SETI why bother?

this is a continuation of my previous post, if aliens dont use the electromagnetic spectrum to communicate (they must not because radio waves are too slow for interstellar communication, aliens must use some sort of quantum communication) then why the heck is seti wasting all kinds of money to listen for radio signals? humans have only been using radio signals for the last 100 years. if aliens are out there i doubt they are at the same technological level as we are. it is highly unlikly that they would be. so why dose seti bother?

It is a waste, just some candy for the people to keep them satisfied.
They arent allowed to give any info to the public anyway with the approval of a higher hand.Just another chain in the disinformation cycle.

Just another waste of human energy and alot of money down the drain.

It's a waste of time in my opinion as well.
Maybe they should divert their funding into researching the "possiblity" of aliens allready visiting Earth, there's enough evidence to suggest they are.

Heh, when I think about it, it's ironically funny that they're spending thousands/millions a year searching for a radio signal from outer space and there's hundreds of accounts of possible alien craft entering our air space on a daily basis.

Abit like trying to listen for a conversation by putting your ear against a wall while the people you're trying to listen to, are actually right behind you.

And then again, maybe not. It is also just as likely, all things being equal, that all these UFOs are secret military craft. That NO aliens have ever been here. I do agree the an alien civilization may not use the electromagnetic spectrum as we do, but maybe some of them do. It is possible that we would not indeed be informed that SETI has or had detected a signal from deep space. I would rather my tax dollars be spent on something like that than what most of it is wasted on already. SETI has been privately funded for years now. You want to tell people what to spend their money on? Go right ahead, I'm sure they'll tell you what to do with that opinion.

[edit on 4-12-2004 by Der Kapitan]

The point behind Seti is even if a advanced alien race does not use radio waves theres a good chance they used them in some point in their history since they are so easy to make and use. They cant really take back the signals they sent out far in the past. We might not be able to listen in on what they are saying now but we might be able to pick up a hundred year old TV show they made.

And really what eles are they going to look for it aliens use some advanced form of tech to communicate that we dont know about we cant test for it. They have only searched the smallest fraction of the sky so far I dont know how anybody can call it a waste in the small time its been running.

Yes, the signals sent may be several hundred years old. They do not have to be using them for deep space communication, rather just have used them at some point in their history.

As for your tax dollars, here is a quote from a 1998 petition:

At a cost of only $12 million per year, SETI was a scientific bargain. But, sadly, funding was cut to zero in September 1993, when the SETI radiotelescopes had been listening for less than one year. Since then it has run at a reduced level, under the auspices of Project Phoenix, Project Argus, and other privately funded searches

They now depend very very heavily on donations for day to day operations.
And of course, Seti@Home is analyzed by user's PCs at home (Free).
Here is a link to make a donation, as well as find more accurate info:

setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu...

Most of our budget goes to pay the salaries of students and staff members. Other expenses include travel to Arecibo and conferences, network bandwidth, hardware maintenance, and one-time purchases like the air conditioner in our machine room. Almost none of our budget is spent on hardware (desktop and server computers, disks, tapes, telescope electronics etc.); these items have been generously donated by corporate sponsors.

i disagree. the seti project, as stated above, costs next to nothing, and is done purely for the good and advancement of humanity. theres no harm in running it in your spare time, and even if the odds of finding something are incredibly small, a small chance of good plus zero chance of bad is still good.

what else is your computer doing? surely, your aim away message doenst need ALL of your computing power.

I consider SETI the product of a very naive mind. Of course, it costs to the taxpayer next to nothing, but it only covers a very limited bandwidth and covers only a fraction of the known galaxy (let alone the universe). Moreover, we still have very incomplete knowledge of how Hertz waves travel across the "open space": the Voyager and Pioneer spacecrafts are our known, most distant sources of Hertz waves and they are just now nearing the borders of the Solar system. We assume that this "open space" is a complete, perfect void, where Hertz waves will behave exactly by the textbook. But what if they don't? What if the waves get dispersed, weakened, warped beyond recognizition by an unknown factor, especially when we are talking about man (or alien)-made Hertz waves, usually from relatively weak sources? I think this is a problem that needs to be addressed before SETI can be a viable mean of research.

While the seti project may fall short in may areas, it is none the less an effort.
I think a better question is why there aren't other more complete projects underway.
One could argue: Why bother looking to the skys with telescopes?
The odds of finding a "Alien UFO" with a telescope are astronomical.
I don't think it is productive to put down any effort in this kind of endeavor, rather we should be discussing other methods (of discovery) to deploy.

The point behind Seti is even if a advanced alien race does not use radio waves theres a good chance they used them in some point in their history since they are so easy to make and use. They cant really take back the signals they sent out far in the past. We might not be able to listen in on what they are saying now but we might be able to pick up a hundred year old TV show they made.

Pretty much my feelings on it in a nutshell... The nearest star systems are lightyears away. It's certainly a logical conclusion that they might have sent out some signals early on, and that these are still on their way here, but simply travel so slow, that it might take a while. Lets consider a system that is 100 light years away. So, it would take 100 years for a light signal to reach us, and of course more for other communication methods...