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Does Active SETI Put Earth in Danger?
Ponca City, We Love You writes "There is an interesting story in Seed Magazine on active SETI — sending out signals to try to contact other civilizations in nearby star systems. Alexander Zaitsev, Chief Scientist at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics, has access to one of the most powerful radio transmitters on Earth and has already sent several messages to nearby, sun-like stars. But some scientists think that Zaitsev is not only acting out of turn by independently speaking for everyone on the entire planet but believe there are possible dangers we may unleash by announcing ourselves to the unknown darkness. This ground has been explored before in countless works of science fiction most notably "The Killing Star," a 1995 novel that paints a frightening picture of interstellar civilizations exterminating their neighbors with relativistic bombardments, not from malice, but simply because it is the most logical action."
Yes it does.
We should conquer and colonize another planet first, then send active SETI signals from there instead.
--
make install -not war
Has this man figured out a way to send signals faster than radio frequency or light? Surely, evidence of our noisy bickering between each other will be interpreted long before his signals anyways. And what about the satellites we have cruising away from our solar system?
I don't think what Active SETI does is really going to matter at this point in time.
Stopping people from deliberately sending signals is not going to make us invisible. We've been sending signals for decades.
The problem is, we don't want to have one iota of a chance that the aforementioned evidence arrives to us in the form of an interstellar bombardment.
How many of you have considered the possibility of Crypto-terrestrials? We keep looking amongst the stars for other intelligent life while ignoring the evidence that it has been here on earth all along.
Consider this - what if the intelligence behind UFO events, both modern and pre-1940's UFO events like Fatima or Lourdes - is the same intelligence that appears in stories of Fey folk (elves, dwarves, sylphs, succubi, etc)?
What if we've been looking to the stars when in fact they've been here all along, just as bound to the Earth as we are?
There is not one iota of evidence that there exists one other intelligent form of life in the universe.
As sublimely demonstrated by the parents' post, there's certainly little evidence of intelligence on this world, why should we expect to find any elsewhere?
Saberhagen's Berserker series? Bear's The Forge of God and Anvil of Stars? What is this The Killing Star that you speak of?
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
by the time the signals sent out will arrive anywhere of significance, the disease "humans" will have been defeated by the planet's own immune system.
the other white meat!
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
Even if aliens are out there listening, would they really care? I mean, we've all seen Independence Day and Signs and all the other movies where they do. But, when it comes right down to it, we probably aren't special enough to matter.
Aliens powerful enough to matter would probably think of us like harmless bugs or small animals: sure, they take up some space, but they aren't worth the effort.
On the other hand, if the aliens want a hyperspace bypass and Earth is in the way, we might all be screwed. :)
http://www.skullsecurity.org/blog/
Namaste
This idea is a stretch. Zaitsev is more or less free to "speak" to anyone he chooses.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Oh my god! I'll have to add it to my list, let's see...
1. Fatal accident while driving
2. Caught in fire at night while sleeping
3. Heart attack
4. Aliens attacking earth after sending out signals
5. Cancer
I had to bump "Terrorists attack Starbucks #528" off the list to make room
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
There is not one iota of evidence that there exists one other intelligent form of life in the universe. Go google for Fermi's paradox, I won't even give you the obligatory wikipedia link.
Fermi's paradox relies on too many assumptions to even be considered a valid argument. I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with you but let's at least use more quantifiable arguments than Fermi's tired assumption...
The impending heat death of the universe may prevent us from having enough time, however.
I think we're okay as long as it's just sending scientific data that doesn't reveal much about our cultural predispositions.
"You couldn't possibly have had anything to do with Designing us" should work.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
Actually, it is very dangerous. The signals have been causing a certain alien's garage door to open and close relentlessly ever since they started, making him very angry and he's up to Illudium Q-35 now.
Absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. I agree with you that we have no evidence of other intelligent life and that anything we say about other intelligence in the universe is pure speculation. What you haven't done is demonstrate "nonexistence" which the reference to Fermi's paradox doesn't do.
