$100M for SETI // Where are the ETs that must be out there?

[Panich52]

EarthSky

Unprecedented $100 million SETI initiative

Breakthrough Listen initiative, announced Monday, will scan the nearest million stars, plus stars in 100 other galaxies, for signs of an advanced civilization.

http://earthsky.org/space/unprecedented-100-million-seti-effort-breakthrough-listen?utm_source=EarthSky+News&utm_campaign=fea5e05d68-EarthSky_News&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c643945d79-fea5e05d68-393525109


Intelligent life in the universe?

Scientific arguments suggest that alien civilizations should be common in our galaxy. If so, where is everybody? That question is known as the Fermi paradox.

http://earthsky.org/space/intelligent-life-universe-aliens-contact?utm_source=EarthSky+News&utm_campaign=fea5e05d68-EarthSky_News&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c643945d79-fea5e05d68-393525109

[2naSalit]

1. Wherever they are...

I wish they'd hurry up and get here and set the intelligence standard a little higher.

Then again, maybe they are watching us and not interested in our planet until we eliminate ourselves. Just because we set up a *possibly by interplanetary standards* rudimentary listening system doesn't mean we can hear the activities of a far superior system. How can one determine anything by trying to listen to something like the Internet with an AM radio?

[PoliticAverse]

2. Why do people seem to assume these aliens would be benevolent - maybe they just want to

cook us.

[2naSalit]

3. Well...

and then there's that.

[exboyfil]

4. What arguments regarding "common" in our galaxy

It took approximately 4 B years for us to reach technology capable of sending and receiving interstellar signals. We passed through many keyhole events on our way to this point. Nothing other than primates have exhibited any chance to reach technology. Several unlikely events occurred in our evolution with one of the greatest being eukaryotic cells which took over 2 B years to evolve.

We can also conjecture a end date window for a technological species. At least in our case the technology necessary for communication has also led technology which is also capable of destroying ourselves. The galaxy is also a very dangerous place which many reset events possible, and the probability of these events increase as you move towards the more densely packed stars at the center of the galaxy.

Looking is cheap so it is good that we have found private funding to do it. On the other hand we should not kid ourselves about the probability of finding technological civilizations.

[GeorgeGist]

5. No paradox to me.

If you were ET would you want to be found by humans?

[Ichingcarpenter]

6. Does anyone really think advanced civilization uses radio waves to communicate?

Right now the window of our use of radio wave is only been since 1895 and that only went a half mile at first. I think how even we communicate at large distances will change and the radio will go the way of the pony express.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Perhaps, as some wit remarked, the best proof that there is Intelligent Life in Outer Space is the fact it hasn't come here or they have and we are too ignorant to know it.

[exboyfil]

8. Big really big.

"Space," it says, "is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space. Listen..."

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy