[GraceG]

Sagan was a dreamer, we need dreamers, but we don’t need everyone making policy to be dreamers, we need realists too.

[Sudetenland]

Okay, I admit my view is rather pessimistic, but it appeals to my since of irony that we should rush out and broadcast to the universe, "Hey, everybody in the universe, here we are!" only to be wiped out by a super-paranoid predator race. We're out there announcing our presence without really knowing what we're doing or having a sufficiently advanced defense system to protect us from a civilization advanced enough to come to us--just in case.

Of course Sagan could be right . . . we (America) no longer walk completely rough-shod over primitive cultures--not since we became enlightened. :)