I have long suspected that there is a connection between belief in the existence of alien civilizations in other star systems or galaxies, and the Modern Western Idea of Progress. The discovery of an alien race capable of traversing the bizarrely long distances between stars would be the best confirmation that Eternal Progress is indeed possible.
I just found the above clip on YouTube. Joe Rogan interviews Michio Kaku, a scientist and popular science writer. Kaku is clearly a techno-optimist, believer in AI, and even a borderline transhumanist. On the Rogan show, he uses the declassified military footage of supposed UFOs as "the gold standard" of proof for the existence of aliens. Indeed, he argues at some length that the UFOs are genuine and probably extraterrestrial...
Kaku is now my gold standard for the above mentioned connection.
Kaku´s wild speculations about "type 3 civilizations" and whatever have been disproven long ago by Fermi´s paradox. Or at the very least rendered highly improbable. Indeed, there *is* no paradox here, unless you assume that aliens simply must be out there, frolicking among the firebirds of Orion. Here is a simpler solution: the aliens don´t exist, or (probably more likely) are smart enough not to launch doomed-to-fail expeditions to other planets. Maybe they prefer creative podcasting?
Kaku does hint at another possibility: that the "UFOs" are really Russian or Chinese "hypersonic drones". While he discards this, I would consider misidentified enemy drones *or our own little trinkets* to be a more likely explanation than denizens of a type 666 civilization monitoring our military aircraft for no good reason. Nor would I be surprised if Kaku is eventually outed as an "asset" of the military-intelligence community.
So I might be a bit hard on him here, LOL.
