# Seti at home dopers...? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [June 12, 2002, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seti-at-home-dopers/113741 "2002-06-12T22:48:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![partly\_warmer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bc8723/32.png) [@partly\_warmer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/partly_warmer)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2002, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seti-at-home-dopers/113741/21 "2002-08-08T13:51:47Z")
I was associated for years with a SETI project, and yes, you all are right, your chances of finding anything are close to zero. However it’s because the underlying assumptions are self-serving. Imagine you are a radio astronomer, not getting a lot of attention, losing funds to the Hubble, optical multiple mirror telescopes, and the like. What do you do? Assemble a highly questionable set of assumptions suggesting that any ET would _naturally_ communicate on radio frequencies. How convenient! No doubt you, radio astronomer, have great insight into the minds of alien civilizations probably thousands of years in advance of ours. (Citations: NASA SETI materials; B.S. by Frank Drake about his ever-revised equation.) Revtim is completely right. There are legitimate research projects which could use the extra CPU horsepower. Also, although I realize that rhetorically I should keep my central point clear of side issues, running a computer with the CPU at 100% takes far more energy than when it’s idle, and even more than one that’s turned off. These “CPU gifts” are actually fairly expensive. ---
**Author:** ![Astroboy14](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/df705f/32.png) [@Astroboy14](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Astroboy14)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2002, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seti-at-home-dopers/113741/22 "2002-08-08T15:22:30Z")
Errm… I just changed my e-mail address… I hope I can keep my data with seti@home! I’ll look into it tomorrow… too tiured now to check. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seti-at-home-dopers/113741.md?page=1)