tl;dr
Psychic experiments didn't work.
Psychic experiments didn't work.
"Even though a statistically significant effect has been observed in the laboratory, it remains unclear whether the existence of a paranormal phenomenon, remote viewing, has been demonstrated. The laboratory studies do not provide evidence regarding the origins or nature of the phenomenon, assuming it exists, nor do they address an important methodological issue of inter-judge reliability.
Further, even if it could be demonstrated unequivocally that a paranormal phenomenon occurs under the conditions present in the laboratory paradigm, these conditions have limited applicability and utility for intelligence gathering operations. For example, the nature of the remote viewing targets are vastly dissimilar, as are the specific tasks required of the remote viewers. Most importantly, the information provided by remote viewing is vague and ambiguous, making it difficult, if not impossible, for the technique to yield information of sufficient quality and accuracy of information for actionable intelligence. Thus, we conclude that continued use of remote viewing in intelligence gathering operations is not warranted."
quoting: Executive summary, "An Evaluation of Remote Viewing: Research and Applications", American Institutes for Research, Sept. 29, 1995[19]
-Ted Talk with Walter von Lucadou https://youtu.be/TdfFEO-lFD0
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP96-00788...
Like virtually everything else in biology and learning theory the optimum is not at either "edge" of the parameter space but somewhere in between. Willingness to entertain model-breaking ideas and data is a compromise between the need to avoid falsehood and error and the need to learn and update models when needed.
I don't know how to classify this phenomena but its characteristics are: lofty, haughty, condescending, dismissive language - a desire to be "right" about the "true boring nature of the world - high cynicism paired with disgust for optimism - absolute conviction even lacking more than a trickle of experimental evidence.
In the case of the solar roads, people were "promising" me that it would never be a viable solution not because of any good thermodynamics calculations or anything, but merely because the roads were pretty expensive right now, and kinda slippery right now, and because it seems to make more sense right now to just build solar panels in the Mojave desert or whatever.
Never mind that freeways are arteries across the nation, never mind that maybe someone will whip up some crazy asphalt mixture that you can plug a cord into, nope, it's not ever going to be a thing, TRUUUUST USSSS.
https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/smullyan.html
> Once upon a time there was a universe. In this universe there was a planet. On this planet there was virtually no laughter. Nothing like ``humor'' was really known. People never laughed, nor jested, nor kidded, nor joked, nor anything like that. The inhabitants were extremely serious, conscientious, sincere, hard-working, studious, well wishing, and moral. But of humor they knew nothing. All except for a small minority who had some feeling for what humor was. These people occasionally laughed and joked. Their behavior was extremely alarming to everyone else and was regarded as an obviously pathological phenomenon. These few people were called ``laughers,'' and they were promptly hospitalized.
The most annoying are the many who claim to be approaching thins with reason who immediately flee to the worst flaws in thinking there are, ad hominem and arguments from authority. Rather than focus on substantive issues, they point out that those putting forward the ideas don't have the right credentials or similar. Which, if you're just dealing with "am I personally going to accept this idea", that's fine. But it's a pragmatic dodge that is guaranteed to fail quite often. Identity of the speaker can't influence truth of what is spoken, it's that simple.
Then you've got things like the issues you mention, like the expense. So tackle the expense problem! WHY is it expensive? Things are only expensive for a few reasons. Either they require rare materials, extremely precise engineering, or they're being produced for an extremely small destination market. It's not magic. If the things can be made at scale, and they can be made with commodity components, they can be made cheap, end of story. That's just a matter of scale. Whether that scale could ever be achieved is one of those "you have to grant the hypothetical" situations. The slipperiness might be a bigger sticking point. What physical properties lead to stickiness and how do they affect light transmission through a medium? That might be the killer right there, but you have to actually pursue it before you can write something off.
Being intellectually adventurous isn't for everybody. Many people can't take an idea like "maybe it would be best if we ate people" and then just take it apart and determine what the consequences would be and whether they accomplish a desired goal. They just can't bring themselves to do it. Or once they hear about prion diseases, they bail instantly without looking for workarounds. You have to WANT an idea to work to ever have a chance of proving whether its possible. Then you can define the conditions under which it WOULD be possible. And if it's not possible, then you actually know why. Which means you probably know far more about the original problem you were trying to solve and that might generate some great ideas going forward.
"I can't have people that unlucky working for me."
The government isn’t that great at secrets.
They disclosed their stealth bombers after a time - and those were also seen before disclosure.
There’s being capable of a thing and the fear that instills in people it’s used against. There’s also displaying a large sword deliberately. Governments in general love having moments where they wow their adversaries.
Given the nature of the US government I think it is unreasonable to anthropomorphisize it as something that can "enjoy displaying a large sword," for example.
This is one of the reasons that many military historians remain confused to this day why Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed. Everyone involved in the decision had to have known that dropping the bombs in unpopulated woodland near the cities would have actually been MORE effective at accomplishing the goals (mostly intimidating the USSR, as it was known from decrypted military communications of the Japanese that they were already defeated and ready to surrender on terms amenable to the Allies).
Do you really mean this? Are you saying that the government is incapable of keeping a certain fact secret, if exposing it will compromise national security?
Example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MKUltra
> The operation was officially sanctioned in 1953, was reduced in scope in 1964, further curtailed in 1967, and officially halted in 1973.
and
> Project MKUltra was first brought to public attention in 1975 by the Church Committee of the United States Congress...
22 years they kept that from the public. Seems like they did a pretty good job keeping that secret.
MKUltra was wide in scope but no earth-shattering new information was revealed, and I suspect most of those involved didn’t really know the big picture (and the ones that did were likely either too ashamed or too patriotic to talk about it).
That’s a very different type of “big” than, e.g., “we found an alien spaceship in the desert”.
Again, our little argument was asking if such information would ever be revealed to the public if it was found. So including this particular argument is no possible..
We know through OSINT that the government has kept plenty of secrets and they have done so very very well for decades, before leakage or disclosure. Finally, with such a poor SnR these days due to information overload and psyops, even if the government isn't that great at secrets, you still have the herculean task of sorting through the information haystack looking for the needles.
I'm going to make a leap of faith, and say you're an adult in the US.
The fact that there are some US adults not aware of the massive scale secrecy, of the Manhattan Project, is genuinely embarrassing.
For a more recent example, see the NSA circa-Snowden.