Hacker News Reader

Comment by kronos29296 | Hacker News Reader

At a time where there is energy scarcity due to increased consumption, I question the economic viability of such an impractical endeavour being carried out under such government support. (Wow I just used so many new words!!!!)

Still this is not a movie where the aliens are on next moon so even if they picked up the signals it would long after the next few generations die off (Light years away - Man they are damn far off). (living in a developing country would give you a whole new perspective on energy scarcity)

View on HN

It's not being done because anyone thinks its economically viable. And anyway it's being paid for by private donors, not the US government.

If some action is a waste of resources, then who provides the resources doesn't change whether it's a waste or not.

In this case, if sending a signal into space takes a lot of energy and if energy is scarce, then it's a waste of energy regardless of if the government provides it or a private donor.

EDIT: I'm not saying this is true in this particular case (I'm also not saying that its not true), I'm merely stating that whether something is a waste doesn't matter on who is doing the wasting. I would gladly listen to a counter argument and maybe a discussion can be had, but I guess its easier to click a down arrow. Oh well. (Yes, yes, I know it'll happen even more due to my mentioning it)

The Arecibo message had a broadcast power about a 1 megawatt and lasted 3 minutes [1] - in other words 0.05MWh. 1MWh can power 330 homes for one hour [2], so the broadcast "wasted" enough power to supply those homes for three minutes. Given that interstellar broadcasts aren't exactly frequent events, and assuming similar broadcast power/length today, then on a global scale it doesn't seem like a significant waste of power to me.

[1] http://io9.gizmodo.com/5784658/so-you-want-to-send-a-message...

[2] http://www.cleanenergyauthority.com/solar-energy-resources/w...

I never claimed that this particular thing wasteful. I was only pointing out that "And anyway it's being paid for by private donors, not the US government." isn't a good counter argument.

I wasn't taking any sides on this issue, so its not really relevant how much energy it took. I said "if" it is and it was a hypothetical to give a concrete example, not a statement that I thought it was wasteful.

I'll paraphrase:

If <something> is hypothetically wasteful, then <something> is still wasteful regardless of who did it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com