“Kinda like broadcasting signals for the sole intent of bringing attention to ourselves.”
Many scientific supporters of SETI quit their various boards when no one listened to them about actually having a debate before SETI instituted it’s active beaming programs. Supposedly they just did it with very little debate, and even smaller fanfare to the general public.
Freegards
SETI would be incapable of detecting our own radio footprint (with just a very few exceptions) even from the closest of stars. For stars much further, it takes so much time that the sender and likely his civilization is long dead before the signal even arrives. We have only recently begun to develop techniques using specialized telescopes that will allow use to detect signs of metabolic life on other planets. No primitive radio beacons are needed for such detections, so why expect them to be used?
We have only been able to use radio technology for a little over 100 years. Who can say that we won't discover some other much better long distance communication technology within the next 100 or 1000 years? What arrogance to think that other intelligent life forms, should they exist, would be limited to using our current ways to communicate. It also is quite a leap of faith, if not unwarranted self regard, to assume that any such beings would even want to communicate with us.