Subject: Re: HELP!
To: Johan Danielsson <joda@pdc.kth.se>
From: Dave McGuire <mcguire@neurotica.com>
List: port-alpha
Date: 06/21/2001 15:38:13
On June 21, Johan Danielsson wrote:
> I'm sure there's extra-terrestial life, but that doesn't mean that
> there's a similarly advanced civilisation that we can communicate
> with, or even discern. Before our observation technology improves by
> some orders of magnitude, I personally think that cpu-cycles are
> better spent somewhere else.

  Within certain limits, I generally do agree with this statement...but
please see below.

> With your thinking, we should already have found lots of life, which
> we haven't.

  With my thinking, no, we shouldn't have.  My point is that we should
be doing *something*, even if our current level of technology limits
us to near-useless actions.  The point is to get into the mindset of
searching, and to make it "just a matter of course" when new
(potentially enabling) technologies are developed.

        -Dave McGuire