't believe women had the right to vote, and that black people were people. Franklin likely lost his mind to syphilis. There's no sense putting on a hat that doesn't fit. I prefer to evaluate the role of guns from first principles in the current world not the age of dysentery and cholera. Times change and laws evolve. It's a good thing.
I've never understood the elevation of the founding fathers to infallible deities. They had some good ideas, and some terrible ideas, and that doesn't detract from what they accomplished.
The 1st amendment was written in the era of printing presses - should we scrap that too? After all, there's no way they could have predicted the internet.
Not at all, we should evaluate each one on its own merits and be open to changing them if they're not longer relevant or interesting. Especially if it's actively harmful. In what way do you think the 1st amendment is no longer relevant, interesting and is harmful?
I can very much explain my opinions in re the 2nd.
Each amendment is independent and invalidating one does nothing to any other.
But looks if you can convince me the 1st amendment needs a revisit, I'd be open to it. I don't think so, but a compelling case would change my mind.
I 100% agree. I hate guns and love freedom of speech. As a centrist i got to say that liberals are just as cunning as extreme right.
For example, liberals support gay rights but don't dare to condemn muslims who hold/preach hatred towards gays and defend wearing burq as a good thing that ever happened to muslim women.
Like I said we can agree to disagree. My question would be why stop with this analytical framework on the 2nd amendment? How would the founding fathers feel about the 14th? Not great, I wager, given, you know. How does that mesh with the modern world? It feels disingenuous to only harken back to them on things we think they'd like and ignore their opinion on things we're pretty sure they'd take issue with.
I guess my point is, in your hypothetical question about imagining life in 1791... you mean as a straight, white, male right? Because if I'm anything other than that particular combo, dude, I can't tell you I'd arrive at the conclusion you want me to. 14th wasn’t until 1866. Women couldn’t vote until the 19th in 1920. That's not an argument for guns so much as it's an argument for 'being top dog is pretty good.'
Do you think Aliens would (if they wanted to) rather make first contact in a place where it's relevant now more than ever to own guns, or in a place where it's less so?
Inequality is a feature, not a bug as long as the standards for everyone improves. The problem is that the lowest has not seen improvement in certain areas.
Inequality is a term so alluring to mid-IQ activists. I'll take today's inequality vs. poverty of 100 years ago. The world has improved, period.
Similarly, I'll take a nation full of extreme inequality if their average standards of living are better than say, Honduras.
Agreed. Another way to also look at this is that if 95% of the people's median (not average) shifts upwards, I'll accept the trade offs. That's improvement for vast majority of the people.
"The notion of invasions by aliens was a projection of the aggressive traits of the predatory, barely civilized ape-man. If he himself willingly did unto others as he would rather not be done by, then he pictured the Advanced Civilization on much the same principle. Flotillas of galactic battleships were supposed to fall upon unsuspecting little planets, to lay hands on the local dollars, diamonds, chocolates, and, of course, beautiful women — for whom aliens had about as
much use as we did for female crocodiles."
It likely would be the biggest threat given the weapons tech though. You generally want to study the things that pose the biggest threat for self preservation.
This is highly speculative on both of our parts. I do think it's presumptuous to assume we'd be a threat to an entity that traveled >4ly. It sounds a lot like picking which classical civilization to study based on how strong their bows are when you are traveling in a stealth bomber.
It was an interplanetary endeavour. Unfortunately, some programmers encoded intersystem travel using the Universal Unit, while others used the Multiversal Metric System.
"I do think it's presumptuous to assume we'd be a threat"
You don't have to be a threat, just appear as the biggest possible one.
"based on how strong their bows are when you are traveling in a stealth bomber."
One has to know what a bow is and that they only have bows to come to that summary conclusion. If you have no knowledge of the capabilities, caution is warranted - whether we're talking about civilizations or a new species of spider.
If you somehow found a way to get a wooden arrow with a stone arrowhead on it into the engine of a Stealth Bomber at the wrong time and place, you may very well cause a big fireworks show. Less has taken down the engines of commercial airliners when a screw comes loose or something.
Advanced technology != invincibility. Actually, a lot of times the more advanced tech is, the more vulnerable it is to catastrophic failure.
We're talking about beings capable of harnessing enough energy to travel interstellar distances, possibly even harnessing (let's say for the sake of argument) strange new physics like warp drive or wormholes. They'll know at a glance whether we're a threat just by our scale of energy output, and they'll be able to tell from light-years away. No species that hasn't already colonized their solar system or started mining the plasma from their home star is going to be worth worrying about.
I think advanced aliens would laugh at our kardashev scale and say "well it's a lot more nuanced than that" especially considering we don't see a single shred of evidence that anyone out there has a dyson swarm. It's probably the wrong metric to use. If they're up there, whatever they're up to, it's probably really interesting and not just about energy consumption.
> If I came across a planet of smart monkeys and one monkey state had the most baddest mfers with the most insane tech and research, I’d want to learn about them.
Sounds like they'd care more about China/South Korea/Japan/Taiwan/etc then.
Not really, most great tech originates in the US. China etc are good at copying. I know that’s an unfashionable statement, but let’s do away with this false modesty for once
This isn’t true. TSMC is using EUV tech all funded by Intel. If the US were sufficiently motivated by a Taiwanese fall to China, a fab would be brought up somewhere else quickly with the support of the US (if not in the US).
They've done it several times. Samsung is Korean, Sony japanese and OnePlus Chinese, to name a few. Sorry to burst your bubble but outside north America, most people use Android.
