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

[nhnifong]

I come to you seeking trade. What can you offer to an interstellar civilization which we would find valuable? What is unique about this world and your species?

[SunJumper]

Animals, plants, and art (movies, books, etc).

I'm guessing information would be the primary thing traded. Any material we have an abundance of is not one we have enough of an abundance of to contend with an interstellar species.

[DaveofDefeat]

We have bombs, lots and lots and lots of bombs.

[Nuke]

land of course! habitable space is probibly a rarity in the universe. so if they dont outright try to take it from us, they might try to buy it.

there will likely be a biology trade, especially food crops and livestock. any species well invested in genetic engineering would likely derive useful sequences from the planet's various genomes.

mining rights within our solar system might also be up for grabs. it may be less economically viable to take them and then have to defend them when we take notice of what they are doing and try to stop them, than to just give us a cut to look the other way.

raw materials in general (especially water, i hate it when a movie uses water as the reason for invasion) probibly aren't worth very much. after all if they can come here, they could probibly fetch the materials from an uninhabited system with fewer issues. though there are of course exceptions. perhaps were the only source of some rare element for light years. or we are in a strategic location, such as along a trade route.

radioactive material, being something that decays with time, might be rare in much older solar systems. where the material has either been completely mined out or has decayed into something you cant use. of course atomic engineering is pretty much alchemy, so they may have the tech to transmute isotopes however they like. if everyone is using orion drive, in which case nuclear bombs are the fossil fuel of the universe, that makes earth just another gas station for interstellar truckers. you might also have a demand for synthetic heavy and ultra heavy elements and possibly antimatter that we could exploit.

im going to also have to agree with information (including cultural works). though thats probibly something you can get for free with some strategically replaced transceivers and a few flimsy morals.

and finally, consumer products. just because something is primitive, doesn't mean you will have a hard time selling it. a single authentic earth slinky from the market place of walmart might go for a billion whatevers on another planet.

Edited December 9, 2013 by Nuke

[Tech Support]

a tourist spot ? surely other civilizations would pay to visit new planets ?

[WestAir]

We are mostly a service society.

We can provide entertainment and services. [shows, movies, music, and entertainment goods.] Services account for a large bulk of our GDP and would be the easiest to mass produce.

We will begin streaming reruns of "House of Cards" and "Breaking Bad" along with music from "The Beetles" and "Beyonce" using our best satellites. We'll charge your interstellar species $5/hour indefinitely.

Please don't bomb or eat us.

[KOCOUR]

Well, certainly not resources, those would be cheaper to mine from unhabited planets than buy from other civilisations.

Living space? not so much. Our planet is allready too crowded.

Technology? Informations? Nope, interstelar civilisation would laugh over our technology, and information would be easy to obtain without asking for such an advanced civ.

Art? They would probably not understand it.

Workpower? They probably have robots for that.

Food? I thing there would be problem with compatibility.

Water? hmm, probably not.

Nope, we have nothing to offer.

[Simon Ross]

Green slave women come to mind

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

[kahlzun]

Lateral thinking and entertainment?

Complex carbohydrates?

[magnemoe]

land of course! habitable space is probibly a rarity in the universe. so if they dont outright try to take it from us, they might try to buy it.

there will likely be a biology trade, especially food crops and livestock. any species well invested in genetic engineering would likely derive useful sequences from the planet's various genomes.

mining rights within our solar system might also be up for grabs. it may be less economically viable to take them and then have to defend them when we take notice of what they are doing and try to stop them, than to just give us a cut to look the other way.

raw materials in general (especially water, i hate it when a movie uses water as the reason for invasion) probibly aren't worth very much. after all if they can come here, they could probibly fetch the materials from an uninhabited system with fewer issues. though there are of course exceptions. perhaps were the only source of some rare element for light years. or we are in a strategic location, such as along a trade route.

radioactive material, being something that decays with time, might be rare in much older solar systems. where the material has either been completely mined out or has decayed into something you cant use. of course atomic engineering is pretty much alchemy, so they may have the tech to transmute isotopes however they like. if everyone is using orion drive, in which case nuclear bombs are the fossil fuel of the universe, that makes earth just another gas station for interstellar truckers. you might also have a demand for synthetic heavy and ultra heavy elements and possibly antimatter that we could exploit.

im going to also have to agree with information (including cultural works). though thats probibly something you can get for free with some strategically replaced transceivers and a few flimsy morals.

and finally, consumer products. just because something is primitive, doesn't mean you will have a hard time selling it. a single authentic earth slinky from the market place of walmart might go for a billion whatevers on another planet.

yes an habitatable planet itself is very valuable.

Biological material: plant, animals and their dna would be useful, far more so if biochemistry is pretty compatible.

Non of this two involves humans, an fun story idea would be some aliens who had observed earth and knew it had complex life but did not think it had any intelligent species

Humans would make tourism far more interesting, add various human made items for their special value.

Last cheap labor, make some patents from stuff you have and you have more money than you need.

Far easier to run an remote base if the locals do all the grunt work and pay for the base upkeep.

[Idobox]

Authorization to build a colony somewhere, probably on some moon or in the Asteroid belt.

