I represent an interstellar civilization, What does Earth offer for export?

[Drunkrobot]

If any aliens were to come our way, then they wouldn't be after raw materials or slave labor. In fact, they wouldn't be after anything that would be against our best interests, because that would require them to invade us. That would not end well...for them.

Any sort of alien invasion wouldn't be the curbstomp you would expect. On one side you have: 7 Billion humans, all now 100% committed to making life for the invaders as ugly and short as possible, with a planet full of resources to employ towards this goal. On the other side, you have: An isolated armed force, with limited soldiers, ammunition and supplies. Even if they capture some land, they would need significant time to build infrastructure that could replace said supplies. The defenders (humanity) knows the terrain better than any form of life in the universe, they can survive anywhere with minimal technological assistance, and their equipment is masterfully engineered to work as effectively as possible in any given corner of the planet, from the sands and jungles of Africa to the blizzards of Antartica. The attackers are literally lightyears away from whatever planet they evolved and trained on. The entire biosphere is their potential enemy, everything from pathogens doing major direct damage to them (forcing them into "spacesuits", and making their entire body a weak spot for human forces), to the atmosphere and terrian being so incompatable with their equipment, it makes the attrition involved with "invading Russia in the winter" look like a walk in the park.

Their only, ONLY, advantage is their technology, but remember, although they will be advanced enough to travel between the stars, that doesn't mean they will have weapons that blows us out of the water. It may turn out that the key to interstellar travel is some Law of Nature that we are about to discover (think of how much we've advanced in Physics in the last 100 years, and how much we will in the next 100), and the invaders have a few decades advantage on us. Even 200 years might not mean that much, given that humans have every other thing going for them. Then, once survivors of the first few battles snatch the guns from the cold, dead hands of the invaders, and the greatest minds humanity has are mobilized to pick apart those guns, we would be closing that gap. The 400 year tradition of "encounter, capture, test, understand, innovate and destroy" would be used to give the invaders a crash-course on exactly how horrible we can be if we wanted to be. Acts of underhanded hostility that we today associate with terrorists would give the attackers one huge frickin' headache. Once a few alien cadavers are put under the knife, biological and chemical weapons enter the arsenal (I doubt the Geneva convention applies here). If they were about to capture a city, we bury the biggest nuclear weapon available and we leg it.

Would we have a chance of annihilating them? Not a very big one. Would we be destroyed anyway? If they could adapt to the planet, if they wanted us dead as much as we wanted them, that is pretty likely. Are we so good at killing stuff that the aliens would take one look at Earth, estimate how many of their kind would descend to that hellhole and never come back, and go "Nah, let's just leave those crazy mothertruckers alone."? Absolutely.

So, if they wanted anything to do with us and our planet, they would most likely come in peace. What they want will have something to do with Earth life, including us. Since we've gone to the trouble of learning as much about Earth as we can, they'll probably prefer to ask us for the data instead of learning it themselves. Our culture, from ancient tales and confident religions to modern economic and military doctrine, would fascinate them. It has been stated earlier in the thread that we might be terrifyingly advanced in some way compared to even them. Maybe the climate of their home planet wasn't as varied as ours, and they marvel at how we conquered such a wild, unpredictable world. Maybe there is only a tiny area of their planet covered in water, and vast navies of steel never entered their imagination before meeting us. If their planet has slightly lower gravity than Earth, they might have never required the performance that our rockets have (~90% of Earth gravity is low enough that a single-stage-to-orbit vehicle is possible with current rockets.), and the genius we've poured into this field would mean alot to them. The reverse, of course, is true. It'll take a while for Wikipedia to procure the culture of a second intelligent race. If they were generous enough to give at least a hint to what technology got them across the interstellar void, our scientists and engineers would devour that knowledge like a fat kid with chocolate cake, and the sudden knowledge that we are not alone would hopefully give humanity a goal: to elevate itself to the galactic stage.

[EDIT] I really did plan to have a much shorter post than this. Sorry!

