“Liberals” are more likely than conservatives to believe in ET.
One of the annoying things about being a space policy and technology expert is that many assume that you are knowledgeable about, and have in interest it, this topic. If you’re doing a call-in show on space, it’s inevitable that someone will call in about it.
I’m a conservate who believes that the mathematical probability of life elsewhere in the universe is likely 100%.
Now, do I believe we’re being visited by intelligent beings who seem to have nothing better to do than to scare drunks, conduct anal probes, and butcher cows? Nope.
The article hopelessly conflates the topics of “intelligent life elsewhere in the universe” and “flying saucers”. Which is basically what most of your call-in show favorites do too.
Well, that IS where the aliens live. Duh.
A good long time ago, I read an article that discussed the views of the world’s religions towards the possibility of alien intelligences. The fundamentalist christians had a tendency to think the whole idea was a plot by Satan to deceive the faithful. The response of a Catholic bishop (Cardinal, I don’t really remember), to the question of ET intelligence was something like this: “Our Father’s house has many rooms.”
If there’s life on other planets, there are almost certainly rednecks there.
I can believe a couple of yahoos from Planet Splrfxlpk could be cruising along through our galaxy, and upon seeing Earth the driver tells his buddy, “Hold my glvrblik and watch this!”
It’s not that liberals “believe in extra-terrestrials,” they believe in a certain kind of extra-terrestrial. That being an Advanced Race of Beings that are sort of like us physically only “better” (usually meaning less muscular more brainy — often this means childlike, hairless, sexless, and having giant dome-shaped heads, kind of like an exaggeration of the stereotypical nerdy scifi fan). Of course they have interstellar travel and all that tech, and they have evolved beyond the need for religion and money and live lives of perfect harmony.
Conservatives who think there might be ETs tend to be a little more practical in their outlook. If the ETs are advanced, the fact that they haven’t contacted us is probably a good thing. (Conservatives read history.) If they aren’t, they might actually be more primitive, which could be both good and bad for us. (Conservatives read history.) Also, “life” means lots of things. It could just mean a different biosphere with plants and animals but no intelligent life. Which could be both good and bad for us. (Conservatives read history — and also a lot of real science.) Missing from the conservative view on ETs is the need so many liberals have to treat ETs as religious figures. Conservatives know that this would be a bad thing for any race of ETs like us enough to understand the concept of being worshipped — and bad for us. Because — conservatives read history.
I look forward to the day the aliens land and outsoure their help desk jobs to us. Then other aliens will land and do exposes on the “sweat shops” that exploit the Earthlings, forcing us to work 8-hour days and drink cheap Aramark coffee. Protesters wil complain about Earthlings taking their jobs. We’ll be satirized in alien sitcom parallels to “Beverly Hillbilies” and “Dukes of Hazzard.”
If there’s life on other planets, there are almost certainly rednecks there.
I can believe a couple of yahoos from Planet Splrfxlpk could be cruising along through our galaxy, and upon seeing Earth the driver tells his buddy, “Hold my glvrblik and watch this!”
Yeah, but if that was true, you’d expect to see a lot of dead redneck aliens. Just as “Hey, ya’ll, watch this!” is among the most common last words of Earth’s rednecks, you can count on “Hold my glvrblik and watch this!” being their most common last words.
I’m not seeing any evidence of dead aliens, rednecks or not. Or was that what happened at Roswell?
Alan, I look forward to building cheap alien consumer goods like laser pistols and fully-automatic anal probes. I predict that as Earthlings start to do the “jobs that Pleadians won’t”, the economy of our overlords will become highly leveraged as we buy-up all their P-bills to replace our own collapsed fiat currencies.
We’ll be satirized in alien sitcom parallels to “Beverly Hillbilies” and “Dukes of Hazzard.”
If they really want us to look bad, all they have to do is show actual reruns of those shows.
Two words: Steve Irwin.
There is an anthill in africa, it is estimated to have a population of about 2 billion ants. Close to none of those ants ever encounter a human. Therefore humans must not exist. I wonder if that rare ant who encounters some PHD student researching a paper tells the other ants and if those ants believe it.
Just because something doesn’t find us interesting enough to bump into our anthill so everyone can see it should not take away the possiblity something isnt there.
Those ants that do meet humans consider them to be pan-dimensional beings.
Those purpleneck methane breathing aliens decompose quickly in our toxic oxygen rich environment.