Why would a civilization want to contact with a hypothetical extraterrestrial civilization?

Mankind has been always interested in making contact with another (extraterrestrial) civilization. We have launched the Pioneer 10 and 11 probes with plaques explaining where the Earth is located. Moreover, there are countless films, books, etc. which are about contact with aliens.

However, I'm not sure about why the contact with another civilization may be a positive experience for my fictional civilization. Particularly, I think that contacting with a superior civilization might cause my civilization to be enslaved (or maybe not, but I believe the risk exists).

Summarizing, my questions are:

• What are the advantages that the contact with an alien civilization may provide?
• Is it worth to risk my civilization to access to these advantages?

posted over 10 years ago

Garoal‭

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