https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_SETI
Even if you don’t subscribe to the Dark Forest Hypothesis it’s extraordinarily unethical to violate the cosmic privacy of the entire human race without their consent- at worst it’s essentially summoning the obliteration of all life on Earth; at best it’s scientifically experimenting on the entire human race present and future without our consent.
We should be locking up people who do this or conspire to do this for life so they don’t do any more damage.
So like, every single radio wave ever broadcasted goes into space. So while what you’re saying makes sense from an ethical stance… its not pragmatic because you’d have to stop literally all wireless communication and/or imprison millions of people.
Like you remember how in Futurama the aliens watched sitcoms from the year 2000 in the year 3000? That is not entirely fiction.
First of all, radio broadcasts from Earth lose power per the inverse square law- it doesn’t take much distance to make our radio waves overpowered by background noise. You would have to make a very powerful and narrow-band signal to be detectable outside the solar system.
It’s not just an ethical argument, if you buy the dark forest hypothesis (which I do), then it resolves the Fermi Paradox by stating that the universe is teeming with intelligent civilizations and the ones who didn’t learn to shut the fuck up got hunted down and exterminated prophylactically.
The intentional emission of a signal that can carry far enough to be detected at Proxima Centauri would have to be extremely intentional; you would know exactly what you were doing. And accordingly you could and should be locked up before you have the chance.
I disagree that the dark forest “resolves” the fermi paradox. I believe most if not all intelligent life drives itself to extinction before becoming interstellar. That or celestial threats such as asteroids or solar events.
Meanwhile if there is indeed an entity actively hunting down and exterminating intelligent life I’m sure they will have advanced enough technology to either differentiate between background noise and our signals(similar to how we correct for redshift in distant observations), or simply not rely on radio wave detection at all.
If they don’t have that technology, but they still actively hunt than it’s probably safe to say they’re not in our relative vicinity meaning were talking thousands to millions of years before any of our signals reach them so many lightyears away.
Even short term prison sentences would be extremely cost-ineffective… never mind life sentences. I applaud the consideration but I don’t see any real world practicality… that’s why it’s not a crime.
I believe most if not all intelligent life drives itself to extinction before becoming interstellar.
And one way this can be done is by shouting yoohoo at all the existential threats out there!
I’m sure they will have advanced enough technology to either differentiate between background noise
I’m not sure how technology helps you here. You can get a lot clearer as you approach the noise threshold but once you’re there, the signal is gone and there’s no getting it back.
Even short term prison sentences would be extremely cost-ineffective… never mind life sentences. I applaud the consideration but I don’t see any real world practicality… that’s why it’s not a crime.
We imprison people for much less. Bear in mind you would have to be actively building an extremely high-power transmitter and preparing to use it, this is not something people stumble into or do in their garage.
In The 3-Body Problem, Ye Wenjie has to discover a new way to amplify signals by resonating them off the surface of the sun- otherwise there’s no practical means of achieving the amplification needed to be detectable. This is science fiction so it’s not even clear someone would be able to do something like this.
I’m not sure how technology helps you here. the signal is gone and there’s no getting it back.
That’s your assumption. Indeed there could be traces in the quantam or something else we don’t know about. Either way assuming it disappears completely is just as certain as assuming METI will result in human suffering.
We imprison people for much less.
Yes. That is a bad thing. We shouldn’t do that, or this lol
That’s your assumption. Indeed there could be traces in the quantam
The quantum what? This sounds like sci-fi hooey.
We shouldn’t do that, or this lol
Are you disagreeing with the punishment or that there should be any accountability at all for someone who summons obliteration on the planet?
How do you think we should deal with people who are causing climate change?
Double comment in case you’re already replying:
Also from a legal standpoint life imprisonment for this activity would undermine some fundamental laws/freedoms.
For instance;
'Culpae poenae par esto. ’ Let the punishment fit the crime.
In order to justify a life sentence or capital punishment, there must be a victim who has been injured to a degree that justifies such sentences.
Likewise;
“Ei incumbit, probatio qui dicit, non qui negat,” or “the burden of proof is on he who declares, not on he who denies,” aka innocent until proven guilty.
It would be up to the prosecution to demonstrate there was a victim… which in all liklihood an alien response wouldn’t occur until well after the alleged perpetrator had already died.
The simple fact that there is no evidence that METI absolutely presents a threat to humans very much precludes it from being a crime. Buut, as such you’re definitely on point for bringing this up because we’ll never know until after it happens.