Alone?

The latest NASA study has found up to 104 potential candidates for Earth-like planets.

They were able to infer that roughly 20 percent of Sun-like stars have a planet that's two times the radius of Earth or smaller.

This might be a good time to ask: “Do we really want to go looking for extraterrestrial life?”

If we find them, there are only two possibilities:

1. They are dramatically superior to us in terms of technology and ability, or
2. We are dramatically superior to them.

It vanishingly unlikely that we would happen to be of the same technological development. It's even more unlikely that we would have even remotely comparable social norms.

Just think about the diversity that exists on our own planet (just one planet!), and what happened even when relatively similar societies encountered one another for the first time.

It seems to me we should be putting more effort into trying to cloak our existence to potential extraterrestrials looking for us.

Related: Society.