SETI as a trigger for dramatic change.

Last night I heard an interesting fellow as a guest on the Coast to
Coast AM radio show about an organization/think-tank he heads up
called The Arlington Institute, and their function can be best
understood by visiting their website at
http://www.arlingtoninstitute.org . They say on their website that
they have had as clients: " U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Air
Force, U.S. Coast Guard, Boeing, Honda, Andersen Consulting, New
Directions for News, Project Voyager / OneCosmos, Office of the
Secretary of Defense." (and I strongly suspect that the list hasn't
been updated recently.) Anyway, one of the sub-links at

http://www.arlingtoninstitute.org/fo...ildcards2.html

talks about events that could cause dramatic change (I know that
finding ETI's seems obvious to many of us as a potentially strong
catalyst for change, but it's interesting to me that a think-tank with
so many governement clients and with a former CIA director on its
board of directors concurs with that idea.)

The Arlington Institute believes:
________________
Wild Cards worth considering...
There are several trends and scientific endeavors that could trigger a
Wild Card event...
....Contact:
Irrefutable evidence of extraterrestrial and/or extraspatial life is
discovered. Contact with a Non-Human Intelligence - either benign or
hostile, is made.
________________

(I also thought that extraspatial life reference was interesting.)

Anyway, I liked the idea that a futurist think-tank sees the potential
in SETI, so I sent them this e-mail because their goals reminded me of
something I've posted here and think about frequently, but I really
don't know if anybody else feels the way I do about it, anyway here's
the e-mail:


Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2003 16:08:27 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Jason H at
Subject: Regarding extremists, change and SETI
To:

Hello,

I heard about your organization on Coast to Coast
AM earlier today (which being science-oriented, I used
to be averse to listening to that show, and sometimes
I can't stand listening to it, probably because of my
perception that the show hosts are too gullible, but
I'm trying harder to keep an open mind, anyway...)
After Sept. 11th I've been trying to think through a
solution to this problem with extremist philosophies
bent on our eradication, and I often come to the
conclusion that the only way to overcome this
situation is with re-education. Not long after Sept.
11th I posted the following in an online newsgroup
called sci.astro.seti (you can find it on google.com's
newsgroups:

"SETI@home posts a segment from the venerable Carl
Sagan's Pale Blue Dot:

http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/pale_blue_dot.html

__________________________________________________ _____

We may be in a race against time. Many who are
interested in SETI may not realize it, but we may be
charged with a great responsibility regarding the
continuity of our civilization. Recent events
indicate that we have never left the dark ages. These
destructive philosophies: religious, ethnic and
industrial are like mildew or metastatic cancer.
These philosophies can never be erradicated by brute
force (i.e. extermination), because some of the
adherents of these philosophies will always survive to
propagate their philosophy again. Similar to our
using bleach to reduce the size of a mildew
infestation, in the long term, like mildew, these
philosophies cannot be erradicated (not to mention the
endless cycle of violence). As sometimes mentioned in
this NG, some of us believe that a fundamental
breakthrough in human perception of the universe, like
finding ETI, might help us to transcend our
many-varied primative belief systems. It may be that
we need the assistence of external entities
(extra-terrestrial civilizations) to achieve that
goal. We MUST get proof of ETI existence to shake
things up a little (If there are ETI's who read this
newsgroup and can assist us [exept for Berserkers :-)]
I invite your assistance/intervention RIGHT NOW!) If
secular-humanism is any guide, maybe there is a
universal ETI-altruistic-philosophy that helps those
within civilizations who are interested in
transcending their primitive religious shackles to
develop a more accurate perception of the universe.
(Hey ETI's, if you exist, please throw us a bone, or
beam me up! :-) Send me a communication, e-mail is
fine, at and tell me an easy way to
find you. Almighty-omnipotent-great-super-alien, save
us! :-) If ETI's are not allowed to contact us, for
whatever reason, then (obviously) it is up to us to
find them, maybe as soon as possible. Time may be of
the essence, the religio-ethno-extremist cancer is
metastatic; we might knock it into remission, but we
may be philosophically-terminally-ill. One day
finding ETI's may not be permitted under the yoke of
these zealot-primatives. We must re-double our
efforts. We must be evangelistic-like in finding
supporters to gain the funds and infrastructure
necessary to move the SETI forward at an accelerated
rate. Finding ETI's might be the breakthough event
that releases us from the shackles of ridiculous
ethno-economic-religious-conflicts and environmental
self-destruction, maybe through our emulation of ETI
philosophies or by using environment-friendly ETI
technologies (like fusion?), or just by knowing that
they are out there, reminding us that we are on an
insignificant Pale Blue Dot.
Jason H.
___________________________

(I just thought I'd post all this here with the hope that somebody
else here who hasn't thought about these things agrees and does
whatever they can to help promote SETI.)

Regards, Jason H.