Taking vs Trading

If aliens arrived on our planet...would they want to trade with us or would they just take whatever resources they wanted? It's my firm belief that they would want to trade with us. Here's my logic...

In order for an alien civilization to advance to the point that it could actually visit us...they would already have learned that progress depends on trading rather than taking. This is because taking destroys individual foresight and if you destroy individual foresight then you hinder progress.

In very simple terms...two heads are better than one. We all have unique perspectives so we can see numerous uses of the same exact resource. Trading integrates perspectives which allows resources to be put to their most productive uses...while taking does the opposite. It seems highly unlikely that an alien civilization could efficiently allocate all the resources necessary to visit out planet...yet fail to appreciate that their progress was a direct result of integrating everybody's unique perspectives.

Here on planet Earth we still haven't figured out that our progress depends on integrating people's perspectives. If we had figured this out then taxpayers would be able to choose which government organizations they gave their taxes to...aka pragmatarianism. Once we understand why people's perspectives should matter...then we'll allow taxpayers to trade their taxes for public goods that they value...our rate of progress will increase...and visiting inhabited planets will happen sooner rather than later. With the understanding of progress under our belts...we would see the value in trading with the aliens rather than taking their resources by force.

This concept was the point of Bastiat's Parable of the Broken Window...

It is not seen that as our shopkeeper has spent six francs upon one thing, he cannot spend them upon another. It is not seen that if he had not had a window to replace, he would, perhaps, have replaced his old shoes, or added another book to his library. In short, he would have employed his six francs in some way, which this accident has prevented. - Bastiat, What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen

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Right now we allow 538 congresspeople to spend around $4 trillion dollars. Did they labor to earn that money? No...they did not. Taxpayers did. When we allow congress to spend money that they did not earn...the perspectives of millions and millions of taxpayers are blocked from determining how their money should be distributed in the public sector. As a result...progress is severely hindered. Yet, people see roads and schools...so they see their tax dollars at work. But they are simply seeing the SEEN...anybody can do that. The challenge is to try and see the UNSEEN. The unseen is the outcome of applying millions and millions of our most productive perspectives to the public sector.

The next time you watch a movie in which the aliens take the resources they want by force...or vice versa...hopefully you'll understand that what you're watching is merely a reflection of our society's lack of understanding regarding the correlation between perspectives and progress.

We have absolutely no way of knowing what aliens would think, or how they would think, or how their society would have developed, or how they would view us.

Any assumptions we might make are mere anthropomorphisms, projecting human values and thought-patterns onto something so different from us that it would make a sea anemone look like a close cousin.


We have no idea. They could be hostile, or benevolent, or greedy, or indifferent, or incomprehensible.

Trade deficits are ALWAYS economically detrimental to the nation.

Xerographica, regardless of a nation’s monetary policy, a nation’s negative global trade balance will cause its GDP, median wage and numbers of jobs to be less than otherwise.
Refer to the topic “ Trade deficits are ALWAYS economically detrimental to the nation. ”, posted at 4:45AM, March 27, 2011’’.

I’m a proponent of a unilateral global trade policy that’s the optimum choice for any nation suffering chronic annual trade deficits; its entire net costs would be borne by U.S. purchasers; it’s compatible to any monetary policy.
Refer to the topic “ Reduce the trade deficit; increase GDP & median wage “,
posted at 5:09AM, March 27, 2011’’.

Respectfully, Supposn

Goshin said:

We have absolutely no way of knowing what aliens would think, or how they would think, or how their society would have developed, or how they would view us.

Any assumptions we might make are mere anthropomorphisms, projecting human values and thought-patterns onto something so different from us that it would make a sea anemone look like a close cousin.


We have no idea. They could be hostile, or benevolent, or greedy, or indifferent, or incomprehensible.

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The aspect that you're missing is that it would require substantial resources for an alien civilization to visit our planet. And all planets have limited resources...therefore, economics, the study of scarcity, is relevant to all planets. For a civilization to develop to the point it could engage in interstellar travel...it would have had to realize that all that progress that they had made was positively correlated to integrating perspectives. And perspectives are integrated by giving people the freedom to choose how they spend their time/money.

I think aliens would bring us food baskets filled with extraterrestrial goodies. They would give, not take or trade.

Xerographica said:

The aspect that you're missing is that it would require substantial resources for an alien civilization to visit our planet. And all planets have limited resources...therefore, economics, the study of scarcity, is relevant to all planets. For a civilization to develop to the point it could engage in interstellar travel...it would have had to realize that all that progress that they had made was positively correlated to integrating perspectives. And perspectives are integrated by giving people the freedom to choose how they spend their time/money.

