Jill Tarter Interview

The most memorable bit of information that I learned from this video was actually not super educational, but was rather quite silly almost. Before the advent of the more modern technology (computers, radios, telescopes, etc. ) that we have today, people used to consult and get information from more religious sources like priests. When technology advanced further, people began to turn less toward religious figures as sources of information/sources for what to believe. The timestamp for this part of the video says that radio waves used to be thought of as the most likely method of discovering communication from extraterrestrial (ET) civilizations. I've always known that scientists and everyday people have been trying to find ways to 1) prove the existence of highly intelligent ET creatures and also 2) make contact with them, but the concept of radio waves being thought of as the pathway for communication had never really crossed my mind. On Earth, we use radio waves to communicate with each other sometimes, but I found it interesting that people seemed to generalize this to something that ET creatures could use if they wanted to, in place of another form of communication or wave. It also makes me wonder what quality it is about radio waves specifically, and whether those qualities of radio waves would be maintained outside of Earth where the ET creatures presumably are.

2. If I had conducted the interview, I would have asked a question about the funding of the search for ET intelligence. In the interview, Tarter mentions that a senator was the one to singlehandedly cut federal funding for SETI, which was quickly replaced by private funding from companies in the Silicon Valley area. My question is, at what point will the federal government become highly interested in funding programs like SETI, if they aren't already? Are there discovery thresholds at which the government will become extremely interested? Have we already gotten to those thresholds?