Unlocking UAP Mysteries: Economics, Aliens, and The Great Filter | Merged EP0109
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN commenters point to it for Hanson's grabby aliens reasoning as an unusual framework for thinking about UFO behavior and intelligent life in the cosmos.
What it is
A 146-minute Merged Podcast episode in which UAP researcher Ryan Graves talks with economist Robin Hanson about UFOs. Topics include the Great Filter, Hanson's grabby aliens model, and the push for more inquiry into UAPs.
Recommended by 3 HN commenters across 3 different months, 2023 to 2023.
What Hacker News said
Recommends Simon_O_Rourke · 2023-07 · on “Laniakea Supercluster”
> Every human has a camera 24/7 now and no one has documented visitors. Take a few minutes to listen to Prof. Robin Hanson talk on this very thing. [this video] The jist of what he says, is that there's very much weird stuff seen in the sky, like the McMinnville photos [1], but there's nobody as yet landing a craft on the White House lawn and posing for the cameras. He puts forward a model for this kind of scenario, it's worth a listen, that any visitors would quite rightly be far in advance of the societies we currently live in, and may only show themselves fleetingly so we gain an acceptance of their presence. [1] [LINK]
Recommends jodrellblank · 2023-09 · on “NASA clears the air: No evidence that UFOs are aliens”
Here are some boring and obvious thought ending dismissals. Grabby Aliens concept by Robin Hanson is an interesting new take on UFOs. Start with “if they are UFOs, what could we reason about them from their behaviour?”. See [this video] “It might be unlikely but it’s not crazy unlikely”.
Recommends ricksunny · 2023-11 · on “The most powerful cosmic ray since the Oh-My-God particle puzzles scientists”
To the casual HN reader - my recommendation to you is to neithet laugh at nor dismiss out of hand analyses such as this (even as logic intrinsic to them merits as much picking apart as any other analysis one sees everyday on HN). Robin Hanson's description of long-lived stars (usually strongest in infrared - i.e. the 3 stars our eyes lack the spectral response to see for every 1 star that we do see when looking into the night sky) significantly updated my priors on the likelihood of intelligent, non-human life roaming about the cosmos. [this video] (timestamped) tl;dr: Red-dwarf stars have been around -- with all that goes with that.. -- for much, much longer than our sun.