Why Not Fund SETI With a Lottery Bond?

KentuckyFC writes "The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence or SETI is one of the highest profile projects in science. And yet its biggest challenge is in generating the funds required to scour the skies for signs of intelligent life. Government funding agencies generally ignore SETI so most funding comes from wealthy patrons such as Paul Allen who has donated $30 million for the construction of a radio interferometer designed to scour the skies for signs of ET. But the lack of other donors means this facility is still incomplete and only partially operational. But one astrobiologist has a solution. Why not create a lottery bond that allows investors to buy shares that yield a fixed rate of interest but also generates enough cash to fund ongoing SETI projects? To add an element of spice, this bond is also a lottery: when the search finally succeeds, a subset of the shareholders will receive a payout from the kitty. This is a fund that is likely to have global appeal but will need a financial institution willing and capable of taking it on. Any suggestions?"

Comments

Well

[Chrisq]

SETI is a lottery already!

Re:Well

[ddtmm]

Probably better odds of finding ET than winning the lottery

Re:Well

[FlyHelicopters]

I would disagree. The idea that aliens are nearby, using the same freq we are, are transmitting something we will picky, and that we are looking in the right place in the sky... The odds are so very long...

I am reminded of an episode of ST Voyager when they found evidence of an older civilization and someone finally figured to check the RF bands, which hadn't been used for centuries.

I would suggest that such aliens have something better than radio to use. Yes, they might have used it for a few hundred years, but that is a thin slice of time to catch it, without being ahead of or behind the transmissions in space.

Re:Well

[xetovss]

That was in the "The '37's" episode of the 2nd season of Voyager if I am not mistaken. What they found was evidence of rust in space (which by ST logic should not exist) and when they tracked it down they came across an old 1930's Ford pickup truck floating in space. After they pull the truck onto the ship they start messing around with it, get it started (though I doubt it wold have started the gas would have long evaporated through the fuel system especially in the vacuum of space, or if it was somehow hermetically sealed inside the gas tank would have gone bad and had terrible varnish issues if it wouldn't have been frozen solid by the cold of space) then turn the radio on and find a signal on the AM band and trace it to a nearby planet and find a 1930's era plane sending out a SOS signal (though with a "modern" power source powering it).

Re:Well

[Princeofcups]

I would disagree. The idea that aliens are nearby, using the same freq we are, are transmitting something we will picky, and that we are looking in the right place in the sky... The odds are so very long...

So it's good that that's not what SETI is looking for. They are not expecting to find alien I Love Lucy reruns. It's any EM pattern that is not otherwise explainable. Many such patterns have been discovered, but were later explained away by the astrophysicists as spinning neutron stars, etc. Natural phenomenon. Likely signs of life would be something like EM leakage from artificial generators, not necessarily some form of communication broadcast.

Re:Well

[geekoid]

Why does everything need to have something to monetize?

Re:Well

[geekoid]

What do you mean today? any experts has known it wouldn't be useful.

Don't confuse pop culture headline and sci - fi fir actual experts.
.

Re:Well

[minstrelmike]

Why does everything need to have something to monetize?

Because _biology_ requires the use of resources and resources require energy.
Humans are biological; global civilization is a biological process that depends on resource use.
We have figured out ways to use 'money' to pay for moving resources around, but we haven't yet figured out ways to use resources for free.

Re:Well

[hairyfeet]

Actually its pretty much impossible, if our solar system is similar to your average alien civilization.

For those that may have missed it a few years back when the Voyager probe hit the heliopause what they found was the heliopause works like a giant radio backwash, it just trashes any radio waves in this big giant white noise that made it pretty damned difficult to communicate with the probe. I remember reading at the time that researchers looked at the amount of interference they were getting and crunched the numbers and based on the data concluded that just about ALL of the signals we have EVER sent in the 80 years we used radio and analog TV was "eaten" by the white noise of the helkiopause, they figured that the Sagan signal of the 70s MAY have gotten through but everything else? Trashed.

So unless an alien civilization used an incredibly strong signal like the Sagan message AND had it being broadcast in a range that wouldn't be trashed by their heliopause AND broadcast it continuously for several decades, because otherwise it would literally be just a blip? You can give it up. If you go by the only civilization we know of, our own, and look at how in our tiny and now closing window of broadcasting signals that could leave the planet we have made only ONE single broadcast and that broadcast was targeted at only a single system in the whole universe? Then you probably have better odds of winning the powerball 5 times in a row while being struck by lightning than we have of ever picking anything up, sad to say.

Re:Well

[FlyHelicopters]

I agree, the example made no sense, but I'm not an ant, I'm human... Ants are happy with what they have, I am not, I need a bigger TV. :)

Why make it that complicated?

[argStyopa]

Why not just a SETI lottery?

I'm absolutely serious - I've bought precisely ONE lottery ticket my whole life (knowing statistically that my likelihood of winning is the maximum at that point*). So I'm not really a "lottery player".

