It seems like it might be worthwhile investigating UFOs/UAFs for a large umbrella purpose of ensuring all technology, information, knowledge about the universe, etc. is democratized and accessible to everyone and not monopolized for nefarious purposes.
It might also be worthwhile to study them to safeguard ourselves from government’s psychological operations. It seems that the sky has the potential to have a huge influence on a huge number of people.
Given that people can conflate a spacefaring extraterrestrial craft with a plastic bag in the sky, studying UFOs/UAFs could benefit us by reducing our capacity to miss the astronomical significance of objects right before our eyes. This benefit could be similar to the benefit that is gained from learning how to spot disinformation and misinformation.
The Great Filter Hypothesis
Regarding the great filter hypothesis, maybe I’m wrong, but wouldn’t the discovery of just one extraterrestrial civilization with universe colonization technology increase the probability of a species surviving past a certain point only by a single speck? The discovery would tell us there was at least one species in the entire universe that survived long enough to develop such advanced technology.
If it is incredibly unlikely for us to survive for much longer, communication with them might lead to them sharing their technology and thus providing us with the means to survive longer than we otherwise would have.
It is also possible that the species survived in a region of the universe incredibly far away that had an environment (maybe less risk of asteroid impacts and other astronomical events, etc.) with greater odds for longterm survival than our region of the universe. If their survival was due in large part to various characteristics of their region of the universe, then obtaining this knowledge through communication with them would be important to us.
If there were an extraterrestrial civilization with such advanced technology, it would be useful to communicate with them to discover whether there are more civilizations like them and then update our estimate of the probability of longterm survival in the universe. If there were a significant number of other civilizations like them, that might end up revealing that surviving long enough to develop such advanced technology is common in the universe and thus tell us that our moment in history is not that special.
A.I. Series by Vaughn Heppner
Regarding what you said about our own future not being as important when we take into account all sentient life in the universe, it reminded me of the A.I. series by Vaughn Heppner that I was listening to on Audible a few months ago. I still need to read/listen to the last book of the series. In it, several species across the universe band together to fight against an A.I. civilization that aims to eradicate all biological life in the universe. Several of the species find it easy to bond with each other. One individual is the last of their own species and becomes afflicted with loneliness and depression. However, they are able to make friendships with other humans.
I was reminded of the A.I. series again by your discussion of the probes. In the series, the A.I. civilization’s domination of the universe was not perfectly coordinated. The A.I. civilization sent one huge ship to destroy a species in a region of the universe. If the ship was defeated, then another three would be sent, then nine, and so on. The number of ships sent after each unsuccessful attempt would be three times the number of ships sent the last time. For all the intelligence they had, the limitation on how fast information could travel across the universe seemed to dampen how effective their domination of the universe could be.
Probes
I sometimes wonder whether extraterrestrial civilizations send probes into the universe like we do. Even if a civilization is advanced enough to send members of their own species to travel extremely long distances, maybe the detrimental health effects or the time it takes for such travel makes sending probes more economical. Or, perhaps there are no such drawbacks for them and they do travel to a few incredibly distant regions of the universe then send probes to many other incredibly distant regions to maximize the number of regions of the universe that they explore (maybe they don’t have enough members of their species who are space explorers to explore all the regions of space they want to explore).
It seems like it might be worthwhile investigating UFOs/UAFs for a large umbrella purpose of ensuring all technology, information, knowledge about the universe, etc. is democratized and accessible to everyone and not monopolized for nefarious purposes.
It might also be worthwhile to study them to safeguard ourselves from government’s psychological operations. It seems that the sky has the potential to have a huge influence on a huge number of people.
Given that people can conflate a spacefaring extraterrestrial craft with a plastic bag in the sky, studying UFOs/UAFs could benefit us by reducing our capacity to miss the astronomical significance of objects right before our eyes. This benefit could be similar to the benefit that is gained from learning how to spot disinformation and misinformation.
The Great Filter Hypothesis
Regarding the great filter hypothesis, maybe I’m wrong, but wouldn’t the discovery of just one extraterrestrial civilization with universe colonization technology increase the probability of a species surviving past a certain point only by a single speck? The discovery would tell us there was at least one species in the entire universe that survived long enough to develop such advanced technology.
If it is incredibly unlikely for us to survive for much longer, communication with them might lead to them sharing their technology and thus providing us with the means to survive longer than we otherwise would have.
It is also possible that the species survived in a region of the universe incredibly far away that had an environment (maybe less risk of asteroid impacts and other astronomical events, etc.) with greater odds for longterm survival than our region of the universe. If their survival was due in large part to various characteristics of their region of the universe, then obtaining this knowledge through communication with them would be important to us.
If there were an extraterrestrial civilization with such advanced technology, it would be useful to communicate with them to discover whether there are more civilizations like them and then update our estimate of the probability of longterm survival in the universe. If there were a significant number of other civilizations like them, that might end up revealing that surviving long enough to develop such advanced technology is common in the universe and thus tell us that our moment in history is not that special.
A.I. Series by Vaughn Heppner
Regarding what you said about our own future not being as important when we take into account all sentient life in the universe, it reminded me of the A.I. series by Vaughn Heppner that I was listening to on Audible a few months ago. I still need to read/listen to the last book of the series. In it, several species across the universe band together to fight against an A.I. civilization that aims to eradicate all biological life in the universe. Several of the species find it easy to bond with each other. One individual is the last of their own species and becomes afflicted with loneliness and depression. However, they are able to make friendships with other humans.
I was reminded of the A.I. series again by your discussion of the probes. In the series, the A.I. civilization’s domination of the universe was not perfectly coordinated. The A.I. civilization sent one huge ship to destroy a species in a region of the universe. If the ship was defeated, then another three would be sent, then nine, and so on. The number of ships sent after each unsuccessful attempt would be three times the number of ships sent the last time. For all the intelligence they had, the limitation on how fast information could travel across the universe seemed to dampen how effective their domination of the universe could be.
Probes
I sometimes wonder whether extraterrestrial civilizations send probes into the universe like we do. Even if a civilization is advanced enough to send members of their own species to travel extremely long distances, maybe the detrimental health effects or the time it takes for such travel makes sending probes more economical. Or, perhaps there are no such drawbacks for them and they do travel to a few incredibly distant regions of the universe then send probes to many other incredibly distant regions to maximize the number of regions of the universe that they explore (maybe they don’t have enough members of their species who are space explorers to explore all the regions of space they want to explore).