Profile: SchoobyDoo

Personal background
I'm a programmer from Chicago living in the Los Angeles area. I have an amazing wife and 2 precious children (6 and 3). That's my oldest getting a glimpse of what lies beyond. The only sport I really care much about is baseball. I'm probably going to die a heart-broken Cubs fan. I've coached my son's Tee Ball team for 2 years. My 3 year old daughter will soon be ready for Tee Ball so it looks as though I've got a few more years ahead of me. Maybe after about my 4th or 5th year, I'll have a clue about how to keep 5 and 6 year olds interested in such a complicated and slow moving game. This last year I've learned that bribery with candy and game balls gets results!
Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home
Is there a more compelling "What if" scenario? That thought is primarily what keeps me running SETI@home. Even the least bit of solid evidence of microbial life ought to force humanity to reconsider its place in the grand scheme of things. I say ought to because we seem to be so incapable of assessing reality without imposing our cherished beliefs, desires and fears. I do have hope that such a discovery would at least have a unifying effect. Perhaps our juvenile squabbling over borders and superficial judgments based on cultural differences would begin to be replaced with deeper concerns for the health of this planet we share and an immediate recognition that our similarities vastly outweigh our differences. OK, I'll admit it; I've read some of Mr. Sagan books.

I can't say that I think there is or is not ET life. I don't think we can reliably extrapolate from the one solar system we know much about. Like all of you, I just hope.

Transmit a beacon? One fear in me says no, don't make us vulnerable to some hostile beings. But that fear, when held up to the light, seems childish and cowardly. And then another sort of fear enters my thoughts; what if they're out there listening, wanting to make contact and we never announce our presence. What a failure of a species we'd turn out to be! So yes, transmit now and transmit loud. It's well worth the risk. What to send? If possible I'd support sending pictures of us and examples of our best art, music, literature, engineering and science; DNA samples of the major categories of life on Earth; and something that just occurred to me, the darker side of our history as well (things like war, famine and persecution) but only if we were confident that the receivers of our beacon could understand that we are showing these things as examples of how we struggle with our own limitations. Shouldn't we be completely honest about ourselves?
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
Account data View
Team None



 
©2024 University of California
 
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.