cjet79
Anarcho Capitalist on moral grounds
Libertarian Minarchist on economic grounds
User ID: 124
cjet79
13hr ago
I keep reading more of his stuff and keep seeing more disclaimers. While you keep reading his stuff and keep dismissing more of his disclaimers.
Here he is in a another post:
Of course this best account of UFOs as aliens must be compared to our best accounts of UFOs as due to hallucinations, hoaxes, or secret human orgs.
A U.S. military report says that intelligently controlled UFOs with amazing abilities seem real to them, even if they don’t know their cause. Maybe this seems fantastical. But let's suspend our disbelief for now, and explore the hypothesis. Suppose the report is 100% true, and these UFOs with bizarre abilities truly exist. How can we square that with what we know? I'm going to show you how "aliens" is one plausible explanation, based on...
For a second I thought this disclaimer you wrote for him was something he wrote. What you wrote here is my interpretation of what he is saying.
So let me return again to the topic of matching UFO data and theory. Specifically to the task of finding the most believable way to explain UFO data via real things (not hallucinations or hoaxes) with amazing abilities cause by “aliens”.
I’ve previously outlined the most plausible account I could find of UFOs as ordinary aliens, i.e., the kind with a planet of origin somewhere who travel here across ordinary space within light-speed limits. But I notice that people often invoke weirder ‘alien’ hypotheses. Such as that UFOs come from some ancient octopi-like civilization deep in our oceans. Or that UFOs result from future time-travelers. Or that UFOs come here from other dimensions in a more-than-four dimensional universe. So let me try to generalize my prior analysis to encompass such possibilities.
Here he is again calling these "weird" ideas.
And the best piece of evidence is his words on other posts:
I estimate roughly a one percent prior for this scenario, which is substantially higher than the prior I assigned to UFOs as aliens. Furthermore, this theory seems to quite naturally account for the key puzzles I struggled to explain regarding an aliens theory, namely that they are here while the universe looks empty, and that they stay near the limits of our vision, neither making themselves clearly visible nor completely invisible. This hoax category thus has the strongest posterior, in my view. (Yes I haven’t discussed the other two theory categories much; maybe I’ll say more on those some other day.)
Note that conditional on this UFO as US psychop theory being true, we should give more credence to other US conspiracy theories, such as that the US faked the moon landings. I thus now give more credence to this, even if I still see it as less likely than not. And conditional on believing other such theories, this UFO as US psychop theory becomes more believable.
So he explicitly considers the "government hoax" explanation as most likely.
I could not find the writing you were talking about that is more recent. Much of this seems to be back in 2022/2023. He was added to the advisory council on UAPs in June 2026 but i couldn't find any output from that group. Perhaps now that he is part of the government he can update on the likelihood of the government hoax explanation.
He has written a bunch of stuff about aliens. Which might suggest he believes they are true, but he has also written possibly one of the best explanations for the non-existence of intelligent alien life: The Great Filter. I think he honestly likes thinking about and playing around with strange ideas. I went to GMU and have met Robin Hanson a few times, I've also known people who interacted with him a great deal (like fellow professors). The impression is the same: weird guy likes weird ideas. His public persona is really only the tip of the iceberg. And his publicly listed views on wikipedia include prediction markets (two decades before they were cool), incel sympathy, cryonics, the great filter (aliens), and a future society of brain emulations (his age of em book).
There are some people I feel safer pegging my views on a particular topic to whatever they say is correct. For example, I'll trust Scott Alexander on plenty of things. I think he will do honest research and come to the best possible conclusion given the evidence on plenty of topics. Psych meds are one of those topics. Robin Hanson is someone I'd feel comfortable pegging my views on aliens to. If he has recently updated his views from the ones expressed in his 2021-23 blogposts I'd be inclined to believe him without looking at any of the evidence. I still think you are both reading him uncharitably, or reading something I haven't seen.
cjet79
19hr ago
The “low social control and low economic control” quadrant of the political spectrum is effectively empty among the non-elite
This seems odd to me you'd say this given your username. Hillbillies are exactly that.
I grew up close enough to the rural parts of Virginia that these types of people were very familiar to me.
cjet79
20hr ago
I don't think you or @stoatherd understand what Hanson was doing in that post.
