Sending messages into space

I've just finished reading an article about Bebo users sending messages into space and I feel the need to voice an opinion on the matter.

The article reminded me of a similar publicity stunt, for that is clearly what it is, by the company that make Doritos. The chaps at Doritos ran a competition for people to create their own advertisement for the crisps (US: 'chips') and the winning entry gets beamed into space towards solar systems thought to be capable of hosting life.

The Doritos advert depicted crisps that came to life when a human left the room. They dance around and 'sacrifice' one of their number by making it fall into a pot of dip. The human returns and the lid jumps back on the dip. The human opens said dip, and gobbles up the sacrificed crisp. Now forgive me please for thinking this is not the best message to send an alien civilisation. Assuming they are intelligent enough to work out that dancing crisps are not a representation of reality, we are still depicting a culture based on lethal sacrifice to higher beings. Gigantic higher beings, us, who are oblivious to smaller things and do not question their activities except to devour them if they happen to cross our path. You might argue that this description has some truth to it, but really, I do not think we are anywhere near that extreme.

Then we have Bebo, who have sent a lot of barely literate ramblings and teen culture images out. I've been reading some pretty funny comments about what an alien race will make of these, but the sad fact is that if they were received then they might be taken very seriously indeed. I'm not sure the probability that humour exists among sentient lifeforms has been calculated.

It's a good job that the chances of anything coming of these messages is so tiny. Even assuming we can locate a suitably advanced race of beings, they have to recognise the signals, receive them clearly, and decode them. I am guessing that the only reason scientists and politicians allow this nonsense is because they know it will fail, while bringing in a little cash for the real research. Yet still, it annoys me a little. We should have a plan about these things. We should be submitting constant, simple 'pings' that are recognisable as non-random data to a range of destinations where life may be found, and we should keep doing that and listening for 'pongs' coming back at us. Then we can try to communicate something more complicated. Perhaps the binary system of counting? I really hope someone is going to tell me this is already being implemented. It would be nice to think that we have a plan that is not limited to the narrow vision of our own lifespans.

Nanoo nanoo.