We've already violated the prime directive by sending porn and rock music into space with the Voyager and Pioneer messages respectively. Should an advanced alien civilization find and decode the Pioneer golden record, their biggest worry would be to be sued by the RIAA for illegally downloading Johnny B. Goode.
i\hbar\dot{\psi}=\hat{H}\psi
There is not one iota of evidence that there exists one other intelligent form of life in the universe.
"Other?"
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
Muncha-Buncha-Cruncha-Humans!
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
I think we can all agree... that if the american indians had sent out regular "message in a bottle" type items across the ocean, describing their society, level of technology, etc, the Europeans would have been much friendlier when they arrived.
Or the europeans would have showed up alot quicker and did exactly what they did. I imagine they would have brought more guns though on that first trip.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
From TOA: Brin included a more disturbing possibility: Nobody is on the air because something seeks and destroys everyone who broadcasts.
I have another alternative theory to explain why we have not received any signal: Every planet inhabited by intelligent life has considered the same possibility of the previous paragraph, so they are avoiding any kind of transmission just in case, to avoid potential detection.
or rather, in carl sagan's "contact"?
the first visual broadcast transmissions we've sent to the stars was bloody farking hitler himself, addressing the 1936 berlin games
THAT's our announcement to the galaxy
could we have possibly done worse as a species?
we stood up, we cleared our throat, and the first utterance out of our technological mouths and we go and godwin the whole of human civilization
fark us
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Why do you make the assumption that we are behind other possible lifeforms technologically? What's to say that we aren't the most advanced in the universe? Maybe we're the ones expected to bombard other worlds with our technologies to teach them how to proceed. I know, ridiculously scary thought considering we can't even get our own shit straight, but why does everyone assume all the ETs are more advanced than we are?
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
Space is very big and it takes lots and lots of energy and resources to build a craft--even just a weapons delivery system--to cross the vast distances between stars. It would have to actually be worth it to attack us. Our planet and Solar System contain no resources that aren't readily available and easier to obtain much closer to just about any other star system.
Which probably could explain why aliens might be more pacific than us.
What I'm basically saying, is that "peace" is a prerequisite for achieving "space age",
because "space age" comes only far later after "big weapons" in the technological development,
and without "peace", a civilisation may blow it's entire planet at the "big weapons" stage, long before being able to achieve "space age".
Just look at our history :
As you said, our own worst enemy has always been ourself : the other humans against which we engage war.
Specially in recent history, we've reached the point where some population have enough warfar technology and power that they might oblitared the whole planet if weapon escalation runs out of control.
Nuclear stockpiling and M.A.D. programs are the epitome of this situation.
MAD fundamental premise is that nobody will attack because everyone dies in the process of retaliation that follows (except maybe a bunch of politician hiding into caves with lots of young pretty nubile girls, isn't it, Dr Strangelove ?)
MAD seeks to make atomic war an unaffordable option because of too high cost.
The implicit consequence is that if someone played fool anyway, we WILL all definitely stop existing.
And at the same time, we haven't even reached true space travel yet, and we're very far from being able to do it on a large scale. We can only plant a couple of flags on our moon, and send two motorized webcams to the directly neighbouring planet.
An alien race that is able to detect us AND come toward earth to meet us, must necessarily be extremely advance, far beyond the point at which we are now. Which would possibly mean also having gone through a long story of dangerous technology (military and such).
If that alien race wasn't deeply motivated to be peaceful, they'll have had a lot of opportunity of blowing themselves up with all discovery they had the time to make before achieving space exploration.
Only a race that repress its tendency to kill everything can survive technology.
Even we as human have a small tendency to try to refrain of causing too much destruction.
In antiquity, pillaging and burning down to grounds enemy cities has been standard military practice, even told in classical literature.
In the middle ages, having a lot of deaths during wars was considered pretty normal.
As history progressed more dangerous technology has become available, people start being reluctant using it. Moral value change.
