From Paul Davies’s “The Eerie Silence: Searching for Ourselves in the Universe”:
The knowledge that an alien community had endured for eons and overcome the multiple problems that mankind currently faces would rekindle human Utopian dreams and become a strong unifying force on our planet. To glimpse a trajectory of human progress mirrored in the stars would have a galvanizing effect far greater than any political rhetoric. In our present state of ignorance it is possible to believe either account of the future: pessimistic or optimistic. But to know we are not the only sentient beings in a mysterious and sometimes frightening universe would provide a dramatic message of hope for mankind.
Abhijnan Rej 