Is the Interstellar Object 3I/Atlas Alien Technology?

[jl6]

It’s probably an alien escape pod that ejected from their civilization when their clickbait plague reached even their scientific journal articles.

[jsbisviewtiful]

The Cold War, conspiracy theories, tabloids and the dismantling of public education really did a number on a lot of people.

Statistically speaking, intelligent life is out there. Mathematically speaking, the odds of us or them ever making contact is near 0.

[Teever]

I've been skeptical of anything Avi Loeb writes after watching this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY985qzn7oI&t=1440s

[compiler_queen]

Of course it is, why wouldn't it be something mundane like always. I'll bet they've got some ulterior motives and that Elvis is with them.

[bob1029]

> The relevance of this is that had the object indeed been discovered earlier, then there would have been some possibility that humanity could have mounted an intercept mission, a recourse that was out-of-the-question by the time 3I/ATLAS was actually detected

The only kind of intercept mission that would make sense to me from a game theory perspective is a totally blind, large scale thermonuclear weapon strike. The first thing that it wakes up to shouldn't be a harmless probe that can only phone home the bad news.

[tzs]

Here's an interesting PBS Space Time video [1], "Dark Forest: Should We NOT Contact Aliens?", that goes over some of the game theory that a civilization might want to consider when deciding how visible to allow themselves to be to others.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXYf47euE3U

[nine_k]

It's not all the dark forest; sometimes it's the shine of a a warm welcome!

[theearling]

Let's hope so, the U.S. and the world as a whole could either use a savior or factory reset

[momento]

What an exhausting defeatist mindset.

[preisschild]

> November/early December of 2025

I guess I'll try to keep my calendar free for interstellar contact

[fouronnes3]

> clandestine reverse Solar Oberth Manoeuvre

is now my favourite xkcd 2326 example.

[zdw]

In many asian languages idioms of 4 characters (Chinese: Chengyu, Japanese: Yojijukugo) are used for concepts, and when many of these are packed tightly together the intent is frequently to either flaunt language ability or sound very smart.

They can also be moderately impenetrable to early language learners.

[staplung]

> clandestine reverse Solar Oberth Manoeuvre

Nah, I'm not really into Pokemon.

https://xkcd.com/178/

[unwind]

Linky linky for the lazy: https://xkcd.com/2326/.

[darqis]

is that humor?

[gus_massa]

No, it's a well known astronomer with a solid trajectory that since a few years for some reasons is seen "evidence" of aliens everywhere.

[an0malous]

Is Avi Loeb preparing to sell you another book?