METI: should we be shouting at the cosmos?
June 19, 2013
Carl Sagan’s gold plaque placed upon Pioneer 10, the first human artifact to be launched on a trajectory out of the solar system
Science fiction writer and astrophysicist Dr. David Brin is not happy with the Lone Signal announcement of METI (Messaging to Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) “beams” to the Gliese 526 solar system.
In his Brinstorming Science 2.0 blog, Brin updated his 2006 article on METI (aka active SETI), quoting Carl Sagan, who called it “deeply unwise and immature.”
He also cited Frank Drake, who famously sent the “Arecibo Message,” but nonetheless considered “Active SETI to be, at best, a stunt and generally a waste of time.”
“Sagan — along with early SETI pioneer Philip Morrison — recommended that the newest children in a strange and uncertain cosmos should listen quietly for a long time, patiently learning about the universe and comparing notes, before shouting into an unknown jungle that we do not understand. …
“We hope soon to convince all parties to join together in calling for a more extensive discussion that would extend beyond astronomers and diplomats, to include experts in history, astrobiology, ethics, ethology and many other pertinent fields, in an open and extended conversation that should be fascinating and entertaining as well, for millions of citizens of Planet Earth.. To reiterate, that is all we have ever asked… for an issue that might weigh heavily upon our descendants to be examined from many angles and perspectives, and for zealots to expose their assumptions to collegial critique, which is — after all — the very soul of science.”
In his CONTRARY BRIN blog, he went further, suggesting (“half in jest”) a flash mob to picket the Lone Signal Monday night event. “Let’s be plain,” he said. “This is not science and these are not scientists. They are pulling a stunt. They are willing to fundamentally alter one of our planet’s observable properties by orders of magnitude — a kind of deliberate pollution — while shrugging off and pooh-poohing any effort to get them to TALK about it first with scientific peers, before screaming ‘yoohoo’ on our behalf.”
Follow @DavidBrin for more.
Response from Lone Signal
We asked Lone Signal Chief Science Officer Dr. Jacob Haqq-Misra to comment on Brin’s concerns. He said he has had a somewhat different experience with the SETI community than Brin describes, noting that he organized and hosted a session at the 2012 Astrobiology Science Conference (AbSciCon) in Atlanta titled “Transmission Into Space: Scientific, Ethical, and Legal Considerations” that solicited input on the METI issue from scholars around the world.
“Talks and posters included frank discussions of the risks of METI (including a talk by a lawyer on the precautionary principle). However, our general agreement after presenting the talks and discussing was that METI experiments do not pose any significant risk as long as we are using radio, radar, and city lights.
Arecibo radio telescope message sent November 16, 1974, aimed at the globular star cluster M13, 25,100 light-years away from Earth
“I will also note that I used this opportunity to discuss the Lone Signal project—then in it’s infancy—with this international group of scholars, who would have had a chance to at least council me to change my mind (which they did not).
“Although this may fall short of the ‘broad international consultation’ that Brin has in mind, we at least made our best efforts to engage the active scientific community on the topic of METI risks–which, as the first such session ever held at an astrobiology conference, was deemed a successful event by all attendees.
“I also find it interesting that Brin espouses the First SETI Protocol ["Declaration Of Principles Concerning Activities Following The Detection Of Extraterrestrial Intelligence"] but admonishes the Second [which addresses the profound questions of who should speak for Earth, and what should be said on behalf of our species]. If consensus by an IAA sub-committee is the best example of international consultation/consensus that we have, then why not accept the revisions made by Seth Shostak and the other committee members?
“While I am again naive of the internal politics of this matter, it seems to me that the IAA committee did indeed hold a discussion on whether or not to include a METI moratorium or METI consultation requirement in the Second Protocol. The very fact that the committee chose not to include such a provision implies that an international group of scholars have given at least some consent in their Second Protocol to allow for at least some METI experiments.
“Again, if this Second Protocol is the best example we have of international consensus, then why not abide by it? The fact that Brin, Michaud, and Billingham resigned is a testament to their personal ethics — but the IAA committee and Second Protocol remain in place regardless.
“I welcome further international discussion about METI, and I have every intention of presenting the Lone Signal project at upcoming scientific conferences. I also hope that our efforts at METI will help to generate more interest in scholarly discussion in METI and lead to the real sorts of international cooperation that will be necessary if we ever indeed do discover extraterrestrial life.”
Follow @haqqmisra for more.
Comments (93)
by Adam Korbitz
I am the lawyer referred to by Dr. Jacob Haqq-Misra who presented at ABSCICON 2012 regarding Active SETI and the so-called precautionary principle, analogs of which are often invoked by those arguing against METI. One frustrating problem with this debate is the quickness with which its participants (in this case Dr. Brin) so often resort to ad hominem attacks and name-calling, which is common in politics but really should have no place in science or law. Another frustrating problem is lack of familiarity (especially among those opposing METI) with the principles of human risk perception and risk communication, such as the availability heuristic, probability neglect, loss aversion, etc., which directly shape the parameters of this debate. While I think a civil discussion and debate should ensue, all participants need to remember the utter lack of current evidence regarding the possible existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life. It is a little hyperbolic to assert danger about ETI when we have absolutely no evidence it actually exists, ever has or ever will. At least let’s wait for some of that evidence before trying to regulate a scientific endeavor out of existence. If humans had pursued this line of precautionary reasoning through history, we would not have what we recognize as modern science.
by Dean Reeds
I suggest we take a step back and look at how we got here …. we are where we’re at now not because we isolated ourselves in a solitary cave and never reached out but rather because we chose to form communities. Yes, communities have their problems (like two communities disagreeing/fighting/warring/etc) but the point is that we reach out and our advances have historically been tied to expanding our reach. The long and short of it is that as humans, we reach out. Not reaching out (to interstellar distances) is the equivalent of rolling a rock to block the cave door. I would rather suffer at the hand of an extraterrestrial force than wither while cowering in the hopes I have hidden my existence to anyone that cares to listen in this system.
by GatorALLin
I thought this quote is cool….
“Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying.”
― Arthur C. Clarke
by Sno
I propose that we all shut down the lights during the night, or even better, bury our cities and live in underground caves, cuz right now if an advanced species looks at our planet, they won’t need METI to know we’re here. It would only take good imaging capabilities (powerful space telescopes), which are totally in the realm of feasible and known science, to be able to see what’s going on on earth.
Oh wait, we also need to remove most of the oxygen from the atmosphere, it’s pretty much signalling the presence of life to all those nasty aliens.
by Editor
Yes, and all green plants, oh, and water. There, that should solve the problem.
by David Brin
Ah… the lovely argumentative recourse of sarcasm. Ignore what someone else ACTUALLY said and leap to the snark. Perhaps we aren’t intelligent life, after all.
by David Brin
Please reply to what I actually said – in a spirit of curiosity – rather that to the ridiculous strawman that you erected to stand in my place. I do admit that strawmen are easier to knock down. And you need no logic, math or science.
by bruce lawrence
Beyond Singularity,our progeny will be integrated with an AI Supernet,
To compute at mega petaflop capacities (or higher capacities)will allow deciphering of Cosmic ray Carrying Signals that may be Interstellar Communications.
One fact for sure…Interstellar communication if it exists is far faster than we can imagine in 2013……And it may be using Dark Energy for communication betwixt Dark Matter Intelligences.
