If there is extra-terrestrial life “out there” and we are not alone in the universe I hope it is ignoring the puerile, self-serving, egotistical and irresponsible publicity seeking bullshit being beamed out from Planet Earth.
In the latest example, the “social networking” website Bebo has, according to the Press Association, used celebrity faces to communicate with our mooted galactic neighbours.
What kind of self-referential, navel-gazing moron thinks that celebrityis a trans-spacial, inter-species meta-symbolic language? It is estimated that it’ll take more than 20 years for the message to reach “target planet Gliese 581c”. Hello Magazine’s current contact book is, I’d postulate, redundant in under 20 months, making “celebrity” the most pointless linguistic currency imaginable.
Oh and mugshots of Barrack Obama and George Bush as the universal code for good and evil? Gimme a break!
The way I see it is this: Given the vastness of space and the infancy of our off-planet exploration technology, it is by no means certain that we are alone in the universe. Should we perhaps take more care in what we send out there in the name of humanity?
Or are inter-galactic prank calls the best our species can manage?