Page Content (OCR)
Annex: Preparing If extraterrestrial intelligence is abundant, it will be our destiny to interact with that intelligence, whether for good or ill. Dial. dANAL If other technological civilizations exist, we are making contact with them more likely. We have heightened our detectability by radiating radio signals, television carrier waves, and radar pulses out into the Galaxy, making it more probable that they will detect us. At the same time, by extending the range, breadth, duration, and sensitivity of our searches, we are making it more likely that we will detect them. Some day, we may have to face the ae een nn Ah ee consequences of our actions. As we may be inviting a discontinuity in human history, it seems prudent to prepare as best we can. Preparing could lay the groundwork for an orderly transition into what Billingham called “the rather different uni- verse that may await us.”? We do not know which scenario of contact will prevail. Until it occurs, we can only speculate about the capabilities and intentions of the other civilization. Our preparations must be based on possibilities, not certainties. More than 30 years ago, your present author commented on our psycho- logical readiness for contact: In our thinking about alien intelligence, we reveal ourselves. We are variously hostile, intolerant, hopeful, naive; influenced by science fiction, we see aliens as implacable, grotesque conquerors, or as benign, altruistic teachers who can save us from ourselves. Usually we think of them as superior to us in some way; either their miraculous but malevolently applied technology must be overcome by simpler 358 —Steven Dick, 2000! Fortune favors the prepared mind. —Louis Pasteur? Ready or Not