Debate over Active SETI

[Michchamp]

I remember reading Stephen Hawking's warning about contacting extra terrestrial intelligent species, and thought it made a lot of sense.

There's apparently a real debate now, and to me at least, I think the naysayers make the best argument (here's their public statement). The most reasonable course of action would be to remain passive & listen, not to actively beam messages to initiate contact.

this is just dumb:

"Clich?d as it may be, the oft-repeated Columbus analogy sometimes feels as though it has the power to sink Active SETI. It is, however, a gross oversimplification of human history. Kathryn Denning, an anthropologist at York University in Toronto, points out that not all cross-cultural contact has been harmful. Even the European arrival in the Americans wasn?t all bad. ?Many of the First Nations of the New World are very much alive, and on the ascendancy, [especially] in the Southern Hemisphere,? she told me recently. Yes, there was a period of turmoil; but later there was ?syncretism, friendship, intermarriage ? a slow merging of two societies.?"
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Yes, "very much alive"... on reservations, plagued by chronic alcoholism and drug abuse, lacking basic services, and if they're lucky, have a casino nearby with enough of the profits remaining on the reservation to provide the members with some of the benefits that more advanced society that landed on them possesses.

I see a Hollywood script here that just writes itself: you have the wild-eyed, New-Age-y scientist (played by some European actor, who speaks heavily accented English, or an American who can fake that, like Peter MacNicol from Ghostbusters II) launching a project to contact some passing alien ship or probe, and the hero - who has discovered the aliens will be hostile (and is a more "earthy" scientist played by an American, or at least an actor from the British Isles who can lose his English/Scottish/Irish accent) & the off-duty police detective or US Marine he teams up with have to stop him and destroy his transmitter dish, in order to save humanity.

 

[Gulo Blue]

While no one person or organization has the right to make this decision by themselves and speak for humanity, Hawking's fears are dumb. Analogies to Columbus are dumb. Nobody's making the trip out here for any reason other than to get to know us. The whole "hostile, advanced aliens that want our resources" idea is sci fi material, not plausible.

 

[Michchamp]

While no one person or organization has the right to make this decision by themselves and speak for humanity, Hawking's fears are dumb. Analogies to Columbus are dumb. Nobody's making the trip out here for any reason other than to get to know us. The whole "hostile, advanced aliens that want our resources" idea is sci fi material, not plausible.

What makes you so sure of that?

Why take that chance?

And the entire species doesn't have to be hostile to be harmful to humanity, just a couple bad actors or faction.

 

[Michchamp]

also, the article makes it clear that given the age of the galaxy vs. our micro-second of living as an industrial/technological species, any species we'd encounter would likely be far more advanced than us. it would be foolish to presume we could know what they would be capable of.

 

[Gulo Blue]

What makes you so sure of that?

Why take that chance?

And the entire species doesn't have to be hostile to be harmful to humanity, just a couple bad actors or faction.

The resources to get anywhere and the technology required to do it means we have nothing of material value to offer anyone that can make the trip.

 

[Gulo Blue]

also, the article makes it clear that given the age of the galaxy vs. our micro-second of living as an industrial/technological species, any species we'd encounter would likely be far more advanced than us. it would be foolish to presume we could know what they would be capable of.

Sure. So what's their motivation?

 

[Michchamp]

The resources to get anywhere and the technology required to do it means we have nothing of material value to offer anyone that can make the trip.

we dont, but presumably our habitable planet has some value to an overpopulated species, or one losing its own planet.

plus, as stated here, maybe their superior technology reduces the costs of interstellar travel, making expansion possible?

and/or what if they are just assholes? what if an alien Dick Cheney decides earth is building WMDs that threaten their future existence?

 

[Thumb]

The resources to get anywhere and the technology required to do it means we have nothing of material value to offer anyone that can make the trip.

You hope.

 

[Gulo Blue]

we dont, but presumably our habitable planet has some value to an overpopulated species, or one losing its own planet.

plus, as stated here, maybe their superior technology reduces the costs of interstellar travel, making expansion possible?

and/or what if they are just assholes? what if an alien Dick Cheney decides earth is building WMDs that threaten their future existence?