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As an example of the kind of anthropomorphic assumptions I'm talking about, you're assuming they have money or value material goods. Neither of these things is certain.

As for having the limited resources of one planet.... you're assuming they have only one planet. If they're capable of interstellar travel, they may have access to resources beyond our imagination, to the point that mundane trade is as far beneath them as eating ant grubs is beneath the average human city dweller.


You're assuming they are a Class I civilization, rather than a Class II or Class III for starters.

A Class I society, if they are limited to reaction-drive sublight travel, isn't sending any trading missions to Earth. If a Class I sublight/reaction civilization has interstellar travel at all, it will likely be robotic probes only. If they travel across interstellar space in person, the only way to justify the expense (to a Class I civilization) would be colonization.

At least, from the human perspective.

There is only one thing we can say for sure about aliens: they will be alien. They will not think like we think, they will be very different.

I've been in contact with a number of species of aliens for most of my adult life. Obviously, not in person but by a technology that emulates FTL. Still takes a long time back and forth though.

Here's the thing. They're not coming. It's just too far and just as any species, the cost of transportation is a factor not to mention the distances involved.

However, things might change in the future. If they did come here, I imagine they would just buy handicrafts instead of shlepping tons of weaponry to assault us with. They'll take some holos, get a few T-Shirts (I went to Planet Dirt and all I got was this lousy shkrudleg) hit the cocktail party circuit in D.C. and head out for some less ****ed up planet to look for possible expansion.

I started counting planets way back when but when I got to about 700 quintillion, I gave up. Still, I'm sure they'll find better stuff closer to home. I told them humans taste like chicken so don't worry about that. Even then, we just have to give them a breeding pair and they'll raise their own.

Nothing to se here. Move along.

Goshin, but why bother building a spaceship if you don't value material goods? A planet of hippie aliens would never build a spaceship.

It doesn't matter how many planets they do or do not have access to...they are still constrained by scarcity. As I mentioned, every single resource can have multiple uses. How a resource is used is not determined in a vacuum. Either it's determined by the opportunity cost decisions of all the individuals in a society...or it's determined by the opportunity cost decisions of some of the individuals in society. Given that we all have extremely limited perspectives...each perspective you remove from the process...the slower the progress will be.

Around 2500 years ago Cyrus the Great abolished slavery and protected freedom of religion. Why did he do it? Who knows...perhaps because he felt it was the moral thing to do. But clearly it counted as progress. Unfortunately, after his reign ended, slavery and religious intolerance again became the norm. The problem was that Cyrus the Great never offered a consequentialist defense of liberty. A consequentialist defense of liberty would have established the connection between liberty and progress.

It doesn't matter whether it's our civilization or an alien civilization...destroying individual foresight hinders progress. This will already be an accepted fact by the time a civilization has advanced to the point it can travel to other inhabited planets. And this fact won't change. It was a fact when ancient tribes were obliterating other tribes...it was a fact when the Europeans were colonizing the Americas...and it will be a fact when we visit other inhabited planets. The difference is...by the time we can visit other inhabited planets...we will have enough history under our belts to see that we shoot ourselves in the foot by destroying the perspectives of others.

Will it matter if I'm destroying your perspective or the perspective of an alien? Not one bit. In both cases I'd be shooting myself in the foot. Who knows what you would have done with your resources if I hadn't limited your ability to use them according to your perspective. Actually...perhaps the more alien a perspective is...the more we harm ourselves by destroying it. If we all thought alike...then how could we make any progress? We'd each see the same resource and think of the exact same use. It's thinking outside the box that leads to new and innovative uses of resources. An alien, by virtue of being from a different planet, would certainly think outside the box. But that would definitely be a two way street.

To summarize...if members of an alien civilization all think alike...then they will never see new and innovative uses for their resources and they will never be able to build a spaceship capable of traveling to other inhabited planets. If they do manage to build a spaceship that is capable of traveling to inhabited planets...then it has to follow that they are all unique individuals with different perspectives. So by the time they have advanced to the point that they are capable of building such a spaceship...then they will have realized that progress depends on perspectives. It depends on trading rather than taking.

We all value progress...which is why taxpayers should have the freedom to trade their taxes for the public goods that they value.

Xerographica said:

And perspectives are integrated by giving people the freedom to choose how they spend their time/money.

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Is this a closet way of you trying to get us to go with your "Everyone should decide where their tax money goes" again?

Xerographica said:

Goshin, but why bother building a spaceship if you don't value material goods? A planet of hippie aliens would never build a spaceship.

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C'mon please use a little bit more imagination then that. How about pure curiosity, the driving force behind many even simply human actions and part of the basis for science itself?

