Explaining SETI

Lisa wrote to us about an interview with Brian McConnell, the author of a new SETI book, who talks about how the search has touched many different scientific disciplines, and has spawned improvements in astronomy, computing, and wireless communications.

Comments

Re:The aliens have left the phones off the hook

[paul.dunne]

It's Erich von Däniken here on /.! Cool! Come on, tell me you're joking. I find it hard to believe that anyone still takes this stuff seriously. This "chariot of the Gods" stuff has been debunked time and time again. Do-it-yourself debunking is easy (hint: apply logic); but if you can't be bothered, here are some links:

• www.debunker.com
• Skeptical Inquirer
• If it's on TV, it must be true, right?
• Ah, the innocence of childhood

Re:Help me understand...

[SnowDog_2112]

There isn't an easy answer here. In a society where the taxpayer decides what the taxes pay for, you have no guarantee that the taxes are going to fund things like "feed the hungry."

As a society, we must spend our money on many different issues, trying to address many different problems. You rely on the taxpayers to bicker it out amongst each other (directly or through their representatives) how to spend the money, and how much they're willing to pay.

Personally, I think the "feed the hungry" banner is flown a little too often (yikes, here come the flames). Many countries are hit by famine not because they don't have enough food, but because of wars, because of corrupt politicians, whatever. It doesn't do any good to send a barge of food to a third-world country if the dictator siezes it upon arrival and shares it with his supporters.

Yes, even the so-called wealthy nations have hungry people living in poverty. But at some level, that's not my fault, and I shouldn't have money taken away from me to fund their food. Before you talk to me about being out of touch, I lived off state-provided money for about 7 years of my childhood. I know what it's like to get foodstamps and government cheese. I also know what it's like to pull yourself out of that gutter, and I know plenty of people who never did. We need a system that feeds those that really need it, without making it so easy for people to milk the system that they stop trying to get off of it. That's a delicate balance, and a problem that won't go away just by throwing money at it.

Why dedicate any money to funding the arts? Why dedicate any money to researching cures for AIDS (after all, it's fairly easy to avoid catching the disease, isn't it [tongue in cheek here, folks])? Why go to the moon?

Millions of reasons. Here's one for you. Because if we hadn't gone to the moon, if we weren't building rockets and space stations, what would I have had to dream about as a kid? What would have inspired me to learn enough math and get good enough at it to get scholarships to college?

We need money to keep people alive, yes. But we also need to keep their dreams alive. IF (and this is a huge IF)...IF we ever find anything out there, it will be the biggest thing to happen to our society EVER. Considering how cheap it is to continue this research, we would be terribly remiss in stopping it.