If UFO do exist then we are amazingly blessed by even greater factors than Drake ,and successor ,equations suggest.Dark matter intelligence able to observe us implies that we have a Future to empower Peta Googleplex AI systems with the human trait of Empathy.We are primitively trying to define that Algorithm of Co-Operation and Satisfaction of Creative Combined Achievements to abolish conflict of interest.We have some way to go yet, to be sorted out by machine code that compute rational options without destructive prejudicial emotions.Eventually,Eventually……look at how far we have accelerated since World War has become uneconomic and we have cyberwar that will integrate Empathy…Eventually……Peace to Develop Intelligence to Span Galaxies.We are playing our part to fulfil Carl Sagan’s Insight that The Universe becomes Sentient of its own Algorithms.Splendid querulants ,please continue your excellent Treatises,Thanx
by Dan
After all the nuclear testing last century I doubt we can hope to not be noticed by any advanced forms of intelligence in our part of the galaxy. The neutrino pulse from the first detonations in 1945 will have already passed through about 2200 star systems.
If they are out there they already know we are here and at what stage our technology is.
by David Brin
Yes Dan. Thanks for the ruling. I will tell all of the scientists who have done the actual calculations to give it up and defer to your declaration.
by Alan
“Ah… the lovely argumentative recourse of sarcasm. Ignore what someone else ACTUALLY said and leap to the snark. Perhaps we aren’t intelligent life, after all.”
by Ed Pell
The paranoia that has infected the U.S. government seems to have spread to SETI. Any intelligent species will have sent out reproducing probes so that they have a network across the whole galaxy in short order. If they exist they already know all about us. Lighten up Brin.
by David Brin
How spectacular it is, to be in the presence of one who knows THE answer! How silly of me to catalog almost a hundred hypotheses to explain the Fermi Paradox, conferring with experts in dozens of sciences to calibrate their comparative likelihood, when all we all ever needed to do was to ask Ed Pell.
Pity, I have done technical papers on self-replicating probes and my novel EXISTENCE is about them. But I bow to Ed Pell’s wisdom!
by mar_ser
Hello, I am Martin from Argentina,
I want to know if Gliese 526 has any detected exoplanet around like Kepler 62 e or if it is just a candidate with no confirmation.
thanks!
:)
by Editor
No indications of exoplanets of Gliese 526 have been reported so far. (When I first read your comment, I thought you said you were a Martian. We usually move comments from Martians over to the Mosh Pit.) :)
by mar_ser
:)
Thanks!
by Eric Balingit
Whenever and wherever you can shout without inviting violence on your self, you should shout. Get it all out; at least until you get tired of listening to your own wailing…
Btw, If I were an alien capable of coming to see what the noise is about, that noise and the source of it, to me, would likely resemble an annoying mosquito. Whether or not I choose compassion will depend solely on the undefinable quality of the presence of the mosquito when I gaze upon it…
by David Brin
This lively discussion here shows one thing – how extremely far we are from anything even remotely like “consensus” on this issue. There are countless aspects to all of this, which I discuss is greater detail at:
http://www.davidbrin.com/shouldsetitransmit.html
(Note the update in the sidebar) One key element to note is that the “barn Door” excuse for METI (that the horses are out or the cat is out of the bag, because of Earthly TV and radar, is proved to be utterly specious.
What is disturbing is that Dr. Jacob Haqq-Misra would cite a single panel discussion, organized and stage managed by zealots and packed with fans, as having served as extensive precautionary discussion. That is like taking British Petroleum’s assurances of safety for its drilling platforms at face value… during a one hour stockholder’s meeting. Yeah, right.
Notable is that Dr. Jacob Haqq-Misra mentions the Second SETI Protocol, a document that I helped to author in the early nineties, alongside Michael Michaud and others. It was accepted worldwide and it very clearly demanded extensive and GENUINE eclectic/thorough consultations before de novo outward messages should be sent from Earth. The version that Dr. Jacob Haqq-Misra refers to is the GUTTED version that was revised at the behest of the new wave of METI zealots, in isolated, fan-packed and stage-managed meetings, leading to the resignation of Dr. John Billingham (former head of NASA’s SETI program, and Michael Michaud (the only senior diplomat ever to join our community and head of the Protocols commissions) and many other wiser heads.
As it turns out, there was a much better “debate” about METI held by the Royal Society about a year ago, with Seth Shostak and A.Zaitsev and Michaud in attendance, and the sage community of 100 observers voted almost unanimously to request a moratorium until a full and eclectic, multi-day symposium can be called, one that is not “packed” by fans and zealots.
SUch a symposium has been on the table, with proposals for it to happen at the AAAS where the world’s greatest astronomers, historians, ethicists, and others might be drawn into participating. The world would find the televised coverage fascinating! But the zealots do not dare and have blocked this assiduously.
There is so much more, but it boils down to this. No one on Earth has explored concepts of the alien more than I have, all of my life, in science and in fiction. It is a vast realm of possibility and I do not claim that the more paranoid outcomes are especially likely. (I indeed hope that the cosmos is as rosy and altruistic as the zealots contend.) What I do find dismally offensive and small-minded is for any fervid group to glom onto a narrow subset – without evidence or proof – and declare that they are so certain they can dismiss all other possibilities that they will eagerly wager all of our posterity, without even exposing their assumptions to collegial discussion and scientific examination.
That is not science. It is cultism. Worse, in this case, it is pandering for money.
Read up about how the genetic biology science dealt with similar low-probability but high potential outcome dangers, back in the 1990s, in the “Asilomar Process” resulting in both increased safety and re-invigorated science. It is what adults would do. And thus it is of no interest at all to these parties.
With cordial regards,
David Brin
http://www.davidbrin.com
blog: http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/
twitter: http://twitter.com/DavidBrin
by Editor
Thanks, David. I have invited Dr. Jacob Haqq-Misra to join this discussion.
by Visitor
With all due respect, give me a break, Brin. If they’re out for money and a publicity grab, so are you with this nonsense retort. You saw a chance to nab some headlines and here you are.
Fear of civilizations from across immense interstellar canyons is ridiculous and unfounded. It’s based on our own evolutionary thinking, the same as you’re accusing them of doing. Any civilization with the capacity to get here (however they would) simultaneously has no need or interest in us. Think it through, beyond the sci-fi hype and fear. All negative outcomes ignore the plausible and scientific realities of the situation.
We are on an incomprehensibly small, lush, deserted island light years (literally) from anything. There is no scenario in which the energy required to get here makes sense to anyone with the capacity to do so. Talk by the pessimists of some alien species wiping us out ignores the very fact that such a species’ tendencies toward war would’ve wiped itself out long before it evolved the capacity to inflict its aggression onto others, or at least before it could get all this way. Do you really understand the distances involved and the relatively small payday they’d get for making the journey? We’re talking about nuclear, quantum, and whatever’s next levels of power. You haven’t thought it through. There is nothing to fear. Fear sells books. But communication by committee ignores the very scientific realities you claim to hold so dear.
by Editor
“If they’re out for money and a publicity grab, so are you with this nonsense retort. You saw a chance to nab some headlines and here you are.” Wrong. I invited Dr. Brin, a noted astrophysicist and SETI expert, to comment, and he represents a position that’s taken seriously by many thoughtful scientists.
by andmar74
“Visitor” has a point. The level of technology needed for doing routine interstellar travels is so much higher than what we have today. Why would a civilization travel all this way? There are billions and billions of planets in our galaxy, as we now know, so it’s easy for them to grab some resources elsewhere. There’s nothing special in our solar system.
by Visitor
I appreciate you trying to defend him since you invited him here, but the date of his rambling and ridiculous blog post was June 14, and the date of this is the 19th. I’m not referring to his comments here, but rather his overall publicity grab in reply to METI. His arguments are nonsense and he hasn’t thought it through. But he can strike irrational fear in his readers and sell books, so that’s what he does.