MAD was a pissing context without (hopefully) any real intent to engage all those nukes.
Even if atrocities are comited during modern conflict, those are much more criticized by the public (see current opinion about Irak or the various massacres and ethnic cleansing happening under dictatorship).
Slowly we are discovering that hurting each other may not be the best procedure.
A lot of the "modern" forms of conflict have moved to much more political and commercial ground. Emerging country don't long anymore to conquest foreign land, only to capture their markets.
Thus maybe, we ourselves will be able to survive until space age without blowing ourselves up with all military technology we may invent in the process.
But probably, the first alien race that will meet us will probably be peaceful because other wise, by then, they won't exist anymore.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
We should all remember the lesson learned in The Twilight Zone, Season 3, Episode 24: To Serve Man.
Radio and TV signals will not be propagated very far into space because they aren't directed there. Sending signals to other stars, OTOH, would direct the transmitted power to outer space, not to the earth surface.
. . . they'd probably have to hold a lottery to determine who would get to push the button.
Further, we have absolutely no contacts with any other civilization after millennia of recorded history...
That should read we have absolutely no PROVEN contacts...
There are many very old writings, pictures, tablets, etc. that could be interpreted as showing contact with alien races. Perhaps aliens did come here years ago and decided either a) we aren't worth keeping in touch with or 2) they would wait a few ages to see if we blow ourselves up. Who knows? I certainly would never profess to have any knowledge of the subject, but I will keep an open mind.
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
That's a key point. Other intelligent life seems almost certian - the universe is a big place. But other intelligent life that is alive during the same few thousand years that we are would be a heck of a coincidence. And of course we lack even a single example of a technological race lasting more than a few thousand years.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
There may be other obstacles to us finding another civilization, you know. The heat death of the universe isn't the one I'd worry about.
The thing is, we haven't really looked. There are no blatantly obvious signs - no cities on Mars or the like, but that's all we can really say. Other than the Earth, the Moon, and Mars, there could be a great many alien artifacts scattered around the Solar System: we wouldn't know unless they were highly visible. We really haven't explored much.
Similary, we know that nearby stars aren't sending out radio signals directed at us. That doesn't tell us much at all. The galaxy is a big place, and we don't know what to look for as evidence of a high tech civilization.
This is the most obvious answer to Fermi's paradox: we're wondering why no one lives in the house next door, but we've never actually walked over and rang the doorbell.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
As once Dr. Hawking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Hawking once said: "Meeting a more advanced civilization, at our present stage, might be a bit like the original inhabitants of America meeting Columbus. I don't think they were better off for it."
http://www.hawking.org.uk/lectures/life.html
We may be their new appetizer. I hope that this "Alexander Zaitsev" guy would be first on their menu...
This topic (to me) is equivalent to worrying about occasionally drinking beer when I'm shooting up heroin. First, heroin is much worse, and secondly, an occasional beer is not going to likely have that much of an effect. Worrying about SETI seems, to me, like beer. There's so much other stuff we, as humans, are doing that is more of an immediate threat.
Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.
I've heard that mentioned a lot, that maybe they'll see our Hitler broadcasts and immediately loathe us.
Why?
We think he was horrible, but why would we believe for an instant that an alien might think the same? Maybe some of the powers-that-be up there are scratching their chitinous chins thoughtfully, impressed that we have such men.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Massive? Possibly not.
If so, where?If you set your threshold a little lower, Africa.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
"There is not one iota of evidence that there exists one other intelligent form of life in the universe"
- Whales
- Dolphins
- Porpoises
- Dogs
- Chimpanzees
- Cats
- Crows
- Ravens
- Apes
- Rats
These are all intelligent life forms - they can learn, some of them make and use tools, and even know how to make their own home-made hooch.Now if you had said "There is not one iota of evidence that there exists ANY intelligent form of life in Washington", you might have been more right.
Kevin Smith on Prince
People started seeing UFOs about the time they stopped seeing angels. Line noise.
