Dec 19, 2025 07:08 PM
(This post was last modified: Dec 19, 2025 07:36 PM by Magical Realist.)
“So long as they (the Proles) continued to work and breed, their other activities were without importance. Left to themselves, like cattle turned loose upon the plains of Argentina, they had reverted to a style of life that appeared to be natural to them, a sort of ancestral pattern...Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbors, films, football, beer and above all, gambling filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult.”
― George Orwell, 1984
I was just pondering this last night in bed. How the almost heroic resistance some people put up to any information gained over the past few years about the presence of ufos in our skies is really a sort of cognitive dissonance--a need to live one's life as if nothing's changed while basically history-changing events are happening all around us. Nobody wants to upset the donkey cart of the 9-5, the latest political scandal, Taylor Swift's romances, the latest football games, or life at its most mundane and predictable everydayness. The absolute minimum of thought stimulation just to get thru their day. Here's an article all about this:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/...the-aliens
---When new information threatens identity and meaning, the mind often responds by tuning out.
---Cognitive overload and uncertainty make large, unresolved ideas easy to ignore.
---Fear of stigma quietly discourages people from engaging with controversial topics.
"Something very significant has been happening in plain sight, and almost no one seems to be noticing.
Over the past few years, there have been televised congressional hearings, repeated news segments across major networks, and a recent release of a mind blowing documentary called The Age of Disclosure that brings much of this information together, featuring on-the-record disclosures and sworn testimony from dozens of current and former high-level U.S. government, military, and intelligence officials describing secret classified government programs tasked with investigating unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs).
These officials describe large numbers of sightings of unexplained aircraft, recovered crash materials they say are not consistent with known human technology, and the remains of non-human biologics. All of this points to the same unsettling idea: Mankind is not alone in the universe.
If this were any other topic with implications this big, it would dominate conversations. It would be debated at dinner tables, and dissected and argued about endlessly by pundits and influencers online.
Instead, people seem to be oddly quiet about it altogether.
For many people, even if they hear it, the information barely seems to register, while others just reject it or don’t engage at all. From a psychological standpoint, the collective lack of interest is almost more interesting than the claims themselves.
The question is, why is what is possibly mankind’s greatest discovery barely on most people’s radar?
When New Information Conflicts With Identity
Human beings don’t encounter information in a neutral way. We give it personal meaning as we absorb it through an existing cognitive lens made up of our self-identity and worldview.
Ideas that challenge basic foundational assumptions, such as the uniqueness of mankind, the limits of technology, or the transparency of institutions, aren’t simply new facts. They destabilize the mental frameworks that help people feel oriented and safe.
This creates what is referred to as cognitive dissonance, the uncomfortable psychological tension that arises when new information conflicts with deeply held beliefs. When dissonance becomes too intense, the mind often resolves it not by updating old beliefs but by disengaging from the information altogether.
Ignoring the topic, in this regard, is a way people regulate their emotions.
The Brain Has Limited Bandwidth
Another contributing factor that is easier to understand: cognitive overload.
We are living in a constant state of mental saturation—political conflict, climate anxiety, rapid technological change, worries over the cost of living. Our brains are already working overtime to process threats, complex scenarios, and novel circumstances.
When new, emotionally charged information feels abstract and lacks clear instructions for action, it often gets deprioritized. From a neurological standpoint, the brain is biased toward what feels immediately relevant and solvable.
Existential questions, especially ones without obvious personal consequences, are easy to postpone indefinitely.
The Power of Social Stigma
Another force at play is stigma.
For decades, curiosity about UFOs or non-human intelligence was considered culturally as unserious or fringe. Even as the conversation has shifted into formal government settings, those associations still linger.
Many people may privately feel curious while simultaneously thinking, I don’t want to sound foolish, gullible, or extreme.
Psychologists refer to this as normative social influence—the tendency to align beliefs and behaviors with what feels socially acceptable. Normative social influence was well demonstrated in Solomon Asch’s famous line experiments, where people intentionally gave wrong answers to fit in.
Until the idea of non-human intelligence and spacecraft becomes more widely discussed, silence is a way to protect one’s reputation and social belonging, regardless of what people believe privately.
Ambiguity Creates Anxiety
There’s also the problem of uncertainty.
The information being disclosed doesn’t come with neat conclusions. It raises profound questions without resolving them. For many, ambiguity can be very uncomfortable.
The mind prefers coherent narratives, even flawed ones, over unresolved complexity. When answers are incomplete, people often default to avoidance rather than sustained engagement.
In other words, it’s not just what is being suggested that’s hard to face. It’s the lack of closure about what to do with it.
The Existential Weight Beneath the Surface
Finally, there is the emotional gravity of the idea itself.
If humanity is not alone, it challenges long-held assumptions about our meaning, what control and power we have, and our identity as the dominant species. These questions touch religion, mortality, and humanity’s place in the universe.
For many people, that level of existential disruption is simply too much to integrate all at once. Avoidance can be a form of self-protection.
Silence Doesn’t Mean Apathy
What looks like indifference may actually reflect a complex psychological response:
Cognitive dissonance
Cognitive overload
Fear of social stigma
Intolerance of ambiguity
Existential self-protection
History suggests that paradigm-shifting ideas are rarely absorbed in real time. They are resisted, minimized, and slowly normalized only after the psyche has had time to adapt.
