How do YOU deal with skeptics?

Originally posted by Off_The_Street



First, current estimates say there are about a hundred billion stars in the galaxy, not a billion billion. you are overestimating by a factor of ten million.

Tusk, hence i said the average galaxy not ours, heres a diagram:


As you can see ours is small compared so some , but it still contains some 200 billion stars. But if we do the math again, 10% contain planets, 10% of those are habitable, 10%of those develop intelligent life. I actually ignored the next part because i personally dont think many species have the habit of wiping themselves out, but for your arguments lets say only 10% arnt either wiping themselves out for good or are in a continual cycle of distruction....... that still leaves 20 million (20,000,000) alien civilizations in our fairly small galaxy alone. So it still stands, use logic and ufos/ETs are nothing other than expected.

METEOR OF WAR says:

"...saying that we will all fall back into barbarism is nothing more than speculation."

Of course it's speculation! Everything we do when we try to determine the likelihood of something happening is speculation. We have to make some assumptions, and the only intelligent life in the cosmos with which I am familiar is H. sapiens. So what else am I supposed to use as the basis for my speculations?

We could also assume that every other carbon-based life form will go from single-celled critter to critters which are potentially Space-Ship Guys in 1.5 billion years, and then these Space-Ship Guys advance to actually building space ships ten thousand years afer that, and they never ever fall back into barbarism or decide to get out of the Space-Ship business from then on. We could also assume that they have life spans of ten thousand Earth years, too, so that barbarism would be harder to take hold. We can assume anything.

And that's just speculation, too.

"Also, as a species we've never been this technologically advanced...as far as recorded history goes anyway."

True, and perhaps our (relative) technological advancement means that we won't fall back into barbarism.

Or, maybe it means we'll blow ourselves up in an atomic war ang go all the way back past barbarism to savagery.

Again, speculation.

I don't have any problem with your speculation or assumptions. I'm sure that we can sit down and work out a set of baseline assumptions (speculation) that we can both use for working purposes.

But either way, we're talking big numbers!!

"Funny, it seems the tables have turned and i'm being the skeptic here."

[ghasp!]

[choke!]

Meteor! My long-lost son! She never told me I was a father! Come to my arms, my boy, and we'll skepticize together!

picard says:

"...that still leaves 20 million (20,000,000) alien civilizations in our fairly small galaxy alone."

Okay, let's assume that there are 20 million alien civilizations in our galaxy. On the average, that's one alien civilization for every 200,000 stars, right?

So even if you do not take into consideration that there's a tremendous negative multiplier given the time constraints of galactic travel, the fact that there're two hundred thousand systems for each race of Space Ship Guys, mean's they'd be pretty busy beavers before they even got around to reaching our system -- if they ever get here at all.

And then, when you add to that the fact that, instead of landing on the White House Lawn or Tienanmen Square or the UN building -- or even sending us radio messages from beyond the orbit of the Moon -- you're postulataing that these Space Ship Guys come here all the time, sneak around at night, and pull out excitable people, take them up to the Space Ship, and poke them in the butt.

Doesn't that seem a bit far-fetched?

Originally posted by Meteor_of_War
Although i'm probably more open than most skeptics, i too consider myself somewhat of a skeptic when i first hear a new story about a UFO sighting, abduction case or testimony from a claimed former top secret government project employee. Only until i can rule out any evidence of a scam, or explainable points in the story do i start to think it could be something else. And still then i remain open to any possibility. I believe this is the best way of dealing with this sort of thing because our knowledge about science and the universe is very small and as history has shown we learn new things all the time (the world isnt flat, the sun doesnt revolve around the Earth, etcetera).

When people hear/read stories about abductions, UFOs, it is normal thing that many confusions go through their mind regarding such incidents. It depends on how much literate you are, how much influence is over you, and how much fantasy/creativity you have in order to comprehend a case like this.

If you are influenced by sceptcs, you have the least chance to understand paranormal phenomena, as your way of thinking is in the hands of others. Reading books and the theories of exhibitionist artists (eg: implant removal methods, build-your-own UFO detector, etc...) also leads nowhere.

I believe that in this case where aliens are in your interest, you are left completely on your own, no way that a human guideline would support you.Therefore, you are to deal with your own brain capabilities, that will never leave you on your own. !!!

On the average, that's one alien civilization for every 200,000 stars, right?

Yes but if interstellar travel has been developed, and is readily available as say car travel is for us, then that figure of 200,000 stars could be quickly mapped and logged, especially if they were to branch out of their own solar system and colonise other systems, exponentially increasing their population.
May i preempt you by saying even if a 10th of those civilizations who dont blow themseleves up regularly, develop instellar travel, that still leaves a figure of 2,000,000 stars for every space-faring civ. I believe even with that figure, my logical theory of why we would be discovered still stands.

Doesn't that seem a bit far-fetched?

Not really, again I would propose logically that most advanced species line of thought would be; just landing in some major city might be a little bit shocking for that terrestrial species to handle, and could quite reasonably be assumed by that terrestrial species as a hostile act from this alien civilization. Instead, carefull observation would be the order of the day.
Im sure some kind of first contact protocol isnt far off the mark, mostly likely when we develop interstellar travel also would be the major benchmark.

Originally posted by Off_The_Street
Of course it's speculation! Everything we do when we try to determine the likelihood of something happening is speculation. We have to make some assumptions, and the only intelligent life in the cosmos with which I am familiar is H. sapiens. So what else am I supposed to use as the basis for my speculations?

Well, when "speculating" i dont see anything wrong with using the evidence we've gathered of the existance of UFO's and EBE's for a basis to your speculations. But i guess that wouldnt be in your character to do so.

Originally posted by Off_The_Street


[ghasp!]

[choke!]

Meteor! My long-lost son! She never told me I was a father! Come to my arms, my boy, and we'll skepticize together!

Heh, you remind me much of an old buddy from my other forum. Havent heard from him in a while though.



[edit on 15/12/04 by Meteor_of_War]

picard, maybe some day we will know.

I think the thing we have in common is that we both believe that it's possible that an alien contact with the Earth could happen or even has already happened.

The big difference is that we have assigned different odds for such a happenstance actually occuring.

And different odds is why we have horse races, right?

Off_The_Street i was just wondering, is that you in your avatar?

Yes it is, and the popgun is an Egyptian Mak90 based on the Kalashnikov AK-47 design.

Here is another picture of myself with my other toy, a Martin D-28:

Ahh ok then, thanks for the posting the pic.