if we receive a transmission from an advanced life form in the cosmos it'll be from the past, but we may learn something and pass it along.

 when you think about the other, think about how we are all the same — earthlings. we would make a quantum step in evolution in realizing this. 

 politics posits that we're all the other to each other. it's the existential crisis. the threat to our existence isn't the other, the threat of the other is in us.