
The 1999 and 2003 messages explained [pdf] - lelf
https://www.plover.com/misc/Dumas-Dutil/messages.pdf
======
mjd
I wrote a long series of blog posts about every aspect of the messages. They
are among the blog posts I'm most proud of. I think there are 25 in all, one
for each of the 23 pages, and a couple of extras about the message as a whole.

The first post, and table of contents:
[https://blog.plover.com/aliens/dd/intro.html](https://blog.plover.com/aliens/dd/intro.html)

(I also produced good-quality, bit-for-bit bitmaps of the 23 pages; I don't
think anything like this was available before. (At least, I couldn't find
any.)
[https://pic.blog.plover.com/aliens/dd/](https://pic.blog.plover.com/aliens/dd/)
)

------
mellosouls
[https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Call](https://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_Call)

[https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-couple-
guy...](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-couple-guys-built-
most-ambitious-alien-outreach-project-ever-180960473/)

------
acqq
The paper about the messages written by Dumas and Dutil:

[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228862784_The_Evpat...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228862784_The_Evpatoria_Messages)

As I was young, I watched Star Trek and listened to Carl Sagan's positive
expectations about the "first contact." But that was before the modern
Internet.

Now I'm much more pessimistic. I'm almost sure that the biggest chance of
anything outside of Earth responding would not be something we'd like:

I would expect either cosmic spam, cosmic scammers or cosmic criminals to
respond. And it can be even worse, to the point of some powers that do some
planned destruction out of pure indifference to what the effects are, like
Douglas Adams writes: just "to make room for a hyperspatial express route" and
even if the Earth was not exactly there it was close enough that the
"cleaning" from "risky" lifeforms will be performed and your time to file a
complaint expired, thank you very much, we really care about your opinion, to
return to main menu press 0.

So I'm thinking more like Hawking:

“Meeting an advanced civilization could be like Native Americans encountering
Columbus. That didn’t turn out so well.” (1) ... (to Native Americans).

Some quite recent news, probably influencing me:
[https://www.sciencealert.com/a-46-000-year-old-aboriginal-
si...](https://www.sciencealert.com/a-46-000-year-old-aboriginal-site-was-
just-deliberately-destroyed-in-australia)

1) [https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2018/03/stephen-
hawk...](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2018/03/stephen-hawking-
controversial-physics-black-holes-bets-science/)

~~~
bee_rider
An alien species would certainly be incompatible with our germs, possibly
incompatible with the basic life-chemisty of our planet, and would likely be
far enough away that we're restricted to swapping a message like once a
generation assuming we're anywhere near right about the basic laws of physics.
I wouldn't worry too much about it. The worst case is they will troll us.

~~~
gryfft
Oh, good. Trolling. That's never been a serious problem before.

------
compsciphd
there went our dark forest. :)

~~~
lmilcin
I was about to make the same comment:)

Take in mind that we emit so much garbage into space that it would probably
make no difference for sufficiently advanced civilization.

So if there really exist a civilization that goes out and kills everybody and
only other civilizations survive because they maintain absolute silence, it
must be already extremely advanced (to be feared by everybody else) and so we
have already lost.

~~~
acqq
The claim that: "we emit so much garbage into space that it would probably
make no difference for sufficiently advanced civilization" is a
technologically wrong claim. Under some emitting power to some specific
destination, the kind of emissions we commonly make drop to the levels which
are below all the noise levels, effectively making them unrecognizable. Under
the noise levels, it simply can't be resolved.

The only way for our common emissions to be recognized would be if the "other
civilization" already has some receivers in our solar system or very close to
it. But if we assume that we have to send something in the direction to some
distant star to get their attention, then it can be better not being "too
loud."

For the start, even on Earth you have to have a license to use some bandwidth,
and some are completely forbidden for mortals. And again, imagine some
indifferent Vogon bureaucrats deciding what to do with the annoyance...

~~~
lmilcin
You are looking from the point of view of our very limited technological
level.

To understand the problem you need to look at physical limitations of a
civilization. A civilization that has an ability to wipe off another
civilisation in another remote star system will definitely be at least hitting
some physical limitations if not pushing them (if our understanding of physics
is wrong).

We already have plans to image other planets by use of gravitational lensing
with something like 25km per pixel resolution.

If we can image planet surface with this resolution remember, radio signals
are also being amplified by gravitational lensing. While it seems it is more
complicated I don't see any technical limitation to receiving even very weak
radio signals this way.

I mean, if we can almost do it now it is naive to think they can't do it.

Our current biggest to getting this level of image is putting drones in right,
remote place in space many AUs from us. If we are talking about a civilisation
that has means and time to wipe off other star system then they definitely
don't have that problem.

