SETI’s in money trouble and may shut down

While laudable, I find myself returning to the same thought every time I hear something about S.E.T.I.

Shouldn't we be looking for it here at home before we go poking around the universe for it?

Why is there a "should"? Does one preclude the other? Does it have to be first/then, either/or? Does there have to be a "sequence"?  

I'm with Doc.  Google  and Facebook could fund the search,  Google to help find them and FB to get to know them when we do.

2 million is not much for this type of program ... if the US can't pay for it, why on earth are they spending billions on Afghanistan's defense force.

There ya go, Wiz! We'll be able to "friend" them!

Seriously, though... I believe in "discovery" and "hope". They are powerful motivators.

"SETI" was the first "social" effort to generate computing power across vast segments of the public... the people who share a dream and want to be part of it in whatever way they can... I saw the benefit of that then, and want to see it continue in the present and future. 

Not everyone can be an explorer in the physical sense. But: Everyone can help explore. I don't want that taken away from people.

People have to be able to dream and hope to get someone to a mountain top to look farther. All they want is to be part of the "stand on my shoulders".

I love the romantic idea of SETI... making contact.... ending up like a warm and fuzzy episode of Star Trek.... but, in reality,  I have come 'round to the thinking of Stephen Hawking...

'If aliens ever visit us, I think the outcome would be much as when Christopher Columbus first landed in America, which didn’t turn out very well for the Native Americans.'

I think we should still explore.... just not advertise.... 

it's unwise to be attracting such attention with possible advanced civilisations who have possibly screwed up their planet as we are doing a good job on ours...and looking for new digs...or resources.....

hell, we're still unable to protect ourselves from civilisation-dooming sized comets/asteriods impacting the Earth.... 

and Hollywood sure ain't gonna come to the rescue...  

Frankly, I think the aliens should meet us half way and help fund SETI.

I'd definitely agree with that, syd.

Of course, should they be unfriendly... we have the ultimate weapon. starkers. (assuming they breathe, and understand British humour).

HEY!

Happy Diamond Jubilee to you guys.

see.... it's not  a good ending....   

There are lots of animals out there in the universe and they do not use radio signals.

Believe me, extraterrestrial beings want nothing to do with this sick planet. Why do you think they come back and check on us every now and then? I mean, who would want to deal with a race that does nothng but pollute their planet and kill each other constantly? I know I wouldn't.

They want nothing to do with a low life intelligence like us.

So while I believe in what SETI is trying to do, I don't really see it ever accomplishing anything in the long run.

This planet is a cesspit, why would anyone come here. I'd leave if I could...

SETI used to be pretty good "bang for buck", a lot in part of the network of users who contributed processing power. I remember setting up computers to have a screen saver so that they could process packets of information. Talk about security risks in today's world. A real bug.

My first thought was, "they can't go broke, they don't cost anything". I saw a program several months ago that showed the real business end of SETI, the telescopes and such. That definitely costs money. Don't those big guys have their own radio telescopes?

Just one look at their web site shows money being spent, I'm sure that it is necessary now days.

http://www.seti.org/

Honestly SETI is a waste. Its looking for radio waves transmitted by a civilization at exactly a specific point of radio development (which lasted under 100 years for humanity) while also advertising ourselves to potential hostiles...

What we need is development of orbital infrastructure and 100% space based industry (we need to colonize the asteroid ring not other planets).

The notion aliens will want earth for resources is absurd. Space is too big and earth is too small... the only interest they will have in earth is that humans are on it.

However, they could try to exterminate us from xenophobia, or uplift us, or who knows... and they could just come here to colonize the star system (not earth specifically) which happens to INCLUDE earth.

As far as columbus and indians. As much of an ass as he was, indians got wiped out via disease due to hundreds of years of living in clean conditions. While the europeans lived in high density and filth and constant plagues to toughen up their immune systems. Not colonists.

Biased... who says it's the same for other civilizations?

The infrastructure on earth needs some help until then.... and again, why either/or?

Not in the least.

Physics?

Oh you mean who is to say it doesn't take their civilization 1000 years to properly develop modern radio techniques? Or a million? Nobody said that it couldn't happen but its highly implausible... unless its a species with far less intelligence and ingenuity then humanity.

