The Upside In Transmitting Messages To Extraterrestrials

Officially, humanity has not found any proof of space alien existence despite many years of searching in the cosmos. However, if Earthlings succeed in encountering alien species, will the aliens be hostile, indifferent, or a little nice?
Dough Vakoch of METI International, a group of scientists that has been sending radio signals out into the void in an attempt to communicate with alien life, says that it is challenging to second-guess alien motivations. SETI scientists have often assumed ETs that will make contact have survived long enough and overcome any warlike traits during the process of their evolution.
akoch explains that if space aliens have not learned to behave nicely with others, they will not have survived at least thousands of years necessary to be a stable interstellar civilization.
Stephen Hawking has warned about transmitting messages to aliens. He said that intelligent aliens might come to Earth to strip mine. However, Vakoch does not think Hawking’s theory is realistic as it makes no economic sense the idea of aliens traveling across the galaxy to look for something that can be found in their backyard. Second, according to Vakoch, a civilization that can traverse the distances between the stars may already know about our presence, so scientists do not expose our lives to any additional threats in transmitting intentional signals. Vakoch further explains that there is, in fact, an upside to sending such messages and that is to intrigue the aliens about humanity and make a reply.

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