Quote Originally Posted by lucy View Post
Yes, let's prepare for war!!! Yippeeeee, intergalactic war, and we're in on it!!!
That's what we humans are really good at, aren't we? Killingmaimingenslaving each other and everything else that lives. So why not other, extraterrestrial lifeforms too? It's high time to let the rest of the universe know that they better not mess with us.
Wait, we shouldn't even stop for a second to try and communicate with them, that might screw the moment of surprise. Better nuke (we'll probably have much better weapons by then, tho) them first and not ask questions later.
Not necessarily. What we should prepare for is the possible need to communicate with another species and the likely only way to be able to do that is to understand as much as we possibly can of space and our surroundings. We cannot hope to communicate "intelligently" with an interplanetary species if we have a narrow view of the universe.

Yes, there is a lot of bloodshed amongst humans. There will always be as long as we do not attempt to understand each other. By the same token, if we do not attempt to understand the universe and the hardships that face an interplanetary species, aren't we responsible for any misunderstandings we bring to the table?