Poll of the Day > US Government

(+) Yeah! (+)

About 88% of the time they're not in my opinion and the entire government and the Courts have all been bought and paid for by the elites and are compromised.

The only truth that matters is that Superman is gay and the government can't deny us that

The fact that more people believe in aliens, ghosts, that Elvis and Tupac are still alive, and that the moon landing was faked than vote that they trust the government in polls implies a very sad thing about the world we live in.

MeatiestMeatus posted...

The only truth that matters is that Superman is gay and the government can't deny us that

I'm only 88% certain that TC holds homophobic views.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

The fact that more people believe in aliens, ghosts, that Elvis and Tupac are still alive, and that the moon landing was faked than vote that they trust the government in polls implies a very sad thing about the world we live in.

This is human arrogance.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

The fact that more people believe in aliens, ghosts, that Elvis and Tupac are still alive, and that the moon landing was faked than vote that they trust the government in polls implies a very sad thing about the world we live in.

All those things are more believable than a trustworthy government

Metalsonic66 posted...

All those things are more believable than a trustworthy government

Which is why it implies a very sad thing about the world.



Revelation34 posted...

This is human arrogance.

No, it's a rational understanding that people believe in the absolute reality of aliens with literally zero proof.

Most arguments about the possibility of aliens are predicated on the idea that "space is really big, so they must exist", while ignoring questions of just how likely the odds are of "life" forming in the first place, or concepts like the Rare Earth Hypothesis, the Firstborn Hypothesis, and the Great Filter Hypothesis. Things like the Drake Equation and the Mediocrity Principle are nothing more than thought experiments that don't actually "prove" anything. At the end of the day, we can debate the probability of aliens (and come up with answers that range from "there should be quadrillions" to "we shouldn't even exist"), but we currently have zero actual tangible proof of alien existence (advanced or otherwise).

People who have absolute faith in aliens are actually basing their assumptions on less actual evidence than people who have absolute faith in Jesus. Or Bigfoot.

The correct answer isn't "aliens exist" or "aliens don't exist". The correct answer is "We don't know."

Anything else is human arrogance.

I dont believe that we ourselves have ever seen or have been visited by aliens, but believing that aliens exist out there somewhere in the universe is not that crazy of a hypothesis. Surely we cant be the only planet that can sustain lifeforms, right?

Aliens having visited us is more believable than angels or demons having visited us

I'd say it depends on which part of the government and what they're talking about.

There are some subjects I would consider the government to be a credible source of information on and others where I consider the government's word to be completely untrustworthy. It all depends on what's being talked about.

The government is not the source I look to for truth. That being said, people are conspiratorial about 'the government lying' to a degree that is infantile.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

The correct answer isn't "aliens exist" or "aliens don't exist". The correct answer is "We don't know."

I'm pretty comfortable settling on "aliens probably exist." We can't be sure until we actually find some, certainly, but in terms of the impact it has on my life I'm happy with believing that it's more likely than not. That's not really such an impactful belief that I feel the need to be definite before settling on an assumption.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

The fact that more people believe in aliens, ghosts, that Elvis and Tupac are still alive, and that the moon landing was faked than vote that they trust the government in polls implies a very sad thing about the world we live in.

I think most people trust "the government" around 40%, meanwhile people believe in conspiracy crap either 80% or 0%, so you just get a different kind of spread in a binary poll.

It depends which part of the government for me? If it's NASA or the CDC I'm pretty much going to believe it 99% of the time. Politicians lie all the time though so they deserve our distrust. Our last president is going to jail for it.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

No, it's a rational understanding that people believe in the absolute reality of aliens with literally zero proof.

Most arguments about the possibility of aliens are predicated on the idea that "space is really big, so they must exist", while ignoring questions of just how likely the odds are of "life" forming in the first place, or concepts like the Rare Earth Hypothesis, the Firstborn Hypothesis, and the Great Filter Hypothesis. Things like the Drake Equation and the Mediocrity Principle are nothing more than thought experiments that don't actually "prove" anything. At the end of the day, we can debate the probability of aliens (and come up with answers that range from "there should be quadrillions" to "we shouldn't even exist"), but we currently have zero actual tangible proof of alien existence (advanced or otherwise).

People who have absolute faith in aliens are actually basing their assumptions on less actual evidence than people who have absolute faith in Jesus. Or Bigfoot.

The correct answer isn't "aliens exist" or "aliens don't exist". The correct answer is "We don't know."

Anything else is human arrogance.

I'm a big fan of The Dark Forest theory for why it's quiet out in space.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

People who have absolute faith in aliens are actually basing their assumptions on less actual evidence than people who have absolute faith in Jesus. Or Bigfoot.

The correct answer isn't "aliens exist" or "aliens don't exist". The correct answer is "We don't know."

Anything else is human arrogance.

All you need is a pool of amino acids with some light shining on it. Do I assume that there's another planet out there somewhere with some alien bacteria growing? Yeah.

Do I assume that these bacteria have evolved to the point where they can break the laws of physics with magic warp drives and then drive to us from another galaxy far away, then shyly photobomb us and troll us for 40 years? No, that's kind of dumb.

