Yahoo's Time Capsule Project

eldavojohn writes, "Yahoo is compiling a time capsule (Flash required). This massive project, which accepts donations from anyone, is no ordinary time capsule, though. This time capsule will be digitized and beamed into space from the ancient pyramid of Teotihuacan in Mexico. From the article: 'Starting on Tuesday, enthusiasts from around the world will have a chance to submit text, images, video and sounds that reflect human nature to be included in the message.' I highly doubt this 'time capsule' will reach anyone, but it is a neat idea. After browsing through some of the pictures posted, I would hope extraterrestrial life would be more hesitant to exterminate us — if not for anything else than curiosity. We constantly strive to have our legacy live on in the galaxy." Yahoo worked with Internet artist Jonathan Harris on this project.

Desperate Publicity Ploy

[ackthpt]

I highly doubt this 'time capsule' will reach anyone, but it is a neat idea.

No this is not neat>, this is just stupid. This is so incredibly stupid it's left me speechless ... nearly:

So they're going to beam it into space via a laser from atop a ruin from a vanished civilisation. Are they going to rotate this laser to maintain RA and DEC, to keep it as one continuos beam or will they just fire it straight up (for maximum theatric effect) and thus have it whipped by the spin and orbit of the earth? Carl Sagan's record has a better chance. It's an opportunity for Yahoo to do something utterly useless to get their name in the news, just like it now appears on Slashdot. Applause, applause. It certainly is fodder for some comedy, maybe Mel Brooks will have someone in Spaceballs The Animated Series say, "what is that annoying glare?" while flipping down their pair of Spaceballs The Sunglasses.

meanwhile, picked up in orbit, the stream is immediately recognised and decoded by a Zygorthean ship. After reviewing the contents, the focus down upon the the pyramid of Teotihuacan and one says to another, "well, we certainly know what killed that civilisation!"

Why "Troll"?

[Moraelin]

The guy has a point. A laser beam pointed straight up will sweep at _incredible_ speed over any receptor situated a couple of tens of lightyears from here. Even if that civilization were looking this way at the right time, had receptors strong enough for the task, had the luck of not having the beam blinded by our or their sun's light (there's a reason we have trouble detecting even Jupiter sized planets by their reflected light, which is higher than this laser will send), etc, it's something that will sweep over their sensor in milliseconds. At most you can say "oh, there's a bleep of light", but not even "oh, it's modulated". Much less have time to figure out what's being sent or how to decompress it.

And speaking of which, ffs, who got the stupid idea of sending encoded images? How about something as simple as morse codes, or train of pulses whose count are the prime numbers or Fibonacci's numbers? That's something that any civilization with even elementary maths knowledge and a primitive telescope can figure out quickly. "Hey, this can't be natural!" By comparison, a short faint burst of noise (which is what an alien data format would look like to you too) is likely to be written off as noise or as some unknown one-off cosmical phenomenon.

All in all it _is_ a stupid publicity stunt, and nothing more.

Interesting distribution

[Incongruity]

(at the moment) Love - 273 items Beauty - 119 items Fun - 100 items You - 99 items Hope - 98 items Faith - 59 items Now - 58 items Past - 47 items Sorrow - 28 items Anger - 24 items --- Kinda makes me like humanity a bit more.

Re:Why "Troll"?

[danpsmith]

All in all it _is_ a stupid publicity stunt, and nothing more.

I'd argue that there is a possibility that it is more than a publicity stunt, but rather an overall attitude of not only American, but human sentiment in general.

Someone once answered the question about why people do the things they do in a way that makes sense, why we are so different from the other animals. "We know we die," she said, "and most of what we do is primarily motivated by this knowledge. I believe that honestly comes into play here. Because we know we all die, we have to come up with some way of extending our longevity and our mark on the universe, because we feel we "live on" through this. This Yahoo! stunt, as ridiculous and publicity stuntish this all feels, I believe, is just keeping with this trend.

People seriously need to realize that yes, you are in fact a "mere mortal" and a tiny dot zit on the face of a small planet in a small galaxy of the universe and that yes, you probably aren't the most significant, or at least the only significant thing to happen to the universe and that yes, someday you will die and through the wonder of decay all traces of you and your loved ones will vanish.

People point to history, art, etc. to try to escape these facts. William Shakespeare still lives on, they say. We'll see what use his plays are in a million years. =P

In my honest opinion it is for this reason that we should probably stop kidding ourselves with stunts like this and except the inevitable truth, trying to have a bit of fun and stop being so serious about our worth. Especially trying to beam interplanetary messages from pyramids of ancient civilizations. Am I the only one that first entertained the thought of reading this as "this must be a joke, nobody is that stupid"? Seriously childish.

Re:Cynical

[BalanceOfJudgement]

However, you can dream all you want but the remarks I've made are true. To not deal with them is to not deal with reality.

Very few people ever actually deal with reality. It's too harsh.

I have long since come to the conclusion that in some part of most humans' minds, this knowledge MUST be blocked out - to KNOW that in the end, everything that we will ever know or ever dream will fall to dust, would paralyze and immobilize most people. Merely getting through a single day requires not thinking about the long-term meaning (or lack thereof) of that time spent.

This is evidenced by how hard people fight against the idea that our existence truly has no existential meaning beyond that which we assign it - it is an unbearable idea to most. This is why so many need to believe in an external God that gives our existence meaning.

But I, like you, have always found that knowledge liberating. The dawning of that understanding freed me from my fear of failure, because I realized that the world truly is what we make of it - and what we make of it is all that can ever possibly matter to us. There is no objective meaning to our lives - but that just means we're free to define our own meaning, and that has possibilities beyond any infinity we can imagine.

Now I can do anything I choose to do, without fear, without even a second thought. Sometimes that means I have to think about my morality and ethics more than most, but I find that to be a more fulfilling experience than letting them be whatever my surroundings made them.

There's a saying I absolutely love, from Babylon 5, which embodies these ideas.. apologies if you don't like the show but I believe the quote is apt:

Lorien: "We were born naturally immortal."
Ivanova: "That's impossible. Everything dies."
Lorien: "Yes.. now. Once, we were kept in balance by birth rate. Few of us ever died, so few of us were ever born.

Then, I think the universe decided that to appreciate life - for there to be change, or growth - life had to be short.

To live on, as we have, is to leave behind joy, and love, and companionship - because we know it to be transitory. Of the moment. We know it will turn.. to ash.

Only those whose lives are brief can imagine that love is immortal.

You should embrace that remarkable illusion. It may be the greatest gift your race has ever received."