Edited December 12, 2013 by Drunkrobot

[Charzy]

First off, how puerile, second off explosions don't send anything into space not even atomics, and thirdly you can't compare a disaster to an innovation, just because you and your soviet mentality say that banking is no good, how about you go enjoy living in a squalid hut without the computer which you used to disseminate this crud! Cause that's life without banking!

The first man-made object to reach space was a V-2 rocket launched on the third of October.

The point is that correlation does not equal causation. In the same way that the crashing of those two ships did not cause the V-2 to be launched, the opening of that bank (do note, the concept of the loan is even mentioned in the Old Testament of the Bible, thereby disproving your "no loans in Roman times" statement, and also showing that your banker did not invent the loan) did not cause us to go from "knights and castles" to the development of the Saturn V in five hundred years.

[Chrisd857]

I wonder what Wikipedia's notability guidelines would like then?

Delete - Non-notable alien corporation. Not covered by an Earth references.

Keep - Would you delete it just because all the sources were in Swedish? Keep, it has five reliable extraterrestrial references.

Would they have any out-of-copyright encyclopedias, like the 1911 EB, to import to Wikipedia. Would anyone want that to happen. Do the aliens have copyright? Would Earth respect their copyright? US law only vests copyright in humans (or persons, I'm not really sure). Would we have to give the aliens legal personhood? What would that do to the pride of our species? Why do I go on these hypothetical tangents?

[Godot]

Well, I don't think we're that stupid or violent. In the early 1900s it was assumed that there was an active alien civilisation on Mars, people just accepted it without any major calls for biffo. I think we'd be a lot more mellow about confirmation of aliens than you're suggesting. We're pretty open to the idea, really.

...

Well, what should they do?

They didn´t have the technology to send a huge army to Mars, in order to precautionary invade the Martians

Didn´t keep novelists, of course, from writing Horrorstories about martians really attacking us

(just remember War of the Worlds ... which, when first broadcast on radio, caused a very real mass panic )

[Halsfury]

The first man-made object to reach space was a V-2 rocket launched on the third of October.

The point is that correlation does not equal causation. In the same way that the crashing of those two ships did not cause the V-2 to be launched, the opening of that bank (do note, the concept of the loan is even mentioned in the Old Testament of the Bible, thereby disproving your "no loans in Roman times" statement, and also showing that your banker did not invent the loan) did not cause us to go from "knights and castles" to the development of the Saturn V in five hundred years.

True but not loans in our sense of the word, there was too little security in society for this kind of thing, think invading armies and exorbitant interest charged by private individuals (loan sharks).

The reason why this kind of thing need happened at a large scale is because there was little social security back then, i.e. you couldn't be sure much of the time if the bank would be there when you went to get your money back. Because of this fear, banking in the modern sense did not exist, in ancient Greece for instance Greeks would deposit gold and valuables at sacred sites because religious fears were the only way of insuring that you would not be stolen from or that an invading army wouldn't raid your bank.

Basically my point was that seemingly inane developments like renaissance banking actually had a wealth concentrating effect which was potent enough to kick start the modern world. It's not unrelated to the Saturn V since the Saturn V took lots of money and the technology level of the modern world to build, something which wouldn't have been possible without modern banking and modern nation states, so it's not unrelated at all.

Also sorry for suggesting that you were a marxist, you just left an awful lot unmentioned about what you were trying to say and you lead me to believe that you were suggesting that 2 ships hitting one another caused a large non nuclear explosion, as I know that this has happened at one time in history.

Some twisted piece of metal probably became a suborbital after this one...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_Explosion

[KASASpace]

duct tape, for one. In fact, Earth is the primary export of duct tape, being extremely rare and extremely expensive anywhere else in the universe.

[Panzerbeard]

duct tape, for one. In fact, Earth is the primary export of duct tape, being extremely rare and extremely expensive anywhere else in the universe.

I don't know about that.. I'm pretty sure the Kerbals have become thoroughly proficient in the arts of duct-taping and duct-tape production by now.

[Nibb31]

I find it hard to believe that a species capable of collecting the resources and developing the technology for interstellar travel wouldn't have any notion of economy.

