Yeah, actually. Alien sapience would (almost) undoubtedly have a fascinatingly different perspective than our own, and learning about it could better inform our model of reality. So what if they're more advanced? We will have to come to terms with our collective delusion that humanity is divinely exceptional? Worst case we get wiped out, which is going to happen at some point anyway, but it is more likely that any species with the technology to survive in space long enough to make interstellar travel feasible has little use for our world or its resources and therefore little reason to be overly aggressive.

There are those who would argue that math says they should wipe us out because we might one day be a threat to them, but that's a clearly bankrupt philosophy. If that's really how things worked, then every nation, tribe, family, and individual on earth should be doing their best to wipe out every other on the same reasoning.

An earth could a few hundred LY from us we might not be able to detect it(1).

I guess maybe the silence is because of such threats out there.

1-https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2012/05/31/is-our-civilizati...