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One way to forward a conspiracy theory is to make vague assertations about an idea that are impossible to disprove. To say Does anyone know why so many people in power are encouraging conspiratorial thinking... without giving any examples seems conspiratorial to me, someone who honestly hasn't seen anyone of note make these claims. I mean, it is a leading question and is impossible to answer without first taking it as a matter of fact.

How is the idea of UFOs even a "conspiracy theory" anymore?

UFOs or UAPs are now a verified phenomenon that seem to be observed fairly regularly by trained military, "every day for a couple of years"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBtMbBPzqHY

The parent poster is not talking about "the idea of UFOs", they're talking about aliens among us!

This is an issue - as this disconnect shows, "UFO" clearly means different things to different people, so it's easy to see how a seemingly clear message can be understood very differently among a large group of people (and maybe a conspiracy is born/given more fuel).

This doesn't just happen with "UFOs" either.

"Visiting Earth" in my mind means entering Earths atmosphere, but yeah I cant comment on if aliens could be walking among us, but if they had made it to our atmosphere, why wouldn't they go the extra couple of km's?

why would they visit us? We have an average sun, a weird planet with a bit too much iron, but no more ressources than any other planetary system. Would they want to study us? In this case they have a technology capable of contourning any physic law we nknow of, and bypassing any method of detecting invisible objects based on particles that we know exist, and still manage to disable this tech at weird moments? Because of a glitch? And don't get me started on Alien "crashes".

(also, if they are among us and capable of feat we can't imagine, this is hugely improbable that the presence is recent. Like one in a billion)

There is two solutions: Either aliens visited us or they didn't. If they did, this would be VERY concerning that their software is glitching that bad.

My rational theory is this: Aliens visited us or did not, and i don't really care (treating them the same as god or any new-age consciousness theory), but UFOs are a bigger proof of human bias than alien visit in any case.

The point is that just because there is something unidentified does not mean its aliens.

It is still nonsense in the sense that nothing anyone observed, wrote a book about, or whatever was caused by aliens. Sure, there are unexplained things, but they are not caused by aliens.

If the events are not caused by the US military, which they claim they are not, and if the events are not caused by a rival super power, which there is absolutely no evidence of, then what caused it?

I'm curious to know your thoughts about that, because people are often quick to shutdown the idea of aliens because of social norms, but with little other explanation what else do we have?

We do live in a strange universe, so maybe there is something else at play that is beyond our understanding, but in any case, its very exciting.

Optical illusion, atmospheric phenomenon, weather balloon, bird, commercial aviation, civil aviation, private drone.

It could be atmospheric effects or another trick of nature. Also, the USG could deny ownership and still be the owner, either because they are lying or because one hand doesn’t know what the others are doing.

[...] shutdown the idea of aliens because of social norms [...]

It is just a lack of evidence. There is as much evidence for alien as for Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, God, unicorns, ...

While there may always be unexplained phenomenon, it's hard to ascertain how long UAV/Quadcopter technology has existed. Perhaps the battery tech hasn't been here, but who's to say nuclear reactors aren't in play. People describe these things as big silent objects hovering. You have to wonder if nuclear engines haven't been a thing.

To go from 'unidentified flying object' to sentience or some sort of being instead of just "some weird phenomenon" is the hardest point to make with people I talk to. It's frustrating.

It's because the DoD was ordered to release everything (sans classified stuff, I suppose what shows off too much of our own abilities) they know about UFO's by June 30th. This somehow got in one of the COVID relief bills from last year.

The report is supposed to come out this Friday. Some congress people saw it last week, including the classified stuff that will remain classified, and pretty much just shrugged after the briefing.

So all that is at least why the media has been talking about this so much lately.

I'll also add that Sam Harris said he had someone from the DoD, or at least connected to the DoD reach out to him about "How do you go about revealing evidence of alien technology to the public". Sam's stance on this possible revelation has been "The source is legitimate, but we'll have to see what they actually come out with."

There must always be one or more distractions to keep the American people from thinking too hard about why we still don't have universal healthcare, sane vacation time, or any number of other European standards. Wars were the pastime of old, they've gone more or less out of fashion, you'd think a pandemic would encourage universal healthcare but of course those in power made sure that would not get any media cycles, and now we have aliens.

Oh, there are so many other distractions, they don't need one more.

In any case, people have been complacent with regards to your list of complaints anyway, it's not as though we're on the verge of a revolution (we're not VZ or NK or IR, needing vigorous distractions)

Or maybe we're not VZ, NK, or IR precisely because our distraction machine is so darn productive, in that it gives us new distractions even when we don't need more.

