Stop Telling Aliens We’re Here

Yascha Mounk in his own Substack:

So far, we humans have mostly restricted ourselves to the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). The SETI Institute, a private, nonprofit research organization, has built a variety of instruments designed to detect signs of extraterrestrial life. So have other institutes and universities. This activity is reasonably uncontroversial: If somebody is trying to send us a message, it would likely be beneficial to receive it; we can then figure out how, and whether, to answer.

But over the past few years, a number of scientists have proposed that we should go beyond SETI. Disappointed that we have not yet discovered any extraterrestrial life through the passive act of listening, they insist that we should take more active steps to broadcast our existence to the outside world and enter into communication with aliens.

Some believers in what has come to be known as Messaging to ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence (METI) have started to take matters into their own hands.

More here.

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