Thursday, May 21, 2009

UFOs, Climate Change, and Ponies

Great post by Natalie Solent over at Samizdata titled If they get ponies, so must we, which delves into UFO hysteria and climate change hysteria.  The opening paragraphs.

In the days when UFOs were big news, someone - as usual I have forgotten where I read this, but it might have been in something by Arthur C. Clarke - once put forward a very good reason not to believe that the US military were concealing alien visitations: “If there really were UFOs,” said a military man, “all us captains would be majors.”

And so they would. The proven existence of alien spaceships buzzing around in our atmosphere would prompt a vast expansion of the armed services. No doubt the governments of the world would also pour resources into the sciences. Administrators, too, would need more power and money in order to deal with the dramatic changes to our accustomed mode of life that might be necessary. The alien threat, scary though it would be, would be so good for so many people in receipt of a government salary that I am quite surprised that no one of any significance propagated it. In fact, according to believers in UFOs, the military-industrial complex went to great efforts to pooh-pooh the whole idea. Given the benefits it would have brought them, maybe I should revise my cynical views about bureaucrats.

Ponies for everyone.

Posted by John Venlet on 05/21 at 11:43 AM
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