SPACE INVADERS If there’s any other intelligent life in the universe, might it include intergalactic conquistadores? You can’t rule it out. In fact, it’s hypothesized that the reason we haven’t detected any signals from other worlds is that other civilizations are smart enough not to broadcast their location to potential predators. We’ve already done that, thanks to several SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) projects that have sent out radio signals with information about Earth, and some academics argue that we shouldn’t send any more – that we should confine SETI to passive listening. Howmuch to worry: It’s not clear that anyone else is out there, much less anyone with the technology to get here. And if they’re smart enough to get here, they may well not need to kill us for our land and resources. They may just want to send their anthropologists to study us, and we could benefit from their advanced knowledge. But then again, we have no idea what their minds or morality would be like. What to do about it: Think twice before sending out any more messages.
John Tierney is a contributing editor at City Journal and a contributing science columnist at the NewYork Times . He is the co-author, with Roy Baumeister, of Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength . What to do about it: Spend whatever it takes – and it won’t be all that much – to monitor asteroids approaching Earth and develop the technology to nudge them on a different path. And once you’ve done that, relax. Ignore the doomsayers. The end is not nigh. THE ASTEROID OF DEATH Earth has repeatedly been struck by asteroids big enough to cause the equivalent of a nuclear winter, resulting in mass extinctions. Unlike the dinosaurs, we’re smart enough to adapt to sudden environmental changes, but it wouldn’t be pretty. Howmuch to worry: You don’t have to panic today, but this Big Fear is quite real. More big asteroids will come our way, and one of them could be even bigger than the ones that caused earlier mass extinctions.
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