Avi Loeb's technical work is commendable but I'm left wondering if some of the reasoning in this article counts for thoughtful contemplation.
>"We may be a phenomenon as uninteresting to them as ants are to us; after all, when we’re walking down the sidewalk we rarely if ever examine every ant along our path."
Is it helpful to ascribe human-like motives to an alien species? Projecting our thought patterns on an alien species will not get us anywhere. There could be numerous reasons or no reason in particular why an alien lifeform might visit us: they are cataloging lifeforms, they are interested in 'ants' like EO Wilson, they might want to harvest resources on our planet, etc.
> "But better yet, we could get in touch with Proxima b and entice the locals to visit and share a water-based drink with us."
There's humor mixed in this statement, so I'm not sure if Avi Loeb is being entirely serious. I take the opposite stand of "don't broadcast our presence to aliens". It's common sense that if you're out in the wild, you don't draw attention to yourself.
>"We may be a phenomenon as uninteresting to them as ants are to us; after all, when we’re walking down the sidewalk we rarely if ever examine every ant along our path." Is it helpful to ascribe human-like motives to an alien species? Projecting our thought patterns on an alien species will not get us anywhere. There could be numerous reasons or no reason in particular why an alien lifeform might visit us: they are cataloging lifeforms, they are interested in 'ants' like EO Wilson, they might want to harvest resources on our planet, etc.
> "But better yet, we could get in touch with Proxima b and entice the locals to visit and share a water-based drink with us." There's humor mixed in this statement, so I'm not sure if Avi Loeb is being entirely serious. I take the opposite stand of "don't broadcast our presence to aliens". It's common sense that if you're out in the wild, you don't draw attention to yourself.