Not a Drill: SETI Is Investigating a Possible Extraterrestrial Signal From Deep Space

They found blueprints inside of the transmission. Here is an artist rendering of those plans.

 

*facepalm*

 

Oh boy if the aliens looked like T'pol

 

Coincidentally, this signal was detected roughly in the same direction as Vega, to which Eleanor Arroway first travels on her journey through the galactic wormhole system.

 

Right back at you.

 

I hated that movie.

 

Finally, they're back. Now I can go home.

 

I don't know, kid... I can't imagine that I can't imagine quite a lot.

 

If it's just us, it seems like an awful waste of space.

 

Yeah, I know that line.

 

No, you're not justified in that comment. You utterly missed my point, which is frustrating, because the point was very simple. So let me try again:

You do not let a child play with a loaded gun when that child has no fundamental understanding of how it works, and the ramifications of using that gun. If you let a civilization use a powerful technology that they do not yet understand, and have not grown around that understanding, you allow for the chance of destruction on a grand scale.

 

I know you were turning around @locutus101's smart phone analogy, but in the case with the guns, honestly I think someone from 1940 familiar with guns then would be able to handle today's guns just fine, with minimal startup time. We're not talking about a radical separation in terms of capabilities. Automatic weapons were well-known then, and today's armies are still using handguns designed over a hundred years ago.

 

Familiar with guns, yes. We're not talking someone familiar with the technology, though, we're talking about a layperson, because there will be no one familiar with FTL technology should it arrive at our doorstep courtesy of another civilization. If we go playing with that kind of thing, without being aware of all the dangers, it could spell disaster for all involved, and a hell of a lot of bystanders as well.

 

You're just regurgitating Friendship one's scenario.

What I am saying is that we couldn't use their weapons unless they took the time to explain to us how they work and more importantly unless they let us use them.

 

Of course. The intended point is quite sound, but the analogy is faulty in this case, is all.

 

Or we could try and experiment and blow off a hand in the process.

I can't be brilliant 24 hours a day! 23 will have to be enough.

 

That's one of the really stupid ideas that we see in Star trek in general, that is that anybody can just pick up an alien device and know how to use it after a few tries and misses. If we ever get our hands on one such weapons in all likelihood we won't be able to use it at all because it'll be locked. And unless we know precisely how to unlock it, it'll be about as useful as a rock.

 

Or, we could actually get it to kill us all. The thing about unknown technology is that we don't know how it works. That we would build a safety into it doesn't mean that civilization would feel the same way. For all we know, they're the advanced equivalent of 1800s mining companies who don't give two fig farts about worker safety.

 

Well, looks like we've reached an impasse.

 

As a partial aside, I always found it amusing that the various "classifications" people come up with for alien civilizations follow the same general path we did. When, you know, we barely followed it ourselves.

Also, Dyson Spheres are ridiculously stupid. The raw amount of material you'd need to build one, alone, greatly outweighs any benefits you'd gain from the project itself.