If the position is shared by many thoughtful scientists, they’re not thinking it through either. The distances require too much energy to traverse. You would not spend your lifetime to travel to the moon to wipe out a bacterium on a fleck of dust.
by Editor
Visitor, I suggest you get faniliar with the history of SETI and METI and Dr. Brin’s key role in these areas so you can make more informed statements.
by Bri
I might recommend the movie The Chronicals of Riddick. In it an alien species goes around the universe wiping out all life in a religious crusade type scenario. On of many possible motivations for an advanced race to want to annihilate another.
by Mr.X
@ Visitor:
“You would not spend your lifetime to travel to the moon to wipe out a bacterium on a fleck of dust.”–>*
Someone advanced enough to cross the vast distances necessary to reach humanity could send some robots instead of wasting his time.
Here is a simple scenario:
Technological advancements lead to the achievement of indefinite life spans in my species.The majority of our population sees the statistical average life-span of an individual as extremely high, and a long life as something to be valued.
An important model in the science of civilizations, based on our own “evolution” towards a power only constrained by the physical structure of the universe, predicts the newly discovered stage x civilization (your “bacterium”) to be on the brink of reaching exponential progress, which would soon lead them to catch up and become our equals in the military department.
Because there is no linear development of ethics that is considered universal to all life-forms, this development might pose a substantial existential risk to my species, or could at least lead to tremendous losses of value for the common individual.
After some debate, we decide to dispense with this rare problem the way we always do: We send in the pest-control robots to exterminate the nuissance.After all, given their currently low intelligence, this is not much different from killing some non-sentient cell-lumps.Which is something we do routinely, in order to rejuvenate.
——–
Some common but ungrounded beliefs about potential extraterrestrial life:
*There is a masochistic tendency to believe that if there is alien life out there, it surely must be infinitely more advanced than we are.I have seen no good arguments showing why this has to be the case, and not much of the counter arguments have been addressed at all.Given the enormous preference people seem to hold for this scenario, instead of it being the other way round, I think it to be an irrational belief based on the psychological make-up of humans. Freud might have seen it as based in some impulse towards parental figures, if he was familiar with it.
Furthermore there is a strain of thought that proclaims intelligence to be incompatible with aggression, dominance, and other things currently deemed to be “improper” in western civilization.This hints at a naive universalism, and partly contradicts the belief mentioned in the paragraph above.We cannot really make this kind of claim about intelligence, because we would have to possess high amounts of intelligence to understand the consequences of high intelligence. Which we do not, if others are infinitely more advanced than we are.
History and evolution too seem to contradict this claim.The most sociopathic, power hungry people often end their carriers as leaders, some of the most revered civilizations are revered because their culture spread by destroying and replacing native cultures.To do all this, some people had to be more intelligent than their competition.
This means, as far as we know, there might be a correlation among self-serving, strategic behavior; aggression, expansiveness, and intelligence/ sophistication.Likewise, given sufficent resources, the more expansive species outdo their competition.
Finally: There is the abundance argument, claiming that beings living in abundance would not harm other beings.Taking humans as counter-example I do not see how this holds true: There are many rich and spoiled individuals out there who delight in killing other sentient beings, just for fun.There are also almost Infinite combinations of thought which lead someone to step on beings seen as insignificant.
by Bill
Visitor,
Among the scientists who share Brin’s concern is Stephen Hawking, widely considered to be one of the greatest scientists of the past century. What credentials do you possess to dismiss out of hand Hawking’s views on this matter?
I find it laughable that you regard it as a given that an alien civilization capable of interstellar travel would necessarily have renounced violence. This is pure speculation on your part. Rather, as per Hawking the evidence to be gleaned from our own history points to a different conclusion. We simply don’t know if an alien civilization would treat Earth and its inhabitants in a benevolent manner.
You think it’s impossible that an alien civilization would deem it worthwhile to visit Earth. Once again, pure speculation. You might be right. Or perhaps rare, useful materials are unusually abundant on Earth or elsewhere in this solar system, enough to make the trip (which might not be as difficult as you think; see below) worthwhile. Or maybe the aliens, having already had a bad experience with another spacefaring species or for some other reason, simply want to nip a potential future competitor in the bud.
I also think it’s highly dubious that we can say with any certainty how easy or difficult it would be for an alien species to travel to Earth. Until 1994, FTL travel was deemed impossible by most mainstream scientists. Alcubierre’s proof turned that consensus on its head, but the energy required to power a theoretical “Alcubierre warp drive” was deemed to require the equivalent of Jupiter’s mass, so a warp drive, while being possible, was viewed as impractical. Fast forward to 2012, and new mathematical proofs demonstrate that the Alcubierre drive should require only the mass equivalent of the Voyager One probe. That’s an energy requirement decrease of many orders of magnitude, and simply demonstrates how little we know / how much we have to learn about space travel.
In closing, your speculation might be correct that no other spacefaring species would ever travel to Earth, and that even if they did, they would either ignore us or treat us benevolently. However, I highly doubt that you are an expert on current and future space travel technology, or on xenopsychology. Less arrogance and greater humility would serve you well in this and other debates in the future.
by Bruce Wright
I think it’s highly unlikely that any malevolent civilization would find it worthwhile to send a military fleet here to conquer us, for the reasons you give. Likewise, as I said in another comment to this article, I think overtly malevolent messages are unlikely.
But there are other reasons for having a healthy caution about trying to contact alien civilizations: For example, even if they’re essentially benevolent, they can’t know what the result of any information they might share with us would be. We might misunderstand it, we might understand but not see certain hazards that they thought were obvious, there might be psychological and sociological consequences for our population, and so on. The hazards could be severe, even if the aliens were simply trying to be helpful.
by Jeff
Per WHAT A BUNCH OF PARANOIDS! ” Hey, we have millions upon millions of people on earth that think that people from “far away lands” that don’t believe in their religion should be “wiped off the map.” They even get to go straight to their god’s happy place for killing us. Maybe extremist from another planet also will see wiping away non-believes as a great religious act. If you were in Boston a few weeks ago, you might not think it’s all just paranoia.
by Mr.X
“Maybe extremist from another planet also will see wiping away non-believes as a great religious act.”
Did you play Halo?The aliens in the game were so extreme, you were not even allowed to convert.Anyway, I didn’t want too (I am rather skilled at playing shooters) anyway.
“If you were in Boston a few weeks ago, you might not think it’s all just paranoia.”
Middle-easterners who survived drone attacks might agree with you, concerning paranoia.
So, your argument is: If someone is traumatized and his judgement colored by one extreme event (or many, in the case of drones), he knows better.How about all other forms of trauma, do you account for them too?
by gaoptimize
The high-powered radio broadcasts of the early part of the 20th century ( http://www.oldradio.com/current/bc_am.htm ) have almost reached 100 light years out, probably reaching over 10,000 star systems by now ( http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/980123d.html). It would be a prudent and cheap early warning precaution for any civilization to be listening. My point is, this targeted tramission is too much, too late. to matter
by GatorALLin
……But if aliens can watch our television, there might be a problem. Astronomer Carl Sagan, in his book Contact, suggested the first high-powered television broadcast the aliens would have picked up would be Hitler’s broadcasts at the Nuremburg rallies. (more here http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/magazine/7544915.stm)
by Robecology
WHAT A BUNCH OF PARANOIDS! Ooooohhh! “They might enslave us, they might be malevolent”, you have been watching far too many “attack of the Aliens” movies! Watch “Contact”, E.T. and the first film to make out aliens as BENEvolent, “The day the earth stood still”. Any beings that can send radio would be smart enough not to bother attempting to launch any vehicle, especially with a strategy of dominance or harvesting. Even ones that might achieve light speed; why would they “enslave” or “consume” us? More likely than kidnap and examine a very few, first they’d likely let us know they were close. Then they would send samples of their wisdom to share – anti-gravity systems, pollution-free energy, instant illness analysis…as a good will gesture. If we spent a long time traveling to another civilization, wouldn’t we do the same? Hostility and aggression grows out of insecurity and being uninformed. Ignorant, hostile civilizations likely went extinct before they evolved radio.
