Does Active SETI Put Earth in Danger?

Ponca City, We Love You writes "There is an interesting story in Seed Magazine on active SETI — sending out signals to try to contact other civilizations in nearby star systems. Alexander Zaitsev, Chief Scientist at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics, has access to one of the most powerful radio transmitters on Earth and has already sent several messages to nearby, sun-like stars. But some scientists think that Zaitsev is not only acting out of turn by independently speaking for everyone on the entire planet but believe there are possible dangers we may unleash by announcing ourselves to the unknown darkness. This ground has been explored before in countless works of science fiction most notably "The Killing Star," a 1995 novel that paints a frightening picture of interstellar civilizations exterminating their neighbors with relativistic bombardments, not from malice, but simply because it is the most logical action."

The Enemy is Us

[Doc Ruby]

Yes it does.

We should conquer and colonize another planet first, then send active SETI signals from there instead.

Re:You can't protect yourself against the nonexist

[Anonymous Coward]

There is not one iota of evidence that there exists one other intelligent form of life in the universe.

As sublimely demonstrated by the parents' post, there's certainly little evidence of intelligence on this world, why should we expect to find any elsewhere?

No danger -

[no-body]

by the time the signals sent out will arrive anywhere of significance, the disease "humans" will have been defeated by the planet's own immune system.

Human beings...

[stox]

the other white meat!

Re:How is this different from Radio, TV Signals?

[eln]

It doesn't matter how many radio or TV or any other kind of signals we pollute space with. Everybody knows that we aren't going to be contacted by any alien races until we build a warp drive so they can detect the warp signature.

Re:obvious

[planckscale]

Yeah I mean if I was going to send a message to outer space it would be of a sexual nature like: "We are looking for the ultimate orgasm." or "Send us your women with the big jugs." Forget this "we come in peace" crap.

Add it to the list

[Hoi Polloi]

Oh my god! I'll have to add it to my list, let's see...

1. Fatal accident while driving
2. Caught in fire at night while sleeping
3. Heart attack
4. Aliens attacking earth after sending out signals
5. Cancer

I had to bump "Terrorists attack Starbucks #528" off the list to make room

Re:You can't protect yourself against the nonexist

[jgarra23]

There is not one iota of evidence that there exists one other intelligent form of life in the universe. Go google for Fermi's paradox, I won't even give you the obligatory wikipedia link.


Fermi's paradox relies on too many assumptions to even be considered a valid argument. I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with you but let's at least use more quantifiable arguments than Fermi's tired assumption...

Brace yourselves: where's the kaboom?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it is very dangerous. The signals have been causing a certain alien's garage door to open and close relentlessly ever since they started, making him very angry and he's up to Illudium Q-35 now.

damage already done?

[xPsi]

We've already violated the prime directive by sending porn and rock music into space with the Voyager [wikipedia.org] and Pioneer [wikipedia.org] messages respectively. Should an advanced alien civilization find and decode the Pioneer golden record, their biggest worry would be to be sued by the RIAA for illegally downloading Johnny B. Goode.

Re:The Enemy is Us

[Anne_Nonymous]

Don't think of it as active SETI,think of it as a survey marker for the new hyper-space bypass.

Re:You can't protect yourself against the nonexist

[Stanislav_J]

There is not one iota of evidence that there exists one other intelligent form of life in the universe.

"Other?"

Re:The Enemy is Us

[Flibz]

They, for one, should welcome their human overlords...

Glagnar's Human Rinds

[demon]

Muncha-Buncha-Cruncha-Humans!

Re:Forget the Extra-Terrestrial Hypothesis

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this mean I have to apologise to all the otherkin I've trolled?

Re:It's too late

[had3l]

Yeah, and we all know that we shouldn't send mixed signals to our enemies. That's why I propose we nuke the moon to prove we mean business.

Re:Why would aliens care?

[Critical Facilities]

Or the Vogons [wikipedia.org] might care if our radio blasts are screwing up their satellite reception of the latest Pay Per View special of some poetry reading.

Re:Forget the Extra-Terrestrial Hypothesis

[Sciros]

Oh well in that case our magic will work against them so we're fine. Magic doesn't work against extraterrestrials, that's the issue here. When dealing with aliens you can't just wave a wand or plant some beans or pull some sword out of a rock, no sir. You need to either use a gigantor gun with like twelve barrels and a 200-lb magazine that doesn't ever run out of ammo, or cybernetic implants in your body that give you superhuman strength and agility. And while we're not quite far enough on cybernetic implants and gigantor guns that non-Shaq people can even lift, magic's been around for years [lasvegas-nv.com].

Re:It's too late

[cmacb]

Not too late...

If these alien civilizations support the MS Outlook protocol we can simply send out a retract message and clean it all up before they notice.

Re:The Enemy is Us

[lonesome_coder]

I'll drink a few pints to that.

wasn't this covered in the movie "contact"?

[circletimessquare]

or rather, in carl sagan's "contact"?

the first visual broadcast transmissions we've sent to the stars was bloody farking hitler himself, addressing the 1936 berlin games

THAT's our announcement to the galaxy

could we have possibly done worse as a species?

we stood up, we cleared our throat, and the first utterance out of our technological mouths and we go and godwin the whole of human civilization

fark us

If aliens saw E! coming from a planet . . .

