Is This Thing On…?

Fascinating article by Dan Falk for Slate magazine concerning the debate over whether Search For Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) should be more proactive in its search for alien life (ie, send out signals for alien races to receive, informing them we’re here and want to make contact) or should we be more cautious and hang back and listen for signals coming to us from potential alien races.

Check it out:

Salon.com: Is This Thing On?

I have to admit that before reading this article I hadn’t given much thought to the real life implications of our race seeking to make “first contact” with an alien culture (this despite my fictional writings!).  Having read the article and given both sides consideration, my feeling it is better to be cautious rather than attempt more active means of contact.

Or, as the article points out, via science fiction author David Brin:

…David Brin is an outspoken critic of Active SETI. He points to the history of our own planet, in which encounters between cultures of greatly differing technological sophistication rarely go well.

Or, to put it another way: Think about what happened to, among others, the Native Americans when the Europeans first came over.  One race was more sophisticated and had better armor and weapons.  Subsequently, the native Americans were at the receiving end of some very nasty experiences while this more sophisticated race took their resources for themselves.

In light of this, should we really be actively sending out signals in the hope that others races out there receive them so we can make first contact?  While the pluses to this are obvious in the sense that we can perhaps become an interstellar community, the downside is considerable.

Who’s to say that any alien race we come into contact with will be enlightened and/or benevolent?  In the example I mentioned above, the Europeans didn’t come over to America to share their technologies with the Native Americans.  No, they used their advanced knowledge to wipe the smash the Native peoples while taking as much of their resources as they could.

What makes us think an alien race out there might not want to do exactly the same?

And what if we send out signals and the very worst case scenario turns out to happen: That the alien race nearest to us that picks up this transmission winds up being a warrior race that waits around just for such signals to appear so they can pounce on planets like ours without having to spend the time and energy looking for them?

A chilling thought!