SETI sent me a letter, so I sent one back

[Steve Lux]

SETI@home sent me a letter attempting to get me to return to their fold, so I sent them one back:

SETI people;

Sorry, but I have become morally opposed to the goals of SETI@home. Here is the reason why:

If by any chance we were able to detect and locate intelligent life elsewhere in our galaxy, some bone-headed moron would seek to contact or at least send a powerful "here we are" signal in that direction. They could not be stopped. We simply don't have that much self discipline in our species.

People simply don't pay attention to nature and what it has to teach us. I'm not talking about human-nature, I'm talking about nature-nature. We reached this "pinnacle" of evolution and achievement by dominating this planet and its resources to the point where we are comfortable enough to search for life elsewhere. Well, it is my strong belief that we really don't want to find an advanced civilization or an advanced species, because what we are likely to find is another dominant species, and more than likely that means an advanced predator. This isn't science fiction - this is nature.

We simply have to consider how a species achieves success in their environment. The way we humans always have achieved success and the way every creature you will see on the nature channel achieves success is in one of three ways: 1) Become the dominant predator, 2) Reproduce faster than the environment or predation can kill off your kind, and 3) Become less accessible to predation by being swifter, hiding or staying out of reach of predators. Of these three, the greatest success has always been option #1.

Consider also how we humans reached our successes over the last few eons; slavery, wars and the threat of wars, theft of land and resources from others incapable of defending those lands and planetary resource abuse. If this path worked for us, what gives mankind the right to think that this same path doesn't work for other species? If we ever achieve the technology to contact an advanced alien species we had better brush up on our predation skills, we may need them.

In the mean time; I know I cannot dissuade you from your search so I won't even try. I do however thank you for the good work you have done to forward the cause of distributed computing. Presently my computers are busily helping to advance medical and scientific research in large part due to your group's historical efforts. I cannot wish you success, for I fear that space is not empty, but I do wish you well.

Steve Lux

[Lagu]

Steve, that was a god reply and a kind one. I myself have run Seti as my first project because i dont feel about another project. But then I begin to think it is unrealistic think we should find another sivilication during our lifetime. It is also a waste of resources. We has so many problems here on the earth as the global heating and all natural catastrophe as follow the higher temperature.
It must be better put our money where they is to benefit.

[NeoGen]

I like to believe that if there are other species out there and they are more advanced and intelligent than us, then they won't start wars for no reason. Only primitive belligerent beings like ourselves do that.

[Nflight]

I too received that damn letter from Seti, and I promptly wrote a dissertation similar to yours only thing is I did not copy the letter so I can't share. Similar in structure and close in my beliefs thanks for sharing.

[Beerknurd]

I got a letter too. I signed up for it, but never ran Seti.. It just doesn't interest me at all.

[drezha]

My letter went into the spam box.

No more bother from them I should imagine.

[Keith75]

I really like the Seti idea but feel that projects that may cure disease or extend life are more helpful.

Keith

[Brucifer]

I like to believe that if there are other species out there and they are more advanced and intelligent than us, then they won't start wars for no reason. Only primitive belligerent beings like ourselves do that.

Uhmmm..... how do you know? If there are out there, maybe they got to be that way by destroying everything in their path? Or like the 4th of July movie. Just caus it's on top doesn't mean it's nice and friendly or warm and fuzy.... mother nature isn't like that, so why should anything else be? Eat or be eaten. Why should the food chain thing be any different out in space?

But anyway I don't care to waste my bucks on seti either. I sent my letter to the big dump in the ethercloud.

[gatekeeper53]

Uhmmm..... how do you know? If there are out there, maybe they got to be that way by destroying everything in their path? Or like the 4th of July movie. Just caus it's on top doesn't mean it's nice and friendly or warm and fuzy.... mother nature isn't like that, so why should anything else be? Eat or be eaten. Why should the food chain thing be any different out in space?

But anyway I don't care to waste my bucks on seti either. I sent my letter to the big dump in the ethercloud.



Well, I hope your wrong Bruce. Because if that theory is correct then all Seti is doing is adding us to someone's dinner menu early. I got a letter also and remember why I only crunched for Seti for one day. I got to thinking that if we didn't try to fix some of the problems on this planet there won't be any thing left to find if another race did show up.

[Brucifer]

This morning I got yet *another* begging letter from seti exclaiming how bad they need me, and they *also* need donations.... Why don't they just hound the people that are returning results??????

[gatekeeper53]

Wow DC spam! Now there is an idea that I hope doesn't catch on.

[Steve Lux]

SETI response part Deux. (I also got another SETI letter)

Apparently you didn't read my last response. I don't want you to find what you are looking for.

This very impersonal big-corporation-like disregard to individual will exemplifies one of the issues I have with organizations such as yours. But that is only a secondary issue.

Our very survival as a species may depend upon our not being noticed - don't you people ever watch the nature channel? If this is the case then your organization may be facilitating our destruction. Unlike you, I think mankind needs to develop further before reaching out. We have yet to learn to deal with each other.

Please remove me from your e-mail list.

-Steve Lux


(Edit: I later noticed an "Remove from e-mail list option - and used it)

[mitchellds]

or the Independence Day Movie.

[Scooter]

or the Independence Day Movie.

I liked that movie cause we won in the end, but we sure did suffer some damage first

[Evil-Dragon]

I got another e-mail. I'm not interested!!!

