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| Personal background |
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I am male, retired, and live in W.Cornwall.
My interests are Botany, almost all technology, the internet, mythology/relgion/superstitions, reading F&SF, reading and writing poetry, and cooking.
I am a realist, but some people prefer to call me a sarcastic cynic. I can't imagine why. |
| Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home |
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I think that it is highly unlikely that intelligent extraterrestrial life does not exist.
I have no idea when, or how, "First Contact" will be made.
As to the benefits and/or dangers: Assuming that they are technologically superior, we could make, at no effort to our selves, enormous strides in scientific know how.
That is bad, what we can do once, we can do again. Our species does not need stolen technology.
If the race we first meet are as aggressive as our selves,
or more aggressive, we run the risk of becoming a subject race; humanity would not take that lying down. The result, as I see it, would be an interstellar war, or the annihilation of our species.
If, on the other hand, the first race we meet have the technology that we want, and we are the more aggressive race, then we will simply take the technology, and annex the planet, or what ever.
Add to that, our penchant for clinging to superstitious ignorance, even in the face of overwhelming evidence of reality, and the seeming overpowering need of those who do, to force it onto all about them...
We are not ready to meet other species.
The second worst thing that can happen, it that SETI finds what it seeks.
The worst thing would be that, we learn that interstellar travel is possible, and practical.
Should that happen, a century from the moment it is confirmed, we will be out there, and the galaxy will needs look out.
In short; I can imagine great benefits for humanity, but at the expense of every other species out there, sentient or otherwise. |
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