Surely they would need to have figured out resource management, which means that they must know the amount of energy spent to exploit those resources (cost) and the rarity of those resources. Technology requires that they must have mastered measurement and equivalence of physical properties of those resources. Currency is simply a measurement unit for value, which relates to rarity and cost, so it's pretty much an unavoidable notion to come up with. With currency comes trade, and with trade comes credit.

- You can have 5 twigs in exchange for 10 seashells.

- Can I give you the seashells next week?

- Sure, but then it'll be 11 seashells, otherwise I might as well sell my twigs to someone else.

It's pretty basic, and I really don't think it's anything unique to our species.

Credit is as old as the notion of currency. It wasn't invented 500 years ago. It's just that the Catholic church considered that loaning money was a sin, which made it unpopular except in Jewish communities (which is one of the historical roots of antisemitism in Europe, but I digress). This changed somewhat with the Lutherian revolution: Protestantism was more open to the practice of loaning money, which is why banking activities grew through the 16th Century and why the United States is so entrenched in capitalism.

Edited December 13, 2013 by Nibb31

[Ralathon]

I find it hard to believe that a species capable of collecting the resources and developing the technology for interstellar travel wouldn't have any notion of economy.

Surely they would need to have figured out resource management, which means that they must know the amount of energy spent to exploit those resources (cost) and the rarity of those resources. Technology requires that they must have mastered measurement and equivalence of physical properties of those resources. Currency is simply a measurement unit for value, which relates to rarity and cost, so it's pretty much an unavoidable notion to come up with. With currency comes trade, and with trade comes credit.

- You can have 5 twigs in exchange for 10 seashells.

- Can I give you the seashells next week?

- Sure, but then it'll be 11 seashells, otherwise I might as well sell my twigs to someone else.

It's pretty basic, and I really don't think it's anything unique to our species.

Credit is as old as the notion of currency. It wasn't invented 500 years ago. It's just that the Catholic church considered that loaning money was a sin, which made it unpopular except in Jewish communities (which is one of the historical roots of antisemitism in Europe, but I digress). This changed somewhat with the Lutherian revolution: Protestantism was more open to the practice of loaning money, which is why banking activities grew through the 16th Century and why the United States is so entrenched in capitalism.

I don't doubt that they went through a phase of economy dominated society. But economics is based on scarcity, you're not going to pay 5 twigs for 10 seashells if you could pick up more seashells than you'd ever need in half a minute. Technology gives us the ability to produce more goods for less effort: if you earn minimum wage you can gather the resources for a hamburger in 8 minutes. So you can keep yourself alive for about 16 minutes of work a day compared to the 24/7 job it was a thousand years ago. And to top it off, that hamburger probably tastes a lot better than the hard bread they ate in those days.

if you have the technology to make interstellar travel feasible you obviously are quite a bit more advanced than we currently are and therefore technology should be further along. It isn't unfeasible to think that common resources such as food, energy and computing power are so easy to mass produce they're essentially free. In such a setting it just doesn't make sense to hold onto a economic system. People don't need jobs if 1 minute of work produces enough resources to keep an entire country going for years. Someone still needs to do it, but it'd likely be a few hobbyists who freely share their production with the rest of society (Not that hard to give to charity if you produce more than you could ever consume). Maybe there would still be some remnant of an economic system for the very big projects like interstellar ships or colonies. But it'd be completely removed from civilian life.

[OrtwinS]

I don't doubt that they went through a phase of economy dominated society. But economics is based on scarcity, -snip-

It isn't unfeasible to think that common resources such as food, energy and computing power are so easy to mass produce they're essentially free. In such a setting it just doesn't make sense to hold onto a economic system. People don't need jobs if 1 minute of work produces enough resources to keep an entire country going for years. Someone still needs to do it, but it'd likely be a few hobbyists who freely share their production with the rest of society (Not that hard to give to charity if you produce more than you could ever consume). Maybe there would still be some remnant of an economic system for the very big projects like interstellar ships or colonies. But it'd be completely removed from civilian life.

Parts of our earth economy are reaching a post-scarcity state as we speak.