If we got a call back, (and, we WILL get that call, sooner, or later) they would be benevolent, and so would we. And much more likely, they’d talk long distance with us first. PARANOIDS, GO TO THE SCIENCE FICTION WEB SITES, PLEASE?
by Bruce Wright
It’s highly unlikely that any aliens would know or could deduce enough about our biology to have “instant illness analysis” or cures that would work for us. Maybe they’d have some useful information about physics or chemistry or interesting (if not particularly useful) information about alien biology or galactic history (both of stars and of civilizations).
I think Hollywood movies are little evidence of anything other than what they think will be entertaining – certainly not what to expect from alien civilizations (whether hostile or benevolent).
If there are any hostile aliens out there with significant technological capabilities and able to get here, I would have thought we would know about them already (or soon will, whether we signal them or not).
The most likely possibilities that I see are that any aliens in our galaxy are benevolent, or that none of them have significant interstellar capabilities, or that we’re the first – or at least, the only one alive at this time.
by Vin
Would an alien culture that has reached it’s tech singularity be hostile? Doesn’t an alien culture have to reach its tech singularity before it can reach us? If an alien culture has reached it’s tech singularity, won’t it be in abundance? If an alien culture can contrive abundance, why would it be hostile? Would it benefit us to open a dialogue with an alien culture that is enjoying its tech singularity abundance, or is it a rule that each must get there on their own?
by Bruce Wright
Are we sure that all civilizations reach a singularity? We haven’t even achieved one ourselves, let alone observed even one alien civilization either before or after their singularity. It’s quite possible that that’s a function of how a civilization’s technology develops, rather than an attribute of all (or even any) civilizations. Maybe all civilizations that have a singularity are destroyed by it.
But let’s suppose that an alien civilization had a singularity at some point in their past. Matter and energy are always finite, so a singularity might allow them to exploit the resources available to them to their fullest, but in the long run it won’t solve the problem of scarcity. But on the other hand, our resources are most likely not worth the expense of traveling here from another star system when there are billions of them out there. We may be ants to them, but we may well be ants with a rather unpleasant sting.
There’s way too much that we don’t know at this point.
by Vin
Can anything less than a tech singularity achieve effective interstellar travel?
by Editor
That would imply that there’s some limit to human intelligence and ability to innovate. I’m not aware of any evidence for that.
by Vin
Good point. Ok, I concede again. Get you next time ;)
by Editor
I hope so. It’s boring always being right. :)
by Bri
I always thought you were more to the left.
by Bri
Honestly, if we are talking about alien technology I don’t think human intelligence is even applicable.
by Editor
No, I’m an upwinger.
by Bri
You speak of the singularity as established fact. Not only that you speak of the singularity as a consistent none varying event that will always end in the same results. Pure speculation.
by Vin
Course I speculate, what are comments for :D. Ok then, not singularity per se, but as close as sufficient for interstellar travel and abundance on the plus side or self-annihilation on the other. But I think I’m trying to argue that abundance via tech has to be a precursor to interstellar travel? Or extinction and no interstellar travel. With respect to advanced aliens, from our point of view its win either way?
by Kristof77
Overall I agree with you, but Im not willing to bet the planet on random unnecessary messages just becasue we can nor do I think a small group of people speak on the planets behalf. What are they trying to accomplish, and is their goal worth risk, as little as it maybe?
by Vin
” hostile civilizations likely went extinct before they evolved radio.” Hostile civilisation is an oxymoron? But besides that, today we have radio and hostile cultures existing simultaneously. By this precedent, I don’t think we can argue morality advances in step with technology (although personally i think generally it does).
by me
There is no basis to claim that they will be benevolent, or give us tech for free. There is also no basis to claim the contrary, but if they are hostile, they will crush us. We can’t bet our existence. It’s ridiculous to think that they will desire our resources, because resources are abundant, and easier to extract outside of our planet. But any intelligent species is a potential danger, due to darwinistic evolution. So the main reason to destroy us is because we are potentially a menace, so is better to clean us from the universe meanwhile we are weak. If only a single species on a million is paranoid enough, extermination wars are guaranteed.
by Chuck Ferrera
Naive. If they have the technology to come here, they can do whatever they please with us. So, healthy fear is not the same as paranoia. The real question is: “Do you feel lucky.”
by Mr.X
@Robe
“Any beings that can send radio would be smart enough not to bother attempting to launch any vehicle, especially with a strategy of dominance or harvesting.”
Like humans.Oh, wait.
“Ignorant, hostile civilizations likely went extinct before they evolved radio.”
Like humans.Oh, you meant evolved?Like telepathy?
Your whole post didn’t contain one coherent argument, but much emotion and claims you seem to think to be universally true.Btw, my tone is a reaction to yours.
“Hostility and aggression grows out of insecurity and being uninformed.”
You can be hostile without being agressive.I am sure that car dealer who ripped you off was neither agressive, nor insecure or uninformed.
But still, in a sense, his act was a hostile one.
I guess you adhere to some idiosyncratic religion of yours, given your certainty about things which you can’t know for sure but which are not a topic in the more common creeds.
by Erik
A civilisation out there will most likely communicate using a more advanced technology. It’s like sending smoke signals in a world where everybody communicates with emails
by gaoptimize
If they are looking for proto- or naiscent interstellar civilizations, they will be clever enough to listen to radio waves.
by Bruce Wright
We can probably expect that any alien civilization advanced enough to be a threat to us already has probes in every star system in our part of the galaxy. We ourselves are not that far from being able to send such unmanned probes to nearby star systems, where they would be able to gather local materials and send copies of themselves on to other star systems, etc. In fairly short order in astronomical time such probes would saturate the galaxy, and they’re clearly far less technologically demanding than sending a military force capable of destroying an alien technological civilization.
It’s certainly a possibility that a malevolent alien civilization that’s unable to make a physical response could reply with a malevolent message – instructions for our own destruction, for example. Such a message would have to be very complex in order to contain such instructions and in order to convince us to try to do whatever it suggests. Even that strikes me as a bit of a stretch – if the recipient of such a message is smart enough to figure out that acting on the message could destroy them, then they’ve definitely identified a civilization that is a potential threat. Any civilization capable of sending such a malevolent message would know that by sending it they have put a great big “X” on themselves, and that they might thereby be targeting themselves for destruction – not a smart move when they don’t really know the technical capabilities of the recipients (only what the recipients care to tell them).
by me
Any race with those capabilities and hostile intentions had time to do that millions of times. They have more experience that we can imagine.
by Bruce Wright
Millions of times, eh? That would have to imply that they’ve been around for tens or hundreds of millions of years at least.
I find that very difficult to believe, because in this scenario they wouldn’t be accurately able to judge the intelligence of every civilization they were contacting. It only takes one mistake, thinking their victim was much less intelligent than they actually were, and they’re toast. Even if 99% of civilizations weren’t intelligent enough to see through the ruse, that 1% would spell disaster for them.
If you’re a hostile civilization, I don’t think you show your cards right away, or possibly even at all, until you’re able to mount a direct military response.
by Richard Sittel
It’s possible that there are civilizations over a million years more advanced than humans. Even a million civilizations. And these so called scientists think that sending some silly message into space is going to do what? LOL
by Spotted Marley
That Arecibo message was already answered
by Bri
You can’t talk about that. That’s those silly crop circles. Mention ET’s visiting earth and you’ll be laughed out of the room.
