If you’re seeing racism there, it’s because you want to.
It took 4000 years for Europeans to build something as tall as a pyramid and, by then, written records described exactly how it was done. I’m not sure the Europeans ever built something as heavy as a pyramid.
If we look at things Europeans built around the same time as the pyramids, you’ll see aliens being credited with that as well. For example, Stonehenge.
Aliens are always credited with impressive feats of engineering whenever written records were either not kept or at all or were not detailed enough to rule out the aliens.
If I were on a vessel capable of traversing interstellar distances, and my crew and I discovered a planet inhabited by primitive hominids waving stone tools around – or even bronze ones – the LAST thing I’d wanna do is go down there and MESS with them. Ghod knows what they might decide to do, and I’m assuming my X-56 Atomic Zapulator can’t kill ALL of them before they get to me and smash my brains out with their primitive weapons.
I could see putting in observation posts or recording devices, but I’d be damn sure to pull 'em up and take 'em with me when I left.
And no way is any of the crew allowed to play God. That never ends well.
My favorite explanation for the Fermi Paradox is that we’re simply not interesting enough for aliens to visit (or at least to stay). I recall someone comparing it to Pizarro ignoring an anthill by the side path on his way to find the Inca Empire. For any civilization advanced enough to have interstellar travel, we’re just one of many hopelessly backward primitives. They may have been here, but didn’t find a reason to come back.
Oh, fair enough from a galactic perspective, but I was just referring to the “how did we get here” question. Did we evolve here or somewhere else, or were somehow engineered, or all of the above and somewhere in between?
If you find a tree, the parsimonious explanation is that the tree grew where you found it. While it is possible that it grew elsewhere and was transplanted, or was somehow built at that location and made to look as if it had grown, Ockham’s Razor indicates the alternative “theories” need a lot more evidence than the obvious answer.
Time is but an abstraction on the tapestry of eternity-Jerome k Jerome
Thousands of years either way even millions either way would place an e.t. culture unbelievably close in development to our own.
An e.t response to Earth contact activities would be potentially disastrous we would be inviting forces utterly beyond our comprehension keeping in mind that any life form that reaches high technological development is inherently highly aggressive…like us
This rather reminds me of the conspiracy theories surrounding the Kennedy Assassination or 9/11, etc. On one hand, we have an event that is “larger than life”, to use an idiom. An event well outside the bounds of a typical person’s experience. To balance that event against someone as small as Oswald or Osama or Timothy McVeigh … Well, it just doesn’t seem enough. We need there to be more.
We need there to be vast armies of Ghost Soldiers, Gov’ment Conspiracies, and Aliens to even out the scales. The huge event had a huge cause.
For scientists to shrug and say, “Well, we just do not yet know exactly how life happened.” or “We just don’t know exactly how the universe began.” … Well, that’s just not good enough for someone who wants to fill that cubbyhole in his / her world view. It’s the same as leaving the balance pan empty. And, so, that person invents some grandiose crackpot nonsense and sticks it in there. Aliens, Gods, Atlantis… whatever.
This makes me think, a little, of the phrase “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
I’ve never actually agreed with that idea. To me, all claims require adequate evidence. An extraordinary claim can be supported by sufficient, working, testable evidence.
It might be valid that the more unlikely a claim is, the more evidence we require for confirmation. But I’m not really comfortable with this, as it implies an a priori judgement of the claim, rather than a neutral, evidence-based assessment.
Another way to put this: we have some collection of evidence that indicates there might be a “bigfoot” creature in the U.S. NW. But we also have evidence against that claim, in the specific absence of things that would be predicted if bigfoot were real. No carcass, no pelt, no droppings. The overall balance of the evidence must be sufficient, and when there are huge arguments against the claim, that must be overcome with an additional increment of evidence for it.
Stonehenge and other early European structures are part of the AA mythos now but the early tellers of the AA storyline stuck exclusively with African, South American and Polynesian structures (Sitchen,Von Daniken). There was a huge gap and that racism criticism was leveled for almost two decade until Graham Hancock picked up the AA idiot ball and welded on some Stonehenge bits.
Keep in mind a lot of the more recent ‘Ancient Aliens’ types also don’t promote aliens as the builders of these structures, but rather some ancient super culture that existed around 10,000 BC.
Also remember that the earliest ‘Egyptians didn’t build that!’ were 19th century Europeans who tried to figure out when their ancestors came over to build the things.
A couple of nights ago I forced myself to watch an hour’s worth of garbage relating to “crystal skulls” only because I spent years working with quartz in the frequency control industry. I saw and heard nothing I couldn’t debunk off the top of my head. I don’t understand how those people get away with the crap they hand out.
They looked up at the stars and realized we are so big and right here, while the stars are so small and far away. They are pretty but that’s not going to keep the pigs fed.
There is a huge difference between awe or wonder - both of which are perfectly reasonable responses to nature and…
playing a game of “Wouldn’t it be great if…”
Nature is pretty staggeringly cool as it is. There’s no need to invent any crazy stories or mythology or Gods or Alien Conspiracies or whatever else to spice it up. Just because we are not capable of building worlds or sun doesn’t mean that there has to be a human-analog out there who is capable of doing so.
I feel for you, Pal. I did too.
My excuse was that Harrison Ford is Never in a bad movie, Cate Blanchett is a Serious actress who’d never trade her sterling reputation for crap, Shia LaBeouf is supposed to be new “up and coming” Hollywood Royalty,
and Gee, that Karen Allen Still Looks Cute!!!
Except for the latter, I Got Hosed…