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| Personal background |
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| Washington, DC area native. I'm 29, and work as a web designer and DJ. I have been involved with SETI@home for several years now. I think that distributed computing is one cool and practical use for the Internet, in general, and idle clock-cycles in particular. My major hobbies inlcude paintball, camping, hiking, skiing, skydiving, and DJing (House and trance are my favs). Hope to one day be a half way decent DJ. Undergraduate degrees in Biology and Philosophy, with a Theology minor (recovering Catholic) from the University of Scranton. Favorite quote, "Professionals built the Titanic, amateurs built the Ark." |
| Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home |
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I think that it is statistically impossible for extraterrestrial life NOT to exist, considering the currently theorized size of the universe. However, I do believe that the chances of contact with such life to be (excuse the pun), astronomically thin. Faster than light travel may enable us to explore the universe one day (if we manage to survive long enough to develop it) but the universe is so big, that even then, I still think we may be alone for a very long time to come. IF we were to stumble across another form of _intelligent_ life, the differences between us (communication, life support, culture) could be an unfathomable gulf and knowing human history we would most likely react in a preemptively violent manner to such a meeting.
I haven't come to a firm conclusion in favor of transmitting a beacon alerting others to our existence. However, we are not united enough as a society to react in a coherent way to a their response, and thus, I lean in favor of not letting others know where we live. Call me paranoid, I call it playing it safe. The American Indians watched early North American settlers for along time, made contact, then we exterminated them, taking over their resources and space. Who's to say other life forms may not do the same?
Planets like our's are rare, and if extraterrestrial life faces similar problems to our own, and are exploring the universe for the same reasons that will drive us to (e.g., overpopulation followed by lack of resources to support our existence, or destruction of our own environment due to short sightedness), they may try to drive us out in much the same way. But, as I said, my view of that scenario happening is pretty chancy, given the sheer size of the universe. Nevertheless, I run SETI@home because I'm curious and want to know, like most, whether or not we are alone. |
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