But I'd cheerfully buy SETI lottery tickets - one-third of the gross goes to a the pot-winner, 2/3 goes to SETI funding. Hell, it's better return-odds than many Kickstarters.

*I didn't win.

Re:Why make it that complicated?

[Hatta]

I've bought precisely ONE lottery ticket my whole life (knowing statistically that my likelihood of winning is the maximum at that point*).

How do you figure? Each ticket has the same chance of winning, the more you buy the more likely you are to win. But the odds are such that the expected return over the long run is less than what you would pay in.

Re:Why make it that complicated?

[MysteriousPreacher]

How do you figure? Each ticket has the same chance of winning, the more you buy the more likely you are to win. But the odds are such that the expected return over the long run is less than what you would pay in.

That's why smart gamblers buy multiple tickets. Buy two tickets - double your chances? Buy ten tickets and you're ten times more likely to win! How could you lose?

Re:Why make it that complicated?

[canadian_right]

Why not just donate?

I'm pretty sure the people who might be interested in the overly complex bond lottery are the same people who would just donate money to seti. A Donation gives seti all your money with very little overhead compared to a bond or lottery.

Re:Why make it that complicated?

[ShanghaiBill]

Each ticket has the same chance of winning

Depending on the lottery, this may or may not be true. Some lotteries let people pick the numbers, so sequences like "1 2 3 4 5 6" will be selected by many people and the pot will be split. The same applies for sequences that could represent a date, such as a birthday or anniversary. More "random" sequences will have a higher payout per ticket.

Re:Why make it that complicated?

[geekoid]

Don't confuse winning with highest payout.

If maximizing payout is your goal* the yes pick all you numbers over 31.

*cause winning 100 million is worth my time, but splitting 100 million? bah

Re:Why make it that complicated?

[grimJester]

I've bought precisely ONE lottery ticket my whole life (knowing statistically that my likelihood of winning is the maximum at that point*).

How do you figure? Each ticket has the same chance of winning, the more you buy the more likely you are to win. But the odds are such that the expected return over the long run is less than what you would pay in.

I find it pretty funny that people who never gamble are completely clueless when it comes to statistics and probabilities, while those who waste loads of money gambling know exactly what they're doing.

The main problem in this plan...

[ZeroPly]

... is the phrase "WHEN the search finally succeeds" (emphasis added). There is not a single good explanation of why it has not succeeded already, which is a red flag that we are missing something fundamental about the nature of extraterrestrial intelligence.

Re:The main problem in this plan...

[geekoid]

" There is not a single good explanation of why it has not succeeded already, "
actually, there are two:
The universe is Really, Really Big.
The universe is Very, Very Old.

There are several smaller reason, antenna size and location for example.
Also Data processing. We may have evidence on tape somewhere.

Did you know, if we would built an array if micro antenna in space the size of Rhode Island (1,212 sq miles) we would be able to detect any radio coming from within 100LY with the power of a TV broadcast.

Mars life sciences payload

[Latent Heat]

My plan is to buy lottery chances for a mega Powerball drawing.

In the off chance that I win, my first phone call will be to Gilbert Levin, the Principal Investigator on the Viking Labeled Release (LR) experiment that gave ambiguous results.

LR was developed by Levin as a way to assay sewage treatment plant effluent without having to wait days for streaked culture plates to show anything. By using a radioactive tracer, organisms can be detected at exceedingly low levels and very quickly by the radio-traced metabolism products.

Levin has been claiming that the Viking LR indeed detected life on Mars, and he has been pleading and scheming to get a "Chiral LR" life-sciences payload onto the surface of Mars to follow up. With NASA, it is nothing doing on this score since the Viking controversy -- they simply don't want to touch another life detection experiment for some reason. I thought the largely British Polar Lander was supposed to have a Levin experiment on it, but it crashed.

On the off chance that I win at Powerball, on the chance that this is enough money to fund a Mars mission, especially after the gummint gets its tax payments, and the chance the rocket works and the payload lands softly on Mars and everything else, and maybe on the remote chance that there is life on Mars and that Gil Levin's improved Labeled LR convinces people, Gilbert Levin will be awarded a Nobel Prize and become and immortal historical figure.

As for me, maybe I will go down in history as the chump who gave up his Powerball winnings?

Re:Mars life sciences payload

[Gavagai80]

Sorry, but you'll need billions for a Mars lander. Powerball might get you an orbiter from India.

"when the search finally succeeds"

[barlevg]

What, would we stop after finding just one sign of intelligent life?

Re:"when the search finally succeeds"

[Typical Slashdotter]

Presumably they would have access to much better funding at that point.

SETI makes several assumptions . . .

[Salgak1]

1. That planets with intelligent life are RF emitters.

2. That planets with intelligent life will remain planets with intelligent life,

3. That as tech advances, intelligent life will continue to emit sufficient RF to be detectable at interstellar distances.

