Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Updates polls, links

Finally back from my vacation and ready to jump back into this blog. I've updated the exoplanet links and replaced the old poll with a new one. You can go to Polls to see the archived results of past polls.

The results of the last poll was interesting - at least to me. As much as I am deeply interested in the search for exoplanets and the discovery of alien life, I am conservative when it comes to the matter of contacting any alien civilization. Should we purposefully beam messages to the stars? For me there is a hesitation as there are possible risks involved that need to be kept in mind. But 85% of those responding to the poll said they thought we should purposefully beam messages to the stars. I would love to hear why you all believe we should.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Because hostile aliens would be stopped early by an alliance of other intelligent species, thus the risk is minimal.

David M. Merchant said...

I love your optimism. Sometimes peaceful alliances are not able to stop hostiles, especially hostile alliances.

Anonymous said...

Hostiles would not exchange ideas with each other. If they did they would have to learn to coexist with each other and thus be able to coexist with others as well. They would not be hostile anymore. I think arbitrary(as opposed to for rational common future goals) alliances are a very rare quirk in the universe. Why? Because it only evolves under near-exterminating conditions.