Daize said:

C'mon please use a little bit more imagination then that. How about pure curiosity, the driving force behind many even simply human actions and part of the basis for science itself?

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Except, you're missing the point. Whatever their motivations are...building a spaceship depends on valuing material goods.

Jetboogieman said:

Is this a closet way of you trying to get us to go with your "Everyone should decide where their tax money goes" again?

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Errr...not sure why you would consider it a "closet way"...given that in the first post I argued that taxpayers should be able to directly allocate their taxes.

Xerographica said:

Errr...not sure why you would consider it a "closet way"...given that in the first post I argued that taxpayers should be able to directly allocate their taxes.

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Sorry didn't see that.

Well sorry mate, it's still an idiotic idea, aliens or not.

Your idea, has as CaptainCourtesy pointed out last time you talked about it gained 0 value since the last time you suggested it.

Jetboogieman said:

Sorry didn't see that.

Well sorry mate, it's still an idiotic idea, aliens or not.

Your idea, has as CaptainCourtesy pointed out last time you talked about it gained 0 value since the last time you suggested it.

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Here's what would be an idiotic idea. It would be an idiotic idea for you to spend any of your time/money promoting pragmatarianism. Why would you spend your time/money promoting an idea that you believed to be idiotic? Yet, your taxes pay for many ideas that you believe to be idiotic. Liberals pay for conservative ideas and conservatives pay for liberal ideas. If you have no problem with your taxes paying for idiotic ideas...then why not pay to promote pragmatarianism while you're at it? Heck, let's all go out and buy something that we do not need, want or value! Let's do that all the time and see what happens to the supply of goods that we actually need, want or value.

I mean...what's REALLY idiotic is my failure to convince you that your perspective should matter. Why am I failing to convince you of the obvious? You say that my idea is idiotic...but my idea is that your perspective should matter. That means that you're arguing that your perspective should not matter. Your actions say one thing but your words say another thing. But as we all know...actions speak louder than words.

The thing is...I'm smart enough to realize just how limited my perspective truly is. That's why I'd be happy spending just my own taxes. When somebody wants to spend your taxes for you...it means that they aren't smart enough to realize just how limited their perspective truly is. Idiots like those are responsible for the worst man made disasters throughout human history.

Daize said:

C'mon please use a little bit more imagination then that. How about pure curiosity, the driving force behind many even simply human actions and part of the basis for science itself?

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Oh, I just noticed your signature..."The best among us have doubts, the worst are always certain." Does that mean that you agree that taxpayers should be allowed to choose which government organizations they give their individual taxes to?

TNAR said:

I think aliens would bring us food baskets filled with extraterrestrial goodies. They would give, not take or trade.

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The aliens that you know must be different than the ones I know. The ones that I know would all just run around zapping us with their ray guns.

When they interviewed one of the astronomers who works at the only location with the specific purpose of trying to spot alien communications signals, he was asked what he thought we as a people should do if we ever do pick up alien communications signals. His answer was that personally he thought we shouldn't answer it.

When we go study animals we don't bring them goodies or try to advance them. Any aliens capable of reaching earth would be so far advanced beyond us that we'd be like marcupial monkeys at best. Just low creatures to study, experience on and possibly use (for food.)

my guess is that we'd be in real trouble. i can think of many motivations for more advanced beings to travel unfathomable distances to visit us, and very few of them are beneficent or even neutral. every time i read about us blasting communications signals into deep space, my first thought is that this is an exceptionally poor plan.

By the time your Earth people develop FTL, you will have changed your character quite a bit. Developing FTL implies a world of forward thinking and collaborative investment. Right now, you are still savages with forks. Things will be much, much different in the future.

I can't imagine any species investing so much to come here and attack us. That they may be more developed technologically more indicates that they are more advanced socially. Except the Disty of course.

Helix said:

my guess is that we'd be in real trouble. i can think of many motivations for more advanced beings to travel unfathomable distances to visit us, and very few of them are beneficent or even neutral. every time i read about us blasting communications signals into deep space, my first thought is that this is an exceptionally poor plan.

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specklebang said:

By the time your Earth people develop FTL, you will have changed your character quite a bit. Developing FTL implies a world of forward thinking and collaborative investment. Right now, you are still savages with forks. Things will be much, much different in the future.

I can't imagine any species investing so much to come here and attack us. That they may be more developed technologically more indicates that they are more advanced socially. Except the Disty of course.

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i see a few paths to entire species collaboration for advancement. i see more scenarios, though, in which war, famine, disease, (or a combination) slows or eliminates our exponential technological advancement for a while.

...or reduces our population sufficiently to force us into investing in our futures instead of killing and bickering over sky guys and oil sources.

