#347: Could We Handle UAP Disclosure?

You may have noticed that the US government is releasing files about unidentified anomalous phenomena, or what were formerly known as UFOs. Are we now finally getting to some kind of revelation? And should we be in favor of disclosure or not? Just some brief reflections.

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I’ve been following the UAP issue for a while. I’ve written about it in an academic paper where I analyzed how a lot of this communication is happening mostly through alternative forms of media. There was a New York Times article—Leslie Kean and others—that brought some of this to the surface, but after that it seems you’ve had to go to YouTube and other places to learn about it, if you weren’t already deeply invested in the topic. There’s also the documentary The Age of Disclosure, which is interesting, and a new Steven Spielberg film. Who knows?

Should we assume that we’re now getting all the information, that we’re finally learning the truth about some of these things? Maybe. Should we look forward to that? Maybe.

But I must say, in some moment of nostalgia, I’ve been re-watching Stargate SG-1 and came across an episode from the first season, “Enigma.” The Stargate team finds people from an advanced civilization, the Tollans, who don’t want to share their technology—because they have the example of a time when they did share it in the past, and it didn’t go so well, neither for the target civilization nor for themselves.

I’m a person who believes that we should know. I believe we’re all grown-ups and that we should know. I’m hopeful that there are forms of energy out there that could be revolutionary for us. Some people talk about this—whatever zero-point energy is. I’m not a physicist. I took some classes, but I can’t tell you anything. My introduction to zero-point energy comes from Stargate, so what am I supposed to say? I’ve watched a lot of television. I’m a science-fiction person. I’ve written about extraterrestrial life. Of course there is other life out there—if you think logically, that’s not even the question. The question is not whether alien life exists, but whether it’s here. I don’t know.

What you hear sounds convincing, but then you hear other things that go so far off the mark that I don’t know what to think.

But whether it’s real or not, the question is: should we get disclosure? Should we learn all there is to learn? Should we eventually also have technologies that give us free energy, which would make all these things better? I don’t know. Apparently this was a conversation, and apparently, for decades, the government and other people decided—if it’s true—not to talk about it.

Why would that be a legitimate conversation? Why would it be a legitimate position to keep lying to the people of the world, to keep withholding information, withholding technology from us?

Can we handle it?

You know my position on the attack by Russia against Ukraine. Russia is the perpetrator. Ukraine is the victim. We need to do everything to have Ukraine win, get its territory and its people back, and give Ukraine a future. And Russia needs to eventually just leave and change its ways. It’s not the only example. We have the conflict with Iran. We have China looking at Taiwan in desirous ways. We have lots of governments that believe oppressing their people is more profitable than allowing them to live to their full potential. We have crime. We have all kinds of illegality.

And I have to ask myself: is it possible to live, as the human beings we are, in some form of utopian society with free energy, where everybody has what they want, and can’t we all just get along? It’s an old dream, isn’t it?

So the question of disclosure of extraterrestrial life is eventually tied to the question of utopia. I’ve been writing a lot about that as well.

And I must tell you, I don’t believe in utopia—because utopia is eventually tied to human nature. I know some people don’t like the concept of human nature as something relevant to the conversation. They think the concept is maybe a little outdated, and that surely, if circumstances around us are different, we’ll adapt.

People talk about AI, about whether AI is conscious. I believe there’s something happening there—I’ve written about that recently too, I’ll put the links down below. But just as AI is programmed, we are programmed too. We’re programmed by evolution, by our DNA. To deny that is just to deny reality. We evolved, or were created, or however else you want to explain it—let’s say if you believe in a creator God and evolution was the tool that creator God used to make us. However we came to be, we have programming inside of us that is very specifically related to how we as a species grew up, and to whom we’re related. Chimpanzees and bonobos—and look at us.

Human beings can be fantastic. We can be kind, loving, peaceful, generous. But we are also passionate. We are also territorial. You could say you don’t have to be—but everybody who has bet against human nature so far has lost. Territoriality and passion, clannishness—all of it has eventually always pitted us against each other, has led to war.

Who can say that we won’t use these new technologies, that we might learn about, just to wage more war—more devastating war? The more power we have, the more destructive we’ll be. I don’t know what to say to that.

If you’ve watched Star Trek as obsessively as I have, you know that in that scenario the Vulcans basically babysit humans until humans are grown-up enough, whatever that means. But if you know Star Trek well enough, you know there’s no time in it that’s truly utopian. There’s always something happening—between humans, or between humans and aliens, or whatever.

Are we able to handle disclosure?

The optimistic, still-somehow-hoping-for-utopia part of me says: of course we are. We want to be grown-ups. We can handle it. And if you just treat people like grown-ups, that’ll work out. And the other part of me—which is louder—says: you’re not. Look at human history and give me one example, one, where for a solidly long time you have peaceful societies, where people honestly live together in peace, prosperity, love, happiness, and all these nice things, lasting for a foreseeable amount of time—not just a few months, years, decades, centuries. I can’t point to any period like that.

Can I learn over time? Yes. Can humanity learn over time? Sure. But it’s a very steep learning curve.

Ask yourself—and I’m not sure whether I believe we’re actually being visited, but let’s assume we are—ask yourself: if you were the aliens, would you let humans play in the galactic playground? Would you give them the keys to the kingdom? Would you give us technologies that would allow us to spread out into the universe in all our aggressiveness, in all our humanity? Ask yourself that. And I’m not just speaking about you—I’m speaking about the whole of humanity. Think about that approach.

I don’t know. I want disclosure, and I don’t want disclosure. I don’t know what to say.

Maybe it’s all nonsense. It may well be all nonsense. But we’ve had credible people—or people I would say are credible, or that I hope are credible—speak out. Intelligent people have talked about it and say it’s real. I don’t know if it’s real. Do we want it? If it’s the question of you or me getting a private audience with some aliens and being shown the wonders of the universe—yes. But can human societies handle it? I don’t know.

This is a very disappointing video. This is a very disappointing conclusion. I’m sorry. I can’t give you anything else at this point. I just did another video on not being angry, on not being too passionate—and here’s why I’m trying not to be too angry and passionate. But I’m just frustrated. I hope we’ll grow up.

So, as many people have joked—the question isn’t whether there’s intelligent life out there. Is there intelligent life down here? I want to believe that I’m intelligent, that people can be intelligent. But are we intelligent enough? That’s the question. Is there enough intelligence among every single one of us—every single one of us—even to handle the power we’re going to be getting with artificial intelligence?

Look how the internet has already ruined all of us. How algorithmic bubbles have taken over, and people don’t even know what the truth is anymore. And now even more technology, so quickly. I don’t know.