
The search for extraterrestrial intelligence moves up a gear - JumpCrisscross
https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2020/02/20/the-search-for-extraterrestrial-intelligence-moves-up-a-gear
======
TheBlight
I'm not the first to make this observation but our search seems limited by our
imagination which in turn is limited by our current level of technology. In
the Victorian era canals were considered a technological innovation. So we
looked for canals on the surface of Mars and some of us were sure we saw them.
Radio was invented so we decided to search for radio signals from space. The
concept of solar panels was invented so we decided to see if any civilizations
were covering their star with a fleet of them. Lasers were invented and
recently we're talking about powering light-sail probes with them so now we
have optical SETI. LIGO detected gravity waves and so... well you get that
point. I don't think we shouldn't look for all of these things but I think we
should temper expectations. My suspicion is in a couple hundred years the idea
of looking for ET radio broadcasts will seem as silly as looking for canals on
Mars does to us now.

~~~
ncmncm
The radio telescopes are programmed to report only signals that are varying at
a rate that matches our own. Life working ten times slower or faster than us
would be automatically ignored.

The "Dyson Sphere" notion cracks me up every time. They are advanced enough to
build so much space stuff it blocks starlight, but not advanced enough to have
fusion power, so have to rely on solar panels? Might as well look for signal
flags.

Any actually advanced aliens will live out in the Kuiper belts where useful
elements are conveniently frozen. Goldilocks planets are for extreme
primitives.

~~~
nitrogen
Stars are by _far_ the largest fusion reactors physically possible in any
given system. It makes sense to use them as such if you can.

~~~
ncmncm
What makes sense about relying on the "largest possible" variant of anything,
when you can make small and portable ones, and bring them with you anywhere
you need them?

------
gwbas1c
One thing that I constantly think of when I read this article is just how
recent in history electromagnetic broadcasts are. What if there's another
planet in our neighborhood, but its society is just a mere 1000 years behind
us? 1000 years is almost nothing when looking at just how old the universe is,
and just how long our planet has had life.

But, what if we develop some other means to communicate in the next 100, 200,
or 300 years? It means the window of time that intelligent life uses
electromagnetic communication is very, vey short.

~~~
34679
Or, what if we're the first. Someone has to be the first. The Universe is
devoid of intelligent life, and we're without technological peers.

A billion years pass, the Universe is rich with intelligent life. And they can
still detect the echoes of the ones who were first, crying out across the
universe in search of companionship.

~~~
TheSoftwareGuy
>A billion years pass, the Universe is rich with intelligent life. And they
can still detect the echoes of the ones who were first, crying out across the
universe in search of companionship.

Or what if the window of time in which life can exist on a planet is so short
compared to how long it takes for life to appear on that planet, that it is
extremely unlikely for two planets to have life at the same time?

A lot of questions, and a lot of possible answers

------
neonate
[https://archive.md/eWqTw](https://archive.md/eWqTw)

------
LandR
In firefox as soon as it loads, hit reader mode.

------
Pigo
Somehow I had not heard about the James Webb Space Telescope before now. The
Hubble means a lot to me personally, and I have dreading the day I'd hear it
was going out of service. I can't wait to see what this new telescope will
provide for us.

~~~
gbrown
We all have high hopes for JWST, but it’s been a long and expensive road with
lots of delays.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope)

~~~
jjoonathan
Well, the wiki page is good, but I think xkcd is the canonical authority on
the particular subject of JWST delays:

[https://xkcd.com/2014/](https://xkcd.com/2014/)

~~~
Pigo
I recall Hubble often being fodder for late night hosts and other media, but
we don't even think about it now that it's proved it's worth many times over.
It changed the narrative once it was operational.

~~~
Causality1
My question is, how much is too much? Does it have to cost fifteen billion
before it stops being worth it? Twenty? Fifty?