One of my favorite UFO incidents was with a commercial passenger jet coming into England. The British pilot call the tower about two huge crafts in front of him. The tower could see them on radar and asked if he could see them clearly. He said yes and that they were so large he could land his plane on them. All the pilot wanted to know was where to go to avoid them and land his plane safely. He was scared for his life. Then again the story could be mass histeria, swamp gas refracting the light of Venus, or an unusual weather phenomenon creating false radar signals. It’s just so hard to know who to trust these days.
Honestly a serious examination of the ET phenomenon is in order. Let’s stop beating around the bush and do a real scientific evaluation of the material with multinational scrutiny of all relevant information. Read any of the abduction reports of which there are many. The ET’s say that they want to communicate but that the government doesn’t want them to. The ET’s say we are living in Lesterville and destroying the planet. So much ET info out there and so much from credible sources like former generals and astronauts. We need reasoned inquiry not redicule. Just the incident that barren in 1952 when they buzzed the whitehouse for a week, should be enough proof for inquiry. The generals of that time sent up fighter jets that got visual contact. The generals said they ain’t outs, they ain’t Russian and they aren’t hostile. I think we deserve to know the truth one way or the other.
by GatorALLin
…the truth is that lots of credible people have seen lots of interesting and confusing things, but no creature from another planet has EVER visited the earth. There has never been any spaceships from another planet to visit Earth….Ever. Sorry, but it just has not happened for a hundred good scientific reasons. (this is just my personal opinion of course).
by Kristof77
For scientific reasons its a good policy to never say never espcially when its your opinion based on your limited personal experience (and I dont mean that negatively, any one individual has limited experience, their own, discounting 1000s of other individual experiences is unwise).
by Bri
Hi Gator! I love your posts! I hope I’m not perceived in this post as opinionated. I really can’t state my opinion as facts. I’m not good at the links that you do. I wish I was. There is so much information on this topic. Trying to keep to as factual a response as possible I can refer you to an event that happened. Maybe you’ll be able to find the actual documents. They have been declassified and released by NATO nations. In 1962 I think, there was an incident that almost caused WWIII. A formation of aircraft was picked up on radar coming from eastern Europe. They eventually flew of to the north sea. After it happened the top brass was so shaken that they commissioned a report on what had happened. The report came back that it was UFO,s. That they have been visiting us and that they arent hostile. I’ve heard of many government officials reference this report. One of which was the Csnadian defense minister. He recently testified at a mock congressional hearing.
Have you heard of John Glenns ” fireflies”. There was a time when NASA actually released a report that they may have found a life form in near space. They’ve since then stopped talking about them. That doesn’t mean that they aren’t still being seen. Pull up the NASA footage and audio of when the door got stuck on the International Space Station, as it was being built. At that time astronauts were briefed to not talk on Yale about them anymore. Listen to the audio it’s hilarious. These things were in the hatch bay with them and they were trying to not talk about it. U F O buffs know that they are remote drones that spy on the astronauts.
Another really cool one was sent in to FOX news. The guy was a photographer who set up a high speed video camera to catch views of the city to see what he might get. Not UFOs just photography stuff. When he was playing back the tapes he saw something unusual on them and slowed them down. Faster than you could blink your eyes was a UFO zipping at sharp angles checking things out. He found that they did this at least several times a week. The FOX news people decided to try for themselves. They set up a high speed camera in the same location and shot for a week. They found the same things. They brought it to experts to see what it was. The e perts said it’s not a bug, bird or plane. It moves way too fast so they said it was an Unidentified Flying Object.
I recently sent a link to a friend of a meeting of military personnel that were nuke silo operators. They set up the meeting to tell the American people that MADD wouldn’t work. The reason? The UFO’s wouldn’t let them operate the nukes! They said that these UFO’s were going around either turning them on or off independent to the operators controls. They said that there was nothing that we could do to stop them. That if an unidentified flying object hovered over a nuke we had no more control of it.
There are do many of these reports from top people in government who have come forward to say that our government has known for a long time but keeps it a secret from us. Just check this stuff out for yourself. There is a lot of fake garbage out there but there is an amazing amount of credible reports.
To close I’ll refer to what Mishio Kaku said recently when asked about UFO’s. He said it’s hard to deny that worrying is going on. That there isn’t a scientific smoking gun but that there was too much credible reports to just desmiss it and that he was leaning toward believing because of the credibility of some of these people. Think of it as entertainment as you examine the reports. At first it’s amusing. Later it becomes intriguing. Further on it becomes shocking the amount of circumstantial proof. It’s hard to turn a blind eye to the veracity of some of the eyewitnesses. Just reams and reams of credible information. It’s reslly an issue of our times. This article is about us trying to contact them. They have been trying to contact us for a long time. They talk about it through the abductees. What they are doing and why. If you really follow it out and do diligent research the ET,s have said why they just don’t land and say take me to your leader. They have been visiting us for thousands of years. You might start by going to the recent mock congressional hearings. It’s on you tube under UFO’s it’s several days worth of hearings by everyone from Stanton Friedmen to top military brass from around the world. They made these hearings to try and force this issue on our government to make them disclose the truth it’s going to happen soon anyway. The ET’s have said through abductees that we are almost acclimated to them. Just like we might do when studying an animal troop. They want us to stay like us. Not to become just like them. They say that our culture would collapse just like how Sergei civilization is destroying native cultures. They have something similar to the prime directive. I’ve been researching these question for about a year now. This is the answers that I’ve found. No proofs just some amazing reports. I haven’t even touched the surface of what I’ve found. I wouldn’t bet against ET visiting us. The story line is consistent across a long time and in every nation.
by GatorALLin
Thanks for your comment/reply. Hope I did not come off as rude or being too stuck in my thinking (even though I am likely stuck on this idea that we are alone or first as an intelligent species in the universe)……know for what it is worth, I hope we are not alone in the Universe and I hope that in our lifetime we can officially confirm the presence of life beyond Earth as well as confirm intelligent life in our own galaxy or nearby galaxies. For me at least it would be the biggest single scientific find thus far. From what little I know about science overall, I just can’t get past some core problems about how difficult space travel is (for any carbon based life form) and how large the distances are that would be required for any aliens or living thing to visit earth. I don’t have any doubts that thousands have witnessed UFO’s (unidentified flying objects), but I don’t believe that any of those UFO’s are spaceships or anything beyond unexplained phenomenons that trick us into thinking something more is at work. I think it is human nature to want to believe and even be part of exciting events that otherwise can not be explained, so by default our brains jump to conclusions or UFO scenarios, or even religious or paranormal explanations to help fill in the gaps when we lack the true scientific explanations. I think also many of us find what we want to see. (btw…just saying this in general about humans, not you in particular). I had an experience when younger and walking alone late at night in the Kentucky woods that I think anyone else would have assumed it was UFO related, that is too long a story to detail here, but turned out just to be a rare but naturally occurring scenario that otherwise seemed impossible to happen, but it did. It took a few hours to figure it out and maybe anyone sane would have left and thus had only the experience that it was a ufo… again, I have no doubts that people’s perceptions about UFO’s are real… just that no green men are actually behind the wheel of these reported events. I agree that it can be hard to research it and so much silly stuff is out there it seems to damage credibility of other stories that at least have credible authors or people sharing their experience without obvious ulterior motives behind their reports. Love to check out any links you post and will try to look into a few of the items you listed above. I have seen a dozen or more tv shows where they hint at all these possible theories and never once have I seen anything solid that allows me to really believe. (again, know I would love to be wrong on this).
by Ian Clarke
One summer night in the early 80s my brother and I were transfixed by a bright object hovering over a nearby village. It moved slowly from side to side and occasionally shot off at incredible speeds only to return minutes later!
