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Daniel_Burfoot comments on Undiscriminating Skepticism - Less Wrong
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Nothing that travels from one star to another has cause to be scared of us. If they're worried about future war, they'd just wipe us out, and in any case wouldn't do fancy acrobatics with their exterior lights on.
How can you reason about the motives of alien interstellar travelers? Maybe traveling to earth to freak out the humans is just some kind of alien prank, like cow-tipping. Maybe they get some aesthetic satisfaction from fancy aerial acrobatics.
You're now not only assuming aliens, but also assuming aliens with a peculiar psychology. Parsimony is dropping fast.
How can you reason about the motives of alien interstellar travelers? Maybe they've been poking holes in my socks and interfering with my TV reception.
Before attempting to demonstrate the logical falsity of an informally-stated claim, I recommend testing to see if it can be reasonably interpreted as:
a. metaphor
b. hyperbole
c. approximate
...and determine if the resultant interpretation is reasonable.
simplicio is correct, here - parsimony is dropping fast. I wager that's what Eliezer Yudkowsky was saying.