Gonzaga Debate Institute 2011 Mercury Scholars seti aff

AT: Empirically Fails

(Allen, Foundation for the Future, 2000, “When SETI Succeeds: The Impact of High-Information Contact”, www.futurefoundation.org/documents/hum_pro_wrk1.pdf p.4, 21 July 2011) SW

This report, then, is neither a traditional “proceedings,” nor a traditional review of the literature. Instead, it combines the best features of both forms. In this way it provides fresh, lively insights into the long-term impact when SETI succeeds. SETI has not yet succeeded in detecting any repeatable evidence. But the range of strategies and the intensity of the efforts are growing rapidly, making success all the more likely in the next few decades. More than one strategy may succeed, of course, so that by the year 3000 we may well be engaged in dialogue with several different civilizations (or other forms of intelligence) that originated in various parts of our Milky Way galaxy.
Past failures don’t matter- new technology solves multiple contacts

Tough, Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto, ’00

(Allen, Foundation for the Future, 2000, “When SETI Succeeds: The Impact of High-Information Contact”, www.futurefoundation.org/documents/hum_pro_wrk1.pdf , p. 5, 21 July 2011) SW

If SETI succeeds, two types of contact are possible. One possibility is simply evidence that another advanced intelligence exists somewhere in the universe, with little information about its characteristics and no dialogue. One example is evidence of a Dyson sphere or some other major astroengineering project many light-years away, with no additional information about its creators. Another example is a radio message that arrives from many light-years away but is not successfully decoded even after many years of effort. The second possibility is contact that yields a rich storehouse of knowledge about the extraterrestrial intelligence and its history, technology, science, values, social organization, and so on. This could occur through an encyclopedic radio or optical message that we manage to decode. Because of recent progress in nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, and space exploration, we now realize that closeup contact with a small but super-smart probe is at least as likely a scenario. In fact, by monitoring our telecommunications, the probe will likely have learned our languages and be able to communicate with us quite effectively: no decoding necessary!
There are so many planets suitable for life that absent results should not dissuade continuing searches

Connor, columnist, 2010

(Steven, The Pretoria News, 16, April 15, NS)

It is one thing to be able to detect alien life on another planet and another to find intelligent life that can travel or communicate through the distances of interstellar space. Dr Frank Drake, a veteran US astronomer who was one of the first to conceive the idea of a co-ordinated search for extraterrestrial intelligence (Seti), devised an equation nearly 50 years ago for calculating the potential number of planets in the Milky Way galaxy suitable for life - however, he now believes we may have seriously underestimated the potential places in space where life may exist. "A realistic picture should includethe contributions to habitability of deep atmospheres, thick ice layers, even the solid surface itself, all of which can lead to life-supporting near-surface temperatures," he said. "Even the very numerous red- dwarf star planets may be rendered habitable by a substantial atmosphere or by an eccentric orbit... almost all of the Milky Way becomes a suitable search target." Drake said the fact that we had not detected any extraterrestrial signals of intelligent life after nearly half-a-century of listening with powerful radio telescopes should not dissuade us from further searches with better instruments.
SETI has only tried a few ways of contacting aliens

Tough, Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto, ’00

(Allen, Foundation for the Future, 2000, “When SETI Succeeds: The Impact of High-Information Contact”, www.futurefoundation.org/documents/hum_pro_wrk1.pdf , p. 9, 21 July 2011) SW

AT: Violent Aliens

We can’t predict alien behavior

Tough, Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto, ’00

(Allen, Foundation for the Future, 2000, “When SETI Succeeds: The Impact of High-Information Contact”, www.futurefoundation.org/documents/hum_pro_wrk1.pdf , p. 9, 21 July 2011) SW

Universal principles of behavior are the third avenue to generating hypotheses about ETI. If successive discoveries imply universal principles in the physical and biological sciences, it is conceivable that there are universal principles in the behavioral sciences also (Harrison, 1993, 1997). Perhaps there are deep laws of individual and social behavior that hold true for all species, all times, and all cultures. If so, our knowledge of biological and social entities on Earth gives us a starting place for organizing our thinking about intelligent life elsewhere. Although Earth is only one case, nested within it is a multitude of examples—millions of species, thousands of cultures, hundreds of nations spanning a written history extending back over 5,000 years. Neither reverse At the conceptual level, our search for extraterrestrial life is based on a hunger for knowledge and a desire to find new purpose in the universe. Neither reverse engineering nor the search for universal principles of behavior can give us more than an educated guess about ETI…
Encounters with aliens would be peaceful—will have evolved beyond exploitation

Shermer, Columnist Scientific American, 11

(Michael, June, Scientific American, Volume 304, Issue 6, p86-89, EBSCO, “The Myth of the Evil Aliens”) PG

I am skeptical. Although we can only represent the subject of an N of 1 trial, and our species does have an unenviable track record of first contact between civilizations, the data trends for the past half millennium are encouraging: colonialism is dead, slavery is dying, the percentage of populations that perish in wars has decreased, crime and violence are down, civil liberties are up, and, as we are witnessing in Egypt and other Arab countries, the desire for representative democracies is spreading, along with education, science and technology. These trends have made our civilization more inclusive and less exploitative. If we extrapolate that 500-year trend out for 5,000 or 500,000 years, we get a sense of what an ETI might be like. In fact, any civilization capable of extensive space travel will have moved far beyond exploitative colonialism and unsustainable energy sources. Enslaving the natives and harvesting their resources may be profitable in the short term for terrestrial civilizations, but such a strategy would be unsustainable for the tens of thousands of years needed for interstellar space travel. In this sense, thinking about extraterrestrial civilizations forces us to consider the nature and progress of our terrestrial civilization and offers hope that, when we do make contact, it will mean that at least one other intelligence managed to reach the level where harnessing new technologies displaces controlling fellow beings and where exploring space trumps conquering land. Ad astra!

Directory: 2011
2011 -> Enterprise Network Management iPost: Implementing Continuous Risk Monitoring at the Department of State
2011 -> Voices of the Old Sea Norman Lewis
2011 -> Malevil Robert Merle
2011 -> The Elephant Keeper’s Children Peter Hoeg
2011 -> January 1: Ecstasy zZz January 2: King of Anything Sara Bareillis
2011 -> Tracks, Mixes, Masters, and More!: Analyzing Preservation Priorities for Multitrack Recordings
2011 -> Department of Electrical Engineering 2011 Annual Report
2011 -> Jv packet •Mars Colonization Affirmative •Mars Colonization Negative
2011 -> Asian Pacific Mathematical Olympiad(apmo)
2011 -> Registration Form (Rev. 8-86) omb no. 1024-0018

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