
Seems legit
For 99c I think I'll send 'em a text saying 'hot aliens in your neighborhood want to meet you tonight'
In just under a week from now, Earth is going to start deliberately advertising itself to any ETs that might be out there, via the Lone Signal project. And if you've got 99 cents to spare, you can join in. Lone Signal will use retired-and-repurposed dish in California, originally built to support the Apollo 11 moon landing and …
Why are we, as a species, so totally unable to learn from our mistakes?
Not even from our mistakes, after all, most of us are descended from tribes that wiped out the weaker tribes/species they encountered.
How the hell did such a stupid people with a racial death-wish manage to make to to the top of the food chain?
At least pidgins have some form of racial memory
Not even from our mistakes, after all, most of us are descended from tribes that wiped out the weaker tribes/species they encountered.
Which makes us the descendants of stronger/successful tribes which is a good thing. For us.
But you're right that if 'survival of the fittest' can be applied at the interplanetary level then announcing our presence could be asking for trouble. I suppose we have to hope that either:
a)They are planet-bound (or at least FTL limited) so can't do anything about us.
b)If they are advanced enough to have cracked FTL they have given up on natural ecosystems as being too limiting and vulnerable and will ignore us.
They don't need to have solved FTL travel. They just need to have a physiology more resistant to radiation damage than ours, and (probably these two characteristics go hand in hand) have a lifespan considerably longer than ours. Suddenly the universal speed-limit doesn't seem to be such a problem. We will be OK though, it is following generations that should be worried, but of-course, the aliens could arrive any day now, we have been broadcasting for a while...
There are a lot of other problems that have to be solved to build a close-to-lightspeed starship, including an improbably large initial mass to payload ratio. Realistically, they'd need a MUCH longer lifespan, high radiation tolerance, and be happy to journey at 0.001c, so they're unlikely to be showing up for quite a few centuries yet.
But yes - the flaw in the strong anthropic principle is that the universe is NOT perfectly tuned for human beings, but rather for creatures that measure their lifespans in milennia. If such can exist ... otherwise it's not well-tuned for starfaring civilisations at all. We do have trees that have lived a few milennia, and funghi that have lived maybe twenty times longer ... and if the funghi were/are conscious, could we ever know it?
Then there's the possibilities for our Silicon AI children to clock slower than their parents rather than faster. At which point the Fermi paradox again kicks in. Where are the alien AIs?
While our American cousins seem quite happy to advertise our presence to all and sundry, I would caution some good old English reserve when dealing with Johnny Alien.
We really don't want to encourage visits from the wrong sort of extraterrestrial. After all, aliens cannot be expected to possess the high principles and excellent manners of the average Englishman gentleman. It could be socially awkward if the aliens were annoying oiks who latched on to you because you made the mistake of being vaguely nice to them once?
Even worse, what if the alien visitors were EWOKS!!
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Sorry people, the math doesn't work. When you compute the signal power they are pushing, the gain of the antenna, the 1/r^2 losses as the signal spreads over distance, and get the resulting power density at the target, no matter how whizzy the Gliesian tech would be, for that signal to be above the noise floor they would need an antenna the size of Earth's orbit, cooled below the cosmic microwave background temperature, and held to the correct shape to a tolerance of millimeters over that whole size.
No, you cannot filter out noise that is on frequency, and the thermal noise from the antenna will drown out the signal unless it is cooled (as stated in my first post).
Moreover, to get enough signal over the cosmic microwave background (again, you cannot filter out noise on frequency), you need the huge antenna (again, as posted).
There is not magical tech that can change that - it's a fundamental limit of the universe. As stated in my original post, no matter how whizzy the Gliesian tech is, there are limits on what it can do.
Sir, I read your carefully thought out analysis with great dismay. Applying mathematical analysis and reason to a problem that clearly calls for wild flights of fancy simply will not do. Sir, I am convinced that your missive will bring sorrow to the hearts of all true believers. What will be next, proving that Santa couldn't possibly fit toys for all 500 million of Earth's children into a small, reindeer drawn sleigh, let along cover the globe or solve the necessary travelling salesman problem? For shame.
Won't anyone think of the children?
(serious note: great post-- love that the reg attracts comments with great insight like this. Makes me think about the scheme in an entirely different light.)
In Gilese 526 news this morning, scientists have discovered the source of the radio wave interference that have been interfering with our emergency response communications network. The source is a planet in a far off solar system, a planet that is to be fried by their sun in time. Scientists have observed this planet over heating internally and are baffled, once thought to be a place that might supprt intelligent life, the internal over heating has proven that no such intelligence exists. A more immediate response is being launced today, a long range nuclear missle to obliterate the planet will be launched and should destroy the planet in the next 24 hours. There will be no fallout for us to this as it is in a different solar system, and all debris will rotate around their dying sun. So expect trouble free communications soon!
I agree with the consensus that sending out a message saying "here's a planet that is suitable for life" is an incredibly stupid idea when we have no idea how rare/valuable such planets are.
The only consolation is that stars of this type are incapable of supporting life for a period long enough for intelligent life to evolve. We have only got this far with Earth because our type of star gradually increases its heat output over time. As the CO2 is converted by algae to O2 thus decreasing the greenhouse effect, the sun's radiation increases. This does not happen with red dwarfs. Incidently this heating rate is about 1 degree centigrade per 10 million years so even with zero CO2 content we "only" have another 300 million years.
So one stupidity cancels out the other.
[The reason the heat increases - more helium "ash" in the core means that the thermonuclear rate of burning increases slightly]