Does Active SETI Put Earth in Danger? 647
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."
How is this different from Radio, TV Signals? (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think what Active SETI does is really going to matter at this point in time.
It's too late (Score:5, Insightful)
Stopping people from deliberately sending signals is not going to make us invisible. We've been sending signals for decades.
Speaking for everyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
This idea is a stretch. Zaitsev is more or less free to "speak" to anyone he chooses.
hypocrisy (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:SETI is a waste of time (Score:3, Insightful)
The impending heat death of the universe may prevent us from having enough time, however.
Re:You can't protect yourself against the nonexist (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Would they even look for radio (Score:1, Insightful)
Fearmongering at it's best! (Score:1, Insightful)
There is 0 evidence that there is anything out there that cares.
There is 0 evidence that there is anything out there that could do anything about it eve if it cared.
But that isn't a reason why we can't be afraid.
And all of you who want to say "yeah but you can't PROVE that it is safe" kindly prove that the aliens we contact won't save us from a mother asteroid or some other extinction event.
You may all return to fearing each other now.
No. (Score:5, Insightful)
Space is very big and it takes lots and lots of energy and resources to build a craft--even just a weapons delivery system--to cross the vast distances between stars. It would have to actually be worth it to attack us. Our planet and Solar System contain no resources that aren't readily available and easier to obtain much closer to just about any other star system.
Thus pacifist aliens (Score:5, Insightful)
Which probably could explain why aliens might be more pacific than us.
What I'm basically saying, is that "peace" is a prerequisite for achieving "space age",
because "space age" comes only far later after "big weapons" in the technological development,
and without "peace", a civilisation may blow it's entire planet at the "big weapons" stage, long before being able to achieve "space age".
Just look at our history :
As you said, our own worst enemy has always been ourself : the other humans against which we engage war.
Specially in recent history, we've reached the point where some population have enough warfar technology and power that they might oblitared the whole planet if weapon escalation runs out of control.
Nuclear stockpiling and M.A.D. programs are the epitome of this situation.
MAD fundamental premise is that nobody will attack because everyone dies in the process of retaliation that follows (except maybe a bunch of politician hiding into caves with lots of young pretty nubile girls, isn't it, Dr Strangelove ?)
MAD seeks to make atomic war an unaffordable option because of too high cost.
The implicit consequence is that if someone played fool anyway, we WILL all definitely stop existing.
And at the same time, we haven't even reached true space travel yet, and we're very far from being able to do it on a large scale. We can only plant a couple of flags on our moon, and send two motorized webcams to the directly neighbouring planet.
An alien race that is able to detect us AND come toward earth to meet us, must necessarily be extremely advance, far beyond the point at which we are now. Which would possibly mean also having gone through a long story of dangerous technology (military and such).
If that alien race wasn't deeply motivated to be peaceful, they'll have had a lot of opportunity of blowing themselves up with all discovery they had the time to make before achieving space exploration.
Only a race that repress its tendency to kill everything can survive technology.
Even we as human have a small tendency to try to refrain of causing too much destruction.
In antiquity, pillaging and burning down to grounds enemy cities has been standard military practice, even told in classical literature.
In the middle ages, having a lot of deaths during wars was considered pretty normal.
As history progressed more dangerous technology has become available, people start being reluctant using it. Moral value change.
MAD was a pissing context without (hopefully) any real intent to engage all those nukes.
Even if atrocities are comited during modern conflict, those are much more criticized by the public (see current opinion about Irak or the various massacres and ethnic cleansing happening under dictatorship).
Slowly we are discovering that hurting each other may not be the best procedure.
A lot of the "modern" forms of conflict have moved to much more political and commercial ground. Emerging country don't long anymore to conquest foreign land, only to capture their markets.
Thus maybe, we ourselves will be able to survive until space age without blowing ourselves up with all military technology we may invent in the process.
But probably, the first alien race that will meet us will probably be peaceful because other wise, by then, they won't exist anymore.
Unlikely (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Thus pacifist aliens (Score:5, Insightful)
Here, let me fix that for you:
What eliminates a race that focuses all of its agression against others not of their race? It makes a great external enemy that allows the race itself to work together with a common bond, at peace with itself.
It's just too bad that we turn out to be one of those "others", huh?
Oppresive regimes to this all the time on earth, using an "external" enemy to create peace at home in furtherance of opposing the "greater enemy".
Re:Thus pacifist aliens (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You can't protect yourself against the nonexist (Score:2, Insightful)
Proof? I would say that there is an extreme likelihood that a good bit of popular pasts have included alien visitors. Seriously, what would put the fear of god into someone more then an alien "angel"? Or how about Zeus and Apollo and so on. The Chinese fascination with dragons and all could be a sign of visitors. Not that I think dragons are aliens but they can resemble some popular space crafts that the nutjobs claim to have seen.
