"I sent the following comment to the Times. Curious if they publish it.
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JackSarfatti
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This article neglects completely the 800 lb Gorilla in the room - UFOs in particular solid military evidence for flying saucers with warp drive and star gate time travel supertechnology that have interfered in our evolution for thousands of years. For example see the Ruppelt report from the 1950's from the military director of PROJECT BLUEBOOK. Also from that time Paul Hill's brilliant detective work \"Unconventional Flying Objects.\" I gave an invited paper last weekend at the DARPA-NASA Orlando meeting in which I laid the groundwork for how the advanced extra-terrestrial propulsion and communications technology may work. We are getting close. Some background information on this history of this effort is in MIT physics professor David Kaiser's new book \"How the Hippies Saved Physics\" in which my early ideas on ETs is chronicled." - Jack Sarfatti
The Stone is featuring occasional posts by Gary Gutting, a professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, that apply critical thinking to information and events that have appeared in the news.
The probability that there is intelligent life somewhere other than earth increases as we discover more and more solar systems that seem capable of sustaining life. The thought that there might be extraterrestrial intelligences (ETI) somewhere out there excites us and has led to organized efforts to contact any such beings. We have sent space probes with data about us, and we transmit signals with a structured content (like symbols expressing mathematical formulae) to what we hope will an intergalactic audience. The search for extraterrestrial project (SETI) is obviously based on the assumption that the possible benefits of contact with ETI outweigh the possible harms. But do they?
A recent study by researchers at Penn State and NASA provides a useful outline of the various ways that encounters with ETI could be beneficial, neutral or harmful to us. The study faces up to the most chilling possibilities: ETI might “eat us, enslave us, attack us,” inadvertently infect us with horrible diseases or just decide to eliminate us for the greater good of the universe. (Regarding this last point, the report is especially concerned that ETI might be at least metaphorically green and see us a threat to the universe’s ecology.)
The report draws no conclusions about the wisdom of pursuing SETI, though it does urge the need to develop quantitative measures of possible harms and benefits. Its final sentence seems content with the idea that we will “continue the search for extraterrestrials into the future.” Especially after reading the report, I am not so content.
What is likely to happen if we make contact with ETI? Given the size of astronomical distances and assuming the speed of light as the maximum possible velocity, the most likely outcome is not real contact but merely an exchange of messages, perhaps at very long intervals. Little chance of harm there.
But there is still non-zero probability of real contact. Since we have no way of predicting with any certainty the outcome of such contact, it might seem that we have no reason to assume a bad rather than a good result. From this we might conclude that there is no objection to pursuing SETI, if only to satisfy our curiosity.
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