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SETI Is 50 Years Old; No Sign of ET
EagleHasLanded writes "The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence is 50 years old next month, and still no sign of intelligent alien life. Paul Davies of the Beyond Center (also Chairman of the SETI Post-Detection Taskgroup) says it's time to re-think and expand the search for ET."
We are trying to find signs of intelligent life off the Earth. Give it some time, people. And try to become civilized yourselves.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox
As we ourselves transition to all digital-communications and the associated low-transmission-power-levels we will fall off the radar for other civilizations detecting us too. That little blip of 100 years of analog full-blast will not been seen by anyone else either. This is in addition to the numbers associated with space: it is big, fricken' big and long in time. The last civilization anywhere near enough to us to be detected probably went extinct around 100 million years ago and in another 2 million years until humanity goes extinct the next civilization close enough to pick us up probably won't develop technology for another 60 million years... Missed in the night. But imagine in your mind an alien on an alien world because those same numbers say that it is a logical certainty that they exist.
Shh.
50 years out of 13.75 ±0.17 billion years? People need to study orders of magnitude before they get on SETI's case about not finding anything exciting. As with most scientific institutions of our day, the general populace/government's don't seem to care unless they see whizbangpops REAL-SOON-NOW.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
Being a pessimist is easy.
Saying "I told you so" when something goes wrong isn't backing up prophecy, it's being an asshole.
Try being an optimist once in a while, you might be happier.
I see lots of posts that seem to miss the point. The mere _finding_ of an ET would be _dramatic_ for our civilization. Think of all the things that would change (not all religious).
If we can ever _prove_ we're not alone out here, I honestly believe it could sway the attitudes and priorities of many governments. I mean, honestly, if we know there is another alien life out there, that we could potentially communicate with, how many stupid squabbles would end?
Right now, we only worry about ourselves because, well, that's all there is to worry about. The prospect of learning from another civilization, or even just being afraid and try to "defend" ourselves from them (sad, but you never know what spin governments would put on a finding like that) could be utterly revolutionary.
Then again, so many people would dis-believe due to religious and/or conspiratorial reasons would probably be mind boggling.
We generally view the Stone Age tribes still lingering in the world as worthy of monitoring from a distance. Perhaps we occasionally intervening with some sort of sustenance or relief if it won't really mess them up, but all in all, we leave them alone rather than turn their world upside down.
With that in mind, how would a civilization sufficiently advanced to travel here from Alpha Centauri view our civilization?
"Mostly harmless."
"We'll give them a little longer. When they manage to visit the rest of the neighborhood - maybe when they're able to travel to another planet in their little solar system - we'll say hello. As long as we use short words and simple sentences, we might be able to help them understand speed-of-light travel."
"Okay. But if they start shooting those cute little firecrackers at us, I'm throwing a marble [read: black hole] into the middle of their little planet."
A significant number of the population doesn't even believe we landed on the moon. Should SETI ever detect artificial radio transmissions then the arguing, debates, and conspiracy theories that would abound are unfathomable!
We can't even agree that we landed on the moon. How are we going to convince the world when we discover an ET version of 'Star Trek'? ;)
Unless the ETs blew the shit out of each other.
the concept behind this is too arrogant and in its ultimate consequence, stupid.
it assumes that any civilization should develop technology in the way we did, and have the same values as we do. ie, think mathematic is universal, and try to communicate over mathematical patterns and regular expressions that repeat themselves. even if they do, it is still extremely naive to expect the radio waves to reach here without losing their precise nature, or getting garbled due to innumerable sources of interference.
Read radical news here
As it has been mentioned here a few times; the people involved with SETI have no illusions of finding ET on his cell phone. It's about the concept that maybe there are civilizations sending out a signal that is meant for no other reason than to be a beacon to others. We've already done it ourselves, we just don't do it on a regular basis.
In any case, we will more likely observe life on their planet via chemical analysis of their atmosphere long before they get a signal from us. Given the leaps and bounds that extrasolar planet discovery has happened in the last decade, I'm guessing that we will know a great deal about the possibility of Earth-like life being on any planet within a thousand light years of us before our radio signals travel a tenth of that distance. If we find a planet that displays the chemical make up of life there is a high chance someone will start beaming it with radio signals but we will probably have the ability to actively observe the life on that planet long before the signal ever gets to them.
So is SETI really going to prove anything we won't know much more about in the next couple of decades? Doubtful. But if we do detect signals from another planet using the SETI project it will probably mean that they know we're here and they're reaching out to us for better or for worse.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Unfortunately, your post has a pitfall also covered in your post:
At first the idea of slaves but robots can do the job cheaper and faster.
Sufficiently advanced robots would make better soldiers than us.
> Of course if FTL is really impossible then the whole idea is pretty
> pointless, and remote civilizations will never contact each other.
You assume they are short lived and impatient.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
It seems to me we're unlikely to find aliens and they are unlikely to find us. The distances between us and possible life are extreme and there's a whole universe of stars, black holes, radiation clouds, and other forms of interference in the way.
Are you seriously counting on those old AM/FM radio transmissions making a direct line through space-time to a planet 140 billion light years away? Let's look at what can go wrong. Assume the Earth has a bunch of weak transmitters which occasionally fire information into space - this will already be a weak version of a weak signal since it's gone through our atmosphere, clouds, etc.
1. This signal is subject to inverse-square law. By the time it's left our own solar system the signal is infinitesimal.
2. The earth itself will obscure more than 50% of all the signals as it rotates.
3. Signals will be shot straight into our sun or pass close enough to either bend into it's gravity or have it's course dramatically altered.
4. There's billions of other suns which will do the same thing as it passes by.
5. Signals will slowly approach chaos, and be in-detectable from background radiation.
6. Their receivers will be expecting more powerful signals and our will pass "under the radar".
There's likely a million other ways for a signal which is designed to bounce off our atmosphere to become lost in space as it tries to make it from here...to there, whereever there is. Don't expect contact any time soon.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
Whatever it is ETs would use, current SETI is like indians from the 1500s trying to eavesdrop our current communications by looking for smoke signals. Not going to happen.
Perhaps their technology is so advanced, they we can't see them. Perhaps they have figured out all the physics mysteries we haven't figured out yet, and those physics allow mechanisms for communication that we cannot comprehend yet. Perhaps aliens were here in the past and left.
There are so many possibilities...ruling out the existence of alien intelligent life because we only have searched for 50 years and found nothing it's shortsighted at best.