[PcManiac]

I First got into DCing with SETI, it was set up on the computers at school... at first I was like ... "what the heck is this?". I then lost interest for a little bit, but after I found out that there are more things to do than SETI, I got back into it.

However. I am just glad that there Are NOT any Extraterrestrials out there waiting to eat us!

[Beerknurd]

Look what I just got... :lol: ($540,000 to operate for a year... Are they serious??? :lol: )




(Donate to SETI@home at: http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/donate.php)

Dear Beerknurd,

SETI@home needs your help. The SETI@home team has accomplished much in the
past 6 months. We have successfully deployed the "enhanced" version of
SETI@home. The new seven beam data recorder has been installed at Arecibo (the
world's largest radio telescope) and is recording the data that will be
analyzed in the next phase of SETI@home.

But there is still far more to be done. We would like to be able to sift
through the results returned by your computers in order to identify candidates
more rapidly so we can re-observe them. This rapid response validation system
would also give you the ability to see the results your computers have/has
returned in more detail.

To keep SETI@home operating for the next year, and to provide these new
capabilities, will require approximately $540,000. Currently SETI@home is
entirely funded by donations from people like you.

We hope that you will consider making a donation to SETI@home at this time.
You can make a secure donation by credit card on our website
(http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/donate.php). Instructions for donation by
check or money order are there as well. Unless you specify otherwise, your
donation will be noted by a star icon next to your username on the SETI@home
pages and your username will appear on our list of donors. If you do not wish
to have this recognition you may indicate that as well.

You can check on our fundraising progress by visiting our main site at
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu (http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/).

Thank you for helping the search for ET, and for considering a donation to
SETI@home.

Sincerely,

Sir Arthur C. Clarke (Author and Futurist)
Dan Werthimer (Chief Scientist, SETI@home)

For more information about how to donate:
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/donate.php

------------------------------------------------------------------
SETI@home respects your privacy. E-mail addresses are not shared with any
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SETI@home, you can automatically "opt-out" by following the link:

[Evil-Dragon]

Isn't it funny how Rosetta isn't asking for $500k to keep their project running and it's benefitting humanity more than searching for aliens ever did. I hope the SETI project closes to be honest, at least that way all that wasted CPU time will go to projects that are more 'down to earth' and benefit people.

[Steve Lux]

Because of what has been done for SETI, namely distributed computing, I cannot wish them ill. But among other issues I have with them - from a business perspective I cannot fathom how an organization can expend so much intellectual effort and such economic resources for so many years without results and yet still consider itself a viable investment.

According to L. Ron Hubbard (Scientology) there is supposed to be a spaceship of higher beings in Earth orbit at this moment - and yet we cannot detect it? Apparently SETI isn't looking in the right place, or something just doesn't match up.

[vaughan]

So Seti At Home wants $476,000 says the letter I got today. So do I. :icon_rolleyes:

[Beerknurd]

lol, I wonder if I got one too... I'll have to check when I get home. :)

[meshmar]

I hate that. I got mine

[Beerknurd]

Seti is the only project that I have seen that actually wants you to pay money and use your resources to crunch their project... HAHA!!!!!!

What a scam... :)

[Evil-Dragon]

I got a letter, looks the same as last year. The cheeky gits!

[PoorBoy]

I have Donated to a few Projects but stopped doing that. I started to figure that I have to pay for all this Equipment to run the Projects Wu's. Then I have to Pay for the Electricity to run the Equipment & Pay too maintain the Equipment.

Then they want me to basically Pay them too by sending in Donations ... :icon_rolleyes: ... I suppose I could and while I'm at it when I'm on Vacation I could run out there to Berkeley and sweep & mop the floors for them too ...

[meshmar]

That's it!. After the one last year, I stopped S@H for a while. This time, it's over! I want a divorce! I want child support for all those cpu cycles I've donated through the years ... :icon_twisted:

[Brucifer]

heh heh heh heh.......... I just killed off the email addy I used for S@H after last year's letter. And poof!!! I didn't get one from them this year! :icon_mrgreen:

But overall I'm with you PoorBoy. I too figure that I'm doing enough for a project by sinking the money into buying hardware and paying for electricity every month for the projects I crunch. This can get to be a very expensive hobby, or obsession or........ :)

[liuqyn]

I don't see the problem here, I just set my preference to not receive email from projects and as such I never have.

[meshmar]

I don't mind getting the email. They let me know I'm UotD and such. But only one project asks for donations of $$ as well as my cpu time. That's going too far.

[Zoness]

I crunch for SETI but I don't worry about such things for a reason. You know, that the Berkeley guys crunch the giant units looking for things like the WOW signal before they split it off and we get something. So essentially, I find it unlikely that one user will get something like the WOW signal.

But then you may ask, why I crunch for SETI. Well first of all, I have this brand new Phenom chip that is just sitting here idle, what else is it supposed to do? Second of all I don't have a fat internet connection to participate in some of the projects with intense file sizes. I've worked with Rosetta but then it just became unmanageable.

[gatekeeper53]

Zoness,
If your not dead set on Boinc there is a project that we run called Wieferich@Home that has fairly long wu's (8 to 10 hours with your machine) and uses very little bandwidth as it only uses your connection upon compleation of a wu. You can give it a look if you want and just holler if you have any questions. the url is www.elmath.org (http://www.elmath.org) But, no matter what you want to do welcome to the forum and remember to at all times HAVE FUN!