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Was NASA hasty in including a pulsar map to Earth on the Pioneer plaques and Voyager Golden Records?
Forty years ago, we sent a map to Earth sailing deep into the cosmos. Copies of this map are etched into each of the twin Voyager spacecraft, which launched in the late 1970s and are now the farthest spacecraft from home. One of the probes has already slipped into interstellar space, and the other is skirting the fringes of our sun's immediate neighborhood. If it's ever intercepted and decoded by extraterrestrials, the map will not only reveal where to find our watery little world, but also when the space probe that delivered it to alien hands left home.
[...] "Back when Drake did the pulsar map, and Carl Sagan and the whole team did the Voyager record, there hadn't been very much debate over the pros and cons of contact with extraterrestrial intelligence," says York University's Kathryn Denning, an anthropologist who studies the ethics of sending messages to extraterrestrials. "Now, however, as you know, there is a major debate among scientists and a variety of stakeholders about the wisdom of doing anything other than listening."
[...] "In those days, all the people I dealt with were optimists, and they thought the ETs would be friendly," Drake says. "Nobody thought, even for a few seconds, about whether this might be a dangerous thing to do." So what are the chances of the map actually reaching extraterrestrial shores aboard the Voyagers? "Very small," Drake says. "The thing is going something like 10 kilometers per second, at which speed it takes—for the typical separation of stars—about half a million years to go from one star to another. And of course, it's not aimed at any star, it's just going where it's going."
Of course, aliens could just use gigantic space telescopes to find Earth and other watery planets instead of accidentally intercepting a tiny spacecraft. And humanity will either be super-advanced, post-apocalyptic, or just gone by the time aliens can find a map and head for Earth (even if they have faster-than-light travel, the spacecraft won't be relatively far away from Earth anytime soon).
Also at Boing Boing and The Sun (not that one).
(Score: 2, Insightful) by aristarchus on Thursday August 17 2017, @05:17AM (5 children)
There is this thing in intelligence, mostly in analysis as opposed to collection, where the number one thing to beware of is mirroring. Now, the very nice philosopher, Immanuel Kant, put forth theory of ethics that is very interesting, maybe I will need to do a journal on this, but the basic idea is that morality stems from rationality. What is right does not only apply to some particular group, or god forbid a bunch of neo-nazi white-fag millenials, but to all rational beings, all beings capable of rational thought.
I take it as given that inter-stellar space travel may require rational thought. Do you think that David Duke could come up with FTL travel? Bastard can't even spell words or tie his own shoes. (truth! Look at the photos! Velcro, man! Nazi velcro!) So, if any aliens were to find us, they would be just as advanced morally as technologically, so the whole "To Serve Man" is nothing but Republican projection where they think, "Well, if we were capable of interstellar travel, we would attack the SJWs of their world,
OMG, the Republicans are Mongols! Well, at least they are not white. Death to white supremacy! White people too stupid to rule? American, love it, or give it back! Blut und Ehre? Not your fucking soil, honkey!
I, for one, welcome our new galactic overlords, sent to save us from the madness of the Donald!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @05:58AM (4 children)
*lactation
(Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Thursday August 17 2017, @06:42AM (3 children)
Yes, it is called the "Milky Way" because the infant Heracles was brought to suckle at the breast of Hera, the Wife of Zeus and the greatest cuck of them all. Once she realized that Heracles was the bastard son of her husband (kind of like Richard Spencer's mom), she tore him from her breast, spilling milk all across the sky.
Or, more correctly, as the Greeks say it: γαλαξίας κύκλος, the wheel of milk that has been expressed.
So think, all you "not getting any" MRA misogynist types, the Universe is full of things called γαλαξίας, Mother's milk. And you DARE to OBJECT to the Hugo awards? On the Island of Samos, there is one of the greatest Temples to the Goddess Juno. Only one column remains upright. But you should not underestimate the power of the Queen of the Gods! She will make your testicles shrink to the size of pomegranite seeds. She will cause your member to lose its interest, and fall by the way in a state of flaciditude. And she will smite you for any attempt at violence at any woman! Yes, if you go all rapey, Juno with cut off your balls. And your president. Do you not think Hera noticed, when the Donald said he could grab women? You do not grab the **** of a Goddess, you disgusting excuse for a leader of a nation.
Trump will soon be called to account. Just look up the other people that have pissed off Hera, and Juno, and the Catholic Church, and Wonder Woman, and all Jewish sects, and the Muslims, and the atheists, and the witches [vox.com] who seem to have a case, not only with Hecuba, but with Hera herself. Petty, petty men, thinking they control things! Even Zeus has given the Aegis to Athena! Trump has done the same. We await the vengeance of women, the treachery of Ivanka. Go, girl.
(Score: 2) by darnkitten on Friday August 18 2017, @05:15AM (2 children)
Juno, I think ju may be right...
Frigg the bastard!
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday August 18 2017, @05:43AM (1 child)
"Juno replace us?" Ah, the eternal problem, can't live with them, can't live without 'em! But you know, the Amazons solved that one pretty neatly. Cut off one breast, so as the give free release to the bow string, and only keep men around until they served their purpose as sperm donors. Sounds like many of the MRA's here, except that the Amazons would then kill them. And you complain about child support, you pathetic excuse for a real man?
But in case you really don't know, and I am in no what suggesting that you do not, Juno is just the Roman name for Hera, wife of Zeus, Queen of Olympios, Mother of Hephaestus (Vulcan) and Mars (Ares), the goddess of women and marriage in Greek mythology and religion.
You cross her at your peril. Do you know what finally happened to Heracles, after that whole "Red Pillar" episode? Respect, dudes, eternal, unconditional respect, or a fate worse than death awaits you all!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by darnkitten on Friday August 18 2017, @08:25PM
I got it--I was doing the Roman syncretic thing, equating Hera with Frigg (Frijja), Odin's Wife and Consort, and hopefully adding Her well-deserved Wrath to the evocation.
Probably should have invoked Her (both of Them, actually) respectfully, tho', rather than in a lighthearted fashion. Better to have the Gods notice you positively, if you must have Them notice you at all. :\