Crowd-Funded Radio Beacon Will Message Aliens

astroengine writes "In the hope of uniting people around the globe in a long-duration project to send a radio 'message in a bottle' METI (Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence) signal, a crowd-funded project utilizing a refurbished radio telescope in California has begun its work. Lone Signal is a project initiated by scientists, businessmen and entrepreneurs to set up a continuous radio beacon from Earth. To support the operations of the Jamesburg Earth Station radio dish in Carmel Valley, Calif. (a dish built to support the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969), a crowd-funding effort has been set up so that for a small fee, users can send images to the stars. If you're content with sending a text message, your first message is free. The radio dish's first target is Gliese 526, a red dwarf star 18 light-years from Earth, but the project will be considering other stellar targets believed to be harboring habitable worlds."

Re:Proper lead account for?

[Xyrus]

Of course, rookie error #1 is getting involved in a land war in Asia and rookie error #2 is going in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.

All kidding aside, I'm not sure I like this idea. It's not really a good idea to announce your presence in an area where the natives could be restless and you could be considered "tasty".

What if they are predators?

[Rubinhood]

Can the senders please make sure that if those guys are predators, the rest of us are safe. Thanks.

As a side note, I tend to feel strangely unsure that such things are a good idea when unknown extraterrestrials receive more attention than starving 3rd world fellow terrestrials.

you joke, but...

[foreverdisillusioned]

This is at best a waste of money. I know he catches some flak for this, but Stephen Hawking has it right. There's no reason at all we should expect intelligent alien life forms to deal with us as respected equals, especially if they are considerably more advanced. At the same time, it would be too much to hope for them to ignore us. Our planet would be a treasure trove of scientific interest to them, and even practical interest in the same way rainforests are useful to biochemists or bacteria are useful to genetic engineers. The altruism argument ignores how very limited it is here on Earth. Forget intercultural conflict, how many people give/gave a shit enough about dead dolphins enough to boycott tuna? Or save the poor bonobos? Their intelligence is a lot closer to ours than ours would be to any life form advanced enough to travel the stars (unless they had some kind of taboo on both genetic and cybernetic enhancement.) Overall point being: altruism isn't a prerequisite for advanced spaceflight, but relentless pragmatism is.

Fortunately, what with the speed of light being what it is, this shouldn't be of any immediate concern.

Also, I think there's a recent 'obligatory' xkcd that's quite on-topic here if anyone wants to whore some karma. In the what if section.

Gold Here!

[Bayoudegradeable]

Perhaps it will sound like this: Greetings Mr. Cortez! You are searching for gold, we are having it! Please visit our lovely Aztec mines. You will love our gold! Have a nice time with our women while you are at it. Please, cross the ocean and come visit us. We don't even have gunpowder! We don't have resistance to small pox either! See us soon!

Or perhaps.... Hey Spike! Wanna go dig up some bones?!