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Originally Posted by Greznik
Very interesting article. The thing I find interesting is that when talking about extraterrestrial life out there, we always assume that they have better technology than we do. If this was the case, they would have come here some time ago to take our resources before we use em all up ourselves. Who's to say that earth doesn't have the best technology out there, and if we find living life elsewhere, we don't eventually go there and we are the hostile extraterrestrial life to this planet. Or maybe at one time long ago they had great technology and upon a vast world war almost all were lost, including their technology and were put back to a primitive life. Who knows, but always very interesting  |
Well there is the assumption that any that could detect the signals we send, decipher them and come to investigate, or even respond at all in a timely manner, would be equal to or superior to us. In fact, for them to come and investigate the signals we are transmitting would require them to have some technology we are deficient in.
If their technology is equal to ours, they may detect the signal, and would then have to decipher it, and respond, and perhaps many years from now, we receive their response. Assuming anyone here at that time can remember they are responding to, we would now have actually communicated with another life form. Then what?
Both of us, now aware of each other would begin to prepare for a meeting.
Both start going through the whole process. (friend or foe? aggressive or peaceful? Can we trust THEM? Should we be prepared for invasion? should we prepare a preemptive strike? Are they poisonous? do they have disease?
How much can we really tell them?
If they learn to monitor our entertainment, they could decide these humans are far to warlike.
If they are at all like life on Earth, they will be somewhat aggressive and defensive.
If they detect us first and it is light years away, they now have a significant head start on preparation for the meeting, before we even have received their response.
I would side with those calling for some prudence. We should try to find them and learn about them, before letting them know where we are.