Is SETI Worth It?

njdube sent in this Space.com story about the money behind SETI that opens, "It's a risky long shot that burns up money and might never, ever pay off. So is searching for intelligent creatures on unseen worlds worth the candle? After all, aren't there better ways to use our monies and technical talents than trying to find something that's only posited to exist: sentient beings in the dark depths of space?"

S.E.T.I

[imstanny]

SETI - The result of having failed to find intelligent life on Earth.

Hey, it worked in Star Trek

[danbert8]

Didn't you see First Contact? As soon as we find aliens, world peace occurs. Can't you please think of the children?

Re:S.E.T.I

[jamstar7]

Obviously, they looked in all the wrong places. Washington DC, Hollywood...

Re:S.E.T.I

[BadAnalogyGuy]

OJ is futher along in finding the real killers than SETI is in finding intelligent life.

Is it worth it?

[ackthpt]

Of course it's worth it. Just think of all that alien anime we're missing out on!

Summary

[boron boy]

Yeah it's not practical, yeah it's expensive, but damn, if it pays off, it pays off big time. Besides, it's not like we're asking you to pay for it, SETI runs off private money.

Personally I think they'll have more of a chance in the fledgling field of optical seti, where they're looking for aliens pointing laser beams at us... yes really.

Re:S.E.T.I

[afaik_ianal]

Haven't you seen any sci fi movies? To be intelligent enough to travel across space, they must be willing to shower us with gifts of love and candy*.

(*) "Love and candy" in alien worlds usually takes the form of nukes and anti-matter bombs, but that's beside the point.

Re:3 million dollars per year is a pittance

[RuBLed]

redundant eh? I guess I should have posted an oblig xkcd reference instead...

Re:S.E.T.I

[bmo]

"You just have to look at our own history of contact between various cultures to figure that out. "

I got a +5 funny before for mentioning this, but the only reason why we didn't _eat_ the conquered on a massive scale was that we recognized the conquered as our own species and have taboos about it.

What's to stop a sufficiently advanced civilization, outside of biochemical compatibility, from viewing us as "the other white meat" with fava beans and a nice chianti.

"Look. I tell you what. Those who want to can eat Johnson. And you, sir, can have my leg. And we make some stock from the Captain, and then we'll have Johnson cold for supper."

--
BMO

Re:Hey, it worked in Star Trek

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't you see "Star Trek: The Next Generation"? They found the Borg.

Re:Madlibs!

[SnoopJeDi]

Number of cosmological formations you've observed: 0

I'm intrigued by your black-white interpretation of the universe and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

However, I have not seen you, so you therefore do not exist.
(does that mean your newsletter is ghost-written?)

Re:How much would you pay?!

[scottv67]

Let's say we not only find intelligent life but that we can communicate with them and they have the answers to all our problems...

What if that "intelligent life" looks at us the same way we look at cows grazing in a grassy field ("Beef...it's what's for dinner!")?

Re:S.E.T.I

[bmo]

"I would hope that a civilization that is able to travel faster than light, that is possibly thousands to millions of years ahead of us, has grown beyond the need to eat other living things."

Food (*cough*) for thought:

If I ate merely because I needed to fill my tummy, I'd be a vegan.

http://italianfood.about.com/od/beefbracioleetc/r/blr0228.htm [about.com]

"If I'm wrong, I hope that I'm not very tasty!"

Start polluting your system with preservatives and chemicals! If they find you tasty, at least you might give them cancer!

--
BMO

Re:Compare the costs (and formatting!)

[Tomfrh]

Is that .001 dollars or .001 cents?

Re:3 million dollars per year is a pittance

[Boronx]

3 million dollars? Compare that to the Iraq war. If we'd directed that money towards, SETI, we could have discovered 100,000 times as many alien civilizations as we have.

SETI costs less than slashdot

[Joce640k]

The SETI program probably costs less than the harm done to the world economy by people reading slashdot every morning.

Re:S.E.T.I

[jimicus]

After all, if they want us to hear them, either they want to talk, or they want to get rid of us. It seems like a lot of work to try to get rid of things you don't even know are there, doesn't it? Inefficient. And it doesn't fit the mold...

Dude, haven't you seen Mars Attacks?

Re:S.E.T.I

[xevioso]

The issue is that Moore's law also applies to SETI, but in a weird way. Computing power to search and analyze transmissions is increasing at a rate similar to computing power int he normal world, which means that the frequencies and areas being searched will increase dramatically over time. There was an interesting graph I saw by a SETI proponent that showed the amount of sky being searched, the rate of computing power increase, and assumptions about the number of radio-transmitting civilizations out there over time. Basically, if there are even 10 civilizations in the galaxy that we *could" detect because they have been transmitting, we should actually detect one of them some time in the next 30-40 years. If there is one, then the time goes out to 60-70 years. If there's ~100, the time is something like 20-30 years. So we should know one way or the other within a few decades, so I'm willing to wait. If we continue on in this vein and we DONT find anything, then some of our initial assumptions are very much wrong, which would be informative in any event. So, I say we continue, at least for a few decades. If we don't find anything by, say, 2050, cut funding!

First ever SETI message:

[Anonymous Coward]

GREETINGS HONOURED LIFE FORM FRIEND

MY NAME IS GENERAL XWIGGHURRGRRGHHHUL OJHWIXHUURGGH OF THE STAR SYSTEM KLUVUUU 419. I BEG YOU FORGIVE MY UNINTRODUCED CONTACT BUT I AM SEARCHING A TRUSTWORTHY ASSOCIATE SPECIES FOR THE TRANSFER OF 42,000,000,000 GALACTIC DOLLARS...