And whats with the "biased" claim... what did I say that was biased? I didn't show unfair prejudice against something in that statement, I merely stated the facts at that point (what you quoted was the facts, not my logical conclusions from said facts)

Because of limited resources. Some things DON'T have to be either/or... those require that those things do not compete for resources. (in this case, funding).

I've been wanting to develop a real starfighter, and according to Stephen Hawking, I guess I better get on that.

Damn!  I forgot how hot Leonard Nimoy was in his prime.  Thanks Fuzzy Logic.

taltamir... a different civilization would be different. It might get to different discoveries at different times in its development than ours. There wouldn't be a Protestant Reformation and all the other factors creating the Industrial Revolution... they might happen at differential rates... different lifespans, different cultural values...

The Laws of Physics are not variable. They are not the only variables however, and the mode of their discovery might vary widely from how we discovered them. They might not advance beyond them for a long time... or not at all. Who knows?

To assume they would develop at the same rate is a bias. Not an evil one, but still a bias since it assumes things which are not necessarily true, and blinds one to other possibilities. Sitting here with our eyes and ears (and minds) open, not assuming anything and just trying to interpret findings as objectively as we can with our knowledge expanding all the time (and thus requiring revisions in prior thinking and interpretation) is all we can do.

To reject it all out of hand is blinding ones self unnecessarily. 

1. They are not going to have radio communication powerful enough to be seen from space without having gone through industrialization. (it requires mass produced over the air mass media)

2. If for some reason their period of radio powerful enough to be detected from another planet but primitive enough to be detectable via techniques seti utilizes lasts much longer its still a tiny insignificant amount of time in evolutionary scale.

3. Stop using the strawman that I am assuming identical rates of development, I never did. I presented the facts (the rate of development of humanity) and left it for others to draw conclusions.

Despite the possibility that radio is easy for any extraterrestrial beings to pick up, it suffers from a few glaring problems.

First of all there's attenuation.  Over many light years, radio signals become less powerful, unless of course someone gets the clever idea of launching a bunch of radio relays into the galaxy to amplify the signal and pass it along to the destination.

Then there's the effects of interstellar matter on radio waves and the natural background radio noise.  Basically it's like trying to yell across a crowded nightclub to your friends.

Also, there's no guarantee that the signal will actually be received at the other end, even if the equipment is available, because you can't predict that aliens will do the same thing we're trying to do - make contact.

I was actually just thinking that we should be looking for directed neutrino sources as well.  This explains better than I could.

It's not looking for BBC World news..... it's looking for non-background energy transmissions generally within the 'radio' frequencies [since they're called RADIO Telescopes - NOT 'radio antennas' [like your Tranny has]].

Eg...your car's ignition system emits radio frequencies.

Actually they ARE looking for BBC. Analog TV transmission is about the easiest thing to detect.

SETI can only detect lightly compressed data and carrier waves. Modern data compression with high compression rates (such as what humans use today) and removal of wasteful carrier waves is no longer distinguishable from white noise.

Furthermore, advances in transmission led to ever more efficient directional antenna that are releasing less and less excess radio waves into deep space. The strength of transmissions going to outer space from earth has already peaked years ago and has actually declined.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox#Communication_is_impossible_for_technical_reasons

Please note that wikipedia is NOT my source on this one. I have read studies by actual scientists on the subject. Wikipedia just provides a decent summary of the issues.

I don't understand why you think that radio communication will suddenly go away.  If we assume that our current understanding of physics is correct, radio is always going to be around because:

1) Being light, it travels as fast as anything in the universe

2) It isn't easily absorbed by stuff that gets in its way (the interstellar medium, the atmosphere of a planet)

3) It's the lowest energy form of light, so it's relatively easy to produce

Therefore, it's somewhat likely that we will be able to detect radio from a technologically advanced civilization.  That does assume that there isn't some sort of magic (ie sufficiently advanced technology) based on physics that we don't currently know, but I think  that any reasonable discussion has to assume that our understanding of physics is at least somewhat correct.

Now, humans are moving away from easily detectable radio signals, which is somewhat problematic.  But I don't think that its reasonable to assume that all aliens will move in the same direction with their technology.  Some of them might not move toward directional communication for any number of reasons.

So yeah, there are assumptions going on that lesson the chances of detecting aliens, but the price tag on the project is hardly large by any reasonable standard.