[DoodleBob]

A recent UFO story made me wonder if game theory had been applied to the search for extraterrestrials. It has: For those interested in the technical game theory paper, it is available here. If this is your cup of tea, drink up (it's actually a well-written article and great application if game theory IMHO).

Effectively, the results of the choice/game to try or not try to contact extraterrestrials,as set up in this paper, argue in favor of sending out messages to extraterrestrials even if we're afraid of a Wellsian, science fiction situation...where there is a notable penalty as a consequence of bidirectional broadcasting, for example, because of the possibility of being exploited, attacked, enslaved etc.

The very fact that Earthlings ARE sending such signals means that NASA et al have already decided that this situation is worth the risk.

Discuss.

[gundog]

I wonder how the Dems would spin contact to destroy us.

[BenLurkin]

[Vaquero]

AOC is a space alien. She wants to protect her illegal brethren

[Pelham]

With a fine Chianti and fava beans.

[cgbg]

The very fact that Earthlings ARE sending such signals means that NASA et al have already decided that this situation is worth the risk.

If I were an alien race (with no hostile intentions) I would conclude humans are dumb as rocks (for making that insane reward/risk assessment) and are not worth the trouble of contacting.

I would be looking for intelligent civilizations--they would have created technology to camouflage their presence from possible hostile outsiders.

[Brilliant]

Even if they knew we were here I don’t think they’d be able to do anything about it. People do not appreciate how far away they’d be. Even the closest star is 4.5 light years away. No way could they traverse that. Or would they. And it’s very unlikely that they’d be that close.

[PIF]

Any attack would be casual. Not direct, since a direct attack (fleets of ships etc) would revel the attacker and thus the attacker’s home world to others.

Penalty is always death, and that death would mean being sure the attack was successful: such as a light-speed, hyper-dense object striking the sun causing a nova, a dimensional strike reducing the solar system by one dimension, a strike that changes the local physics and so on, as a failed strike would reveal the attacker.

[BradyLS]

In Carl Sagan’s book _Contact,_ he points out that we’ve been broadcasting television signals into the cosmos since the 30s. It’s only gotten worse since.

In that time, we’ve not been visited by beings with faster-than-light ships—that we’re aware of. If that’s the case, we can pretty much know that nothing travels faster than the speed of light and we’re relatively safe from beings that are centuries distant. We could broadcast for a long time (in human-years) and never worry about a visitation. Not having found any evidence of visitors on the nearby planets (yet) reinforces the idea that there are none around for perhaps hundreds or thousands of light-years.

On the other hand, if we have been visited by beings with advanced technologies that allow FTL travel, then they know about earth and its inhabitants and where we are in our development. We couldn’t hide it so broadcasting (or not) won’t change anything. They likely control the local planets and stars we’d one day get around to exploring and maybe that’s when formal contact would be made.

[Larry Lucido]

Maybe we can put the transmitter on Mars, complete with fake towns to fool any invaders.

[CommerceComet]

I don’t see the dilemma myself. I don’t see a danger in letting aliens know that we exist. Any alien civilization with the technology to attack us across the vastness of the universe probably already knows we are here.

[PapaBear3625]

Consider the level of technology advance over the last 100 years. The odds of our encountering an alien civilization which is at our level of capability is infinitesimally small. Neighboring life will most likely either be much more primitive, or far more advanced.

If they are primitive, then they will not receive our communication. If they are advanced, then they will detect us from our radio and radar transmissions no matter what we do.

[blueunicorn6]

Ahhhhhhh.....so we invite the aliens to play a game of Chutes And Ladders and then we shoot them in the back.

Tricky.....tricky.....

I like it.

[blueunicorn6]

“Your highness, we have received signals from a planet called earth.”

“What are these signals?”

“It is something called ‘The View’.”

“Let me see it.”

.....15 minutes later.....

“HIT THEM WITH THE DEATH RAY!!! HIT THEM THREE TIMES TO ENSURE THE UNIVERSE IS FREE FROM THIS GARBAGE!!!”

[American in Israel]

Our first SETI transmissions were in the early 1900s. It’s a bit late to worry about it now. Europe power grids are based on 50 Hertz or cycles per second, the Americas chose 60 Hertz.

So as a result the Earth began to transmit an alternating 50Hz / 60Hz tone to outer space that changes frequency every 12 hours as the planet spins. That frequency transmission is over 50 times brighter or stronger than the suns.

Yes, it’s pretty obvious that there is life on this planet to anyone who have technology equal to 1950s radio telescopes. The SETI project is a whisper in a rock concert compared to our ELF signature for the last century.

[fso301]

SENDING messages into deep space could be the best way for Earthlings to find extraterrestrial intelligence, but it carries a grave risk: alerting hostile aliens to our presence.

Until you learn how many nuclear power plants are required to generate the power levels necessary for sending signals inter-stellar distances.