Hello, SFIA audio listeners. In this month's Nebula exclusive, big alien theory,

we're asking the reason alien civilizations might be rare is because most aliens are huge.

To hear it and every episode early and ad-free, plus hours of bonus content,

check out go.nebola.tv slash Isaac Arthur and use my code, Isaac Arthur.

This episode is sponsored by Auduble.

Meaning an alien conspiracy theory seems to fall apart from asking why a high-tech

civilization, bent on secrecy, would seem to get spotted so often.

But what if they get seen so often on purpose to make us think they don't exist

because they couldn't be that clumsy.

Maybe it's all part of the plan.

Something we often contemplate on this channel, and particularly in the Alien Civilization

series, is that a lot of alien behavior suggested by science fiction, or indicated by alien

sightings, should be viewed from the standpoint of motive, means, and opportunity.

And we should ask if there's some easier way to get to the apparent objective.

This tends to be the case in a lot of science fiction portrayals of aliens, not to mention alien

conspiracy theories, as well as conspiracy theories in general.

Often a thread, knitting all the various facts, assertions, and conclusions together, is so

convoluted that it better resembles a tangled heap of yarn than some logical flowchart.

It often feels like the result of either lazy writing or crazy rambling.

Of course the key thing about conspiracies is they do occasionally happen and a lot of real-world

examples are absolutely crazy tangled messes that seem like something from a soap opera or

a comic book.

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