Or better yet, do some research before you post. The combined total invested in SETI is a very small fraction of "...billions in [...] cold hard cash..."
The amount spent is in the millions and nowhere near the billion level. One billion man hours equals about 114 years of work by 1,000 researchers. How many scientists are working on SETI? A thousand? Probably far fewer.
You are very wrong in your estimate of the financial and manhour investment in SETI. I'm not an advocate of SETI research (it seems like a waste to me, as the chance of success is pitifully low), but let's not exaggerate out of ignorance or malice.
One from the 80s...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Small_Talent_for_War_(The_Twilight_Zone)
Ah, there's another assumption, that a galactic civilization would use radio waves. Radio is pretty useless for communication on a galactic scale. It takes too long for a message to get across the galaxy, and the inverse square law means that any non-directional radio would need one hell of a powerful transmitter.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Sure there are a lot of sci-fi horror stories. But did Columbus bring about the ruination of Europe by going to the Americas? Did Marco Polo do the same thing when he went to China? Did Alexander Grahm Bell when he shouted "Watson come here, I need you!" into the telephone? What about when Thomas Edison first recorded "Mary had a little lamb" on a wax cylinder? You don't know till you try. Of course no one person can speak for our planet. Surely any civilization advanced enough to reach us wouldn't assume as much. Our entire civilization has only advanced when some one said "What the hell, why not", and just jumped out there (not to be confused with the drunken "Hey, y'all watch this!"). Cower in fear if you like. I prefer to boldly go.
At an even more basic level, even if an alien race was able to read the radio signal and construct it into an audio/video feed, would they really be able to understand it enough to form a useful opinion on what it meant? The idea of a universal translator is nice for sci-fi shows, but it doesn't seem very likely that a short speech meant for native speakers would enable someone(particularly someone with no previous knowledge of any human language)unfamiliar with the language to make any real sense of it. There just wouldn't be enough context to figure out the meanings of all those sounds. It's probably not even reasonable to expect an alien race to be able to make assumptions based on the speaker's tone and attitude like a human could.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
The Worst Guy In History invaded Poland. We went to war to stop him. We won. HURRAH! Then we went home and left Poland to the tender mercies of The Second Worst Guy In History. I'm not sure they'll forgive us all that much...
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
"No proof (how could that ever be proven?) but lots of evidence... we haven't found any yet!"
And for most of mankinds' existence, there was no proof that oxygen existed. Or that atoms existed. Or bacteria. Or radio waves (we didn't "invent" them - Jupiter was emitting radio waves long before we existed) or X-rays, or gamma radiation, ...
There are other, more intelligent, ways to answer the question - the "we haven't found any yet!" isn't really all that good argument.
Kevin Smith on Prince
"As far as I'm aware it only relies on the conflict between two assumptions: first, that intelligent life is common in the universe; and second, that intelligent life would be interested in exploration and communication, as we are. Neither of these assumptions is controversial."
There are other assumptions that you've ignored, as did Fermi. Just off the top of my head, here's 5 large assumptions that are left out.
Kevin Smith on Prince
Isn't Voyager I sending us signals from inside the termination shock?
The signals received by amateur radio operators in 2006 indicate that radio, at least at the frequencies Voyager is using, is capable of crossing the heliosphere.
Very true. But even if they did, would it sound inherently bad to someone who had no idea of our morality and values?
Hitler: We must exterminate the Jews! They are destroying our society!
Kodos: Wow. Whatever Jews are, they sure are causing that guy a lot of grief. Wonder if he gets it under control?
Since only a small fraction of news on both sides of the issue was televised, ET might not have enough context even to know that we thought it was bad (although they'd know that at least some other factions didn't like him and his plans, even if they didn't really understand all the reasons).
