Because everyone needs to know what I think - there are at least three different views of what aliens will be like. The optimistic, embodied by Star Trek: aliens will be us plus latex. The pessimistic, as put forward here by Douthat, but really championed in SF by Stanislaw Lem: Aliens will be unfathomable and communication will be impossible. We might not even recognize aliens as beings. And the hybrid, often put forward by Arthur C. Clarke, in places like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Childhood's End: We won't be able to communicate with Aliens, but our evolved children will. All fun to contemplate.
Because everyone needs to know what I think - there are at least three different views of what aliens will be like. The optimistic, embodied by Star Trek: aliens will be us plus latex. The pessimistic, as put forward here by Douthat, but really championed in SF by Stanislaw Lem: Aliens will be unfathomable and communication will be impossible. We might not even recognize aliens as beings. And the hybrid, often put forward by Arthur C. Clarke, in places like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Childhood's End: We won't be able to communicate with Aliens, but our evolved children will. All fun to contemplate.