~~~
Pigo
It's a fair question, and I'm not educated on the subject enough to provide an
opinion. Like I said, I'd just heard about this, so I'm not aware how much has
gone into it. If it's hitting the figures you're talking about, I would
question it as well.

~~~
Causality1
Cost+ is a cancer that needs to die.

------
ak39
All we need now are aliens arriving.

~~~
Pusha_Drugz
hopefully the nice kind

~~~
ak39
Oh man, imagine that. What a time to be alive if that had to happen. 2020 has
been just about everything.

------
Flow
Paywalled. :-(

~~~
bsdubernerd
It's worse than that. The article is loaded in full and _then_ is truncated
via js.

You'd guess that's EXACTLY the kind of shitty behavior that google claims to
flag/penalize the website.. but.. here's a google-golf hit for the article:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=the+search+for+extraterrestr...](https://www.google.com/search?q=the+search+for+extraterrestrial+intelligence+moves)

Surely.. only the "excerpt" is served to google right? Nope... click though
the cached copy. The article is indexed in full.

Right.

I have nothing against linking paywalled resources, but that's scummy
behavior.

Skipped.

~~~
ianai
What’d scummy about being easy to defeat? Or do you mean google?

~~~
bsdubernerd
It's not about being easy to defeat.

It's scummy on the economist's side from a SEO perspective which I absolutely
hate in all media outlets that do this.

If the full article is allowed to be indexed by a search engine, the
expectation is to be able to get the _same_ result as the search engine is
seeing when you click through.

This is clearly a cheap way to rank higher in search results. If you don't
want non-paying users to read, then the same excerpt should be shown to the
search engine.

------
aussieguy1234
Here we go [https://outline.com/yfW5Zb](https://outline.com/yfW5Zb)

~~~
doodpants
That Outline page is giving me an error. Meanwhile, the original article page
is perfectly readable if JavaScript is disabled.

------
kimi
Please do not post / upvote paywalled content. I, for one, am sick of it. It
has nothing to do with the actual article, but please - no more paywalls on
HN.

I have been buying the Economist on paper every week for the last 20 years or
so, love it, and I possibly also have the online version, though I never use
it. But if the article is meant for public consumption, then let's link it. If
it's meant to sell a subscription, please don't.

~~~
asah
given outline.com, seems like that's a viable option for balancing the needs
of HN and publishers who hurt-themselves by not allowing new users to see
selected popular articles.

(i.e. fool's errand to think anyone will subscribe for a single article, but
many publishers aren't setup with sophisticated-enough ways to make selected
content free, without exposing themselves to cheats e.g. readers simply using
incognito mode or second browsers...)

~~~
fifnir
They're fools to not make all their content free anyway. I'd only pay for a
service I use a lot. How am I gonna develop the habit of using your page a lot
if every time I open an article of yours I'm blocked? I'll just go to another
site, thank you very much.

~~~
rtkwe
Do you use an ad blocker? They've gotta pay for content some how either a
paywall or ads.

~~~
jessaustin
Ad blockers block ad networks. A fancy publisher like Economist doesn't have
to use ad networks. They could sell online ads the way they sell print ads.

~~~
rtkwe
They can but it's not the way most places want to buy ads online anymore.
There's a reason basically everyone moved to using ad networks.

~~~
jessaustin
So there are trade-offs involved? Different parties have different interests?
Different publishers use different models? That sounds about right, and
contradicts the false dichotomy offered above.

~~~
rtkwe
The dichotomy is the same people who complain a lot about paywalls on HN are
also blocking all ads and JS. Paywalls are the offered alternative to ads
already.

~~~
jessaustin
You'd _like_ to change the subject, but you haven't. I run uBlock Origin to
_encourage_ publishers to run their own non-privacy-violating ads from their
own domains, the way they did before the ubiquity of surveillance capitalists.
Every time publishers have asked me why I use uBO, I've told them that. That
they can't adjust to market conditions, is their own failure of imagination.
This impasse won't last forever, anyway. Today's unimaginative publishers will
eventually be replaced by new ones with new models we haven't even considered
yet.

