And that's why they won't find anything, IMHO. Anyone who spends five minutes thinking about the consequences of deliberately transmitting interstellar beacon signals will conclude that the only safe, sane thing to do is STFU.
At the same time, no advanced civilizations will be using coherent RF communications that stand out from the noise floor, because it makes little sense to keep doing that once your civilization understands information theory.
Still, SETI was an undeniably cool thing to try, and I'm glad they did. Lots of other cooperative-computing tasks grew out of the same idea as the article mentions.
Anyone who spends five minutes thinking about the consequences of deliberately leaving your house will conclude that the only safe, sane thing to do is stay the fuck inside.
Beyond ability to follow government direction, the amount of genuinely damaging social isolation experienced by many people during COVID indicates we shouldn't be doing it without good reason. People need people, in proximity, at length. We're a social species.
Having it safe to go outside is the very point of a society.
Outside of this safety Bubble there's a strong tendency for conflict and war. Only after two cruel world wars and a prolonged cold war, the western world got their shit together and decided 'enough of that'. And even that doesn't seem to hold much longer, so it seems we will only have managed to live peaceful among each other without an immediate conflict with somebody (cold war) for roughly 30 years.
If aliens are remotely like us, they shouldn't know about us.
But this is my point — it would take hundreds, or even thousands of years for aliens to get here. To do that they'd need some sort of abundant fuel source.
Let's say they have had thousands of years of Nuclear Fusion, for example, it wouldn't surprise me if they could produce any elements they need by fusing hydrogen.
But let's say they didn't, and they do in fact see Earth as a rare jewel full of precious materials... the logistics of taking our natural resources just seems like a joke. Surely the juice isn't worth the hundreds of years of planning and logistics squeeze.
I used to buy this dark forest idea, because it's scary and exciting, but I think the biggest mistake is projecting our behaviours onto extra-terrestrials.
If they wanted to destroy Earth they'd just slightly nudge a big asteroid in our direction and be done with it.
> Anyone who spends five minutes thinking about the consequences of deliberately transmitting interstellar beacon signals will conclude that the only safe, sane thing to do is STFU.
Even if we credit the idea that it's unsafe to transmit, there are reasons to do it anyway, e.g. you have a holy text and a mission to share it with the universe.
Even if we credit the idea that it's unsafe to transmit, there are reasons to do it anyway, e.g. you have a holy text and a mission to share it with the universe.
Sounds like a great sci-fi premise. "Hey, there aren't enough knock-down, drag-out religious wars on Earth. Let's start beef with the nuclear-armed, FTL-capable sky wizard cult on Epsilon Eridani 4."
At the same time, no advanced civilizations will be using coherent RF communications that stand out from the noise floor, because it makes little sense to keep doing that once your civilization understands information theory.
Still, SETI was an undeniably cool thing to try, and I'm glad they did. Lots of other cooperative-computing tasks grew out of the same idea as the article mentions.