[PeeAitchPee]

. . . they'd probably have to hold a lottery to determine who would get to push the button.

Are we prepared for an answer?

[Anonymous Coward]

From TFA: "Are we prepared for an answer?"

Earthling: Hello? [long silence] Hello!
ET: 'Allo! Whoo ez eet?
Earthling: It is Earth. Whose planet is this?
ET: Zis is the planet of my master, Guy de Loembard.
Earthling: Go and tell your master that we have been charged by God with a sacred quest. If he will communicate with our planet, he can join us in our Quest for the Holy Grail.
ET: Well, I'll ask him, but I don't zink he'll be very keen... Uh, he's already got one, you see.
Earthling: What?
Second Earthling: He says they've already got one!
Earthling: Are you sure he's got one?
ET: Oh, yes, it's very nice-a.

Re:wasn't this covered in the movie "contact"?

[hansamurai]

Well hopefully if some evil aliens start heading for Earth due to Hitler's speeches, they'll be intercepted by our modern day reality TV programming and their super intelligent minds will be reduced to something more manageable.

Re:Add it to the list

[east coast]

I had to bump "Terrorists attack Starbucks #528" off the list to make room

I thought Starbucks was the terrorists?

Oh, sorry, they're thieves. Wrong criminal. My bad.

Re:The Enemy is Us

[trolltalk.com]

We're in bigger shit than you can imagine - they've already seen our "I Love Lucy" repeats ... and now that they've seen Aliens and Terminator, the *know* we're dangerous, and need to be exterminated. They are a bit worried about our ability to travel through time, as demonstrated by our having received technology from our future from something called "The Federation", so they'll just nuke us from orbit. After all, its the safest option.

Re:How is this different from Radio, TV Signals?

[trolltalk.com]

"Wouldn't we hear the captains log first?"

The captain would have to be taking an incredibly homungous dump for us to *hear* the sound of his "log" ...

Then again, in such a case it wouldn't be flushable, which explains "the captain's mess".

Re:The Enemy is Us

[Anonymous Coward]

But what about all the aliens that the "Historical Documents" such as the missions of Commander Taggert and the rest of the crew of the NSEA Protector have saved? I mean, sure Gilligan's Island and those "poor people" and all - but the Historical Documents rocked...

Re:Thus pacifist aliens

[Pad-Lok]

What I'm basically saying, is that "peace" is a prerequisite for achieving "space age"

No, that would be "rocketry" followed by building the "Apollo Programme".

Re:It's too late

[Anonymous Coward]

See, you people? Everybody laughs at Hollywood's suggestion to install DRM in TV signals, but if it had been done from the start, problem solved. And even if they did decrypt the signals, we'd just sue them with the DMCA.

Re:Forget the Extra-Terrestrial Hypothesis

[meringuoid]

Areas like the Bermuda and Dragon's triangles sit on top of very deep sections of the ocean, and the same lines of longitude. What if all the strange incidents have to do with something extra-terrestrial sitting on the ocean floor? And the disappearances occur when you see something that you shouldn't.

The most merciful thing in the Universe, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate its contents.

For the love of all that is good and decent, and for the sake of your own sanity, and for the good of the restful sleep of all the civilisations of mortal men upon the dry crust of this earth under the hideous stars, do not continue this line of thought... The abomination that lies below the wave is too horrible even to name. I cannot bear the thought of what lurks waiting and dreaming in the endless dark night of the Abyssal plain... it calls to me endlessly... darkening even the bright dawn of earthly summer with its sickening evil, crawling behind my eyes and corroding all joy with the knowledge of the distorted vastnesses of ancient uncaring... Ia! Ia! Ph'nglui mglw'nath Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!

Re:Human beings...

[Surt]

Funny but wrong, anyone who has ever eaten a human knows they are pretty much 100% dark meat (and not very tasty).

they might be friendly..

[sam_paris]

And I for one welcome our ...##KR2F@F@$F$ {NO CARRIER}

Re:The Enemy is Us

[Max Littlemore]

Hyper-space bypasses are planning matters. They have nothing to do with whether or not we send signals into space.

I'd be more concerned about what we're sending being interpreted as an insult, except that the subsequent invasion force would probably be eaten by a small dog.

Re:It's too late

[mseidl]

They are probably more advanced and using Thunderbird. They are probably getting a winmail.dat file!

Re:Human beings...

[d_p]

that's racist

Re:Brace yourselves: where's the kaboom?

[kahrytan]

  But all we want to tell him is we can save him 15% on his spaceship insurance.

Re:Thus pacifist aliens

[Anonymous Coward]

a race that focuses all of its agression against others not of their race?

You mean white people?

Oblig

[PPH]

In Soviet Russia, overlords welcome you!

(+1 mod point for a double meme reply)

Re:You can't protect yourself against the nonexist

[insertwackynamehere]

I'm still waiting for the Mars Rover to find mysterious floating cubes and tablets depicting demons and humanoid creatures migrating to Earth amidst a mortal vs demon war millenia ago.