Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

SETI Institute suspends search for aliens

mercurynews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 109 posts

Re: SETI Institute suspends search for aliens

#21

Post by sliverstorm »

jackowayed wrote: post #19
russell_h wrote: post #10

Searching for aliens seems like the ultimate high risk/high reward investment opportunity. If someone secretly made contact with an advanced extraterrestrial civilization the potential for profit would be huge. On the other hand, good luck executing on that.

I'm not sure there's that much chance for profit even if you do find aliens, at least not directly from the information you'd get from the aliens. These aliens would be many light years away. (absolute minimum ~5, right?) So for a long time you'd just be receiving signals (because it would take at the very least 10 years for your first message to get to them and them to respond). First of all, the signals you'd recei…

your investors took an absurd risk

If there's life out there, we'll probably find it eventually.

Considering life is a binary condition (there or not there) and we haven't found anything to strongly indicate the odds of life existing elsewhere are very small, I certainly wouldn't call the odds of finding life absurdly bad.

Re: SETI Institute suspends search for aliens

#22

Post by sliverstorm »

danenania wrote: post #20
jackowayed wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure there's that much chance for profit even if you do find aliens, at least not directly from the information you'd get from the aliens. These aliens would be many light years away. (absolute minimum ~5, right?) So for a long time you'd just be receiving signals (because it would take at the very least 10 years for your first message to get to them and them to respond). First of all, the signals you'd recei…

There is also the possibility that extraterrestrials exist and communicate in ways we can't conceive of.

Yes, this is possible. I'd argue though that if 2 instances of life exist (them and us), n instances must exist, (and thus some must use radio waves) because it clearly demonstrates humanity wasn't a freak septillion-to-one occurrence that shouldn't have happened.

Re: SETI Institute suspends search for aliens

#23

Post by demallien »

barisme wrote: post #17
huhtenberg wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely there's at least one Bill Gates who could spare 5 mil :)

Bill Gates might rather cure river blindness, malaria and cholera. He's at that stage when a billionaire thinks about humanitarian legacy. Similar to Andrew Carnegie and the moguls of that generation.

Discovering another instance of intelligent life would be one of the most profound transformational experiences that we could have as a species. I would think that there would be more than one billionaire out there that would like their name to be associated with such a discovery.

Re: SETI Institute suspends search for aliens

#24

Post by danenania »

sliverstorm wrote: post #22
danenania wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is also the possibility that extraterrestrials exist and communicate in ways we can't conceive of.

Yes, this is possible. I'd argue though that if 2 instances of life exist (them and us), n instances must exist, (and thus some must use radio waves) because it clearly demonstrates humanity wasn't a freak septillion-to-one occurrence that shouldn't have happened.

Interesting point, but given the amount of randomness involved in evolution, the physical complexity of cognition, and the timescales involved, is it possible that even given massive numbers of cognitively advanced species in the universe, each could have such a fundamentally distinct ontological relationship to reality and model of the physical universe that even a concept as seemingly scientifically basic as a 'radio wave' would be unique to us?

Re: SETI Institute suspends search for aliens

#25

Post by palish »

jackowayed wrote: post #19
russell_h wrote: post #10

Searching for aliens seems like the ultimate high risk/high reward investment opportunity. If someone secretly made contact with an advanced extraterrestrial civilization the potential for profit would be huge. On the other hand, good luck executing on that.

I'm not sure there's that much chance for profit even if you do find aliens, at least not directly from the information you'd get from the aliens. These aliens would be many light years away. (absolute minimum ~5, right?) So for a long time you'd just be receiving signals (because it would take at the very least 10 years for your first message to get to them and them to respond). First of all, the signals you'd recei…

I've been thinking about faster-than-light communication recently.

Consider gravity. Is its effect instantaneous? That is, gravity varies as the inverse of the square distance between two bodies. If, say, the Earth were to suddenly get much closer to the Moon, would that gravitational effect be "instant"? Or does it propagate at the speed of light?

If gravitation is somehow "instant", then one could imagine an apparatus which allows you to transmit information instantaneously. (You would need a way to measure the effect of gravity from the sending body; perhaps by measuring the height of waves formed in a planetary-sized sphere of water.)

Re: SETI Institute suspends search for aliens

#27

Post by DanielBMarkham »

The search for extraterrestrial life is something that even proponents say could take a very long time.

So why in heck are they getting politically-sensitive, year-by-year funding? This is exactly the type of project that requires a trust, which I believe Allen set up. People as smart as that, it'd be idiotic to do this any other way. Who would want to start a 100-year project betting that the United States government would feel one way or the other about it 50 years from now?

Re: SETI Institute suspends search for aliens

#28

Post by JoachimSchipper »

sliverstorm wrote: post #21
jackowayed wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure there's that much chance for profit even if you do find aliens, at least not directly from the information you'd get from the aliens. These aliens would be many light years away. (absolute minimum ~5, right?) So for a long time you'd just be receiving signals (because it would take at the very least 10 years for your first message to get to them and them to respond). First of all, the signals you'd recei…

your investors took an absurd risk If there's life out there, we'll probably find it eventually. Considering life is a binary condition (there or not there) and we haven't found anything to strongly indicate the odds of life existing elsewhere are very small, I certainly wouldn't call the odds of finding life absurdly bad.

> If there's life out there, we'll probably find it eventually.

That's quite possible, but you'd want a highly-advanced technological organization - some bacteria-type things in Martian ice would be a scientific breakthrough, but unlikely to be massively profitable.

Re: SETI Institute suspends search for aliens

#29

Post by StavrosK »

demallien wrote: post #23
barisme wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bill Gates might rather cure river blindness, malaria and cholera. He's at that stage when a billionaire thinks about humanitarian legacy. Similar to Andrew Carnegie and the moguls of that generation.

Discovering another instance of intelligent life would be one of the most profound transformational experiences that we could have as a species. I would think that there would be more than one billionaire out there that would like their name to be associated with such a discovery.

The cost/effectiveness ratio is much higher, though.
Post reply on HN