Senior SETI astronomer Seth Shostak’s prediction that ET intelligences will be discovered within “two dozen years” seems to have the proviso “if we get the funding:” Join discussion...

SAN FRANCISCO--If you're one of the many people who doubt there's intelligent life anywhere else in the universe, or even someone who thinks there is but that it will take centuries to find it, get ready to be surprised. "We'll find E.T. within two dozen years," senior SETI astronomer Seth Shostak said Tuesday night at an event held at Yahoo's Brickhouse here. That is, he said, if the assumptions of many researchers within the SETI Institute are correct, assumptions that are based on a collision of computing power under Moore's Law and the distance into space we can look with new instruments that will be available to researchers in the years to come. Join discussion...

As a follow-up to the last post, Technology Intervention is Moral for advanced civilizations, it could be quite useful to develop a rigorous Principles of Societal Interaction to be ready for any potential future communications. Current Earth-based treaties and norms, as well as Star Trek's Prime Directive, as Hiro Sheridan points out, could be drawn upon for ideas. Star Trek's Prime Directive espouses a strict non-interference policy towards other societies and identifies a key technological pivot point, the development of the warp drive allowing interstellar space travel. The Prime Directive is an interesting blueprint; however alternatives could be evaluated for at least three reasons: practicality, reality and moral imperative. Join discussion...