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

[Rath]

thats a funny idea, them think that the avenges are a documentary because they have no concept of fiction.

[windows_x_seven]

We have Kerbal Space Program.

I trade one copy for a warp-capable spacecraft.

[Pipcard]

thats a funny idea, them think that the avenges are a documentary because they have no concept of fiction.

Sounds like the premise of Galaxy Quest

[Rakaydos]

Seasonal tourist trap. Where else in the galaxy can you stand, skin/fur/scales bared (allowing for cultural mores and the local climate) while watching a total astronomical conjunction of a habitable planets star by that planets natural satelite?

Also kitten videos.

[Rath]

Lots and lots of DNA/cat videos/culture/stuff to show off with in the restaurant at the end of the universe(Look! that guy has a terran thingy! It must have cost so Much to get here)

[baggers]

Nobody here mention .... and ... as a trade?

Actually, if these foreigners merchants are anything like big octopus, I think a know a japanese or 2 that will be very interressed.

In fact, it don't matter how they are or look, certainly we will find someone interressed for making some "educational" videos and more!

I just hope they don't look for humans bone powder as aphrodisiacs or something.

Edited September 14, 2015 by baggers

[Rath]

'a Japanese' WUT?

[baggers]

'a Japanese' WUT?

A cultural reference about things, y'know:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dream_of_the_Fisherman's_Wife

[Wallygator]

marketing data to support their own offerings of exotic consumer products

[Mr. Speed]

hello, welcome to earth! our primary exports are music for every taste, beautiful small arms to hunt those pesky space bugs and cigarettes!!

[Bill Phil]

I guess we have stairway to heaven...

[magnemoe]

Yes, the most obvious things would be unique plants and animals, which may yield useful compounds for them. Spider Silk FTW!

And sitcoms... Lots and lots of sitcoms

Or they just may stay away in fear of our superheroes. SpiderMan FTW!

Biological stuff is an obvious one at least if biochemistry is compatible. its also one of the few items who is valuable enough to transport slower than light as you only need seeds for breeding

With faster than light tourism is another one, perhaps also bases if ship range is limited / slow.

[Mazon Del]

Really though, unless their FTL system uses a surprisingly small amount of energy, it generally speaking just isn't really worth sending most physical items.

Sending the Mona Lisa? Sure, there's only one real one. Even an atomically perfect copy isn't "the original" and thus if you are doing that anyway, just get the scan and rebuild it once you get home. But for DNA and biological samples? Physical presence not needed. Any sufficiently advanced alien species on really needs the data making up the genome and ideally an atomically precise representation of a single cell. Everything else about the animal can follow from there. People are a valid thing to move if only because we can't be electronically packaged (though it would be fascinating if they had that tech) at this time.

[Godot]

Really though, unless their FTL system uses a surprisingly small amount of energy, it generally speaking just isn't really worth sending most physical items.

Sending the Mona Lisa? Sure, there's only one real one. Even an atomically perfect copy isn't "the original" and thus if you are doing that anyway, just get the scan and rebuild it once you get home. But for DNA and biological samples? Physical presence not needed. Any sufficiently advanced alien species on really needs the data making up the genome and ideally an atomically precise representation of a single cell. Everything else about the animal can follow from there. People are a valid thing to move if only because we can't be electronically packaged (though it would be fascinating if they had that tech) at this time.

Actually "there is only one original in the universe" also is true for the most useless pieces of art by the most unknown artists

So why not, instead of sending something precious like the "Mona Lisa" just sell one of the cheap paintings by unknown artists?

The aliens, coming from another background, surely won´t be able to tell precious art (i.e. precious for humans) from cheap one.

There actually is a real world example:

The ships of the conquistadors always carried cheap trinkets with them, in order to exchange then at any indian tribes for much more precious things.

As the indians weren´t used to those trinkets they thought them to be really valuable and would actually exchange them for things valuable in the european society (like pearls, furs, exotic animals ... and so on)

[Mazon Del]

Mostly what my point about the artwork isn't the value in any given piece so much as it was that unless they are interested in the original piece, then they don't need a physical object, they just need the data to reconstruct it.

Incidentally, there was a book I read once where Earth gets visited by an interstellar art dealer. He goes around to various civilizations, trades random super-techs in exchange for artwork, then moves on. The way the alien describes the galaxy's interest in an alien art forms is that while yes, it is probably fairly easy to trick them into taking a child's finger painting as opposed to a masterpiece, they value artwork that the culture it comes from values. Not because of some universal metric of "good" but because it just makes more sense to value something of greatness from a culture instead of fawning over what turns out to be a fossilized dirty diaper instead of a sculpture.

Edited September 14, 2015 by Mazon Del
A word.

[LordFerret]

Actually "there is only one original in the universe" also is true for the most useless pieces of art by the most unknown artists

...

The words "infinite", "monkeys", and "typewriters" comes to mind.

[baggers]

Mostly what my point about the artwork isn't the value in any given piece so much as it was that unless they are interested in the original piece, then they don't need a physical object, they just need the data to reconstruct it.

Incidentally, there was a book I read once where Earth gets visited by an interstellar art dealer. He goes around to various civilizations, trades random super-techs in exchange for artwork, then moves on. The way the alien describes the galaxy's interest in an alien art forms is that while yes, it is probably fairly easy to trick them into taking a child's finger painting as opposed to a masterpiece, they value artwork that the culture it comes from values. Not because of some universal metric of "good" but because it just makes more sense to value something of greatness from a culture instead of fawning over what turns out to be a fossilized dirty diaper instead of a sculpture.