The speed of light kind of cripples any alien visit ideas. For them to even see you, they have to be close enough. Too far away, and you don't even exist to them yet. So the infinite universe doesn't mean much there.

Aliens absolutely exist. Are any of them close enough (or have the technology) to actually visit us? Highly, HIGHLY unlikely.

When one of the two major political parties spends all of their time trying to actively make this country a worse place plus the fact that there are enough dumb people that republicans can hold any office in government makes it hard to trust the government

I don't trust people in the first place.

"Election interference never surrender" said the man who surrendered for election interference

do you really think the government would just lie to us?

aliens probably exist but it's a cosmic improbability that we'd ever meet so the idea is inherently just a thought exercise

alien agnosticism baybeeee

ParanoidObsessive posted...

concepts like the Rare Earth Hypothesis, the Firstborn Hypothesis, and the Great Filter Hypothesis.

These are as valid as the Flat Earth Hypothesis, The Bigfoot Hypothesis, and all the conspiracy theory Hypotheses.

Sandalphon posted...

These are as valid as the Flat Earth Hypothesis, The Bigfoot Hypothesis, and all the conspiracy theory Hypotheses.

you leave bigfoot out of this

agesboy posted...

aliens probably exist but it's a cosmic improbability that we'd ever meet so the idea is inherently just a thought exercise

Thing is, if aliens *do* exist, we might not meet them but we *should* have seen some sign of them at this point.

Consider this - what is the precursor to colonizing space? Exploring space. And what's the precursor to exploring space? Surveying space. Assuming sentient aliens reason in a manner similar to us, they would likely want to conduct an automated galactic survey once they had the technology available to do so. This would consist of building autonomous, drone-crewed vessels that would travel to new solar systems, conduct orbital surveys of any planets to determine if any of them either had life or had conditions suitable for life, then construct an outpost on one in order to build a facility that would construct and launch several new survey ships to repeat the process. It sounds futuristic, but by most estimates we're within ~100 years of having the technology suitable to conduct such a survey ourselves - it would take tens of thousands of years to complete such a survey on a galactic level, never mind trying to explore other galaxies, but once started the survey would need very little additional input/oversight from us and within a few millennia, we'd have an intergalactic survey and communication web set up.

That sort of a timescale is the blink of an eye in the cosmic scale - if dinosaurs had developed sentience and intellectually progressed at the same rate we did, they could have had that sort of a system up and running less than 1% of the way through their time on this planet.

So, realistically, we should have seen *something* in our solar system from extraterrestrial sentient aliens, if they indeed exist in our galaxy - probably not them in person, but maybe a waystation or automated communications satellite of some sort. That we have seen nothing lends credence to the idea that we truly are alone.

darkknight109 posted...

Thing is, if aliens *do* exist, we might not meet them but we *should* have seen some sign of them at this point.

Consider this - what is the precursor to colonizing space? Exploring space. And what's the precursor to exploring space? Surveying space. Assuming sentient aliens reason in a manner similar to us, they would likely want to conduct an automated galactic survey once they had the technology available to do so. This would consist of building autonomous, drone-crewed vessels that would travel to new solar systems, conduct orbital surveys of any planets to determine if any of them either had life or had conditions suitable for life, then construct an outpost on one in order to build a facility that would construct and launch several new survey ships to repeat the process. It sounds futuristic, but by most estimates we're within ~100 years of having the technology suitable to conduct such a survey ourselves - it would take tens of thousands of years to complete such a survey on a galactic level, never mind trying to explore other galaxies, but once started the survey would need very little additional input/oversight from us and within a few millennia, we'd have an intergalactic survey and communication web set up.

That sort of a timescale is the blink of an eye in the cosmic scale - if dinosaurs had developed sentience and intellectually progressed at the same rate we did, they could have had that sort of a system up and running less than 1% of the way through their time on this planet.

So, realistically, we should have seen *something* in our solar system from extraterrestrial sentient aliens, if they indeed exist in our galaxy - probably not them in person, but maybe a waystation or automated communications satellite of some sort. That we have seen nothing lends credence to the idea that we truly are alone.

The galaxy maybe. The universe? Fuck no.

Zareth posted...

Aliens absolutely exist. Are any of them close enough (or have the technology) to actually visit us? Highly, HIGHLY unlikely.

I always figure God, Jesus, and the angels were aliens. I mean, it makes sense Other than that, the other aliens are too far away at this point Unless they find a wormhole (like the ones we think exist that can bend time and space) or something like it

The reason we don't see aliens on other planets is cuz they collectively decided to NOT contaminate their surfaces with billions of buildings

Revelation34 posted...

The galaxy maybe. The universe? Fuck no.

Even if we're restricting our scope to just the galaxy, there are somewhere between 350 billion and 500 billion star systems in the Milky Way galaxy alone. The idea that none of them are capable of sustaining life beggars belief. Even if you think Earth is a one-in-a-billion type of planet (and, notably, we've already found other Earth-like planets in other solar systems), that would still give us hundreds of planets capable of sustaining life in the galaxy.