It would be easier to terraform something nearby. Much easier. there's nothing here that's worth the trip unless people (or cows, or jellyfish, or something) are a delicacy they can't clone in a lab...which they could. Our first effort to grow meat in a lab cost $2.3 M per kg, now it's $80/kg. So they'll have that mastered too.

 

[Gulo Blue]

You hope.

The only thing of any possible interest is our culture and the uniqueness or our lifeforms.

 

[Gulo Blue]

By the time practical interstellar travel is possible, terraforming is cake.

 

[Thumb]

The only thing of any possible interest is our culture and the uniqueness or our lifeforms.

How can you assess what might be of possible interest to an as of yet totally unknown intelligence.

The answer is you can't.

 

[Michchamp]

It would be easier to terraform something nearby. Much easier. there's nothing here that's worth the trip unless people (or cows, or jellyfish, or something) are a delicacy they can't clone in a lab...which they could. Our first effort to grow meat in a lab cost $2.3 M per kg, now it's $80/kg. So they'll have that mastered too.

are you ignoring my point about another species being hostile for no reason at all? no concerns about that?

 

[Gulo Blue]

How can you assess what might be of possible interest to an as of yet totally unknown intelligence.

The answer is you can't.

You know a lot about anyone that is capable of the task.

 

[Gulo Blue]

are you ignoring my point about another species being hostile for no reason at all? no concerns about that?

Hostile towards what are effectively bugs as far as competition goes? No, I'm not worried about that.

 

[Gulo Blue]

Everybody panic!

Radio signals bearing messages for aliens have been sent before. In 1974, the Arecibo telescope beamed an image of a stick man and the DNA double helix to a cluster of stars 21,000 light years away. In 1999, Russian scientists sent their own messages from Yevpatoria telescope in Crimea. In 2008, the US space agency, Nasa, beamed the Beatles song ?Across the Universe? across the universe. Or at least at the North Star, 431 light years away.

 

[Michchamp]

Everybody panic!
...

yeah, it's unfortunate they didn't have this discussion before sending messages out.

given the magnitude of what could go wrong, it's incredibly selfish and foolish for someone to attempt to contact extra terrestrials... I mean you're making a lot of assumptions here.

 

[Michchamp]

there's this too.

 

[Gulo Blue]

If you want to travel between stars in a reasonable amount of time, you have to be able to harness power on the order of stars, not planets. So the idea that someone would go to Earth for any material resource is wrong. It's like saying you're tired, so you're going to run across the country to lean against a wall. It's not remotely worth the effort.

The reason to go to Earth would have to do with the unique life there, including us. Do to our relatively very limited technology, we offer no challenge to a conquering race and no utility as laborers.

 

[zyxt9]

This is already beyond moot. Humans have been beaming EMF waves around for centuries, so it is already too late. The only viable option if you are really scared of ETs is to send out massive flood of EMF indicating we have blown up the planet with nukes and then cut off every EMF device. That includes the entire electrical grid which by itself emits EMFs that, going off the idea that ET is capable of interstellar travel, can be detected by their technology.

The idea that we are not continually actively sending out messages to ET is stupid. The requirements to stop will never be globally accepted. Besides which, after centuries of broadcasting EMFs (yes centuries, do not misunderstand...scientists have been playing with magnets and electricity for years prior to TV and radio broadcasts), any interested ETs are already aware or will be. We cannot stop what has already been sent out, and the first emissions were sent well before the thoughts of ETs existed. Humans would not have been able to have conversations about the potential negates of contacting ETs back then.

The entire argument is beyond moot. The fact SH made the comments he did illustrates the reason I stated long ago that he cannot be looked upon as the smartest person in the world and thereby take everything he states as some type of factual thing when he is merely stating his opinion, not scientific fact. People give him too much credit. He is brilliant, obviously, but he doesn't know all and even his opinion is nothing so insurmountable that it should be taken so extremely serious.