REM@MIT-MC@sri-unix (11/06/82)
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM at MIT-MC>
Date: 3 Nov 82 9:37:51-PST (Wed)
From: decvax!utzoo!watmath!watdaisy!arwhite at Ucb-C70
It seems to me that every year we are better able to do things like search
for life out there.
I agree. It's like with computer/electronics, every year you get more
for your money. Any time you spend money, you wonder if you should
have saved it and bought twice as much for the same money a year
later. Of course carrying this to the extreme you never buy anything
because you're always waiting for something more cost-effective next
year. The optimum time to buy something is right when you need it, not
earlier (you don't get as much for your money), not later (you don't
get to use it in the meantime). Maybe discovering intelligent life
elsewhere in the Galaxy will give us the curiosity to develop space
instead of quarrel among ourselves, or maybe it'll give us a "common
enemy" to unite us. Thus maybe NOW would be a good time for SETI,
before the next generation of thermonuclear counterforce weapons.
Maybe last year we didn't have the methods and technology for SETI but
this year we do. Maybe we don't this year but will next year. We won't
know for sure until we actualy succeed, at which point we can look
back and say "gee, good thing that new algorithm was developed, it
made it possible" or "gee, why didn't we look last year, we could have
found ETI with equipment that existed then". - I think the best
approach is to spend a little each year, developing the skill, testing
the tools and getting an idea what we need to build next, while
improving (lowering) the upper bound on the amount of ETI that might
exist, until one year we find ETI (or exhaust the galaxy without
finding ETI).
I think we should spend our money on the really important things like
space travel so that next century we can spend an equivalent amount and
turn out with a much better idea as to what is out there when we
are using much more advanced technology.
I agree. Let's get people to stop wasting their money on alcoholic
beverages, cigarettes, pizza, and most of all thermonuclear weapons,
and instead have them spend the money on development of space travel
and space-based industry.