Whether current disclosures ultimately withstand scrutiny or not, the public’s muted response reveals something about human nature:
We often resist new ideas, not because we don’t understand them, but because change can be emotionally difficult."
― George Orwell, 1984
I was just pondering this last night in bed. How the almost heroic resistance some people put up to any information gained over the past few years about the presence of ufos in our skies is really a sort of cognitive dissonance--a need to live one's life as if nothing's changed while basically history-changing events are happening all around us. Nobody wants to upset the donkey cart of the 9-5, the latest political scandal, Taylor Swift's romances, the latest football games, or life at its most mundane and predictable everydayness. The absolute minimum of thought stimulation just to get thru their day. Here's an article all about this:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/...the-aliens
---When new information threatens identity and meaning, the mind often responds by tuning out.
---Cognitive overload and uncertainty make large, unresolved ideas easy to ignore.
---Fear of stigma quietly discourages people from engaging with controversial topics.
"Something very significant has been happening in plain sight, and almost no one seems to be noticing.
Over the past few years, there have been televised congressional hearings, repeated news segments across major networks, and a recent release of a mind blowing documentary called The Age of Disclosure that brings much of this information together, featuring on-the-record disclosures and sworn testimony from dozens of current and former high-level U.S. government, military, and intelligence officials describing secret classified government programs tasked with investigating unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs).
These officials describe large numbers of sightings of unexplained aircraft, recovered crash materials they say are not consistent with known human technology, and the remains of non-human biologics. All of this points to the same unsettling idea: Mankind is not alone in the universe.
If this were any other topic with implications this big, it would dominate conversations. It would be debated at dinner tables, and dissected and argued about endlessly by pundits and influencers online.
Instead, people seem to be oddly quiet about it altogether.
For many people, even if they hear it, the information barely seems to register, while others just reject it or don’t engage at all. From a psychological standpoint, the collective lack of interest is almost more interesting than the claims themselves.
The question is, why is what is possibly mankind’s greatest discovery barely on most people’s radar?
When New Information Conflicts With Identity
Human beings don’t encounter information in a neutral way. We give it personal meaning as we absorb it through an existing cognitive lens made up of our self-identity and worldview.
Ideas that challenge basic foundational assumptions, such as the uniqueness of mankind, the limits of technology, or the transparency of institutions, aren’t simply new facts. They destabilize the mental frameworks that help people feel oriented and safe.
This creates what is referred to as cognitive dissonance, the uncomfortable psychological tension that arises when new information conflicts with deeply held beliefs. When dissonance becomes too intense, the mind often resolves it not by updating old beliefs but by disengaging from the information altogether.
Ignoring the topic, in this regard, is a way people regulate their emotions.
The Brain Has Limited Bandwidth
Another contributing factor that is easier to understand: cognitive overload.
We are living in a constant state of mental saturation—political conflict, climate anxiety, rapid technological change, worries over the cost of living. Our brains are already working overtime to process threats, complex scenarios, and novel circumstances.
When new, emotionally charged information feels abstract and lacks clear instructions for action, it often gets deprioritized. From a neurological standpoint, the brain is biased toward what feels immediately relevant and solvable.
Existential questions, especially ones without obvious personal consequences, are easy to postpone indefinitely.
The Power of Social Stigma
Another force at play is stigma.
For decades, curiosity about UFOs or non-human intelligence was considered culturally as unserious or fringe. Even as the conversation has shifted into formal government settings, those associations still linger.
Many people may privately feel curious while simultaneously thinking, I don’t want to sound foolish, gullible, or extreme.
Psychologists refer to this as normative social influence—the tendency to align beliefs and behaviors with what feels socially acceptable. Normative social influence was well demonstrated in Solomon Asch’s famous line experiments, where people intentionally gave wrong answers to fit in.
Until the idea of non-human intelligence and spacecraft becomes more widely discussed, silence is a way to protect one’s reputation and social belonging, regardless of what people believe privately.
Ambiguity Creates Anxiety
There’s also the problem of uncertainty.
The information being disclosed doesn’t come with neat conclusions. It raises profound questions without resolving them. For many, ambiguity can be very uncomfortable.
The mind prefers coherent narratives, even flawed ones, over unresolved complexity. When answers are incomplete, people often default to avoidance rather than sustained engagement.
In other words, it’s not just what is being suggested that’s hard to face. It’s the lack of closure about what to do with it.
The Existential Weight Beneath the Surface
Finally, there is the emotional gravity of the idea itself.
If humanity is not alone, it challenges long-held assumptions about our meaning, what control and power we have, and our identity as the dominant species. These questions touch religion, mortality, and humanity’s place in the universe.
For many people, that level of existential disruption is simply too much to integrate all at once. Avoidance can be a form of self-protection.
Silence Doesn’t Mean Apathy
What looks like indifference may actually reflect a complex psychological response:
Cognitive dissonance
Cognitive overload
Fear of social stigma
Intolerance of ambiguity
Existential self-protection
History suggests that paradigm-shifting ideas are rarely absorbed in real time. They are resisted, minimized, and slowly normalized only after the psyche has had time to adapt.
Whether current disclosures ultimately withstand scrutiny or not, the public’s muted response reveals something about human nature:
We often resist new ideas, not because we don’t understand them, but because change can be emotionally difficult."
