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Astronomers want public funds for intelligent life search

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Astronomers want public funds for intelligent life search

#101

Post by rs23296008n1 »

planck01 wrote: post #77
rs23296008n1 wrote: post #25

The US hasn't even stabilised its environment, healthcare and any number of other important areas of basic human needs. Money for finding extra-terrestrial life would be better spent on earth fixing the mess. Or use it to get us to mars. At least that fits with a "plan B" since humans existing "only on earth" is still a bad idea. Same goes for moon exploration / asteroid mining. Good ideas. Raw resources shouldn't be…

Why not try all of the above? The mess you mention is unfixable. Mars is very very far away, but worthwhile. The SETI and other research is worthwhile as well. Even if it is a null result, you learn something. R&D itself makes us learn somethings. If you won't do this stuff until other important problems X & Y are solved, you will never do the interesting things and progress will stall for the species.

Lack of nuance. Any criticism is seen as maximal opposition to everything. No. Wrong.

So weird. I've stated quite clearly in that post in favor of space travel. Yet that apparently means I'm against anything interesting and you assert that I suggest we must wait. Nonsense. I just think we should spend money on plenty of other things before searching for aliens. Eg space travel!

And the mess is fixable. Yes, the mess of healthcare, environment etc. Fixable.

Re: Astronomers want public funds for intelligent life search

#102

Post by rs23296008n1 »

majos wrote: post #74
rs23296008n1 wrote: post #25

The US hasn't even stabilised its environment, healthcare and any number of other important areas of basic human needs. Money for finding extra-terrestrial life would be better spent on earth fixing the mess. Or use it to get us to mars. At least that fits with a "plan B" since humans existing "only on earth" is still a bad idea. Same goes for moon exploration / asteroid mining. Good ideas. Raw resources shouldn't be…

I still suspect that the average dollar expended by the US government has way lower return in expected improvement of human utility than basic scientific research, even with all its imperfections. As long as that’s true, the case for funding that research seems strong to me.

Fund other research. Why not fund space travel instead?

Re: Astronomers want public funds for intelligent life search

#103

Post by CryptoPunk »

pmoriarty wrote: post #3
rosybox wrote: post #2

I don't know why taxpayers should have to pay for the search for E.T.. That's a hard sell. Probably not what the founders had in mind when they gave the government the power to take money out of the pockets of the country's citizenry. I'm all for the social contract, investing in infrastructure, and making sure everyone has affordable housing and medicine, but this is a tough fucking sell. Get some rich scifi enthusi…

You know what's a tragic waste for me? Most of the US military budget, its spending on the War on Drugs, its tax cuts to billionaires and corporate welfare. Let's cut those in half and talk again about SETI, which I would be happy to fund a hundred times over if it meant less killing, fewer unjust incarcerations for victimless crimes, more economic equality, and less concentration of money and power in the hands of t…

How can a tax cut be part of a budget? The budget constitutes tax dollars spent, not foregone.

Re: Astronomers want public funds for intelligent life search

#104

Post by [deleted] »

goatlover wrote: post #76
Retric wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> multiply the probabilities of complex, intelligent life evolving that happened to be broadcasting signals into space a few decades to centuries ago We have no idea what those probabilities are. Planets where often assumed to be rare until we started looking for them.

They're not going to be 1, so you're multiplying fractions. Start with us being the only radio broadcasting life out of 3.5 billion years of species on this planet, or how long it took to get to multicellular life on a relatively stable world with only occasional mass extinction events that doesn't turn the planet into a Mars or Venus.

[deleted]

Re: Astronomers want public funds for intelligent life search

#105

Post by _8j50 »

How does this benefit the public in the foreseeable future? Why should the public fund it? Why not stick to private funding? Look at SpaceX, there are plenty of rich people and them aside, people interested in this subject should contribute.

I know this is an unpopular view here but I just don't get why the public has to fund this using tax dollars. We all have views on what tax money should be spent on but can we not agree that the public should benefit from it with some guarantee of success.even if they succeed there is no guarantee it will benefit anyone. scifi aside, known physics does not permit anything to travel to our solar system faster than a few million years. Maybe aliens left some useful information in a format humans can somehow decode, is this very very small chance of succeess worth considering the pursuit beneficial to the public?

There are many very urgent things that need funding. Even wild ideals like universal basic income or a CO2 cleaning factory can be useful to the public in the foreseeable future. I get that this will not neccesarily take away from other projects,but heck, I would rather see it go to pay off 0.0001% of national debt than this. People can donate,billionaires exist.

Re: Astronomers want public funds for intelligent life search

#106

Post by Mirioron »

opless wrote: post #99
Mirioron wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the UK can do that because the UK is willing to rely on the US. Now that relations with the US are straining in the West other western countries are increasing their military spending/cooperation. (Eg EU army.)

Sorry, but according to news sources a coalition of non-US vessels are doing the bulk of patrols out there in the strait of Hormuz whilst the US is only seemingly wanting to lend 'command and control' style support. Elsewhere the UK assists the US in Syria and Afghanistan. It's not the other way around. But feel free to tell me how great the american way of doing things is. What with fantastic provision of basic heal…

It's not about who patrols the Strait of Hormuz. It's about who and what backs them up. If the Iranians decide to sink the frigates there (to do their blockade) then they can expect a visit from a US carrier group. If there is no force that can be projected there then it becomes about who can move more stuff there. Seeing as that's literally next to Iran, Iran is going to win.

Look at Crimea if you want an example of what can happen if there's no force that can back you up.

Re: Astronomers want public funds for intelligent life search

#107

Post by Dominisi »

cletus wrote: post #83
Dominisi wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What. IR radiation is bound by the same laws as all other forms of radiation, most namely the inverse square law. You would have to be radiating monumental amounts of energy, more than say a red dwarf, to be detectable from "millions of light years" away without fading into the cosmic background as noise. Think about it this way. With the naked eye you can see a bunch of individual distinguishable stars around ~4000…

In what world do you conflate "detectable" with "visible with the naked eye", particularly when talking about IR which isn't in the visible spectrum anyway? What's more, the ratio of visible light to IR would be... highly abnormal. > You would have to be radiating monumental amounts of energy, You mean like the energy output of, you know, a star?

> In what world do you conflate "detectable" with "visible with the naked eye"

They are literally synonymous and only vary in the instrument we are using to detect it. Your eye versus, say, an antenna.

Visible light is also on the electromagnetic spectrum, it also abides by the inverse square law.

> What's more, the ratio of visible light to IR would be... highly abnormal.

No, it wouldn't. The sun radiates across the entire EM spectrum including IR and Visible light.

It would take ~6200 structures that have the same area as the United States including Alaska (3.8 million square miles) to block out 1% of the EM radiation that the sun produces.

>You mean like the energy output of, you know, a star?

IF a sufficiently advanced civilization could magically conjure up enough materials in the solar system strip mining the solar system AND we had 100% efficiency in collecting then radiating 1% of the energy the sun gives off.....

Yeah isn't gonna happen.

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