Stuff to build said colony. It might be cheaper or faster to buy some stuff from us than bring it or manufacture it.

Antiques, lolcats and rule 34. Seriously, think of all the stuff western explorers and anthropologists have brought back from other cultures, and how much it is sometimes worth.

As said, biodiversity. Of the millions of species around, some are bound to be useful somehow, and it is easier to study and abduct them without these pesky fighter jets and ICBMS trying to attack your advanced ship.

Highly specialized workforce. Given we are the only technological species we know, we have no idea how different we are from the norm, and we might well be absurdly good at pottery or macrame without even knowing.

[Ralathon]

Well, we can rule out any raw materials or energy. If they want materials it's much better to grab them from asteroids or some moons instead of earth. If they want energy they can make their own. If you have the power to sustain an interstellar empire your generators are better than anything we have to offer.

So that leaves material refinement and information. If there is some substance that you cannot fabricate automatically (for whatever contrived reason) humanity can easily provide the needed work force. In addition we can provide information in the form of new ways of thinking, religions, philosophy, mathematics, physics, entertainment etc. There are bound to be a few novel ideas or revelations that the other species missed in that mix.

I think information would be the most valuable thing in an interstellar empire. If you can build colonies around other star systems you obviously have access to massive amounts of energy and resources. This means material things will be dirt cheap, they'll probably have some form of scarcity free economy. So entertainment and self education would be the main occupations in such a world.

We can already see it happening to ourselves. People whine about the price of things, but in general it is easy to keep yourself alive, well fed and warm in the developed world. The main reason people work is to afford that new video game. Or to take a trip to some far away country for a few weeks. In other words, entertainment. If we automate the process a bit more so food, clothing and housing are truly free our entire economy would revolve purely about producing and consuming entertainment and information.

[Tommygun]

Complex biochemistry that is unique to each living world.

Perhaps something similar to when botanists and biologist go into the rain forest to look for useful natural occurring organisms or compounds.

[Kialar]

Sorry. Please speak to my account management.

3rd floor, room D3.17. Thank you.

[TheCardinal]

The one thing we have in abundance is .... humans.

[nhnifong]

Atomic engineering is pretty much alchemy, so they may have the tech to transmute isotopes however they like.

We may still be able to offer refining services that are not feasible on a spacecraft which is severely mass-limited.

Also if their ship is just a flying computer, and they are wholly digital, they may wish to purchase upgrades if we can create them, or assembled light repair robotics. They would probably also like to purchase any kinds of sensors they don't already have.

They're probably going to want to arrange a total transmission of our collected knowledge (couple of zettabytes) back to their home base, and may wish to engage in a research partnership in which we continue to share anything we learn.

Also, if they are gullible enough, we could charge them for any power they collect from Sol.

Edited December 9, 2013 by nhnifong

[FanaticalFighter]

We have COOKIES! We also have these, if you can solve them xD

[vetrox]

Religion and apple products

[Ravenchant]

I second biodiversity and cheap material refinement. Such a civilization would have a far superior understanding of every science except Earth biology. There are bound to be some genetic mechanisms or processes they would find useful, maybe because large-scale synthetic production is difficult, or a compound may be only stable under our atmospheric conditions and remain undiscovered.

Our art and philosophy would most likely be incomprehensible to them. But in the case of art, crafts, and planetary visits it's possible we could get a good deal out of it even if they didn't have any economic value to them. You know...novelty.

Except if they had some dogma against bringing parts of alien cultures into their own, or were so different not to have an appreciation for such things. But in the latter case, we'd probably not be able to strike a trade agreement, either.

[Agent86]

War. Lots of War.

[NASAFanboy]

Technology exchange.

The aliens might have missed a scientific secret or two, and ee take advantage of that. For example, let's say they don't have some types of metal, but they travel in spacecraft made of synthetic plastics and the metals we have. We could exchange the technology of our metals for their propulsion systems, or.something similar. Let's say they still use radio. We give them plasma TV for their radiation shielding. Maybe they never had plasma engines, and uss antigravity instead? Then give them a VASMIR!

Technology exchange could be possible.

[Skyrunner27]

We have plenty of freshwater locked up in the ice caps.

[Scotius]

If their biochemistry is compatible with ours, such biological products as spices, alcohols, medicines etc. might sell well. Probably also various drugs

[SlyReaper]

I honestly struggle to think of any material goods an alien would want from us. They have vessels capable of traversing the immense void between stars, so any raw materials they need, they can get from any of the uninhabited planets, moons, or asteroids of this solar system, without having to deal with a planet full of angry belligerent ape people with nukes. Which is actually quite scary if you think about it - they could strip mine the entire solar system, leaving only the Earth, sun and moon untouched. We'd have no way to stop them, and it would permanently cripple any ambitions we have as a species of ever becoming interstellar ourselves.

I think the only thing they might be interested in from Earth are cultural exports. Music, literature, art, all that jazz. They might give us a few trinkets for these things, then leave the solar system while the human race starts tearing itself to pieces for access to this technology.

[Dispatcher]

Blue jeans.