Life, Beyond the Stars

What a fantastic idea, that perhaps "we" are not alone in the vastness of the ever (at least for the moment) expanding universe. Broadcasting our presence via radio-waves, well... that one I'm not so sure about. We've got science and we've got sci-fi, either way we really don't know anything, if all our knowledge teaches us anything it should be humility - because we don't know jack. Maybe it's because I watched Star Trek the Motion Picture at a young age, but it just doesn't seem like a great idea. If the universe we know turns out to be like Star Trek and warp drive is the test of a civilization, we're still quite a ways off, and hopefully safe from outside forces until then. If it's a Battlestar Gallactica situation, there's a completely different set of problems and we're probably still a long ways off from whatever is going on in the universe. If it's more like Simbieda's Mechanoids, Bear's Von Neuman machines or even Michael Bay's interpretation of the Transformers, ultimately we're probably just f'd.

Stephen Hawking made his opinion on the matter known, and of course we're free to agree or disagree with him - and though on this matter I basically agree - I feel that something is going overlooked. Radiowaves. We're using radiowaves to show the universe how technologically advanced. Hawking made the connection to Columbus and the people of the "New World" that he found, but I'd only add to that, using radiowaves to show how advanced we are could be like using a smoke-signal to show how advanced we are to a group of people with radios.

I've been told that believing that humanity is God's chosen is arrogant but I must say, it seems just as arrogant to assume that we're the most advanced race in the universe and if we don't, if we aren't, I think it's probably a bad idea. If there is a more advanced race out there, I agree with Hawking that we might not want to be discovered, especially if they find radiowaves but a primitive technology.

The matter of language is a whole other development - imagine a group who was able to learn the language of another group without the other group knowing their language. In terms of codes and code-breaking, one can argue that this has had a lot to do with how wars have been won and lost in our own history. They'd know our language and we'd have no idea of theirs, they'd know what kind of technology we use to communicate, even if they were so far beyond it that it would have only struck them as white noise and gibberish had they just stumbled across us.

And besides, so long as we keep proving Bill Hicks right we don't deserve the stars.