To cosmologists and sci-fi enthusiasts, it\u2019s a well-known fact that we have been beaming our sometimes questionable pop culture out into the cosmos for nearly a century; but recent findings by the scientific community suggest that it might be a prudent idea to begin development of a spam shield to enrobe the Earth in a sort of force field that would suppress interstellar transmission of our crumbling tastes \u2013 or at very least, everyone needs to dial up the parental filters, keep the Bieberites away from their keyboards, and warn failing social media websites and Russian astronomers that it\u2019s NOT a \u2018cute idea\u2019 to say \u2018hey\u2019 to our neighbors by introducing them to what our children think and listen to these  days.<\/p>\n

Oh, Justin Bieber. Twenty years from now, when you\u2019re the President of the World and your lyrics are required reading in middle schools, we\u2019ll wonder what happened to our culture and plain ol\u2019 common sense. We\u2019ll also wonder why that fleet of star cruisers closing in on Earth is so bent on cleansing our culture from the face of the Earth; but for now we can just wonder what the hell we were thinking when we beamed out 500 messages, hand-picked from your massive throng of supporters, at a nearby star.<\/p>\n

When the space race began, scientists realized that by reaching into the cosmos, humanity was proverbially knocking on the door to borrow a cup of sugar. Wisely enough, the scientists of the time composed some messages, mostly in binary, that might be decrypted by intelligent beings. They even included some images, and music that alien beings may be busting a move to as we speak. Voyager 1, for example, contains selected pieces by Beethoven, Mozart, Stravinsky, and even Chuck Berry.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s less likely that a civilized race will ever hear those pieces, and more likely that our \u2018space spam\u2019 \u2013 like the e-mail spam we all know and hate \u2013 will simply reach them randomly. We\u2019ve known for a while now that if there are<\/em> races living on planets in other solar systems, they\u2019re probably receiving broadcasts of I Love Lucy<\/em>, Hill Street Blues<\/em>, M*A*S*H<\/em> and Cheers<\/em>, radio signals that left our atmosphere years ago and traveled great distances before arriving at a destination where sentient beings could actually recognize and decode those signals. Hell, for all we know, we\u2019ve already pissed-off some distant race, which, due to interference from a nearby pulsar, never found out who shot J.R. Surely, that\u2019s not our fault, but one can understand how missing an episode of The Facts of Life<\/em> or Gilligan\u2019s Island<\/em> might make those three suns in the sky seem a little less bright. I don\u2019t know about you, but I certainly wouldn\u2019t want to be around a Gronarg of Symbian V if he didn\u2019t get his regular fix of Doogie Howser<\/em>.<\/p>\n

So while alien races fiercely debate which performance was better \u2013 Arnold Schwarzenegger in Conan the Barbarian<\/em> or Arnold Schwarzenegger in Total Recall<\/em> \u2013 it\u2019s enough to know that our message is getting<\/em> there, even if that message isn\u2019t necessarily the one we should, or would prefer to, deliver. If you\u2019ve read Douglas Adams\u2019 The Hitchhiker\u2019s Guide to the Galaxy<\/em>, you\u2019ll understand. Think of the G’Gugvuntts and Vl’hurgs, two distant races poised on the brink of a terrible war and meeting for the last time.<\/p>\n

It was a cute idea, at the time\u2026<\/p>\n

Like our everyday spam, space spam is random, and it would be nice to keep it that way. That\u2019s why news this week from the scientific community should make us scratch our heads and ask a resounding \u201cwhy?\u201d Back in 2008, teenybopper site Bebo thought it would be a good idea to team up with Russian astronomer Alexander Zaitsev to send 500 Bebo user messages to the planet Gliese 581c, twenty light years away. As The Register reports<\/a>, the chosen messages were exactly what one would expect of people who don\u2019t know what a cassette tape is. Some examples: \u201cOur bodies are made of bones … We have senses. Smell, Taste, Sight and Touch. Without any of these things, we wouldn’t live,\u201d and \u201cI love Television. We watch animated cartoons and real-life drama on it. I could sit and watch Television all day.\u201d (By the way, has anyone else wondered how \u2018Bebo\u2019 and \u2018Bieber\u2019 are so similar? A conspiracy?) Mark your calendars: Tech Radar<\/a> says the messages will reach the solar system in 2029.<\/p>\n

So, wouldn\u2019t you just know it? This week a new international study announced<\/a> that planets in the Gliese system are the most habitable known worlds. Spam almost always has a nefarious purpose, but it doesn\u2019t have to be intentional. In this instance, I wouldn\u2019t blame the Gliesians for wanting to wipe us off the planet like the infestation that we are.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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