In talk.origins Charlie Siegrist <none.active@this.time.check.back.later> wrote:

On Mon, 18 Aug 2008 16:35:05 +0000, Paul J Gans wrote:

A one-time, one-shot investment of power.  I don't see that radio is
quitting any time soon.  The switch to digital television is not going
to effect a reduction in the transmission of television, and satellite
and cable television require an infrastructure that relies on microwave
communication systems.  People are not in a rush to junk their car
radios.  The nature of radio is changing, but radio is not going away.

Short term view.  I repeat:  radio has been around for aboutg 100 years
now.  I give it another 100.  I could be on the low side by a factor of
10 and my argument remains.

I appreciate you point of view, but I fail to see that you've offered a 
practical alternative.  You have offered this:

"Because the radio age *here* will last only about 200 years, if that.
Perhaps they are communicating with their current technology which
involves xordonic emission from rotating bars of molybdenum of at least
250 meter length?"

So, which do you propose as the practical alternative to electromagnetic 
wireless communication, nuclear or gravitational?

I suspect you've missed the point (not strange because of all the
posting and thread drift).  I was responding to the so called
"Fermi Paradox".  The fact that we've not found unequivocal
evidence of "life" on other planets does not mean that it isn't
there.  We are mainly listening to a particular part of the
electromagnetic spectrum.  My point is that our choice of
"alien civilization indicator" might well be all wrong.

Astronomy is a very young science.  Our incomplete knowlege of
the universe stems mainly from the 20th century.  Give us another
few thousand years and we may well have a better idea of how
to discover other life forms able to communicate with us.
I'd not be discouraged by the current null result.

My "practical alternative" is two fold.  I see nothing wrong
with continuing the SETI project.  The other part of it though
is that I'd not expect it to show much *now*.

-- 
   --- Paul J. Gans