He likes to play around with ideas and hypotheticals. He is not claiming to be correct about aliens. He is specifically saying he might not be correct. Reread these two disclaimer paragraphs, I've helpfully bolded the relevant area:
Turns out, my prior research prepared me to address this very question, once I gave it some thought. Not on the evidence for UFOs, where others are more expert than I. But on how to fit this idea of strange objects with amazing abilities under intelligent control into your scientific world view. (Note that I’m not claiming this as fact; I’m saying it isn’t crazy.)
While there are many possibilities here, it suffices for me to show just one. And yes, it involves aliens.
You should read the rest of his post like you read a hard sci fi author. All the steps and things happening need to be plausibly true not actually true. He is telling a story where aliens could be plausibly true.
cjet79
1d ago
We have a wildcard rule on themotte: dont be egregiously obnoxious. Its not specific for good reasons. If people are being very annoying to a wide range of posters we consider that rule-breaking. Even if no specific rule is broken.
Your behavior in this thread is in violation of the rule. We are giving you a 1 day ban for you to go back and read through your comments and your interactions with others. Figure out what you are doing wrong and stop it. If you cannot figure it out, I doubt we will be able to point it out sufficiently to help you.
Bans for egregiously obnoxious behavior escalate much faster than other types of bans. Consider this potentially your last warning.
cjet79
1d ago
Maybe the interaction is more draining than the initial effort. If I write a controversial post I usually spill three - five times more words defending it.
cjet79
1d ago
Probably back when not enough players could consistently make three pointers.
I'm not an NBA history buff, but that seems to be the desired direction for their change.
cjet79
1d ago
How could you say this? The tournament has like another dozen games left. And those games are way more likely to feature some dumb drama. I bet you'll retract this statement by the end.
cjet79
2d ago
I do find this post a bit ironic.
My problem with length is I don't want to read it all.
cjet79
2d ago
I like the way you structured the post and I think it felt more honest than posting them as three separate topics.
Your post was "here is the pattern I'm noticing, here are the data points, here is what I think of the pattern". If you claim to notice the pattern after just posting one or maybe even two incidents the responses are likely to be "these are isolated incidents". If you try to get everyone to notice the pattern just by posting one of these stories every week or so for months on end then you risk people get annoyed with you "get off your hobby horse" and it defeats the purpose of this place being able to speak plainly.
@EverythingIsFine Having specific incidents to discuss is fine. But being able to have meta discussions is also useful. This post you are discussing allowed for both types of conversation.
@stolen_brawnze I'd generally suggest people not worry too much about the meta-health of themotte discussion forum. It especially should not be a reason to complain to someone who is improving the discussion.
cjet79
3d ago
Nice! I remember deconstructing black cat fireworks and pouring them all into a Playmobil TNT container. We were hoping for a big explosion, but instead it just burned steadily.
cjet79
5d ago
Genuine question since I haven't played the first half life game. Is Half-life good by modern gameplay standards? Or is it one of those games that was great for its time and era but feels dated now?
cjet79
5d ago
What is the most fun you've had with fireworks?
My fondest memory of a fireworks show was in Maryland, it was just local people along a river inlet. They went a bit crazy trying to out do each other. We were basically right under the fireworks along the river bank, while they were launched from a barge about 50 feet out in the water. The explosions were close enough to smell and feel.
Nothing compares to the fun and joy of being a kid let loose with small explosives. We'd blow up various toys, make battlefields in our sandbox where we blew up the sand (the smoking craters were a cool effect). Smokebombs were always super fun, especially when the smoke was partially unleashed into hollow dark areas (like rotten logs, or snake holes). We unleashed so many bottle rocks.
Best fireworks show was when I was down in florida for 4th of july. We had been at disney world to see the fireworks, but the rain kept delaying the start. We eventually gave up and were driving home. But the rain cleared while we were on the highways, and we pulled over as there was a clear view for miles around us as the various parks in the area all unleashed their fireworks at the same time.
Favorite fireworks video was a flyover of LA on july 4th 2020. Felt like the whole city had pent up energy from covid and just decided to unleash it all. Maybe it looks like that normally, I wouldn't know. But it felt great seeing that at the time.
cjet79
5d ago
I know it has "this one weird trick" vibes. But on some level it has to work. A 3d printable gun design is patentable. And there are legitimate reasons for wanting such a patent. It's just a question of how easy it is to take the patent details and convert it to 3d printable file.
cjet79
6d ago
I was curious about a gun related question, and you seem super knowledgeable.
Could the patent office be a distributor of 3d printed gun files?
Guns are patentable.
Patents are made publicly available.
