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229 us develop cheaper energy. The New York Times picked up this theme, speculating that there may be beings who long ago found the cure for cancer, solved the problems of taming thermonuclear energy, and routinely practice genetic engineering for the benefit of their species.” “The signals from a more advanced civilization might contain the solu- tions to our greatest problems,” claimed McDonough, “problems that most likely occur to every civilization as it advances: dwindling natural resources, war, pollution, overpopulation, poverty, cancer. Solutions to these prob- lems may be all around us, flying invisibly through the very room where the reader is sitting, just waiting for us to detect them.” Geochemist Alan Rubin described the utopians as The Cure for Cancer Camp—people who believe that alien radio transmissions might allow us to achieve world alates eae Ane eee et Poe Ad ete Add peace, solve scientific puzzles, develop new art forms, and gain advanced technology.** Again we find the dream of immortality, granted to us from above. The signal we receive, Drake envisioned, would be “the song of people who have been alive, every single one of them, for a billion years.” The alien civilization would spread the secrets of their immortality among young, technically developing civilizations; they might send the information that would make this same immortality possible for all the creatures of the Earth. McDonough hoped that more advanced aliens would tell us how to decipher genetic codes atom by atom and to routinely fix the errors that we call diseases. Death by natural causes would be unheard of; only death by accident, crime, and war would still be possible, and those might be largely eliminated by alien wisdom as well.”” Many have argued that alien information could extend the longevity of human society. The Cyclops report suggested that interstellar contact may greatly prolong the lifetime of civilizations. Billingham told Newsweek 2 years later that we might learn how more sophisticated civilizations organize their social institutions, energy supplies, raw materials, and population problems so that they are assured of long-term survival.” Von Hoerner thought that the positive feedback from contact would increase average communicative lifetimes. Sagan endorsed the feedback Le ne natn ww the fete 2a ae et nee ceed hypothesis, suggesting that interstellar communication not only would enlarge the number of civilizations but also may be the agency of our own survival.” Peter Schenkel, author of optimistic science fiction novels and essays about contact, laid out a dazzling utopian vision: Most extraterrestrial civilizations will have overcome their primitive evolutionary stages and will have created superior orders of global stability and harmony. They will have outlawed war and violence and done away with glaring inequalities. .. . They would neither be wicked in our sense nor pursue hostile ends with regard to other intelligent species in the galaxy. Upon contact they would behave as friends and give us access to useful knowledge, just as we would, were we to meet intelli- gent beings on a distant planet. Paths to Utopia