It took us almost an hour to figure out what we were actually witnessing. A single strand of spiderweb was spanning a gap between two trees about 20 feet from our bedroom window and warm air rising from the ground was causing the centre of the web to bow gently upwards. Moonlight shone off this bowed web and an occasional breeze would give the reflected light its ‘unearthly’ speed.
We were only kids at the time, but it’s easy to have your senses fooled. Especially when you want to believe. :)
by Bri
Nick pope was in charge of UFO cases in England for the ministry of defense. He is since retired. He often refers to a story that he reinvestigated. It was at a NATO base. Just search for him and this story will come up. Over a period of three days the base was visited. They sent out patrols to investigate. Two base considers who are highly trained have gone on record as saying they say the crafts. That they reported to their superiors all the details and that their governments covered up what had happened. Some of the guy who were sent out were just at the mock congressional committee to try and get our government to release the evidence that they have from the incident.
In this case the UFO’s also shut down the nukes in the base. One patrol got buzzed by the UFO. It shot over head and then shone an incredibly bright beam of light on them. They were scared for there loves before it came overhead. When it came up to them they said that they thought they would be dead. One of the patrols came across a ship on the ground. They actually walked up to it and touched it. They have been interviewed many times. They are all highly trained professionals. They have a audio tape that one made during the event. There was physical evidence on the ground. The craft left indentations and radiation.
Just take some time to explore the wealth of sightings. Lots of stories like this. One of the astronauts talks of an incedent that happen at a military base before he was in the space program. A UFO landed at a military Tarmac and then flew off. They recorded it on film. The astronaut said that a man came to the base asked the colander for the film and told them it never happened and to never talk about it. The number of credible witnesses and solid evidence that is available is staggering. There is one story from Brazil where the military sent a battalion to check out a place where the locals had been terrorized by UFO’s for over a week. The commander of the battalion has gone on record verifying what happened and the records of what they saw have been released. Check out the info. These people are serious. We all believe that finding out if life exists in the universe would be one of the greatest descoveries for mankind. Following these stories will bring us to this point. You have to open up and examine. There is no way to evaluate these stories without the curiosity to actually suspend disbelief and weigh the facts. Check it out it’s fun. Some stories are bogus and it is equally fun to see them. Just take things for what they are. By looking you will expose yourself to some amazing stories that are hidden and suppressed. It can take some time to sift through the material. Much of it is garbage but there are too many good stories. In Foster Gambels movie Thrive he shows some that he has compiled. One is of a missle test that the UFO’s shot down. From abductees, they tell that the ET’s won’t let us destroy the planet. It’s up to us not to destroy ourselves. The ET’s have been trying to get us to stop doing this. There are countless stories that relate to that aspect alone. Maybe start from abductees. Some of their stories a very scary. Search for a Harvard psychologist who specializes in these events. He says it’s clear these people are ordinary people with no overt intentions of mental illnesses who have been traumatized by real events. Take your pick. The truth is out there. You can only find it by searching.
by Ian Clarke
Bri, years ago I used to love looking into this sort of thing. I’ve heard many interviews with Nick Pope (who, if memory serves, only looked after the UFO cases for a year.) Rendlesham Forest is the case involving the U.S. servicemen from December 1980. The recorded comms from one of the nights is fascinating.
I’m open to evidence of UFO’s, but no longer seek it out. I think most of the cases are explainable by experimental/top-secret military aircraft, meteorological phenomena or hoaxs. The remaining cases are very interesting, but what can you do with such info? I’ll admit that it is fun to speculate, though. :)
by Bri
Because of the Internet there is much more information. Several of the servicemen from the Rendlesham Forrest case just testified in front of excongressional members. A sponsor arranged the event in an attempt to give more credibility to the phenomenon and to get our government to do the same.. There have been knockdown statements from the US government that state that they are piloted craft of nonearthly origin. The minister of defense from Canada also testified. He states publically that through his government contacts he has been told off the record that Area51 exists, that Roswel happened, and a lot of other inside information.
This article is about seeking to communicate with an extraterrestrial race by beaming a radio wave many lightyears away. If they are hear it’s just a waste of time. If we have numerous high level government officials that say the aliens are here watching us it stands to reason that this should be explored. We want to know the truth definitively. I can only speculate as to these reports. If we are so willing to spend millions of dollars on SETI like programs shouldn’t we see if any of this is credible? I think a fully open scientific inquiry should be engaged to ascertain if this is really happening. From outward appearances it appears to be real. Let’s stop ridiculing people and find out the truth. From what the abductees say, that’s what the ET,s want. They say we are being oppressed and that they can’t just give high technology to these oppressors to abuse. That we have the rights to self determination unmolested from Alien influences. In other words the decision is ours to control our governments and treat people fairly.
From reports in the UFO community they say that the ET’s met with Eisenhower. He was president during the 1952 buzzing of the whitehouse. From the leaked reports Eisenhower was cautious and didn’t trust the aliens. He wanted technology and they said we needed spirituality. That really irked Eisenhower and he argued with them. This appears to be substantiated by the UFO’s messing with the nukes. They did many things to the military on both sides of the cold war. Again according to leaked reports they told our government that they won’t let us join the intergalactic community till we get our act together. That’s an interesting statement in relation to the comments posted to this article. I’d just like to know the truth. From what I’ve seen in my I vestigations I’d believe the reports of what aliens say and not our governments.
To close this post I’ll refer to the Pheonix lights sighting. It happened in Arizona over several hours. The governor himself testified in the mock congressional hearings. He states that he saw the craft and that it was about the size of a shopping mall, moving slowly, with no sound, at a few hundred feet above. It’s hard to mistake that for anything other than an alien spacecraft. It was boomerang shaped with several powerful lights shining down. ( these lights have been analyzed in other incidents and they are spectrally pure, having none of the frequencies dropping out as would happen if they were generated by any conventional means. In other words we can’t identify how the light was generated, it has no spectral signature.). The govenor tried to call the airtight base to see if they had it on radar. They responded to him that nothing unusual was happening. It was later found out that they stcambled jets to check out what they wee seeing. The pilots came back shaken. They said it was huge but that is all off the record. The base later contacted the govenor to tell him it was a training e cerise with dropped flares. These were later photographed and you can see those images on the Internet. No photographs were taken of the actual craft which had come by about two hours before the flare drop. The governor testified that the base lied to him and covered up that they knew there was a UFO. It bolsters the case that the government is hiding information and that this is not some natural phenomenon that is being misinterpreted. Unless you know of any shopping mall sized slow moving objects with powerful lights. The governor and all the witnesses were sworn in and were egar to tell there stories. It’s time to decide this issue definitively. Way to many credible witnesses. If it’s true we will get to talk to real aliens. If it’s not we can refute all these iincidents. You’d think we would have more desire to find out the truth. Particularly the NASA anomalies. From what some of the astronauts say they are always watching.
by GatorALLin
From a scientific case, it bothers me these all come down to eye witness testimony and some really poor video or pictures at best. If there are thousands and thousands of actual sightings every year, you would expect to find at least dozens of really good videos that show a detailed craft. But it is just stories. We don’t have any alien dna, or any pieces of a spacecraft or technology that clearly comes from another world. Not one actual fact… just cover-up and conspiracy theories from weather balloons to experimental aircraft, etc. I agree that most governments would not trust that info to get out to the public if it were true, but with a video camera on every corner and every phone world wide…and with everyone leaking gov’t info, you would think we could find 1 single fact that could not be disputed. Again, I want to be clear that I think 90%+ of these people all believe what they saw was real…I have no doubts that they could pass a lie detector test as well. I just don’t believe an alien travels many light years to come to earth and then just sneaks around to turn on/off our nuclear weapons or just plays games with us by kidnaping people and sticking probes in them for any purpose. On a side note I have been watching a series of TV court cases that rely on eyewitness testimony only and many of them were proven impossible by dna that was not available for testing at the time, now proving innocence. In summary the eyewitness testimony proved very weak overall and due to the lack of other evidence it makes for a weak case IMHO. (I want to believe, but I need 1 single fact that proves it….because it makes ZERO sense that aliens would travel this far just to play silly games).
