Harvard professor Avi Loeb states that the best option for humanity would be to find a dead alien civilization. The remains of the former greatness of aliens can teach people a lot without the risk of conquering the Earth by unfriendly aliens.
The professor presented his opinion on the search for extraterrestrial civilizations at the Humans to Mars summit. Avi Loeb, astrophysicist and dean of the Astronomy Department at Harvard, jokingly calls his field of research "space archeology." Loeb believes that civilizations like humanity are inherently doomed to a short life. The way humanity is developing at the moment is already contributing to the approaching end of the dominance of man as a species on the planet. Over civilization there is a threat of either slow death from climate change caused by our own activities, or rapid death as a result of a nuclear war. A meeting with living aliens can only accelerate the agony of humanity, because there are no guarantees that guests from other planets will turn out to be friendly creators, and not cruel invaders.
According to Professor Loeb, in this situation, people would be helped by the discovery of the remains of a dead alien civilization. The knowledge gleaned from such civilizations can be invaluable. Most likely, the destroyed civilization, if people find just such, will be of the same type as ours. This means, perhaps, humanity will be able to adopt her experience and learn from her mistakes. So the earthlings may have a chance to change the course of development and exist on the planet for at least a little longer. Avi Loeb notes that Earthlings think in the short term and make mistakes that will eventually kill them. Acquaintance with a dead alien civilization will be a warning for us.
It is precisely by the nature of the development of civilizations like ours that the professor explains the Fermi paradox, that is, the absence of clear visible signs of the existence of intelligent life (and life in general) on other planets, despite the infinite number of stars and planets in the universe. Similar to ours, short-lived civilizations simply do not have time to "light up" in front of us, because they are destroyed too quickly.
Avi Loeb believes that the traces of the presence of dead alien civilizations can be very diverse: from obvious ones, like the remnants of failed equipment, to non-obvious ones, such as traces of toxic gases in the atmosphere or the deformed surface of the planet as a result of possible hostilities.
Speaking about the dangers of meeting with living representatives of extraterrestrial life, Professor Loeb, nevertheless, is not particularly afraid of this meeting. He declares that, firstly, humanity is able to successfully destroy itself without the help of guests from space - the aliens would only have to wait a little. Secondly, there is always a chance to meet a friendly race of aliens who will share their knowledge and technology with humanity.
CHERNYAVSKAYA DARYA