Patent files can include PDFs. PDFs can contain enough information that a 3d printing file format is extractable.
States would have to sue the patent office to stop them from distributing the stuff.
cjet79
6d ago
I think the first part of the comment was good, but the second part and the quoted statement wasn't as good of an argument.
Could have been given AAQC for first part and down votes for weaker arguments in the second section on a divisive topic.
Any pro immigration stance around here tends to gather more down votes than upvotes.
cjet79
6d ago
Reminds me of my old post on adversarial establishment of religion https://old.reddit.com/r/TheMotte/comments/i2r8qo/culture_war_roundup_for_the_week_of_august_03_2020/
cjet79
7d ago
I scrupulously avoid parking in areas where there might not be clear open spots with no surrounding vehicles. I'll gladly walk an extra few hundred feet to avoid the hassle.
I've also been accused of scratching a vehicle when my daughter exited the vehicle. I pointedly looked at the car, looked at the person, looked back at the car. looked back at the person, took off my sunglasses, and said "we didn't touch your car, and there is nothing there". When they looked like they were about to say something in response. I put my sunglasses back on looked down at my daughter and said "come on [daughters name]" and then took her hand and walked away.
They might have said something to me as I left, I responded "no worries" as if they'd apologized for inconveniencing me and kept walking.
cjet79
7d ago
Their expectations are probably low for the food because America basically exports it's cheapest food culture.
I did watch a specific couple, a bearded/ripped dude and hot blonde. They look like a hot young American couple. But sound British. Didn't feel very astroturfed, and a lot of their reactions were more informational. With a minority being glowing praise, but little criticism.
cjet79
8d ago
https://youtube.com/watch?v=PBagmhUrsVE?is=Vz1jY87-UpPGgjjw
People like ranch, BBQ, national parks, the friendliness, etc
cjet79
8d ago
Anyone been watching the videos of Europeans coming to America and being surprised at how nice it is?
cjet79
8d ago
I didn't enjoy road tripping before kids either.
It makes some things easier. Looking back on it I don't think I took enough long breaks as an adult on road trips. I could go three hours without any stops, and maybe 6-8 hours with only minor stops. But stopping every 1 or 2 hours just makes the whole driving part far less exhausting. And ya it adds a lot of overall time to the trip. But getting where we are going an hour or two later barely matters in the long-run.
Our kids also legitimately enjoy some of the places we have stopped. Like our first visit to a buccees out in Tennessee. They took pictures with the mascot, ate some really good sandwiches, looked through the thousands of souvenir things they sold, got excited about the bathrooms, bought a buccees shirt, and then took pictures outside next to the buccees statue. They talked about that part of the trip for about half a year afterwards.
Had we been planning the trip I don't think we would have allotted an hour of time to visit a glorified and super sized gas station. But I'm happy we went.
cjet79
9d ago
I envy your ability to enjoy driving on long road trips. Most of my long road tripping strategies are just on avoiding annoyances.
I think speeding might only be worth it to avoid getting stuck at long lights on a short drive. I regularly have to take 10-20 minute trips around town. Some of the longer light cycles are five minutes. There might be two or three of these lights on the drive, so making both at the end of the red cycle rather than the beginning might cut your trip time in half. It's also a bunch of luck and if the lights are properly synced up you really just need to go the speed limit (however this makes getting behind a slow driver extra frustrating).
On long trips I like to avoid the packs as much as possible. The larger the speed difference between the passing and cruising lanes the faster the pack will clear. I like to avoid being the cause of the pack cuz I don't like cars being around me. I agree with you that they are dangerous as hell. So if I'm in cruising lane at 5 over the speed limit. And someone is just limping along passing me, I'll drop my speed to five below the limit and it will usually break up the pack, or at least allow it to get around me
For food and staying awake I've noticed that spicy snacks seem best for me as an emergency "stay awake" snack. Caffeine doesn't do much for me. I can have 200ml of caffeine and still fall asleep an hour later.
For entertainment we have an in car video system for the kids in the back, or we will pull out tablets that we only give them for road trips. I have a playlist of music I like. If I go with silence for too long I go a bit stir crazy and get too focused on things outside the car. I usually try and put together a list of topics to talk about with my wife.
We have 750 mile trip and 360 mile trip coming up this summer. The 750 one we will split up into two days with a hotel stop between. With the young kids we have there are so many more breaks and bathroom stops. Eating at mildly interesting places is more fun, since the kids will be entertained by the smallest of things.
From the first one
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