Consider what I can get if I buy a 'current day' smart phone for less than 170 euro (for example the Moto G, 8GB version).

Free wifi is everywhere, offered as a service in countless shops, cafe's and other places. There is Wikipedia, free bittorrent apps, free discussion forums. I can even make money if my youtube vids (which I make with my phone) are popular enough.

Everything digital in entertainment and education is already freely available (though not necessarily legal).

Several organisations are desperately trying to resist this post 20th century new information economy. Their entire business model is based on (now artificial) scarcity of information and info-media. And they will use all resources at their disposal to bend the political and legal landscape to resist this change.

A large part of this equation is still 'real' stuff. The computers required, energy needed to keep everything running. Network infrastructure, The food and shelter we the users still need.

In any case, this trouble surrounding this change in a 'minor' part of our economy is an interesting example and perhaps a preparation of the earthquake in economics when something like 'energy' ever become cheap enough to be considered 'free' like information is now. Not that we ever learn from our previous economic mistakes though. The subject of economy seems to not have advanced since the 1900's considering economists still seem to think unlimited growth within a limited system is a feasible strategy.

[Nibb31]

In such a setting it just doesn't make sense to hold onto a economic system.

Yeah. I was just arguing against the idea that Mankind has invented something unique with economics. A species that is advanced enough to span multiple solar systems will probably see our economic system as inefficient, wasteful, and the root cause of most of our problems.

[Ralathon]

Parts of our earth economy are reaching a post-scarcity state as we speak.

Yea, I was sort of hinting at it with the "16 minutes to keep yourself fed) thing. But it certainly seems as if we're getting close to post scarcity on some things. Specifically food and information in the developed world. I've never even heard about someone who starved to death in my country (Not saying it never happens. But it is exceedingly rare).

3D printing is also seeing a heavy rise in popularity. Some people are even working on programs that allow 3D printers to print the parts for other 3D printers, making them common as dirt. So once that starts to kick in we'll also see post scarcity in small household objects (Why buy new cutlery when you can just print some?).

Several organisations are desperately trying to resist this post 20th century new information economy. Their entire business model is based on (now artificial) scarcity of information and info-media. And they will use all resources at their disposal to bend the political and legal landscape to resist this change.

Well it makes sense. Their source of income is selling entertainment. If entertainment becomes free they're out of a job. So it's only natural that they're reluctant to embrace this new information age. I wouldn't necessarily call this a bad thing either, making a good action movie simply takes a lot of money in terms of pyrotechnics, CGI and actor payrolls. Way more than any amateur on the internet can afford. So if these big organisations die the triple A games and big blockbuster movies will die with them.

It'll be interesting to see how it all pans out in the coming decades. Crowd funding, microtransactions and alpha access seems to be pretty successful for videogames (including KSP). But I am unsure if these methods can rake up enough cash to produce triple A games or blockbuster movies. They could very well go extinct for a few decades. We already see that they're playing it safe to minimize financial risk: Triple A games tend towards generic brown shooters and summer blockbusters tend towards CGI action flicks.

In any case, this trouble surrounding this change in a 'minor' part of our economy is an interesting example and perhaps a preparation of the earthquake in economics when something like 'energy' ever become cheap enough to be considered 'free' like information is now. Not that we ever learn from our previous economic mistakes though. The subject of economy seems to not have advanced since the 1900's considering economists still seem to think unlimited growth within a limited system is a feasible strategy.

I study physics, so I can't claim I know enough about economics to judge their progress since 1900. But I can see the unlimited growth model as a fairly good approximation. Sure, the number of atoms we can access is limited. But increases in efficiency can come a long way towards unlimited growth. The best approximation would be a bucket of lego bricks. Sure, the bucket holds a limited number of bricks. But even for very small numbers of bricks the number of possible combinations is staggering.

We're already seeing extensive recycling going on as our supplies of metals dwindle. Copper is a good example, since it is relatively rare we've been recycling it for ages. In fact, 80% of all copper ever mined is still circulating around in the economy. And since we're expected to reach peak copper soon, people are busily poking around on old scrapyards to recycle more.

