[pharke]

I would have to assume that they know this and are in fact only looking for messages that are purposefully sent at very high power. It's also why they favor listening at the hydrogen line since transmissions at that frequency stand the best chance of penetrating through cosmic dust, i.e. you would only use that frequency if you were intentionally trying to transmit across interstellar distances.

I think they don't popularize the downsides of a radio search since it could threaten their already tenuous funding. Basically, they have to be optimistic in order to maintain the pittance of a budget given to them which allows us an extremely small chance at detecting a purposefully sent signal if we happen to be in the right place at the right time and listening on the right frequency pointed in the right direction, etc.

In order to do SETI right we really need radio telescopes in solar orbit far away from the Earth and enough of them so that they can cover all of the nearby stars or other likely directions for signals to originate from. The only way we're going to get there is if space launches continue to become a lot cheaper. Fingers crossed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_line

[Mistletoe]

For me it boils down to- would an advanced civilization beam out a very strong locating signal on purpose? They would have to be very certain they were the baddest strongest civilization in the galaxy. I can’t think of a way intelligence and that idea go together.

[friend_and_foe]

With one single data point, we presume that life is ubiquitous in the universe and that intelligent civilizations probably exist in more than one place, yet we assume that everyone else is scared to give away their position, even though we aren't. If we can presume intelligent life is out there even though up to now we only know of ourselves, why not presume that that life behaves like us in at least this one way? Seems paradoxical to assume differently, no?