Heather Brooke

The narrator of Ted Chiang’s short story “The Great Silence” is a parrot at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. The bird watches as humans desperately seek life in other solar systems by using a huge listening device. Meanwhile, the bird wonders why, if humans are so desperate to communicate with other life forms, they don’t simply pay attention to those nonhuman creatures around them. “Human activity has brought my kind to the brink of extinction, but I don’t blame them for it.

Wednesday 29 February 2012 | 34 minutes 13 seconds We will be talking about the paradox that we live in an age when the Internet should make information more available than ever and yet secrecy still abounds. New media should facilitate We will be talking about the paradox that we live in an age when the Internet should make information more available than ever and yet secrecy still abounds.