And what about "unvaluables" for the cultures it comes?

If an interstellar art dealer want buy "the statue of liberty" how much to charge? Naturally, he want the big "original", not the small replica. (He may even add a "not rebuild clause" to the contract)

[Mazon Del]

Oh of course they could be interested in the original. That was part of my point. Either they want the original, in which they have to transport mass. Or they are fine with a reproduction, in which case they are only transporting data.

The guy in that book had made the case, again, that while they probably couldn't tell the difference between a finger painting and modern art (most humans cant. >;D ) and thus could be convinced to value a childs work as much as a master, they want to treat the art of a culture with the respect that the creating culture would. We do not see a non-prodigy 3 year olds artwork hanging next to a Picasso in a museum, so they posit that why should they do so?

Think of it perhaps this way, lets say you are as uncultured about artwork as myself. And suddenly you have a billion dollars, but you also found a girl that is into art that you want to impress. So you are looking to snag a bunch of art. How do you know what is good and what isn't? Sure, unlike the alien, you can tell the difference between a child and a master's work. But what about a giant blue canvas painted with a single bluish-white stripe down the middle? Would you pay $44 million for that if an art expert (that you presumably hired to find the good stuff for you) told you that you should? Why? That's stupid, you could make that work yourself! He could be lying to you. But that's the point, you don't know. You just have to trust that you are not being lied to.

As far as a "how much to charge" question for the Statue of Liberty, that entirely depends on what they are willing to offer. If they say "Hey, if you give us the SoL, we'll put an atomically perfect recreation in its place, AND give your world the technology to produce things at the atomic scale like that." then quite frankly, that is worth it.

Incidentally, that white stripe artwork: http://twentytwowords.com/canvas-painted-blue-with-a-white-line-sells-for-nearly-44-million-4-pictures/

[insert_name]

or harvest us as food, or steal our water, or harvest us for food AND steal our water

given the amount of water ice in the solar system, why would you storm a planet with angry apes who will blast you with thermonuclear bombs the moment you land, and humans are predators, it is more efficient in terms of calories to eat herbivores

[Darnok]

If I would be an alien how would I could use you...

I don't care about your resources since resources are common on my planet. I don't need your technology... it is crap, you couldn't even detect my ships, I had to contact you first.

I am not interested in your culture or art, I have my own, but the thing is I need army to defend my culture from hostile "neighbours".

I can see your species is very mobile, quick, slick and easy to transport, I could buy many healthy units, they could be used as soldiers by my civilization.

Those soldiers can adapt, they are more or less intelligent, self educating and very aggressive killing machines. Since my technology is at least 100+ years ahead of yours... it should be easy to build combat space suits, weapons and ships for five fingers creatures. I can do even more, I can increase your aggression and body regeneration.

You are cheaper than mechanical soldiers when it comes to energy usage and maintenance, since your soldiers can't be hacked and used to fight against me.

Hmm instead of just get rid of broken units during and after battle, I can even convert those broken units into energy source for healthy units, without additional costs because your digestive system copes well with that kind of food processing. And my knowledge about neuronal cells is sufficient to remove any psychological trauma that may occur after battles and meals, in other words I can remove "bad memories", so soldiers will go into next battle as brand new and fearless units.

Sadly I am not the first who thought about this

[problemecium]

Everyone seems to be going after our rich artistic background and original methods of thinking, but what reason do we have to presume aliens want either of those, if they don't have them already?

I nominate Silicon Dioxide (and related compounds). The bulk of our planet is composed of silicate minerals, making up many times more mass than water, air, or biomass. Extraterrestrials might come here from an ice planet or one otherwise low in silicates, and if they made it all the way here, they are probably in need of something in much greater bulk than any of our trace minerals.

[meve12]

Not a lot you can't get elsewhere.

Services, yes. Do you like sitcoms?

Tourism, maybe.

Habitable land-if you're biologically compatible, which I'll guess you're not.

A different perspective on a problem? You'll have plenty of that, since you'll have more people than us by several orders of magnitude.

Labor and raw materials, if you can assist us in establishing cheap space lift-both for exporting materials off planet and for establishing mining bases/laboratory/industry in the rest of the solar system.

[Requia]

Logistics. Even if we can't make anything that aliens can't make, you (normally) have to bring everything with you in space. We could essentially be a ready made supply point for whatever it is their ships need (food, fuel etc), even things we can't currently make but could soon with assistance.

[GeneralVeers]

Military advisors.

So what if alien technology is X years ahead of our own? It's very possible we humans are better at war than they are. Tactical and strategic skill are things you can't build with advanced technology.

Oh, and that's also a damn good reason aliens best not mess with us......

[vger]

So what if alien technology is X years ahead of our own? It's very possible we humans are better at war than they are. Tactical and strategic skill are things you can't build with advanced technology.

Interesting thought. In terms of how civilizations evolve, what if becoming a space-faring race demands that we lose a lot of our "jerk" tendencies to become a unified and cooperative race? Competition may simply make such a civilization impossible if we can't get over it. The things that come with that competitive edge: deception, apathy, aggression, etc, might be things that an advanced alien race wouldn't be particularly good at. So the very things that impede our progress, might also ensure we could survive an invasion.