Does Active SETI Put Earth in Danger?

Ponca City, We Love You writes "There is an interesting story in Seed Magazine on active SETI — sending out signals to try to contact other civilizations in nearby star systems. Alexander Zaitsev, Chief Scientist at the Russian Academy of Sciences' Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics, has access to one of the most powerful radio transmitters on Earth and has already sent several messages to nearby, sun-like stars. But some scientists think that Zaitsev is not only acting out of turn by independently speaking for everyone on the entire planet but believe there are possible dangers we may unleash by announcing ourselves to the unknown darkness. This ground has been explored before in countless works of science fiction most notably "The Killing Star," a 1995 novel that paints a frightening picture of interstellar civilizations exterminating their neighbors with relativistic bombardments, not from malice, but simply because it is the most logical action."

Comments

LOLZ what are you?

[kaoshin]

Chickened of aliens? Bwak Bwak Bwak!!!

Re:The Enemy is Us

[trolltalk.com]

"Do you think it's just possible that an advanced civilization would understand the difference between fact and fiction?"

Hopefully they'll be further advanced than ours, and not mired in superstition/religion/whatever.

Of course, any contact with ANY alien civilization would quickly spell doom for many religions, such as christianity, which would become irrelevant.