Almost science fiction

I was reading an article about NASA's Kepler telescope and the missions to find intelligent life in other planets and it made me think about the necessity of such misuse of resources. This is not to say that I, like many NASA critics, suggest that the space agency is a total waste of money and time. No, in fact I am a strong supporter of NASA and of scientific research. However, I have never been a great fan of extra terrestrial life exploration. I am more concerned with understanding how we function and the laws of physics which are involved in making us function in that particular way.

Searching for life in outer space is another thing, one which I don't quite support. It suffices to me to know that it is almost mathematically certain that in the billion upon billion upon billion of planets out there, there is another one just like this one and that it too, supports life. To me this is as certain as the laws of probability.

The search for life in other planets aside from being wasteful, to me lacks any visible benefit. Suppose that we were able to find another planet with intelligent life. Suppose it were close enough for us to send an expedition of scientists to explore the planet and interact with the living creatures. We now also have to suppose that we can come up with a way to communicate with them in which we won't unintentionally flash them a sign which they would interpret as the extraterrestrial equivalent of giving the middle finger, in which case our poor scientists would end up being rectally probed and shoved into an extraterrestrial state of the art Zoo. And if you believe I am talking none sense then you probably have never been prepped for a business meeting with clients of different cultures.

Looking through our history I can't say much good has come from the encounters of two civilizations. And before any of you gets sentimental and start telling me about how great the encounter of the European and the American civilization was, first try to convince native americans or try to convince me of the genocides and extermination of the many Indigenous civilizations in the Americas.

And this is just in good old Earth.