The Argument: Should We Say "Hi" to Aliens?
b'We\'re taking this week off from publishing new episodes, so today we\'re bringing you an episode from "The Argument" about one of my favorite topics: aliens. We\'ll be back with new episodes of "The Ezra Klein Show" on Tuesday.\\n\\nWith the U.S. government puzzling over U.F.O.s, and potentially habitable exoplanets in our telescopes, earthlings are closer than ever to finding other intelligent life in the universe. So the existential question is: Should we try to communicate with whatever we think might be out there?\\n\\nThat\\u2019s the argument this week between Douglas Vakoch and Michio Kaku. Vakoch, the president of the research and educational nonprofit METI (Messaging Extraterrestrial Intelligence) International, has dedicated his life\\u2019s work to intentionally broadcasting messages beyond our solar system.\\n\\nKaku, a professor of theoretical physics at the City College of New York and a co-founder of string field theory, thinks reaching out to unknown aliens is a catastrophically bad idea and \\u201cwould be the biggest mistake in human history.\\u201d\\n\\nTogether, they join Jane to debate the question of making first contact and our place in the cosmos.\\n\\nMentioned in this episode:\\n\\nAdam Mann, The New Yorker: \\u201cIntelligent Ways to Search for Extraterrestrials\\u201d\\n\\nGideon Lewis-Kraus, The New Yorker: \\u201cHow the Pentagon Started Taking U.F.O.s Seriously\\u201d\\n\\nArik Kershenbaum, The Wall Street Journal, \\u201cAlien Languages May Not Be Entirely Alien to Us\\u201d\\n\\n\\u201cStar Trek: The Next Generation,\\u201d Season 4, Episode 15: \\u201cFirst Contact\\u201d (Netflix)\\n\\nThe Ezra Klein Show: \\u201cObama Explains How America Went From \\u2018Yes We Can\\u2019 to \\u2018MAGA\\u2019\\u201d\\n\\nYou can find more episodes of "The Ezra Klein Show" at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein.\\n\\nThoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.\\n\\n\\u201cThe Ezra Klein Show\\u201d is produced by Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld and Rog\\xe9 Karma; fact-checking by Michelle Harris; original music by Isaac Jones; mixing by Jeff Geld, audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Special thanks to Kristin Lin.'