And yet, there's no sign of them. The question - with some potentially disturbing implications - is why not.

We're not even sure if we're the only life forms in our solar system

darkknight109 posted...

Even if we're restricting our scope to just the galaxy, there are somewhere between 350 billion and 500 billion star systems in the Milky Way galaxy alone. The idea that none of them are capable of sustaining life beggars belief. Even if you think Earth is a one-in-a-billion type of planet (and, notably, we've already found other Earth-like planets in other solar systems), that would still give us hundreds of planets capable of sustaining life in the galaxy.

And yet, there's no sign of them. The question - with some potentially disturbing implications - is why not.

Such as?

Revelation34 posted...

Such as?

To me, the most likely implication is that intelligence/sentience is an evolutionarily-recessive trait. Any species that evolves intelligence sufficient to explore the stars similarly evolves technology sufficient to destroy themselves. We've certainly done a good job of that here on Earth, both directly with things like nuclear weapons, and indirectly via climate change.

Perhaps the simple truth is that any intelligent species is destined to destroy itself long before it reaches the state where it could contact anyone else.

Mostly no.

rofl this became about UFOs and extraterrestrials

darkknight109 posted...

I'd say it depends on which part of the government and what they're talking about.

Even this is putting it too lightly. TC's question is way too broad to formulate a real answer. Who or what is the "government", here?

CyborgSage00x0 posted...

Even this is putting it too lightly. TC's question is way too broad to formulate a real answer. Who or what is the "government", here?

That's why I voted "I don't care". The Government isn't the body I look to for guidance on most issues and looking at something as large as that involves a lot of truth and fallacy to sort through. They are like any large institution or bureaucratic body, media group, etc. You have to weigh everything. You can get comprehensive data from the Government. They can also be sorely wrong frequently. It's like asking if you trust the Sun. Yeah? Sorta? No!?

Actually, a better example is "do you trust the library?". They've got some good ones...bad ones....misguided ones...

Do you trust...GameFAQs??

https://youtu.be/zONW46d50A0

ReturnOfFa posted...

That's why I voted "I don't care". The Government isn't the body I look to for guidance on most issues and looking at something as large as that involves a lot of truth and fallacy to sort through. They are like any large institution or bureaucratic body, media group, etc. You have to weigh everything. You can get comprehensive data from the Government. They can also be sorely wrong frequently. It's like asking if you trust the Sun. Yeah? Sorta? No!?

Actually, a better example is "do you trust the library?". They've got some good ones...bad ones....misguided ones...

What the hell is a misguided library?

MeatiestMeatus posted...

The only truth that matters is that Superman loves Lois Lane and the government can't deny us that

Fixed that for you.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/7/1/7/AAfaVHAAEy0N.jpg

don't tell Lois!

MeatiestMeatus posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/7/1/7/AAfaVHAAEy0N.jpg

don't tell Lois!

That was weirdly one of my favourite parts of Disco Elysium...

spoilers I guess:

You can take up the underground-homosexual movement thought and you'll no longer be bothered in-game with trying to proposition women.

If you talk with Kim you can go deeper on this and be all like "I finally have found a way to stop asking women for sex!" and Kim, being a bro is like, "That's nice." ... and then IMMEDIATELY you're like "So, are you part of the underground-homosexual movement?" and Kim goes basically "God fucking dammit Harry, now you're just gunna bother everyone else about sex, aren't you?

MeatiestMeatus posted...

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/7/1/7/AAfaVHAAEy0N.jpg

don't tell Lois!

Sorry I'm new to PotD what is this image?

Gay Superman, of course

But why post it in this topic? Does it have some sort of relation to @BUMPED2002 ?

Sorry for all the question I'm still new here

MeatiestMeatus posted...

The only truth that matters is that Superman is gay and the government can't deny us that

When did that happen?

Like over a year ago where have you been

Disco Elysium is a great game.

darkknight109 posted...

Even if we're restricting our scope to just the galaxy, there are somewhere between 350 billion and 500 billion star systems in the Milky Way galaxy alone. The idea that none of them are capable of sustaining life beggars belief. Even if you think Earth is a one-in-a-billion type of planet (and, notably, we've already found other Earth-like planets in other solar systems), that would still give us hundreds of planets capable of sustaining life in the galaxy.

And yet, there's no sign of them. The question - with some potentially disturbing implications - is why not.

The thing that trips up most people also is they restrict themselves to think life as we know how it survives on Earth. Aka, Oxygen consuming, CO2 emitting (or visa versa), need water, etc. But there's no reason to think why life must obey these rules, elsewhere. In fact, we KNOW this is bunk - there's bacteria living in a phosphorus lake that consumes that and arsenic, instead of any O2 or CO2. We have organisms on Earth, now, that break the mold on how life "should" work and survive, meaning it's silly to think Earth's limitations would follow suit everywhere else.

Once you realize this, it really opens up the possibility for an astounding sort of life to be possible.

Revelation34 posted...

What the hell is a misguided library?

I was referring to the books in the library. You can learn a lot from books in a library. You can also take out Russell Brand or Ben Shapiro's latest books.