I think it would be extremely hard to verify that no extra terrestrial life has visited earth. I think you mean that it isn't probable because they left no trace that you can recognize.
Re:You can't protect yourself against the nonexist (Score:3, Insightful)
Similary, we know that nearby stars aren't sending out radio signals directed at us. That doesn't tell us much at all. The galaxy is a big place, and we don't know what to look for as evidence of a high tech civilization.
This is the most obvious answer to Fermi's paradox: we're wondering why no one lives in the house next door, but we've never actually walked over and rang the doorbell.
A new appetizer (Score:2, Insightful)
http://www.hawking.org.uk/lectures/life.html [hawking.org.uk]
We may be their new appetizer. I hope that this "Alexander Zaitsev" guy would be first on their menu...
Mismatched Priority (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:UFOs of the 20th century (Score:5, Insightful)
I've heard that mentioned a lot, that maybe they'll see our Hitler broadcasts and immediately loathe us.
Why?
We think he was horrible, but why would we believe for an instant that an alien might think the same? Maybe some of the powers-that-be up there are scratching their chitinous chins thoughtfully, impressed that we have such men.
Re:I think we can all agree... (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think we have to worry about attack anyway. We have the most powerful weapon in the universe...Lawyers.
We'll be sending lots of them as soon as they finish rebroadcasting our work without paying our starving actors or their starving descendants and then they will pay... oh they will pay.
Re:It's too late (Score:3, Insightful)
or so years.
This timeframe is but a fly fart in a hurricane, galactically speaking.
What makes anyone think that intelligent beings will be looking for
old 'I Love Lucy' episodes, freely radiated into the cosmos?
Not to worry. Please tell Al Gore also.
Re:Thus pacifist aliens (Score:3, Insightful)
I've always thought this was BS.
because "space age" comes only far later after "big weapons" in the technological development,
and without "peace", a civilisation may blow it's entire planet at the "big weapons" stage, long before being able to achieve "space age".
To quote Brain Guy in MST3K: "Our race is pacifist. We kill only out of personal spite."
Not using big weapons doesn't imply peaceful, it only implies not using big weapons. After all, we have nukes right now, and we're in a war right now, and we're not using nukes to fight the war. But that doesn't change the fact that we're killing people, it just means we're doing it in a more targeted manner than using big weapons allows.
Re:UFOs of the 20th century (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:You can't protect yourself against the nonexist (Score:3, Insightful)
"No proof (how could that ever be proven?) but lots of evidence... we haven't found any yet!"
And for most of mankinds' existence, there was no proof that oxygen existed. Or that atoms existed. Or bacteria. Or radio waves (we didn't "invent" them - Jupiter was emitting radio waves long before we existed) or X-rays, or gamma radiation, ...
There are other, more intelligent, ways to answer the question - the "we haven't found any yet!" isn't really all that good argument.
Re:UFOs of the 20th century (Score:5, Insightful)
Very true. But even if they did, would it sound inherently bad to someone who had no idea of our morality and values?
Hitler: We must exterminate the Jews! They are destroying our society!
Kodos: Wow. Whatever Jews are, they sure are causing that guy a lot of grief. Wonder if he gets it under control?
Since only a small fraction of news on both sides of the issue was televised, ET might not have enough context even to know that we thought it was bad (although they'd know that at least some other factions didn't like him and his plans, even if they didn't really understand all the reasons).
Re:Speaking for everyone? (Score:2, Insightful)
We should keep our eyes open and our mouths shut. It's a big universe, and we don't know what's out there, or how long it's been there before us.
Re:In one acronym: EIRP (Score:5, Insightful)
But wait, it gets worse. There's a lot of electromagnetic noise floating out there in the universe. There's even a big source of it close nearby, we call it the sun. With all that static going on, a weak signal can get very hard to find, especially if you aren't exactly sure what sort of signal you're looking for.
Basically, it's not very realistic to expect people on other planets to be listening in on our TV broadcasts. Even if enough time has passed for the signals to reach them, they're not likely to get enough of a signal to be able to work with, even if they happen to be looking for exactly the right thing at exactly the right time.
Re:The Enemy is Us (Score:5, Insightful)
Fixed that for you.
Re:Most notably? (Score:4, Insightful)
By broadcasting the way we are, we're making a couple of assumptions: a. that there are no alien civilizations out there to worry about or b. if there are, they're not actively hostile and capable of making something of it. Neither is a safe assumption. Granted, interstellar distances are a perfect defense against anyone near technological parity with us, but why would we assume that an alien civilization has advanced no further than that?
