But isn't it interesting that our methods of observation and the political choices of how to allocate resources prefigure in advance the kinds of life that we're able to find and, consequently, how terms like "safe" and "detectable" come to be synonymous?

The microbe is a safe kind of other the encounter with which does not require us to reevaluate what it means to be human or to live in our galaxy. Is that why JWST is doing atmospheric spec and not IR searches? No, not entirely.

In short, TS threaten the supremacy of the human as a galactic intelligence. We are not special, we are not owed the stars in some manifest destiny, we are not nature's chosen. A microbe doesn't do that. If we wanted to, we could destroy k2-18b before intelligent life can evolve

Technosignatures, on the other hand, indicate dangerous life. Intelligent life, likely much more technologically developed than ourselves. This kind of life is dangerous in the Hollywood sense, but it is also dangerous in the affective, social sense.

Not all aliens are equal in detectability or in the consequence of their detection. Dimethyl sulfide is an indicator of simple, microbial life. An ingredient in the primordial soup. It might mean there's life, and that's groundbreaking, but it is a safe kind of life.

5. Not to make this about biosig v. technosig, but I do want to talk about why these observations are done on big government-funded telescopes-in other words, why atmospheric spectroscopy is being done, but not infrared observations looking for waste heat from alien tech?

Then there needs to be exhaustive experimentation here on Earth to understand if something like dimethyl sulfide is *really* something that can only be produced in known biotic processes. If it could occur naturally without life, then it is an ambiguous biosignature.

4. SO MUCH MORE RESEARCH is needed before anything can be said conclusively. Observations and analyses have to be repeated, probably with other telescopes (including some, like the Habitable Worlds Observatory, which haven't been built yet).

3. k2-18b is ~124 ly from Earth. JWST is powerful, but to do atmospheric spectroscopy at that distance is bananas. This suggests that the detected biosignatures are very prevalent in the exoplanetary atmosphere.

2. k2-18b is suspected to be a mostly watery planet, and one of the biosignatures that may have been detected here is dimethyl sulfide, which on Earth is emitted by oceanic phytoplankton. So, yeah.

1. Wow!! This really might be it, folks.

The "Transformations in Spirituality and Religion" section of this report from 2000 titled "When SETI Succeeds: The Impact of High-Information Contact" 🙃

Thank you, Maia! 🌈

Thank you!! 🥹🥰