I guess everybody's weighing in on Hawking's alien encounter warning

Why not me?

Q.  First off, why would aliens want to encounter us?  If they can traverse the cosmos with unimaginable technology, what would we have on this 8,000 mile rock that would interest them? And that's presuming our little planet isn't toxic to them, which it would be, considering it's mostly toxic to us and we *evolved* here.

A.  Curiosity.  A species intelligent enough and cooperative enough to master space travel would be extremely unlikely to have conquistador-like intentions, and would more likely be on an altruistic, scientific mission to understand the universe.  I suppose they might be accidentally toxic to us, like Europeans to Native Americans, but wouldn't they have thought about that already? 

Q.  What are the chances of intelligent life existing within, say, one berserkerkyjillion**12 miles of earth?

A.  Slim and none, and I only say slim because I don't know how to express a number so close to zero that zero actually says "hey, I might amount to something one day".  Here's why: evolution is the only true universal system, and it has been effectively providing life in these here parts for several billion years.  In spite of this vast period of time, and over millions of species and billions of lifetimes, intelligence has occured exactly once.  If you could talk to evolution, it would say, "sorry - didn't mean for that to happen, and believe me, it's unlikely to happen again.  Intelligence is not an evolutionary advantage, at least not in the longer term, and as soon as y'all get busy and make yourselves extinct we'll get back to making this a decent place for the rest of the flora and fauna".

So there you have it.  In the unlikely event that life exists within a cosmic stone's-throw of us, and in the much less likely event this life is intelligent, and in the much MUCH less likely event that intelligent life has advanced to the point of interstellar travel, and assuming they can find us, or give a fiddler's f*%k about us, I'm guessing they'd be more likely to be non-threatening than threatening.

Unless, of course, they intercepted a broadcast of "Earth Girls Are Easy".  Nothing like a little interstellar ass ...