pathfinder: "Advanced technology doesn't necessarily mean advanced "moral" compasses"
That's true, it doesn't - not necessarily, anyway - but I agree with the view, expressed by many including Carl Sagan, that if a species has survived its own high technology for many millenia, then it's not unreasonable to suppose that it's because its ethical nature has allowed it to do so.
And how old would an ET technology be? It's unlikely to be precisely the same as ours, since we've just 'this moment' become technological. On the cosmological time scale of billions of years, I think it would be very odd indeed if the ET age of technology had not begun at least several million years ago. That's several million years of surviving the potential for self-destruction. Good credentials for wisdom and compassion, I would say.
The rampant destructiveness of our own species may well destroy our global civilisation very soon. The threat that we pose to our own existence is vastly greater than that posed by an ETI. Martin Rees, in his book Our Final Hour
*** gives us a 50/50 chance of getting throught the next century.
So, I would say that rather that expend enormous effort, and waste precious time, on a useless system of defence against a non-existent threat from ET, we should focus the resources on other ways to prevent our extinction.
*** Full title "Our Final Hour: A Scientist's Warning: How Terror, Error, and Environmental Disaster Threaten Humankind's Future In This Century - On Earth and Beyond."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Final_Hour
