Twenty light years away. I was shocked by what Steven Vogt, an astronomer at the University of California Santa Cruz, had to say about it: "Personally, given the ubiquity and propensity of life to flourish wherever it can, I would say that the chances for life on this planet are 100 percent. I have almost no doubt about it". I suppose he wouldn't say that without some cause, but making a claim like that about a single planet seems a little much to me.
I don't know much about the dissipation rates of signals we send out, but if this "Goldilocks planet" (not too hot, not too cold - good for liquid water) is twenty light years away, we need to be bombarding it with signals. If there is intelligent life there to receive it and send something back, we could hear back before I die.
... oh and just to keep this all economics-relevant... bombarding planets with signals that will take no less than 40 years to hear back from is not something that market forces can optimally provide. Markets are tools - and you use the right tool for the right job. You don't use a hammer to bang in a screw and then yap about how dedicated you are to hammers - that makes you look dumb.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
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"... oh and just to keep this all economics-relevant... bombarding planets with signals that will take no less than 40 years to hear back from is not something that market forces can optimally provide."
ReplyDeleteAnd that is a good thing.
Or, to quote from "Contact" - "Why is it the default position of the egghead community that aliens would always be benign?"
I would note though that most of SETI programs get zero government funding.
Right - nor do they get market funding, as far as I'm aware.
ReplyDeleteAnd who says the current SETI programs represent the optimal scale of SETI activity anyway?
Actually they get plenty of market funding ... via resources in kind (SETI@ghome, etc.) or voluntary contributions.
ReplyDelete"And who says the current SETI programs represent the optimal scale of SETI activity anyway?"
I do. I get quite enough of it thank you much.
SETI@home and contributions aren't market funding!
ReplyDeleteWhat do you think "market" means, Xenophon? Anything voluntary???
Anyway, you're not the arbiter of that question and neither am I, although we're both entitled to our thoughts on it.
I think definition of "the market" is rather confined as it is defined by economics.
ReplyDelete"...you're not the arbiter of that question..."
I am for myself. I have no desire for the state to waste a lot of money on such an enterprise.
"I am for myself. I have no desire for the state to waste a lot of money on such an enterprise."
ReplyDeleteAha! But you do again what you often do - change the question at hand.
You are indeed the arbiter of the question "does Xenophon think the state is doing something appropriate".
You are most definitely not the arbiter of the question we were talking about - "is an optimal amount of resources being directed towards seeking out extraterrestrial life". I'm not the arbiter of this quesiton either - but we're both free to share insights.
I also find it interesting that once again you raise the question of the state. I never mentioned the state. You brought that up. You always seem to reach for the state. Why?
"I think definition of "the market" is rather confined as it is defined by economics."
ReplyDeleteWell when I use the word on here I always have and always will use it in the way that economists use it.
So to avoid confusion, you may want to either clarify that what you actually mean is "voluntary action", or you might want to just say "voluntary action" - otherwise we'll create unnecessary arguments over things that we're actually in agreement on.
Whenever you start talking about optimality it is a fair assumption that you are talking about the need for government intervention. I just cut to the chase.
ReplyDeleteNo it's really not a fair assumption and you're going to misread me if you do assume that.
ReplyDeleteI'm not shy about talking about government - I'm not going to hedge on that.
And if we push this further, I probably would note a role for government - but government wasn't even on my mind when I made the observation that I did in this post.
ReplyDeleteYou brought out the silly "tool" language; you mentioned "optimality"; etc. Sounds like a call for government intervention to me.
ReplyDeleteI understand that's what it sounds like to you. Since you're the one making the inference it stands to reason that it sounds like that to you.
ReplyDeleteI'm telling you it is a bad inference.