“We have no reason to suppose that technological advancement and charity or morality are in any way linked,” says the SETI director.
While many scientists are attempting to make the first contact or at the very least discover signs of an alien civilization, others are pondering an important question:
Are we certain we want the aliens to locate us?
In an interview with Inverse, SETI researcher Andrew Siemion said, “We have no reason to suppose that technological advancement and charity or morality are linked in any way.”
“There are undoubtedly malicious civilizations somewhere in the universe, so it’s something we should think about as we continue to study it,” she says.
Siemion, the head of the Berkeley SETI Research Center and the Breakthrough Listen project, is evoking the tension that exists at the heart of any quest for extraterrestrial life.
Although finding her will revolutionize the planet, there is no certainty that humanity will survive the encounter.
A proclivity to get a “poor name.”
Michio Kaku, a well-known physicist and SETI expert, recently issued a similar warning, though neither he nor Siemion seems to believe the hazards are reason enough to abandon the search for aliens.
“Now, personally, I believe the aliens would be friendly, but we can’t be sure,” Kaku said earlier this month to The Guardian.
“I believe we will communicate, but we must proceed with caution.”
“It’s too late.”
The discussion over whether mankind should reveal itself to the universe and send communications to any alien civilizations that may exist ignores the reality that we have not been secretive thus far.
We’ve been sending radio transmissions into space for over a century, so any alien within a hundred light-years who can intercept a precise “hey universe” message is well aware of our presence.
Douglas Vakoch, astrobiologist and president of the METI Institute (Messaging to Extraterrestrial Intelligence), remarked, “The thing that people overlook is that it is too late to hide.”
“If they’re on their way, it’s in our best interests to engage them and demonstrate that we’re better conversation partners than lunch.”
Many ufologists have previously viewed scientists’ protective posture as purely philosophical and/or psychological, ignoring any genuine study that addresses extraterrestrial arrival to our planet.
They claim that portraying the aliens as a threat is a subtle technique to soften the damage to the human species’ collective ego.
Since it has been at the “center of the universe” for so long, it now faces the potential of not being the sole intelligent being.
Aside from being a long way behind those more evolved technical civilizations.
The argument is simple: if something is bad, it cannot be better than something good (although technologically and cognitively it is the other way around).
On the other side, opponents of scientists who are afraid of contact claim that any modern civilization must have some sort of morals and ethics.
Because if they hadn’t, they would have succumbed to the weight of their own technology long ago.