Furthermore, some people maintain the (preposterous) belief that any race that is substantially more technically advanced than us would, somehow, have to be peaceful and beneficient. However, if they followed a developmental path anything at all like ours, they got that advanced by being anything but peaceable! Where did many of the historical discontinuities in our scientific and technical knowledge come from? Why, from the tremendous R&D investment the world's militaries command in times of war. I see no reason to assume that an alien race would necessarily be any different in that regard.
Consider this: how many times in our own history has a culture been damaged or destroyed after encountering a more advanced one? Take our Native American friends, for example. The more capable society doesn't even have to be warlike either.
Re:Things We Cannot Change (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course they do... Cavewomen.
Re:Thus pacifist aliens (Score:5, Insightful)
Jet engines, radar, rockets, encryption, and thousands of other inventions exist solely because we were looking for better ways to kill people. We got to the moon in the 60s because of a space race
As you point out, there is nothing quite like the bond of like minded people when you have a common enemy, be it across the ocean or on another planet. Half the planet uses the U.S. as the common enemy, we use terrorists (used to be communists), etc. If someone would just land here and shoot off a few rounds with a 'ray gun', maybe we could all get along, but we need enemies. We must, since the dawn of time we have always had them.
Very Astute (Score:4, Insightful)
So it is logical to assume that there are technologically advanced civilizations that prey on other civilizations for resources or food.
After all, we do it in our own backyard, so why can't other civilizations?
There is nothing in the rule book that I know of that says just because a civilization has conquered space travel must not be aggressive.
We continue to advance, yet we are still very warlike.
-Hack
Re:Thus pacifist aliens (Score:3, Insightful)
Ecological destruction?
Actually, a big part of the process of civilization and enlightement is expanding the idea of "we". From "we" being just our family, just our clan-- to hey, the people in the next village are human to-- then realization that someone who doesn't look like you is human, too-- then the realization that if all we worry about is humans at the expense of other life-forms on the planet, we end up destroying ourselves anyway, therefore for our civilization to survive, we need to expand "we" to included, to a greater or lesser extent, the Earth ecosystem as a whole.
A civilization that lasts to the space-faring stage, in order to survive, must have overcome the us-vs-them false polarity often enough that hopefully they would be beyond that-- or at least that any hint of falling into it again would set off warning bells.
Well, at least in the intelligent members of the species. That won't stop the politician-aliens from draining all of the alien's resources on a preemptive strike against Earth because hey, some other planet in this sector of the galaxy attacked them once, and therefore they can make a claim, however transparent, that we were working with them, and therefore must be dangerous, too. And so then they send their own economy into a tailspin by bombing earth back to the stone age, and it will be cold comfort to us if most of the alien population was less atavistic than that...
Re:UFOs of the 20th century (Score:1, Insightful)
Bush invaded other countries who who did not threaten him with the aim of getting himself re-elected.
And we still think HITLER is the worst politician?
War is destruction, not creation (Score:4, Insightful)
This is pure fallacy, although I appreciate that you used the word "likely" rather than speaking in absolutes. Generally, good education comes in peace time. Sharing of ideas comes from openness and trade with other tribes/cultures. Rockets are probably based on fireworks (and aerodynamics), which are based on so-called gunpowder -- something that was not used destructively for for many years after its creation. Radar came about in war, yes, but all of the technology leading up to it was developed in peacetime. That the first need to make the next leap came about because of war is irrelevant; the technology was there, the progress was ready to be made, and if the technique was needed, someone would have made that leap.
As someone once said, "the tradegy of war is that it uses man's best to do man's worst". War is destructive, not creative. Those involved in war often claim credit for things either through delusion, or power. That does not mean that the warlike people, warlike ideals, or even warlike circumstances are the reasons such things exist. I'm sure da vinci would've preferred to work on less lethal things, if less lethal people had held the money and power.
Re:Thus pacifist aliens (Score:5, Insightful)
Most efficient jet engines are for commercial planes. Everything else you mention was advanced because of stability where it was invented, not destruction. Just look at how much positive science is coming out of Palestine or Iraq or Afghanistan. The last one should be the pinnacle of human knowledge - they had was for almost 30 years now!
Military is waste. Period. Anything positive that comes out of it is not by design, it is purely as a side-effect.
It wasn't the military that got us to the moon. It wasn't the military building ISS. If it was up to military, we would not even have something like Hubble because it is useless.
Anything positive comes out of the military it is only a side-effect of its intended purpose. And that purpose is to kill and control.