…On a side story of aliens…I was about 16 years old at the time and flying a kite I had built at my grandparents Apt here in FL. It was starting to get dark and my folks were to drive over and see how well the new kite design was working (I had built some huge kites in the past for a boy scout project that could actually lift you off the ground for 10′ or so and were built from tissue paper and seemed very weak, but were actually very strong). Anyhow, wanting my folks to see the kite I had attached glow sticks to the kite so you could still see it at night. The wind was really good and I had the kite up quite high…..for about 2-3 hours or so. I had a group of older kids come up at one point all out of breath and exclaiming they had put an end to their quest of seeing a UFO. They had seen my glowing kite from miles away and had spent the last 2 hours trying to track down the source. the glow stick was not firmly attached so with the wind moving and the transparent kite material it gave it a very odd glow in the sky (who flies glowing kites at night?)…anyhow… I must be to blame for some of the sightings that never tracked me down that nigh… LOL.
maybe help me out by picking one particular UFO story that you think as the most chance of being a real alien sighting that could be most likely to be a true alien spacecraft (not some test flight of new experimental aircraft from earth).
I did find this link that seems to have reports of the Phenix UFO sightings http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0801/18/lkl.01.html
or this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOj0mxTcuOA
..and this place. http://anonymousfo.com/index.html
…and this one might be the best of the bunch… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ow3JtqjMExk
by GatorALLin
…I just want to make the point that the main problem overall is that other planets or solar systems are just too ridiculously, ridiculously far away (understatement joke goes here). So, if any other intelligent life has figured out a way to travel vast distances with some trick of physics, then they have also figured out ALL the other tricks the would need from science… .LIke unlimited energy or unlimited resources…. including the ability to control their own DNA or development/lifespan, etc. So in summary they don’t need us or anything we have…. ever…. Period. Sure there is some curiosity that I think anyone would have, so there could be some sharing of info/ideas, etc… but mostly as a gift from them to us. Maybe there is some race to populate the distant galaxies with their seeds of a race or knowledge, etc.. just to awaken the universe and explore and better understand it overall.
This FEAR that some alien wants anything from us is some shallow joke on us from the comic books or movie plots….. don’t fall for it. The more you understand about science and how things work…you realize that the sad cold truth may prove to be we are actually alone in the universe…or that we are first by a billion years or more. Don’t confuse this idea that we are special or god like or any of that….we are just very, very (xMore) LUCKY… and that for Earth to be from a 2nd (or 3rd) gen star and have the elements it has and to have a tilt and a Moon that big and 1,000 other special goldilox like things that almost no other planet will have (and need for billions of years)…. Maybe most planets that have everything earth has gets life going, but 1-2 billion years later (by that time their oceans always burn up at the 5 billion year point) and thus they never….ever…. make it. I think life on earth is a bit like compound interest at a bank account. Most have a $1 deposit per day… Earth had all the goldilocks conditions to get $10/day plus compounded interest. Then we got lucky somehow and we have 1,000′s of special advantages (more on that here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare_Earth_hypothesis ).
Life is a candle in a hurricane at best. We can’t yet predict what asteroids may blow up over Russia… Sliding Spring could have hit earth 100 years ago and we would be starting over as a life form or planet and no one would have had a warning clue… Mass extinctions happen every 90 million years on this planet already… we have just been lucky so far… very lucky. Maybe we are just one super volcano away from starting over again… and again…and again. (just saying).
The other thing to understand (and this is hard to grasp) is that space is one of the most sterilizing environments ever created for life. Yeah we seem to think life can still crank up at the bottom of the Mariana’s trench and even some cool new mold grows next to nuclear leaks, so we jump to say there might even be some non carbon life forms somewhere… but don’t confuse that with intelligent life that likely takes thousands of goldilocks conditions just 5 billion years of almost flawless conditions.. (compound interest). When you finally get intelligent life, the jump to allow that to spread to other galaxies or planets or just spaceship that is self sufficient is crazy difficult.
Think about humans…..why for so many thousands of years did we use basically the same stone tools…. 10,000 years of the same exact (ok very, very minor differences)… why, because it was good enough. Just the minor difference from a spoken language to a written language (yet the difference for how to pass on knowledge to future generations is all the diff of compounded interest… or as Ray might say..the difference of linear thinking vs. logarithmic thinking). I leave you with this my friends…
Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night. Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night. Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light. And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
We can’t even extend max lifespan of human beings yet (Not talking about average lifespan btw). So we are all busy dieing… don’t let fear creep in…. rage against the deafening silence of our Universe….Rage!
by Joos Tronik
GatorALLin, I praise you immensely for your comment. What you said is something I think about all the time, how people fear becoming enslaved or destroyed by aliens. If aliens have visited us, they would most certainly be non-biological, and indistinguishable from nature. It seems that few have the ability to fathom how this would come to be. I believe that ‘they’ would only communicate with us once we are able to detect them (most likely in the post-singularity)
The common perception that ‘bad guys’ are gonna hear our signal, saddle up in their starships and bee-line it to Earth to harvest our resources is just plain silly.
by welcoyo
Much ado about nothing. By the time an alien civilization would receive these signals, let alone aliens traveling here, humanity would likely have already left Earth.
by Vin
What if they are in a position to locate and chase us and are innate xenophobic psychopaths? (assuming innate xenophobic psychopaths are capable of achieving a tech singularity).
by RHC
I am appalled by Dr. Jacob Haqq-Misra weaselly reply. Is he so certain as to be willing to risk EVERYTHING on his completely guessed at certainty and worse for no benefit other than some shallow, ego gratifying stunt like this one? Let me introduce you to the words humility and prudence. I’m not losing any sleep over this but this the kind of casual hubris that is increasingly endangering us.
by dcc
Maybe if we uplifted some dolphins, Brin would be more at ease. The downside is not zero – few probabilities are – but the potential upside outweighs it by far. Of course, it is probably at least six sigma against that there will be any impact… Except for some lively discussions hopefully.
by Michael W.
In my view, a discussion/debate over the pros and cons of a “quest” or long term “objective” for communicating with intelligent extra terrestrial life is completely and utterly irrelevant, namely because we have ALREADY been and CONTINUE to be, in direct contact with extra terrestrial races from various galactic and possibly extra-galactics star systems. If one hasn’t yet “gone down the rabbit hole” (either by choice, apathy, or ignorance) I strongly suggest you do your OWN research and find the truth about the things on this planet that Governments don’t want their Sheeple to know… Perhaps you could start by Googling: “alien response found in crop circle” , and see that ET’s have already responded to the Arecibo radio telescope message of 1974. And if you don’t believe that crop circles are made by ETs, see above (seek the truth down, down the rabbit hole)… Knowledge, as we all must agree, is power. Good luck.
by techisbest
The concern escapes me. Wouldn’t a distant civilization capable of receiving, interpreting, and acting on our transmission already have the technology to have detected our presence without our attempts to communicate? Look at what we have been able to do to locate planets that have the potential to support life. If this distant civilization had the means to travel to Earth for malevolent purposes, I doubt that our transmissions would make a difference.