I don't know. I feel like the countries without constant gun violence, where the government is actually capable of passing legislation, where the people actually accept that they live in a society with some acknowledgement of social responsibilities, and can access healthcare and education without incurring a lifetime of crippling debt, are currently winning at civilization a bit harder.
Being the richest and the most capable at propaganda and world-ending violence isn't the same as being the most civilized.
So... Switzerland, which has the Large Hadron Collider? That would probably be the most attractive thing to aliens. Maybe France, which is building ITER? Or the UK with a successful early nuclear fusion test?
I mean it's cool that the US has YouTube and big pieces of metal that shoot smaller pieces of metal and all. Also they launch rockets, but everybody launches rockets. I'm just not sure aliens would be that interested in that, more like "secrets of the universe" type stuff that we're getting closer to.
You both have a point, but I'd like to add that maybe aliens aren't as interested in shiny things like collider's and plasma and all that, and more interested in organizations of living things that control resource flow across the oceans, which the US does for the entire world. If I was an alien that already understood the bosons and all that, it would be cool to watch a monkey planet figure that out, but I wouldn't learn much. But I could learn from an organizational structure with unilateral force projection capabilities across all specimens of this creature. There are things the US does that are mighty interesting.
Sure, you might also be just as interested in a society capable of working towards something like the LHC or ITER, by taking care of its citizens and through diplomacy. I think it's a more interesting goal than controlling the seas so that people can get cheap trinkets from China.
And don't get me wrong, I'm just as addicted to my trinkets from China as anybody else, and I benefit from US hegemony. Just trying to think from a total outsider's perspective.
It's funny how people confuse "most powerful nation" with "best nation". We have the biggest guns, and the most money, and the most prisoners, so we're #1. (Just ignore literally all other rankings)
>If I came across a planet of smart monkeys and one monkey state had the most baddest mfers with the most insane tech and research
If the ship of such an incredibly advanced civilization came across Earth then the differences between US technology & that of other parts of the world would require an anthropological microscope for them to detect. Like us looking back on Western vs. Eastern roman empire circa 400-500 C.E. and trying to decide which was more advanced. (well, at least < 476 C.E... being conquered is going to take one side down a few pegs)
Why of course. The coolest monkeys are the ones with the biggest bombs and fastest jets, right. Not the ones who have a knowledge of love so intimate they wrote an entire book just about sex positions. Of course, the aliens that can expend Jupiter's worth of energy to travel at lightspeed are impressed by the monkeys with the fastest planes, not the ones who claim they found a peace so profound it encompasses the universe.
I think the super advanced aliens aren't showing themselves because we're letting a bunch of auto-fellating monkeys run the planet
The deltas between the military/technology of the worlds top economies might not even be noteworthy to a species capable of interstellar travel. From there perspective we might just all look the same.
Some folks seem to think it's intentionally absurd. I thought about playing along and chatting up how New York is clearly the capital of the world if you don't realize us savages lack a world government, but all my comedian friends have told me to keep my day job.
Or would if I had any comedian friends. Or, you know, a day job even.
>Each city is assigned a liveability score for more than 30 qualitative and quantitative factors across five categories: stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education and infrastructure.
It is easier for the kind of person who reads HN to efficiently trade their labor for money in the US than in Europe, and this index does not account for that very important aspect of most people's lives -- earning power.
American society is more chaotic and dangerous than Europe, I do concede. Maybe more Americans who have accumulated enough savings to last the rest of their lives should move to the top 100 cities in this index.
you're really leaning into the out of touch engineer stereotypes if you think civilization can be won using criteria from a video game of all things, and that the main criteria of winning is tech & research and not say ability to sustain peace or end homelessness
“they buzz them. They find some isolated spot with very few people around, then land right by some poor unsuspecting soul whom no one’s ever going to believe and then strut up and down in front of him wearing silly antennas on their head and making beep beep noises.”
The most advanced tech and research, as an overall, would be trivial for an advanced alien to decide. And the US has been leading in those categories for 80 years at least.
The notion that it's impossible to figure out whether an advanced alien would think Afghanistan or the US have more advanced tech/research/science, is absurd. And if you can make that distinction, you can keep going.
For a species advanced enough for trivially navigating the universe, the difference between the US and Afghanistan would be trivial. If they are more in the individuality side of thing (in contrast to hive mind), the dumbest of their lot would probably be smarter than the smartest person we can find here, probably looking at us the way we look at other intelligent species.
To measure us, would they look at the capacity to produce tech or consume tech (they would probably be more interested in East-Asia than North-America)?
If they look at introducing themselves and communicate peacefully, what metrics would they look at to determine what society they want to deal with?
If they look for dominance, once again they would hit where we produce tech, and hit our means of communication, which are worldwide.
> If they are more in the individuality side of thing (in contrast to hive mind), the dumbest of their lot would probably be smarter than the smartest person we can find here, probably looking at us the way we look at other intelligent species.
I feel like people in this thread don't watch enough Science Fiction. There are LOTS of situations where a species could trivially navigate the universe (Someone stole the technology and ran away with it, the people who invented the technology died a million years ago, they were gifted the technology by a superior race, or it was discovered by accident). Lots of possibilities out there.
No need for SF for this line of reasoning. You don't need to know anything about electricity, or physics, to turn on a light switch, or activate autopilot in a car. But a certain amount of understanding and craftsmanship is required to maintain things in working condition. If it's something discovered, you need a reverse-engineer the thing.
This entire comment chain is missing the fact that there are many UAP sightings in China and one of the reasons the US isn't being mum about this anymore is because China is exploring the phenomenon without all of the West's weird religious and secular hangups about the possibility of nonhuman intelligence.
