• ageedizzle@piefed.ca
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    1 day ago

    Why would they classify that information if its just microbial? The motivation for classification is clear if the aliens are flying around in UFOs (so they can reverse engineer their tech without adversaries of the US finding out) but there is no realistic motivation for why they might classify microbial life

    • baggachipz@sh.itjust.works
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      1 day ago

      Life of any kind on other worlds would upend lots of religious doctrine which insists that this place is special and that life was specifically put here for us.

      But then again that assumes that these religions are logically consistent, so it probably wouldn’t matter.

      • ageedizzle@piefed.ca
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        1 day ago

        Yeah. If they classify microbial life because it conflicts with religious dogma then you’d expect them to classify any scientific finding that conflicts with religious dogma, which doesn’t seem to be the case.

    • Zorsith@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      1 day ago

      Information being classified doesn’t mean much, people classify all kinds of dumb shit to the point that training had to be implemented to prevent OVER-classification

      • ageedizzle@piefed.ca
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        1 day ago

        Right. But in this particular case it doesn’t make sense. If microbial life were found on, say, Mars then that would be a discovery by NASA, which is a civilian agency. As far as I’m aware you don’t need a security clearance to work at a civilian agency.

        On the other hand if the US  found some unknown craft flying in their sky that would immediately become a military matter and so be classified by default