>600LY delay in communications is the deal breaker

Even if an extraterrestrial intelligence were detected thousands of light years away, we could reasonably assume that they've been around a lot longer than we have. (it is unlikely that in our multi-billions-of-years-old galaxy, that their technological civilization emerged *exactly* at the same time ours did. ...whether or not you consider the delay in communication.)

This means they could have long ago established outposts all across the galaxy, to which (whom) they can delegate decisions about what to communicate, or physically do. Such outposts could be very close to Earth.

>trade for exotic technologies.

Perhaps the "trade" is informational, or computational.

> [if] they wanted to kill us off, there is nothing that we could do.

That's why this scenario is not the one we should be worried about. Here's a greater danger -- one plausible enough, that it might cause Earth-bound governments to invest significant resources in detecting extraterrestrial intelligence:

Imagine that the intelligence is intentionally (or even: inadvertently) broadcasting information that can be used by one faction of Earthlings against another. Perhaps they are broadcasting what is to them, basic science information. (but to humans: the next, best, new weapon!) Perhaps they are broadcasting their own philosophy and ideology. (again: that could be used as an info- weapon, here.) Perhaps they have no desire to contact others -- but, inadvertently, there are signatures in their atmosphere(s) that indicate a variety of advanced technologies they're using. (...which would indicate fertile directions for future weapons research, here.)

Just *knowledge* of their existence -- eg: being the first to provably detect such an intelligence -- could give one ideological faction on this planet more power than another.

I was referring to independent studies, like this:

Report: Government spends billions more hiring contractors over public workers

...Big clarification: Rep. Mica wants to *privatize* the TSA, more than he want to destroy it.

There's evidence that government services provided by private contractors can cost twice as much as the same services, provided by full-time federal employees --- all while doing everything even less efficiently than before. (...Just like it is with private prisons, private war contractors, private health insurance, and many other scams.)

This whole scheme seems like just another RepubliScam(TM), meant to divert taxpayer cash into the pockets of Republican political benefactors.

On the contrary -- this could be a display of an amazingly nuanced kind of intelligence:

Think of this system as somehow capable of modeling knowledge -- and parsing & executing queries on that knowledge. Surely, knowledge that can be modeled includes representations of the knowledge-state of the query-asker -- basically, a "theory of mind."

Indeed, that seems to be what we are witnessing in this video demo: communication centered around ascertaining each other's knowledge. Part of this process could involve gauging the response to nonsense questions. Furthermore, one or both may be have ascertained that they are each instances of the same AI engine!

That seems pretty sophisticated, to me.

You misunderstand what "Gaygirlie" said. ("I'd actually be pretty sympathetic with the aliens and wouldn't mind them annihilating the human race completely.")

Translation: "I, for one, WELCOME our pan-galactic, human-exterminating overlords!"

Perhaps, she thinks they'll spare her & her friends, for her cooperation. These aliens don't need to annihilate humanity, if they can just politically & culturally alter it.

Perhaps, her approach is more adaptive than yours, puny human?

Wait, so what's youtube? You think all those PhD engineers at Google aren't "professional?"

Real professionals examine the landscape of platforms and runtimes, and make compromises.

Says who? Get your nose out of that sociopathic Ayn Rand/Libertarian propaganda.

"Unregulated free markets" are not some immutable law of Nature, or physics. Nor were they handed-down by god/s. They are a human social constructs. (as is the dysfunctional regulatory framework we have now, and as would be a better, alternative system.) Forget, for the moment, the fact that corporations benefit form from the stability that government ostensibly provides -- via roads and bridges, national defense, public education, a legal system that enforces contracts, etc.

We, the people -- via government -- have the power to issue and regulate currency. (even if the US Federal Reserve is private, it doesn't have to be that way.) We're already living through a catastrophe of banks that were "too big to fail" -- so of course we need to, and ought to, regulate the banking industry.

And on top of all that, consider that we, the public, basically give away money and power to corporations by allowing them to have limited liability. In exchange, I ask that our government regulate these monopoly credit card companies as a sort of "common carrier," such that they cannot discriminate on the basis of political ideology. Now, you either believe that we can't have government enforce such regulation (within constitutional constraints) -- or, you don't believe in democracy.

Hahahah!

Government Regulator leaves FinCEN for Bank of America

Bank of America Acknowledges Illicit Funds Moved Through a Manhattan Branch

Banks Financing Mexico Gangs Admitted in Wells Fargo Deal

Nuh-uh: "Time traveler w/ cell phone" is the simplest explanation.

If this technology were combined with a space-based infrared-interferometer, we could be detecting the chemical signatures of life around hundreds of nearby star systems -- and resolving continents on many more planets -- possibly, before extraterrestrial microbial life is definitively proven to exist in our own solar system.

• an interferometer can destructively cancel light from the central star, allowing planets to be more clearly resolved
• the difference in brightness between the central star, and objects orbiting it, is less in the infrared spectrum

I take exception to the notion Israel's fight against Palestinians is "our" fight. Our interests are not aligned with the ethnocentric and discriminatory policies of the Israeli state, notwithstanding substantial Hasbara that succeeds in convincing Americans otherwise. Forget, for the moment, the fact that many "jihadis" often self-report that the Palestine issue motivates them:

Unlike Israel, the United States is an officially secular state that does not confer rights or privileges to people living within its jurisdiction based on ethnicity or religious belief. The fact that the United States was not *always* that way makes blind U.S. support of Israeli policies even more atrocious -- because different forms of legal equality were only achieved after a long struggle, here, and support of Israel policies are more likely to undermine those accomplishments.

There are still segments of America who want to turn back the clock. (e.g.: the "Hutaree Militia," whose Christian Zionist members would not be out of place visiting the "Holy Land," where they would receive a tour-bus indoctrination from some Israeli who would convince them how underhanded their "shared enemy," the Palestinians, are. These Americans like those Israeli policies because they'd like to see the same sort of discriminatory, settler/colonist caste system, here.)

The Flex SDK is free.