I'm a retired systems analyst. Unlike most retirees I used to work with I haven't chosen to sit in a rocker waiting to die. I spend 4-6 months of the year in the 3rd world working on various humanitarian projects. I live in Seattle and spend most of my time abroad in the Philippines.
Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home
I'm sure that extraterrestrial life exists. When or how we discover it would only be a guess, but if we do I think it would be in the form of the seti project or one like it. I don't think that we have any particular worries from the discovery unless it generates an unhealthy political situation here at home. I don't think it very likely that we would be able to "communicate" due to the huge distances and time of transmission envolved.
If we were to transmit a beacon it would be a futil enterprise. No one alive in the next 200 years is likely to get any feedback from it. Even so, perhaps hope springs eternal and if we don't do it we'd never know.
I run seti@home to utilize unused cycles. If something positive is discovered I think it is certainly worth the effort and knowledge.
SETI@home and Astropulse are funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, NASA, and donations from SETI@home volunteers. AstroPulse is funded in part by the NSF through grant AST-0307956.
