How to contact aliens

I'm not sure if everyone is familiar with the Dark Forest idea from the Three-Body Problem. Essentially the idea is that the reason appears so silent isn't because nothing is there, but it's hiding. And anything that makes a sound gets eaten by something more powerful.

I like this idea but it's obviously very unsettling if you're excited about imaging a universe where humanity cooperates with and embraces aliens. It makes our current strategy as being needlessly loud and risky. It also makes the idea of ever building a Dyson Sphere seem pretty dumb.

Personally, I don't know if first contact as already been made or not. I think my following plan works in either case. The idea is that we have to bootstrap a communication channel in a way that doesn't risk the safety and security of Earth.

The actual 3 body problem could provide us the solution. A dark object flying through space and swinging around multiple stars could have an orbit designed so anyone who finds the object (after enough time) has no idea where it came from.

I suggest we send some sort of firework to explode 10 or so lightyears above the galatic center. Anyone who saw this firework would now know that fellow intelligent life exists and is open to making contact.

With this line of thinking, I think we should use our telescopes to search for such explosions over interesting geometrical points in space like above the center of a galaxy or maybe in the center of a cluster of galaxies. If we can find such a heat signature, we could once and for all prove the existence of fellow intelligent life.

I think it'd be a wonderful message to send as it presents humanity to the universe as a mature and intelligent civilization. One open to contact but aware of the dangers. If we just keep randomly and chaotically expanding into space, we present ourselves as either stupid or as a virus. I don't think the universe wants a stupid virus to spread.

We should be very careful in the details of our first signal not to date our technology or give away too much information about ourselves.

If first contact has already been made, then I think it's still a good thing to do as it may be what the aliens are waiting for to know Earth is ready. In any case, it's an expensive & long sighted mission with the beautiful goal of connecting the universe.

I'm curious what you all think.

EDIT: The timeline would be about 100K years which sounds like a lot but I feel like humanity needs more long-term beautiful goals.

Submitted February 10, 2022 at 11:11AM by dumbfoundded https://ift.tt/56yiCW1