We don't have real numbers for ANY of those values, making any calculation of odds unworkable. Me. . . I'll play the PowerBall: at least those odds are calculatable. . . (grin)

Bad idea, I think

[Weaselmancer]

If you make a payout if SETI finds alien life, you suddenly give a financial motive to finding it. It could taint the results. Next Wow Signal we find and suddenly you'll have people who paid into it saying it's proof, and scientists saying it isn't. Lawyers will become involved.

Too messy if you ask me.

Is hearing transmissions actually feasible?

[Marrow]

We use radio telescopes to listen for stars and other celestial objects. One would assume these produce massive rf emissions. Has anyone done the math and determined if the transmitters currently used on this planet could be heard in other solar systems? Would our equipment detect them if installed there? Are our transmissions able to overcome the radio interference that would be common out there? Is there even a point to SETI?
Are we expecting alien races to use transmitters as powerful or more powerful than our own? And what subset of known space is actually a viable source at the power levels we use for communication?

Do these idiots not know what a bond is?

[nedlohs]

Did they forget the part where they have to pay out those interest payments, and the principal, and the stupid lottery at the end too?

What revenue are they planning to pay those payments with? More bonds? Do they think they are the US government or Madoff?

Re:Do these idiots not know what a bond is?

[nedlohs]

The lottery part is irrelevant, how interest is allocated to holders makes exactly zero difference to what a bond is.

Or perhaps you don't understand what "fund SETI" means?. Where is this money to invest coming from (the money from the bonds is going to fund SETI after all so it can't be it)? And why don't they just use that to fund SETI instead of adding the pointless bonds middle man?

A bond is simply a loan. The bond issuer gets a bunch of money up front and then has to pay it back in the future. That is fine for things like a bank that will take the money raised and loan it to others thus generating the required additional funds. That's fine for things like the government wanting to fund a project (or a war, or day to day operations) they will collect taxes in the future to pay back the funds and interest. That's fine for things like a company wanting to fund an expansion of some sort, they'll have the future revenues from the expansion to pay back the debt. Heck if you want to buy a house by issuing bonds instead of going with a traditional mortgage have at it - the theory being your future income will allow you to pay the interest and principal and if not then the house can be sold to hopefully get back most of it.

But what revenue stream does SETI have in order to pay back these bonds? And do they really need the expense of the bond management and interest payments to access that future revenue early (via borrowing with bonds)?

Agreed!

[Anonymous Coward]

I would suggest that such aliens have something better than radio to use. Yes, they might have used it for a few hundred years, but that is a thin slice of time to catch it

You nailed it. Not many people stop to consider this. It might be in the back of their minds, but they ignore it because the goal of SETI is just so exciting.

1. If the alien civilization is advanced enough to truly travel the galaxy (exceeding the speed of light), you can bet your house they already know about us -- and that they've decided to leave us alone, same as we've decided to create nature preserves and leave the gorillas alone. We are talking about technology we can't even imagine yet, and probably couldn't comprehend with our brains even if we had the blueprints. They can probably just "push a button" from clear across the galaxy and instantly know everything about us. They don't need or want to communicate with us, and won't for thousands of years (assuming we haven't gone extinct by then). They are probably waiting to see if we do in fact blow ourselves up.

2. If they can't yet exceed the speed of light, then (as you said) we are searching for a signal from that tiny sliver of technological evolution where they sent radio waves into space (as we do now). By the time the signal reaches us, they are either indistinguishable from gods (not wanting or needing to communicate with us), or extinct. Granted, receiving such a signal would still confirm that somebody was out there, at some time in the past.

I personally think this is something that has to be stumbled upon, rather than sought out. It will be something like one day noticing that an entire solar system has mysteriously relocated itself.

Re:Agreed!

[FlyHelicopters]

I personally think this is something that has to be stumbled upon, rather than sought out.

Most of your post was quite wise, but I'd just like to make a point here.

Imagine trying to fly without the internal combustion engine... The Wright Brothers figured out that power was their problem. Nothing a human can do will enable us to fly using just our own power, we're too heavy and the flying machines are too heavy, we need engines.

Once engines of light enough weight and great enough power came out, we had airplanes all over the place.

Could you build an airplane out of a steam engine? Perhaps, but not really, it wasn't reasonable without the proper technology.

We are likely completely lacking a required technology to do this, once we find the technology, we might find a galaxy of civilizations just waiting for us, I highly doubt radio is it.

Everything is hard until it isn't... Right now, many think that FTL travel is impossible. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't... If we do ever figure it out, we'll likely go from "we can't go anywhere" to "now we can go anywhere" very quickly.

Re:No government funding for ANYTHING

[geekoid]

Do you really think the Constitution only allows for defense and law enforcement?

You should actually read it.