To Infinity and Beyond!

Are Aliens out there? Are they friend or foe? Should we be reaching out to them, or leave them alone? During ideacity 2016 we hosted an ‘Archaeology of the Past and Future session, these were some of the tough questions that arose during a debate between Douglas Vakoch and David Brin on the subject of Active-METI (Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence).

Watch both sides of the argument and decide for yourself if should we adopt an Active-METI approach or if we should be waiting for extraterrestrials to come knocking on our front door. You won’t believe the outcome of this debate!

Douglas Vakoch – Calling the Cosmos
On the pro-side of this debate is METI President and Professor of Clinical Psychology Dr. Douglas Vakoch. METI, which stands for Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence is the act of reaching out to alien life forms to find out who might be in our universe. In his section of the debate, Douglas discusses why we should be using active METI to search our universe and why this act of calling the cosmos will help us join the galactic club and improve ours and other societies.

David Brin – Let Them Contact Us First
On the con-side of our debate is scientist, technology speaker and author David Brin. In his rebuttal David argues using the Fermi Paradox and questions why we have never seen traces of past colonization of our solar system. He argues in favour of researching and developing proper protocols for our future generations and perhaps not poking at the experiment until it is fully ready.

Now that you’ve heard both sides of this topic, watch Douglas and David debate on the pros and cons of active METI and decide which side do you fall on: should we be taking an active role in seeing who else is out there in our universe or should we think about the future and let the other life forms do the heavy lifting.