The debate over "Active SETI"
I’m back! Miss me?
Now that I’m no longer wearing my actor hat and performing eight shows a week of Beauty and the Beast, I’ll be posting regularly again. And what better way to start than with this fascinating article from SEED Magazine about the controversy in SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) circles over whether we should just be passively listening for alien civilizations, or actively announcing our presence.
Those opposed to “active” SETI point out that, in effect, we might just be putting up a big neon sign on the planet that says “Come And Get Us” (or possibly “Good Eats!”) if there’s something nasty out there listening. In fact, David Brin pointed out years ago (in this paper on Xenology: check out the section called “The Great Silence”) that one theory (that originated within science fiction) for why we don’t hear signals from other civilizations is that something hunts down and destroys anybody that start broadcasting.
Check out the article, and for more discussion of it, read this post at the blog that I picked up the link from, the always-interesting Centauri Dreams.
(Image: NASA.)
[tags]SETI, extraterrestrial life, astronomy[/tags]
January 4th, 2008 at 5:04 am
In my early paper:
Sending and Searching for Interstellar Messages
http://arxiv.org/abs/0711.2368
was demonstrated that usual radar investigations of asteroids and comets are much more detectable by terrible Aliens than METI (Messaging to ETIs)
January 4th, 2008 at 9:02 am
Any pointers as to where exactly that theory originated in SF? If there‘s a decent SF novel in it, I‘d like to take a look at it.
January 4th, 2008 at 9:45 am
In his paper, David Brin mentions Fred Saberhagen’s “Berserker novels, and work by Gregory Benford that he doesn’t give a title for. Remember Brin’s paper is from 1983, though, so anything he references is more than 25 years old at this point.
January 5th, 2008 at 5:01 am
>In fact, David Brin pointed out years ago (in this paper
>on Xenology: check out the section called “The Great
>Silence”) that one theory (that originated within
>science fiction) for why we don’t hear signals from
>other civilizations is that something hunts down and
>destroys anybody that start broadcasting.
We and all other civilizations don’t hear signals from other civilizations because all other civilizations have Brin-like persons, who pointed out that we and other civilization don’t hear signals from because of something hunts down and destroys anybody that start broadcasting…
January 7th, 2009 at 5:55 am
The distance for aliens to travel, just to start a war would be very counter-productive. Oil, it’s taken a year and five days for someone to say this but, it could also be the Bystander Effect. Aliens could already be in a galactic union think-tank, helping each other for mutual benefit but not admit us because we have not made our voice heard/voted by speaking out, for an admission to join.
July 26th, 2010 at 10:05 am
Kouki, these aliens you mention could also be in a galactic culinary union, eating each other alive for mutual benefit but not admit us because we have not made more of this idiotic SETI BS. Anyway, I could go on, but your speculations are completely unscientific.
July 26th, 2010 at 10:10 am
By the way, if this is really the infamous Alexander Zaitsev, let me say that you, dear Sir, are a dangerous fool.