The recent disclosure by the federal government that they’ve been studying UFO’s in recent years isn’t as exactly captivating as revelations around “Project Blue Book”, for example. But, it has sparked a mainstream conversation once again. The revelation that for two years UFO’s were regularly monitored between Florida and Virginia has brought the conversation closer to home as well.
So, first question, when you hear UFO, what do you think of?
A) An unidentified flying object
B) Extraterrestrial life
This question and the topic generally is a different version of a similar thing to climate change. When you hear climate change do you think?
A) Nature changing and evolving
B) Man-made environmental destruction
In both of these instances, the A answers are factual and the B answers are questionable. Recently YouGov studied UFO’s and found that 54% of Americans believe in extraterrestrial life. So commonly, UFOs which are just that, unidentified, are associated directly with whatever one’s mental version of alien life happens to be. What I’ve been surprised by is the lack of nuance to the conversation. As is often the case, we tend to be prone to a hard-line position which leads most people to be off base regardless of what they believe to be the case.
For example, I view UFO’s as unidentified objects. I don’t associate them with extraterrestrial life. That being said do I think it’s possible there’s extraterrestrial life? Yes.
Same with the environmental conversation. Is there climate change? Yes. It’s always happening. Are people responsible for climate change? No. It’s always been. Earth had a minimum of three mass extinction events prior to any evidence of human life. Can we harm the environment? Yes.
There’s room for pragmatism. From UFOs to climate change to most issues in life. The application is just in short supply these days.
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