Should We Try to Communicate with Aliens?

If you are thinking out loud, your answer may have been “Too late – they already know about us” and I would be in agreement.  We’ve been broadcasting into space for decades – and although I don’t want to get too Galaxy Quest on you, the chances are that any aliens who have seen our transmissions are giving planet Earth a wide berth.  After all, given our history, our predilection for violence and our propensity to relentlessly multiply – not to mention Love Island - why would any alien in its right mind want to let us know that there are other habitable planets out there?

This entertaining animated short, realised by the BBC in conjunction with The Royal Society, attempts to answer this question in under five minutes.  A few things are omitted – and I am assuming that this is because this caters for a young audience.  The most prominent omission is “The Great Filter” – the idea that intelligent life often develops technology faster than wisdom, leading to self-annihilation through war, ecological collapse, runaway AI, resource exhaustion, or other self-inflicted catastrophes.  If other civilisations share even a hint of our tendencies, that’s where I’d wager the odds lie.

Watch the animation below and ponder… the truth is out there, but intelligent life might not be.