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"?  

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.

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...  

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.

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

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

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.

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).

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

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.

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.

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.