All the nonsense surrounding the Jan 6 riots goes in hand with this. Remember all the talk a year ago about the tremendous good that would come from Dem controlled house, prez, and senate? Yeah nah, we're just stuck debating possibly starting an investigation of a one time event from half a year ago.

I think a lot of that is just playing to a base. The Dem base is upset that they cannot achieve "a dream scenario" prog agenda, so the mainstream Dems throws them a bone. On the Repub side, the mainstream would throw the 'repeal ACA bone' in lieu of not being able to deliver their own "dream scenario."

But I don't think that's classic redirection to avoid revolution Cuba-style. In those places it's eternally the day-after the revolution. Marches, efforts, pronouncements, denouncements, mobilizations, speeches, external scapegoating, etc.)

Same reason we have religion in 2021 - People suffer in some way or the other - They crave/need an escape from that reality - A whole bunch of jobless people find employment catering to that need to escape giving them stories they want to hear. Large parts of the Media have been programmed to chase this crowd because the Like/View/Click data makes it easy to targets these people.

And don't have any doubt there are people with serious delusions and mental health issues in journalism, military etc who find each other and reinforce beliefs.

A networked world and its network effects makes escape easy. Some people even suggest its not a bad thing cause society isn't sophisticated enough to provide anything better than escape at scale - https://ubiquity.acm.org/article.cfm?id=3061712

The only proper answer is that it's a conspiracy to cover up something!

It doesn't seem so dissonant to me. Conspiracies regarding vaccines are squashed because they could damage public health efforts.

With UFOs, even taking the more wild conspiracy theories, widespread belief is unlikely to actually interfere with normal government functions.

Sort of makes me think that there's a they live situation where the government's being controlled and they're hoping the population catches on but they can't say a thing

It's strange. The biggest change isn't with the evidence, but with the narrative. For decades it was just pure crankery, but now we have 60 Minutes with a big episode with US Navy pilots, Obama talking about it, the mass media, late night shows, etc, all taking it seriously. This all would have been considered crazy just a year ago.

It would appear we are being prepped to get comfortable with a new narrative. Sam Harris, who I'd consider trustworthy and hard to fool, was given a heads up about what's to come. If he's right about his source being reliable, then we may have to have to contend with this:

"I got contacted by somebody who gave me a heads up with respect to all of this happening and he more or less told me listen, when this other shoe drops you’re going to be in the position of having to acknowledge that all the experts are on the same page, and there’s just this blanket declaration that we’re in the presence of alien technology, and we don’t know what to make of it. So prepare your brain for that and figure out what you’re going to do."

https://samharris.org/podcasts/252-alone-universe/

Sam Harris is definitely a fool.

I'll never really understand why people latch onto a figure and think that they have all the best ideas and inside info they're not that special go get the inside info yourself

You raise a very good question. Why are social media platforms Okay with some conspiracies but then totally complicit with other conspiracies, given their stated policies?

I think this shows their hand. That they want to defend some interests (political, social, economic) but others that don't affect their positions are okay.

When people bring up the possibility of Aliens in our vicinity, I ask them what laws of physics would allow this kind of interstellar travel. What strategies would they use to travel these vast distances and given those constraints what purpose would a visit have? If they are probes, how would information be sent back that is not stale and would be useful to presumably a future generation of theirs.

Maybe I'm not being open enough to the possibilities. I'm all ears.

UFO conspiracies are seen as quaint and not harmful. The social media bans are based on what is a pretty flear “harm to others” standard. Antivax certainly harms others, but I can’t see how ufo believers harm others.

All of your questions would be easily answered. Physics? We don’t know about it yet, but do you think we know so much that it’s impossible? Purpose? To explore. Etc.

I’m not suggesting those are the right answers, but with the right motivated reasons, they are trivial to come up with, and unlikely to create a gotcha moment where the theory believers doubts their conspiracy theory.

I'm not so much trying to create a gotcha moment but rather have them logically explain how something would be possible. Hopefully we could think it through and determine if it made sense knowing what we know. If we leave it at "Magic" then that's okay, at least we know we don't have a currently viable explanation for the belief.

Is there room between "evidence" and "magic"? We all believe a ton of things that we personally don't have a viable mechanism of action. (Just ask the average person to explain how a car works! Or the economy!)

Yes, there is room, and to me it's "'I don't know' together with 'extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence'".

So if I don't know how a car woks, then the mechanic or builder should be able to explain it to someone who understands the principles of how it works.