>>12956967Circling back again to Jonathan Haidt, he observes that our brains evolved our inner lawyers more than our inner scientist or judge; that is to say, caring for and nurturing our reputations was more important to our ancestors’ survival than their search for the truth. This can also be explained from a colder game-theoretic approach. If I am already a successful scientist, or even simply a businessman or someone with a reputation to protect, the payoff for me to risk losing that to talk about UAPs would have to be much greater than it appears to be in polite society. It is much more likely that a reputation would be damaged — not because the weight of the credible evidence suggests UAPs don’t exist — but rather only because of anchoring bias and social perception.
That is what is most striking to me. To a casual observer, a fervent flat-earther and a believer in UAPs are one in the same. And in certain important ways, that is true. Both don’t have jobs. Both live in their parents basement. Both gather at conventions with “weird” people and are liable to say some crazy shit on camera, which make for great memes. The difference however is that amongst one of these crowds walks astronauts, physicists, war heroes, pilots, missile commanders, intelligence officers, presidents, heads of intelligence agencies, generals, cosmonauts, police officers, radar operators, submariners, etc.
The problem with using these social heuristics is that they aren’t like Apple Software, they don’t insist on being continuously updated in line with the most recent version of the facts— pestering you until you submit to their will. We don’t have time to waste researching UAPs or taking them seriously, when we perceive little to gain and much to lose from the time investment. We perceive much to lose from it because we believe people who discuss this seriously are losers.