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Time scales are a problem, but so is power. Although we have been broadcasting radio and TV signals from earth for a while, the signal power at any meaningful distance scale is really, really small. From wikipedia (in turn summarized from the SETI FAQ): "SETI estimates, for instance, that with a radio telescope as sensitive as the Arecibo Observatory, Earth's television and radio broadcasts would only be detectable at distances up to 0.3 light years. Clearly detecting an Earth type civilization at great distances is difficult." Keep in mind that 0.3 light years isn't even out of the Oort cloud of our own solar system. For this reason, the idea that all of our embarrassing TV and radio shows will be our first ambassadors to the stars is a little far fetched. In the movie Contact, Sagan uses this for good dramatic effect to imply that the 1936 games in Berlin would be the first meaningful signal detected by aliens from earth. Although the guy in the article doesn't eliminate the time scale problem, he is at least directing his signals at targets using rather high signal power. If anything is out there to here is, it will be via a mechanism like this.
i\hbar\dot{\psi}=\hat{H}\psi
- Could the cavemen have anything we want?
Of course they do... Cavewomen.
(+1 mod point for a double meme reply)
Have gnu, will travel.
I'm still waiting for the Mars Rover to find mysterious floating cubes and tablets depicting demons and humanoid creatures migrating to Earth amidst a mortal vs demon war millenia ago.
If we are to believe that natural systems, such as the earth really are quite common, then "prey" and "predator" relationships must exist at all levels in the Universe.
So it is logical to assume that there are technologically advanced civilizations that prey on other civilizations for resources or food.
After all, we do it in our own backyard, so why can't other civilizations?
There is nothing in the rule book that I know of that says just because a civilization has conquered space travel must not be aggressive.
We continue to advance, yet we are still very warlike.
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
I can't help with the evidence of extra terrestrial life, but you will be glad to know that I can provide limited proof of black seagulls.
The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, at this point in time all we can conclusively say about the existence of other life in space is that we don't know (and might never know)one way or the other.
Theological? outside pointing to figures of religion that just don't exist in modern life, I don't know of any religion that actually think those were aliens not of this world in the context we are talking about.
As for a bolt, well, you know that would be almost impossible. Metal degrades over time because of exposure. Rust, corrosion and so on limits the life of a recognizable piece. And seriously think about this, if we cannot get away from earth isn't nuts and bolts sufficiently heavy enough to last centuries, what make you think that anyone or anything else would. There is a book that I cannot remember the name of but it basically talks about things that should not be in archaeological terms. One is a layer of coal that supposedly is older then man has been on earth in which a diamond necklace was found. It could be a plant, it could be that we labeled the age of the deposit incorrectly, it could be a mistake or it could be dropped there by some other people who visited us years ago. Once I can remember the name of the book, I will post it but I hope someone else knows of it and mentions it first. It doesn't mean that aliens were here but it is what you asked for, stuff out of order like a bolt or something.
Now, lets be clear with something. I'm not saying that aliens have visited the earth. I'm saying we cannot rule that out because of what you want to believe. I would think if aliens visited today, we would end up with some religion revolving around it that would seem yo have crazy whacked out shit like Angels, dragons or whatever. Especially if they could become invisible to the human eye and walk with us helping out here and there when needed. Or if they could read our thoughts and hear our prayers. The possible connections are endless.
This is pure fallacy, although I appreciate that you used the word "likely" rather than speaking in absolutes. Generally, good education comes in peace time. Sharing of ideas comes from openness and trade with other tribes/cultures. Rockets are probably based on fireworks (and aerodynamics), which are based on so-called gunpowder -- something that was not used destructively for for many years after its creation. Radar came about in war, yes, but all of the technology leading up to it was developed in peacetime. That the first need to make the next leap came about because of war is irrelevant; the technology was there, the progress was ready to be made, and if the technique was needed, someone would have made that leap.
As someone once said, "the tradegy of war is that it uses man's best to do man's worst". War is destructive, not creative. Those involved in war often claim credit for things either through delusion, or power. That does not mean that the warlike people, warlike ideals, or even warlike circumstances are the reasons such things exist. I'm sure da vinci would've preferred to work on less lethal things, if less lethal people had held the money and power.