Slashdot Mirror
Television For an Audience 45 Light Years Away
beebopdebop writes, "The Irish Times notes that Europe goes intergalactic tonight with the broadcast of a program conceived for aliens and broadcast towards a point 45 light years away in the direction of the Big Dipper. The two naked hosts will present their own unclothed bodies as examples of our physical embodiments, and will tell about daily human existence. Music, art, and our own personal messages will be transmitted as well as discussions from sociologists, scientists, and space experts. This project is the brainchild of the French-based Centre National D'etudes Spatiales and is rooted in seriousness as a natural extension of the gold-plated ambassador disks of Pioneer 10. Those of us wishing to be included can still post messages to be sent into space via a CNES antenna. We will have to wait 90 years to learn whether or not some lifeform was listening."
"Put some clothes on, you flabby bastards."
Since the target is only 45 light years away surely that should be intragalactic.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Don't we already send out enough signals into space, many of which deal with the subject of life on our planet? If anything aliens would be getting pissed off with being inundated with out crap 24/7... and it doesn't help that they'd be getting about 3000 channels all the time so would find it really hard to tell the difference between them.
On a slightly less serious note, is it really a good idea to teach potentially hostile aliens about how we work (and by extension how to kill us)? Not to mention we know that the only people who are really going to watch are 1000 light-years away waiting for single female lawyer
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
No, we'd have to wait a few years longer. Before 'they' figure out that it was a transmission, before they've decoded it correctly (do you think they use PAL or NTSC? Decisions!) and can begin to interpret it (who says they have eyes or ears?), manage to figure out what we are and what we're actually saying, and managed to construct a reply in a format that we're likely to be able to decode, you're probably looking at quite a few years.
Given that we've only just managed to decipher what our own first man on moon actually said after a few decades, I think you're looking at decades of work.
And all that's before they even manage to create and send a reply, which will take 45 years to get here.
It would be a shame to send it once and have them miss it.
This is the problem I have with specific EM signals.
Once they are gone, thats it.
I still think the only real way to communicate with outlying civilisations properly will be with supernovas.
Though, only one message could be send - "Help our sun is blowing u^&"%£%^&!*(())[NO CARRIER]
liqbase
I'd think they would much prefer the latest episode of Single Female Lawyer.
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
Why do people continue to delude themselves that an alien intelligence will be able to comprehend communication as we consider it? And if they can that they'll be foolish enough to waste time on decoding, renderring and interpreting an unreachably distant point of light? And if they go that far, why the heck does anyone expect a usefull response?
At best there'll be no response, but should they then pick up on our everyday TV the likely response is surely some form of uncrewed planet buster. I know I'd prefer not to leave a hornets nest like humanity brewing in any corner of my galaxy. No intelligence with a self-preservation process would.
We are a crippled duck, currently hidden in a vast swamp. Our only security being through obscurity. Why the hell do people insist on flailing around screaming for the hunters? Actually, that doesn't quite work. We are a crippled unknown creature, that appears to have the mindset of a ravaging beast, but lacking the ability. Which lives longer? The rabid dog spazzing out in broad daylight in th emiddle of the street or the rabid cat stalking the shadows?
kartune85 : Incapable of reason, observation or learning. A kind of dim, drab, flightless parrot.
Sincerely, The alien operators of FireWall@Dipper.Big
Yeah, great idea! Let's beam out the first season of Lost and wait for the aliens to invade us because the finale gave them no answers and they got fed up with waiting for us to beam out the second season...
Summation 2
So, the real question is: Will these episodes be aired on our planet? :)
Inter-dimensional porn?
As a second thought; how could we ever make pornography that turns aliens on? Just imagine a dog or a lizard trying to get you turned on? (or a fat chick)>
What if the mechanisms of reproduction are very different as ours? Maybe they would think of us as ugly stupid mamals, mainly driven by mating instincts and obsessively seek out into the universe for mating-partners. They OR would avoid earth, or send out more probing UFO's. Eitherway, not the desired result.
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
You should realize, the equivalence nakedness == pornography is virtually unique to the USA.
Actually they are real human beings, look here
Anyway the program is mainly an artform to me, and the "send it to aliens" is just there as a cover.
The idea is funny, but that's it...
The best part was the letters to aliens from some average people, some were quite funny.
McCartney fans pay bus tickets. [...] Lennon fans too, with discretion.
1) Just because we blast out signals all the time doesn't mean they are perceptible from any distance. None of our normal transmission systems are designed for anything but terrestrial operation. A large number face the Earth, many are low power and omnidirectional, and so on. Not the kind of thing really designed to be noticeable at interstellar distances. The SNR is likely to be too low. So something specifically designed and focused for it has a much better chance.
2) I don't think it's a worry if they are hostile because it wouldn't really matter. Supposing they are a hostile race, and thus devote a good deal of research and effort to weapons development as we do, and supposing their technology is far enough ahead of ours that they could send an invasion fleet (something we are at least hundreds of years away form, maybe more) I think its' safe to assume that we would get rolled regardless of the information we provided. I mean think of it like this: Would it really matter if a society like 18th century Europe gave any info to a foe as advanced as the current US military? The technology difference is so massive that there's no hope. A single armour division would probably be sufficient to crush whole armies.
Now please don't let this give the impression that I don't think this is a massive waste of time and money, it is, but not because of the reasons you listed (it's a waste because in all likelihood there's nothing there).
That's actually not true. In other theocracies it's often the same or even worse.