Mr. Anderson ("Extraterrestrial intelligence," Nov. 17),
While I appreciate your concern for the continued survival of humanity as we know it, your fear of extraterrestrial life and the unknown is contrary to everything humanity has ever worked for. To start, the SETI is designed to look for extraterrestrial life, not contact it. I do agree that even if we did successfully contact alien life, the probability their intellectual level or moral values being close to ours is pretty low. However, if our technology allowed us to make the initial contact, do you really believe they'd have such advanced technology to be able to warp from light-years away to enslave us? I'm also skeptical at the use a few billion humans would be to a civilization that has mastered the use of hyper-speed. And if there's anything Call of Duty has taught me, it's that we're more than willing to blow ourselves up in defense before we let anyone tell us what to do.
In your article you stated, "I am just fine remaining intelligently alone on this planet." When Columbus was thinking about finding a faster route to the East Indies, what if he said, "Eh, you know what, I'm just fine remaining alone in Spain. After all, who knows what's over there that could kill me?" On a more personal note, I assume you were a little nervous and anxious heading to your first day at ND. Why didn't you just play it safe and stay at home? After all, there was the possibility you wouldn't make friends or maybe you wouldn't have been able to comprehend any of the material. Discovery and the urge to understand the unknown is why we're advanced as we are today. I'm willing to be scared and take the risk of failure before submitting to burying my head in the sand at the thought of the unknown any day. Einstein sums it up pretty well: "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious."
Kevin Klima
senior
off-campus
Nov. 17
