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| Personal background |
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There are three reasons I participate with the SETI@home effort.
1) It looks really cool to have the SETI@home screen saver chugging away on the monitors at my company. I wonder what the cleaning crew thinks when they walk through the dark offices in the middle of the night?
2) It's neat to be a part of an effort where millions of individual people's computers are collectively being used for scientific research.
3) When my computer (yes, it WILL be my computer) detects the first definitive signal from a sentient being beyond our solar system, I will laugh uncontrollably for hours when the media discovers the computer is a Macintosh. Just imagine all those people saying Macintosh computers aren't to be taken seriously . . . they're only good for high-end graphic design and layout. Ha! |
| Thoughts about SETI and SETI@home |
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1. It's incomprehensible that humans are the only intelligent life in the universe. Just looking at the math alone, it's obvious. I can't predict when we'll discover evidence of extraterrestrial life, but with efforts such as SETI@home, it's only a matter of time and patience. The possible benefits and dangers of such a discovery are just as unpredictable as when the discovery will occur. Obvious potential benefits span from the grandiose hopes for a new world peace to technological infusion from our friendly neighbors in the universe. The dangers are equally powerful, but less likely. These could include having unexpectedly alerting a predatory species to our presence. However, I expect that if there actually exists an alien life form wishing to colonize new planets their technology would have already discovered us -- not the other way around.
2. I'm not fond of the idea of transmitting a beacon for others to find. Let me clarify that statement a bit. I'm accepting of that decision if, in a somewhat democratic fashion, the majority of the Earth's citizens approve of it. When and if an extraterrestrial life form receives our beacon (regardless of the information it may contain), we've shown our hand. I would prefer to detect their signal first and then decide whether or not to respond. Their beacon may be interpreted to saying "Hello neighbors!" or maybe "Don't ever contact us or we'll come over to your planet and show you who's boss."
3. I run SETI@home primarily because I'd like to know if there is intelligent life beyond our own solar system. Since nobody can answer that question it only makes sense to cooperate with millions of other people who would also like to know. |
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