Very reaching and obviously self-interested. I was amused by the author's livid outrage at some guys who transmitted radio signals into space in case space aliens eat us. I found the theorising about alien cultures based on what we know about life and game theory etc. interesting. The history of SETI itself was boring but mercifully short. ( )

The search for life beyond Earth...are we ready for what we will find...

Yes. Because there is fuck all.

Until of course we decide to go back there.

It could be that our destiny is to makes other planets habitable and then populate them.

Or even that we were introduced here ourselves maybe by a more advanced life form.

Just like sheep in the fields.

One day it might even be harvest time.

I thought the Star Wars crew were a bit silent recently.

Yes, Jedis are fucking real as well...

Swallow some science rather than Lucas-ade.

It seems just as ludicrous to believe that there is life somewhere else, as it is to blindly believe in a higher being.

And this is one of the reasons we are completely screwing up our beautiful planet, because we think deep down someone will save us, or somewhere else is better. And we can't be the only ones...because that doesn't make sense right? Bollox.

And even if there is intelligent life somewhere else - do you really truly think they would find us? No. Because we are not intelligent life, and we are sadly proving it every single day.

Sorry, but I believe more in the Cola Spangle God.

Could there be a similar one somewhere else, billions of light years away? Maybe. Maybe not. But I like many other scientists don't lose sleep about it.

And quite frankly, who gives a shit, other than SF writers and the fake alien abductees? Fun stories, especially those with warp speeds and light sabres.

In short, we would be the aliens when we returned to Earth. ( )

Four chapters plumbing the depths of sometimes-underappreciated subjects bearing on SETI -- society-level altruism, the nature of intelligence, planetology, transmission paradigms (e.g. optical SETI instead of radio SETI). Two very good and very thorough chapters on the idea of supercivilizations -- whether they could form galactic empires, what their longevity might be. And a pair of closing chapters -- the controversy about actively messaging ETI (METI), the new emphasis on generalized technosignature searches (e.g. not just Dyson spheres). A fine effort.