The only thing we consume that is truly unrecoverable is energy (Or the associated entropy increase if you want to be physically correct). Fossil and nuclear fuels will run out and wind+water+solar can't sustain our hunger for energy. This is my only worry about the future really: can we get fusion energy economically viable? Once we have fusion I'm fairly confident that humanity will turn out okay. Fusion fuel is plentiful, contains a lot of energy per mass fraction and is easy to get.

[KASASpace]

I don't know about that.. I'm pretty sure the Kerbals have become thoroughly proficient in the arts of duct-taping and duct-tape production by now.

Well, the Kerbals duct tape was from us originally, and they got a hold of the formula and just happened to find enough resources, by experimenting on the population. That's why they are all green. Duct tape.

[m1xte]

Just let em rig cameras to our orbit and sell rights to most hilarious and entertaining reality show in entire galaxy.

[MC.STEEL]

they could also like some of our inventions...

like cupholders for instance

[Anton P. Nym]

I'd like to think we'd have a relatively strong negotiating position in situations like this:

At one point, the lead alien tried to call our bluff, asserting that no sane species would risk inflicting such environmental damage to its home world.

I stomped up to their leader and started blustering in a hokey Russian accent:

First I hissed out: “You stooopid aliens do not have concept of who you are dealing with.â€Â

My voice rose and my accent thickened: "We have factories to pump pollutants into atmosphere to WEED OUT those with WEAK LUNGS.â€Â

He tried saying something, but I drove right over him, shouting, “We use fission weapons in our ONLY biosphere...

I thundered toward my crescendo:

“We're the GUYS!!â€Â

My shouting drowned out the other tables of role-play games.

“Who NAILED GOD!!!!â€Â

Screaming now.

“TO A TREE!!!!!â€Â

The other games in the room had stopped, as peeps were staring as I screamed at the top of my lungs,

“DON’T F**K WITH THE HUMAN RACE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!â€Â

source

If nothing else, we can export our abundant chutzpah.

-- Steve

[nhnifong]

Perhaps you would be interested in one of our finest cupholders!

[MC.STEEL]

Perhaps you would be interested in one of our finest cupholders!

I see us becoming a prime galactic species in no time

[victory143]

Export North-Korea

[ZetaX]

..., maybe terraforming mars would be an option.

No, not worth it at all at mars' size. About half of the total surface are of the inner solar system's planets is on earth, and most of the rest is on venus. Terraforming mars for anything related to population growth makes no sense.

[TinfoilChef]

Green slave women come to mind

Oops, sorry, that's Star Trek isn't it :-)

Y'know, I hear there is this small island nation in one of Kerbin's southern oceans . . . .

[WhiteWeasel]

Y'know, I hear there is this small island nation in one of Kerbin's southern oceans . . . .

found a Ksp comic of this. "It's hardly Rocket science"

Edited December 16, 2013 by WhiteWeasel

[crasher925]

food culture science land friendship ect. you name it we might have it!

[-Velocity-]

No, not worth it at all at mars' size. About half of the total surface are of the inner solar system's planets is on earth, and most of the rest is on venus. Terraforming mars for anything related to population growth makes no sense.

Maybe terraforming Mars to offload population growth makes sense, but in order to make it feasible, we'll need multiple space elevators to lift all those people from Earth into space and a swarm of ultra-cheap spacecraft to ferry them to Mars. That might be a tougher challenge than actually terraforming Mars, but it MIGHT be realizable with space-based manufacturing (especially if a lot of AI and robotics and asteroid mining are involved). I'm betting that either it never becomes economically feasible, or overpopultion forces us to address the real problem (that we're breeding out of control) before spaceflight advances and terraforming open up very cheap Earth-Mars travel and habitation.

Edited December 16, 2013 by |Velocity|

[Themohawkninja]

All of the arts (literature, movies, food, paintings).

The main export though would be tourism. You see, on Earth, our Moon happens to be the right ratio of size and distance from the Sun to allow it to totally eclipse it's host star, allowing for a unique opportunity to see the corona of our host star.

That is what Earth has to offer.