Hacker News Reader

Comment by amichail | Hacker News Reader

Would the discovery of microbial extraterrestrial life have any significant impact on your life?

Does it matter? Most significant discoveries have little (if any) impact on the average person's life. The importance of many discoveries can take decades to become apparent, and are little-understood when they are discovered. And if that doesn't matter, sometimes just knowing something instead of not knowing it is reason enough to be excited by it.

And if nothing else, it helps to close a gap (well... turn a big one into two smaller ones) for those who like to make leaps of faith between points of understanding instead of looking for answers in the middle.

If those hypothetical microbes were similar to yeast they could conceivably be used to brew beer.

Yes.

wow, I didnt get how 33 people blindly agree and upvote a one-word answer, offering no perspective at all , to a very valid question on how a successful outcome to SETI would influence an average guy's life!! Surely, this is not a open-and-shut question. Let me dampen some spirits who are gleefully waiting to see breaking news of extra-terrestrial life. Think about the budget and investment into this grand objective.Think whether the money invested has/would have a respectable ROI-would it have been better spent on less-glamorous, but more useful ventures like funding projects with more "tangible benefits, and issues", like OLPC. Think of world hunger,lack of access to drinking water. Not glamorous-but plenty of scope to advance technology to change the world we live in. And then think of romanticizing on "Are we alone" , la Jodie Foster,Contact or NASA news conferences.

My guess at the reason for the upvotes is that amichael's question was not at all novel, and most people have already decided which way they stand on it; so they upvoted to express agreement.

Think Marv Albert the basketball announcer: "Yes!".

There are no doubt higher roi projects currently in the works as well. Perhaps the money devoted to this type of research could be better spent, but then, when I consider how much money human beings waste each year on football, a hearty "yes" seems entirely appropriate. My life will be changed a great deal more by whatever they announce than by who wins the superbowl.

Think of the many other colossal wastes of money. I contemplated more than "yes" but really? "Yes" says enough. The discovery of extraterrestrial life will change my life, and for the better, and who the hell are you to denigrate that? How much money does the world spend on bubble gum? How much money has already been spent tearing Iraq and Afghanistan to smaller pieces this morning? How much money was spent on ad buys on last year's Superbowl?

The world has heaping piles of money. Some minuscule fraction is spent on basic science, and you're all high and mighty about lack of access to drinking water. Give me a break.

You want perspective? It's all around you. If you need it from a one-word answer that succinctly responded to the original question, then I'm afraid you need to look elsewhere.

Hey,I didn't mean to denigrate you, or anything like that. If it sounded that way, I am very sorry.

The examples that you quote citing colossal wastage of expenditure, ring quite true.Exactly my point. But really, wasted expenditure is wasted expenditure,plain and simple- There cant be any justification, more so, citing another wasted expenditure. Analogy- how rational would it sound, if a convicted murder says in trial "But I killed just one guy.Go,look at some war-ravaged place in Africa what people get away with".

Actually,I believe basic science encompasses a lot more than astrobiology-Even the issues I pointed out, would stand to gain a lot,from advances in basic sciences, and perhaps need more investment.

Perhaps you feel that discovery of ET life would changed your life for the good- I would completely agree with you, if it could make us humans healthier,welathier, or otherwise more intelligent. Till then, I would wait and watch :-) and... read the next interesting thread on HN!

An incredibly huge one. If they've found microbal life reasonably close by, then atleast on a personal level, I'd think the possibility of intelligent extraterrestial life can be taken MUCH more seriously.

That said, I'd think it'll be much less spectacular, possibly yet another condition added to the pre-requisites required for life.

Considering your existence, that possibility should already be taken seriously.

What's interesting though, is that if they actually find evidence for microbial life on another planet far away, then it's mighty likely that said planet already has far more complex life on it (taking into account the time it takes for light to travel through space, we'd be viewing outdated information).

Ever heard of anthropic bias?

The question is not whether it's possible, but whether it's common.

A lot of people are simply curious, and like to increase their understanding of the world/universe we live in. Do you only care about things that directly and immediately impact your life? Why are you on a news site at all?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com