[HN Gopher] A man who used music to try to lure aliens to earth ...
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A man who used music to try to lure aliens to earth (2020)
Author : pmcpinto
Score : 22 points
Date : 2024-01-21 14:09 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (pitchfork.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (pitchfork.com)
| techwiz137 wrote:
| Am I the only one that thinks it's not a good idea? I mean the
| signal hasnt traveled very far, but yeah these announcements
| "hey, we're here" aren't very nice.
| lijok wrote:
| Agreed. Horrible idea to broadcast our position like this. But
| hella exciting
| notso411 wrote:
| Bit late for that mate.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Not really sure why this was killed, but it's absolutely
| true. From the moment we started making radio signals,
| we've been broadcasting our location. Every single time we
| communicate with our deep space probes, we're sending out
| very specific signals that we're here. To that end, that's
| the entire point of the opening scene in the movie Contact.
| It's just that the time frame we've been broadcasting is
| just a drop in the ocean of cosmological time, and the
| signals really haven't gone very far in comparison.
| samus wrote:
| Our signals are so weak that they will probably fade and
| get drowned out by the electromagnetic noise of
| interstellar space. We can communicate with our probes
| only because we use directional signals and we pretty
| much know what to look for on the receiving end. If
| aliens manage to pick those up, then their probes would
| already be like < 1ly away, and they would have noticed
| us long ago by different means.
|
| The intentional signals are a different story though.
| exe34 wrote:
| They can probably just watch co2 spectral lines and count
| how many of us there are.
| stareatgoats wrote:
| I used to think I was the only one, but now it seems we are two
| at least. In fact the main reason we haven't discovered
| advanced civilizations on other planets is likely that they
| learned not to disclose it - the hard way...
| digbybk wrote:
| You're certainly not the only two.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_forest_hypothesis
| lelandfe wrote:
| This is the plot of the very good sci-fi book _The Three-Body
| Problem_ and its two sequels. It popularized the dark forest
| theory a sibling commenter linked to.
|
| That is: if you're in a forest that's dead silent, and you're
| wondering where all the animals are, it might not be a good
| idea to start shouting.
| ijhuygft776 wrote:
| I think music is the perfect solution.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Until we find out that rap/hip-hop is interpreted as an
| aggressive war challenge, or you can find out that yodeling
| country music is an effective weapon.
| dmd wrote:
| When you say "it", do you mean this one individual with his one
| radio transmitter, or do you mean the collective practice of
| humanity in its billions using radio transmissions?
| thegrim33 wrote:
| I personally believe METI practitioners are extremely arrogant
| ideologues. They've decided that they speak for the entire
| world, the entire human race, and that they can risk all life
| on this planet. They think they know better than everyone else,
| they think they're smart enough, when in reality they truly
| know nothing about what else is lurking out there in the
| universe, just like the rest of us.
|
| The only rational, safe, approach is silent observation of the
| universe for now, at least the best we can, until we have more
| data, but they give the rest of us the finger and just start
| blasting signals into the void. It's borderline evil. There's
| numerous groups, not individuals, who actively plan on blasting
| out really powerful signals in the near future and they don't
| care what the rest of us think.
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| Reminds me of the people with "Welcome to Earth" placards
| standing on rooftops in _Independence Day_ (1996).
| mpreda wrote:
| It seems to me you're _projecting_ our own human nature over
| all possible intelligent life.
|
| But with a bit of imagination the potential space of
| intelligent life is much larger than just "displaying human-
| like agressive traits".
| samus wrote:
| The loss of not making contact with friendly aliens is
| probably not very high. Attracting aliens whose presence
| would have negative impact for us would be catastrophic.
| The aliens would not even have to be that aggressive -
| there's plenty of different ways that civilizations can
| harm each other, even if it might not be intentional.
| jcul wrote:
| Have you read the three body problem?
| dylan604 wrote:
| A group of us DJ friends used to say "we speak alien" which was a
| comment about the type of music we played. There's a group by the
| name of Eat Static which is known for their prolific use of
| aliens trope and 50s style sci-fi samples that has an album
| titled "Abduction". One of the tracks is called "Gulf Breeze"
| which at one point was famous for the most reports of alien
| abductions. I always wanted to spend a night playing music on the
| beach waiting for the aliens to make an appearance as it seemed
| to be the most likely of places for it to happen.
|
| Just a random story on a bored sunday
| tinix wrote:
| gulf breeze florida? i grew up around there, lots of air force
| bases in the region, and seeing "UFOs" was very common. can't
| say i ever heard about abductions though... we definitely saw
| craft accelerate very quickly without sonic booms (which were
| common from jets)
| wizardforhire wrote:
| Some now even go so far as to claim theyre aliens... or more
| specifically reptilians
| hammyhavoc wrote:
| Who? There are DNA tests waiting for them to validate this
| very specific brand of bullshit.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Wait, you're saying that people claim that they themselves
| are reptilians? I've only heard the nutters claiming that
| other people are reptiles. There's always gotta be somebody
| out there that just has to one up the story.
| ww520 wrote:
| Aliens won't bother unless a warp drive leaves a hyper jump
| signature.
| david_shi wrote:
| "In sending out music, the idea was to communicate that sense of
| humanness, that feeling and drive, that ecstasy."
|
| Somehow, this makes perfect sense.
| Triphibian wrote:
| The turntablist Mix Master Mike (Beastie Boys, Invisibl Skratch
| Pikls) used to say that his scratches were an attempt to speak to
| aliens.
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(page generated 2024-01-21 23:00 UTC)