~~~
acqq
> If we are talking about a civilisation that has means and time to wipe off
> other star system then they definitely don't have that problem.

No, I'm not talking about a civilization that would "wipe" the star system.
I'm not talking about a civilization that uses instruments bigger than the
solar system only to detect us. I'm also not talking about a civilization that
would be faster than light. I'm just talking about a civilization that has
some very strict (imagine, like the extremists in our world, but a few orders
of magnitude more) views about what they "have" to do, and that has the
attention span and endurance more orders of magnitude longer than ours,
meaning that they wouldn't mind to send something to the Earth even if it
would take, for example, 1000 years, and then make more steps to their
benefit, etc.

In short, our thinking of what is "far" and "reasonable" are limited by our
very short lives. I of course don't think that I should worry in my lifetime
about the possible responses, but I don't think that the humanity in thousands
of years should be put in danger by our "young and naïve" actions now.

The dangers I see are certainly not in the magnitude of "wiping off the star
system", but more like those described by Rod Serling as "to serve man."

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Serve_Man_(The_Twilight_Zon...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Serve_Man_\(The_Twilight_Zone\))

Even the current humans are certainly technologically capable to destroy our
civilization as we now know it, even if there's a possibility that a few
specimens of humans would survive for a while somewhere. The aliens don't have
to be much more capable than that.

~~~
lmilcin
Have you actually read The Dark Forest? Because that scenario is what I was
commenting about.

The scenario says that the only logical conclusion is that, since resources
are limited, if you are left with another civilization the most logical course
of action is to preemptively, immediately strike and destroy it so that you
can gain their resources and are in better position for the future encounters.

For that reason all civilizations keep total silence for fear of another
civilization wiping them off.

~~~
compsciphd
I didn't understand the dark forest about gaining their resources in the
context of the novel, (even though that's mentioned, I'll discuss below). I
believe the stronger argument is about the inability to trust them at such
great distances and time deltas (i.e. you can't trust, but verify).

to recap: even if they meant what they said at t0, by the time you get the
message at time t(1billion) (just picked a large number), their thoughts could
have easily changed due to their development in the time that has elapsed.

therefore, if you have the ability, the only "logical" thing is to wipe them
out. Of course, this presumes the ability to wipe them out with one shot (2d
foil), not get into a shooting war even if you are technologically superior
(i.e. trisolarans)

with that said, where I felt the logic of the novel fell apart a bit was in
the context of the sophons. i.e. the technology for instantaneous
communication existed (or at least was built). which negates one of the
axioms.

now to get back to the resource scarcity argument, while resource scarcity is
mentioned, I also think it as basis is problematic. why? because a common
method used to destroy these far off civilizations is effectively resource
destruction (ex: collapsing 3d space into 2d space). If your goal is to
maximize your resources (as opposed to minimizing your opponents resources),
you don't go about "destroying" them.

------
joezydeco
Well now I'm curious: what are the "questions" posed in frame 23?

~~~
mjd
[https://blog.plover.com/aliens/dd/p23.html](https://blog.plover.com/aliens/dd/p23.html)

~~~
joezydeco
Thanks! That's helpful, but like you say it's also confusing.

------
razzfox
Happy to see it uses my favorite map projection.

Relevant XKCD: [https://xkcd.com/977/](https://xkcd.com/977/)

------
JadeNB
Does anyone know why MJD posted this? (Well, probably MJD does. So I guess I
mean: Is anyone here in a position to explain why MJD posted it? Just general
interest to them?)

~~~
mjd
I posted this because around 2003 I spent a significant amount of time
tracking it down. So I saved it, so that I wouldn't lose it, and so if I ever
got around to writing an article about the message, I would have it handy and
easy to find. This is important, because when I finally got around to writing
the articles, twelve years later, I found it where I had left it.

When I save something that I had trouble finding, I often try to save it in a
place that other people will be able to find it, so save trouble for the next
person. I don't remember where I found the paper the first time around, and I
don't know if that location still exists. But stuff I throw into
plover.com/~mjd/misc is (so far) available forever. There are files there that
haven't been modified since 1994.

~~~
JadeNB
Thank you!