I’m hoping that by the time we have the technology to travel between the stars that we will have advanced significantly as a benevolent society.
by ErikSMeyer
Presumably, they are only bothering to make any of these transmissions because the transmissions make it more likely we will be detected.
1. If that isn’t true the transmissions are pointless
2. If that is true, they are dangerous, because they (as is their purpose) increase the likelihood that we will be noticed by some alien intelligence whose attention we would otherwise escape.
“We” are no a benevolent “society;” nor is there any particular reason to believe that any of the various human groups who comprise your planetary “we” will ever become one; or further, that any advanced intelligence is particularly benevolent, especially in its attitudes towards those perceived as less capable.
by Robecology
There’s been several refs to this point, Techisbest. To answer your 1st question; no…our transmissions have, until the “Lone Signal” METI program, been weak, and scattered. Much of our strongest radio and TV signals barely penetrate our own (solar system’s) “Oort Cloud”…as theorized occurred in “Contact” (where residents of a planet near the star Vega sent us a return signal of the beginning of the Nazi-sponsored olympics, along with encrypted messages to build a “transporter”) So don’t doubt that our transmissions, now that they’re being focused on the various “Goldilocks-zone” planets within 20-30 LY of us will go un-noticed. It’s not a matter of “if” they will hear and return our signals – it’s “when”. And I love your optimistic conclusion; that the advanced societies that get in touch are likely to be benevolent; too many paranoids have assumed we’re sending the Keys to “hellbenders” or “Darth Vaders” or “Clingons”…I agree with your assumption that They’ll be benevolent. Instead of Death stars or laser rays, they’ll likely send us gifts of anti-gravity, instant illness analysis, life rejuvenation, and pollution-free energy.
by me
We already have proven to be willing to throw nuclear bomb against us (Hiroshima, Nagasaki), we have proven to be willing to invade a weaker independent country, kick out all of his population, and burn it with thermonuclear bombs (Bikini, Moruroa). We have proven to mindlessly cause massive extinction on planetary scale by razing the entire planet with all his diversity to convert those vast ecosystems to monocultives and deserts. We have proven to be careless enough to not mind to destroy ourselves via global warning. We have killed 1 million innocent civilians on Iraq. We bomb weddings, and make drones to kill ourselves, and we let these drones decide if we should be killed. We are willing to make AI more powerful than ourselves. What guarantees we provide that these AI will not be even more dangerous to another intelligent species?
Any smart alien should be paranoid about us, just for in case.
by GatorALLin
**Like**
by Cesar
“Oh look, the apes are trying to talk to us again!”
“Bothersome pests. Hurl a rock in their direction. That’ll make them stop.”
by Dan
The door to the asylum is ajar.
by Don Simonsen
I agree with Dr. David Brin and the late Carl Sagan. Almost assuredly every species that can receive and understand a communication Lone Signal or anyone else on earth could send would have considerably higher knowledge or intelligence then we do here on earth. That would leave this entire planet open to harvesting or just plain using as they see fit.
I, like Dr. Brin do not think it wise to expose ourselves to a unknown and potentially powerful and hostile threat.
by Robecology
Sagan would never have assumed because aliens are more intelligent that they would subject us to “harvesting”. We’ve learned long ago that slash and burn” or “clearcut” harvesting is wrong….and if aliens had the ability (or even thought it worthwhile) to travel 10′s to hundreds of light-years just to “harvest” us, you’ve been watching too many “war of worlds” movies. Would we launch any kind of personed ship with the intent of “harvesting” or “taking over” another planet, even if we knew exactly where it was, without at least talking to them first? Watch “the day the earth stood still”, or “Contact” to see what “good guy” aliens are much, much more likely to do.
by Simonsen
Referring to movies in any way does not seem useful. That is at the whim and design of a writer and has nothing to do with an alien species.
If we assume an alien has the intelligence to travel 10s to 100s of light-years to get here, they will most surely see all life on earth as complex DNA chemical reactions and will most likely view us as not worth communicating with. However, while we believe carbon and oxygen are abundant, they might very well be scarce in the rest of the universe.
So the ‘harvesting’ of which I was speaking had nothing to do with people (harvesting people had never occurred to me until I read your comment regarding movies), but with the elements on our world.
Why would we expose ourselves to even a very remote possibility of an unknown hazard if we didn’t have too?
by Robecology
Of course we should. We have nothing to fear by sending or receiving communications. The objective is to discover other intelligent civilizations that have achieved similar communications skill. Only the “holier than thou” Bible waving fear mongers would fear that other lives are out there. They feared that Galileo was right and locked him up. This question is based on the same fear. We have nothing – nothing to lose – by simply sending out signals. It costs you and me nothing; it just costs the scientific community. If you’d like to join in listening, go to SETI@home and you’ll not only get a great “screen saver” but put your computer to use “listening”…
by ErikSMeyer
Well, some intelligence could receive this signal that wouldn’t have noticed us otherwise, which is the point of sending the signal, then decide to come here and enslave or exterminate us. I’d say that is something to lose.
I bet the dodos thought they had nothing to lose by going up to those humans who landed on their island and cuddling with them. I suppose if they had been more advanced, the leaders among the dodo scientific community would have found creative ways to broadcast their existence on that island to the humans (since the humans had not noticed either the island or the dodos on it, this would have precipitated their arrival; once they got there, of course, they would butcher the dodos out of meanness, but that’s what higher intelligences tend to do).
by Mark Roper
I doubt that any intelligent life-form would bother with mankind.
We may reach out to the stars, but take a look at any slaughter houses to see how we treat other species’, that we deem less important than ourselves?
Also the life forms that are comparably intelligent with human beings, like dolphins and monkeys are experimented upon or slaughtered in culls.
And finally look at what we have done to this planet through global warming we are gradually destroying it.
Yet we look to the stars for some sort of benevolent life form to come to our aid. Or that we may join some sort of interstellar league.
If you were an evolved and caring life form would you help a race like us?
Were I a benevolent life form myself I would stay well clear until we had sorted our selves out, lest we pollute other worlds with our inhumanity.
by Turk
I think you’re proving the point a bit for the other team. If a benevolent civilization finds this vicious, uncaring, murderous race that may be on the cusp of traveling amongst the stars, would it be wise to allow it to do so? Just look at our own civilization. We tolerate injustice and tyranny until those crises have the ability to cross borders. What’s to say some alien civilization would not, or maybe ARE not, doing the same?
I’m all for exploring the cosmos and all that comes with it, but there is a fine line between being adventurous and foolish. At our current understanding of existence I think this is more of the latter.
by Bruce Wright
How would an alien civilization figure out that we’re not (or at least not completely) benevolent? By this transmission? I don’t think that’s likely – they’d have to listen to a lot of our “normal” radio traffic to make that assessment – and if they can listen to our “normal” radio traffic, then they don’t need this signal to figure out that we’re here.
by Turk
It’d be after the fact. They hear us, come see us, and then whatever will happen happens. The transmission itself means very little. The concern I think people are expressing is more of a wariness on advertising our existence more than we already have in the past 100 years.
by BPMGuy
There are two fundamental schools of thought here: 1) beings capable of traveling to other planets must have already circumnavigated the dangers of self-annihilation, and 2) space travel is just more technology and warring parties evolve technology faster than peaceful ones, so it is possible they could achieve the ability to expand into the cosmos while still being violent.
In the great infinite, I believe both are possible, which may be advisement for caution.
by xx
Yeah but take into consideration that this species would probably understand out cognitive shortcomings.
by Michael W.
Well said Mark…