Equivocality

No, but what if? What if we’ve been going about the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence all wrong? Why do we expect anyone anywhere to be sending messages to a random little yellow dwarf star? I think no one’s sending us messages for the same reason that we’re not sending any messages to them: it’s ridiculous to expect that someone could be listening, in just the right place at just the right time on just the right frequency.

Instead, I started thinking about the problem of interstellar communication the other way around. I just assumed that a network of technological civilizations already exists, and asked what the protocol would be for connecting to it.

Supposed to be out yesterday, I know, but I just got back from India, and I have to read all these damn entries. Which I thank you all for submitting. Hang tight. The winner will be announced Soon, I promise.

Varanasi is perhaps what I thought I might find in India. The ghats (wharves) are all painted faces and temples and cows and signs painted on the narrow alleyways, and elaborate lacy architecture, and stone streets, and everywhere filth and garbage and exuberance. Walking along the ghats in the evening, reveling in the busy and [...]