My first thought was to highlight this tale of plans for extraterrestrial communication as a holiday breather from business as usual — a little cosmic perspective for us all beyond the usual valiant grappling with American politics. But alas, as we read the article in its entirety, we realized, with touches of both awe and dread, that talking to life on other planets is arguably a deeply political question, despite the fact that to date, scientists and science fiction writers have had the run of the debate. At the risk of being all Trump all the time, we could speculate that in an age of such strong political conflict, it shouldn't be surprising that our fears of the other would be reflected in theoretical debates about the wisdom of making our presence known to other civilizations in the universe.
So what am I on about? Well, it turns out that there’s a project underway, called Messaging Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (METI), that aims to begin transmitting messages of mankind’s presence to relatively nearby stars. But the idea has provoked controversy and opposition from those who warn of the risks of drawing the attention of possible other civilizations, even if they’re many light years away; they argue that we inevitably run the risk of contacting a hostile civilization, and point to the likelihood if we contact anyone, they’re likely to be far more technologically advanced that ourselves. These opponents have to point no further than Cortes’ arrival in Mexico to make their point of how badly the meeting of a more technologically advanced civilization with a less advanced one can go.
The article delves into fascinating discussions of the likely nature of other civilizations, and what we can infer based on the data we have so far. The two glaring data points are the increasing number of possibly life-supporting planets that astronomers have begun detecting over the last decade, and the fact that we ourselves have yet to detect any evidence of advanced life on other planets. The first issue is more concretely embedded in the Drake Equation, which is an attempt to calculate the number of advanced civilizations in our galaxy. As you might suppose, the equation mostly consists of highly speculative variables, such as how often life evolves on planets, how often such life leads to intelligent life, and how long such civilizations endure.
The article turns as well to heretofore neglected question of who exactly on Earth should be able to make a decision on extraterrestrial communication that could potentially lead to the extinction of our species. It is hard not to see a certain arrogance in a small group of scientists and richie-riches like Elon Musk making this decision all on their lonesome, even if it’s based on scientific curiosity and a fundamental optimism about the nature of advanced life. It doesn’t seem like a bad idea for more people to start contemplating these mind-blowing ideas of civilizational contact and thinking of ourselves as a single species that needs to exercise caution in the face of a vast and unknown universe.
Apart from the ethical questions it raises, this piece is also a great examination of human ingenuity and creativity in terms of communication and attempts to grapple with ideas that tease the limits of our knowledge and perhaps comprehension. The most intriguing read I've had for a while.
