| Personal background |
|---|
I'm 46, married with two grown sons, and a hedge fund manager from San Francisco, former Army officer, former stockbroker, former Silicon Valley dot-commer (and resulting from that a former millionaire). My hobbies are eclectic. Computer chess, right-wing politics, sending out harassing e-mails to my friends about whatever topic has gotten under my saddle today. I am an iconoclastic, bombastic, prickly individual with an offbeat and mildly misanthropic sense of humor. Favorite place I've ever been: New Zealand, hands down. Worst place: toss-up between Nitro, West Virginia and Turkey.
|
| Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home |
|---|
1. Don't know, but I am guessing we're totally alone in the cold vastness of the universe.
2. Let's think about this, OK? If you had everything you could possibly want for survival, living conditions that were nearly ideal to support human life, beautiful girls walking down the street, fine cigars, excellent food and scenic panoramas readily available, and vast untapped potential, would you send out a beacon welcoming an undoubtedly technologically superior civilization with the message "hey Mr. Alien, come on down and party with us--surf's up, dude"? I DON'T THINK SO. You must be pretty soft-headed to project your native goodwill and benign disposition to whatever may lie out there! We could get peaceful Vulcans or we could get warlike Borg, and it seems to me we ought not take a chance on the latter until we are hundreds if not thousands of years further down the technological track and able to comfortably defend ourselves if we run into something malign out there. We all have an awful lot to lose if someone miscalculates based on a child-like, idealistic predisposition. (It wouldn't surprise me if we don't find a signal out there for this very reason. Any intelligent life-form would generally not signal except in case of dire emergency, and possibly not even then.)
3. Why do I run SETI? On a total whim. I have no ideological commitment to the program. I do think it is an admirable technological and social effort, though, and I am glad somebody is out there doing the work. I am particularly impressed by the incredible mathematical sophistication of every aspect of this program. I have no suggestions except keep up the good work!
|
| Your feedback on this profile |
|---|
| Recommend this profile for User of the Day: |
I like this profile |
| Alert administrators to an offensive profile: |
I do not like this profile |
|
|
