I'd look for a community focused on writing fantasy
this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2024
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Do we have anything like this on Lemmy? I'd be interested in reading/writing more fantasy stuff
Terms new to me: cryptoterrestrial and βnon-contiguous technology.β I should think there are any number of science fiction writers who have written in this framework. Take the Stargate franchise as one example. I donβt take alien contact seriously in the slightest, so I have nothing further to add.
I am not talking about speculative fiction and what could happen. I am talking about taking your hypothesis - that alien contact has not happened at all - and attempting to build a steel-person argument against it.
This is how we got the cryptoterrestrial hypothesis: 1 assume UAPs are alien ships, 2 assume our understanding of physics is accurate, 3 assume that aliens wouldn't fly all this way for nothing, what could be a possible explanation for 1 and 2? This the cryptoterrestrial hypothesis is born and now we can setup experiments to gather sufficient evidence to close out that hypothesis.
I am looking for something similar with regard to the theories of alien contact resulting in an arms race. The best way to defeat any ridiculous hypothesis is to steel-person it.
Why would you assume our understanding of physics is accurate? It very clearly isn't. Thats why we rely on general relativity and quantum mechanics, and dont have a unified theory. Our theories work in most cases but break down in some areas thats pretty well known. No scientist worth their salt would ever claim we have a 100% understanding of physics. Hell not even 90% id wager. We dont know what we dont know. There could be entire fundamental laws and forces we are entirely unaware of, and in fact many people think there are.
It's a thought experiment to analyze specific variables. Whatever we assume as given for this experiment is not what we're trying to understand. If we assume our understanding of physics is accurate for this thought experiment, it allows us to focus on the behavioral variables in the geopolitical, military, economic, and economic dimensions. I am not interested in a thought experiment that identifies what are the possible areas of new physics that could be implied from this thought experiment, all though a deeper analysis might indicate that specific new physics might result in specific behaviors of states and we need to itemize them as additional thought experiments.
Remember that this is a thought experiment. I am using the word "assume" like we're doing geometry in math class. Assume the triangle XYZ has one angle of 60 degrees. Why would you assume that? Because it's useful when doing an analytical exercise.
In the larger context, I don't assume our physics is accurate, but I'm not interested in speculating on the ways in which it's inaccurate for this thought experiment.
y tho. I guess Iβm sorry youβre in some awkward position that makes such an exercise worthwhile. Is it Thanksgiving with family? π¬
It's an intellectual pursuit like analyzing the situation in Ukraine or analyzing decisions before the FTC or analyzing a football league