Trust me, I'm NO optimisteace

Helix said:

i see a few paths to entire species collaboration for advancement. i see more scenarios, though, in which war, famine, disease, (or a combination) slows or eliminates our exponential technological advancement for a while.

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Xerographica said:

Goshin, but why bother building a spaceship if you don't value material goods? A planet of hippie aliens would never build a spaceship.

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I didn't mention hippies. They may not value material goods because their material needs are more than sufficiently met. If they possess advanced nanotechnology, for instance, they may be able to recycle used materials into like-new materials, then molecularly process those into anything material good they need, so cheaply that it might as well be free.

That's one possibility. Another would be that they are simply psychologically less interested in material goods than in other things... achievement and recognition, social status apart from wealth; knowlege for its own sake; art or performance; or perhaps they value clever jokes or poetry more than money or gold or a new couch. We have no idea, because they are not human and may be WILDLY different.

It doesn't matter how many planets they do or do not have access to...they are still constrained by scarcity. As I mentioned, every single resource can have multiple uses. How a resource is used is not determined in a vacuum. Either it's determined by the opportunity cost decisions of all the individuals in a society.....,.,It doesn't matter whether it's our civilization or an alien civilization...destroying individual foresight hinders progress. ...... The difference is...by the time we can visit other inhabited planets...we will have enough history under our belts to see that we shoot ourselves in the foot by destroying the perspectives of others.

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I don't know that you have thought this through. If they have access to many planets and asteroid and whatnot, if they have fusion power or total conversion, if they have molecular nanoassembly (let alone transmutation), they may not live in an economy of scarcity, but an economy of abundance... where energy and material goods are so cheap that most reasonable wants and needs are easily satisfied with minimal effort. The implications of this alone are almost beyond our ability to imagine.... now add an alien biology, alien psychology, alien sociology, alien social institutions (ie government of some sort), and we have no way of knowing that their view of material goods and trade remotely resemble our own.

Larry Niven, an enormously respected SF writer who has been invited to many NASA events, postulated that a sapient species that evolved from a carnivorous hunting predator would be far more likely to engage in conquest of other sapients, despite being technologically and socially advanced. Indeed several of his science fiction stories, often co-written with PhD Doctor Jerry Pournelle, dealt with the human expectation that starfaring aliens would be too advanced to be hostile, and how that assumption was turned on its head when they encountered more-advanced sapients that possessed either predatory or dominance related drives different from humanity.

Will it matter if I'm destroying your perspective or the perspective of an alien? Not one bit. ....

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If the aliens do not see humanity as being sapient, they may care less about our perspective than we do about the thoughts of tuna fish.

To summarize...if members of an alien civilization all think alike...then they will never see new and innovative uses for their resources and they will never be able to build a spaceship capable of traveling to other inhabited planets. If they do manage to build a spaceship that is capable of traveling to inhabited planets...then it has to follow that they are all unique individuals with different perspectives. So by the time they have advanced to the point that they are capable of building such a spaceship...then they will have realized that progress depends on perspectives. It depends on trading rather than taking.

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Again, anthropomorphic projections and assumptions. An alien sapient could be part of a hive-mind and indeed think all alike, yet that collective intellect could be vast and perfectly capable of inventing new technology and travelling to the stars.

How do we know how "socially advanced" an alien species would have to be to build starships? We don't, because we don't know how far WE are from this capability. It could take us thousands of years, or never happen.... or we could be just one physics discovery away from finding a way to "bypass" Relativity, and a few generations away from building starships as cheap as cruise-ships. We have no idea.

We all value progress....

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Another anthropomorphism, and this one isn't even true of all of humanity. China and Japan in the 18th and 19th centuries valued social stability more than progress or new technology or trade... Japan in particular isolated itself and attempted to restrict Western technology that threatened to change their social structure. As well, one could ask if the Taliban valued progress.

Goshin, regarding valuing material goods...what you say might be true of an alien civilization...but not of an alien civilization that has advanced to the point it can build a spaceship capable of reaching us. It has to value material goods if it's going to build a spaceship. This is because a spaceship requires resources to build and those resources are limited. Free trade is what ensures that limited resources are put to their most productive use...and free trade is based on people valuing material goods.

They might have abundance beyond our wildest dreams...much in the same way a caveman would be overwhelmed by our abundance...but no civilization starts off with abundance. How did we end up with the amount of abundance that we currently have? Free-trade. Free-trade helps ensure that the most productive people end up with the most resources. Consider the average joe winning the lottery...bang! abundance! But chances are good that he won't manage to hold onto that abundance. It doesn't disappear into thin air though...so where does it go? It goes to the people that produce the things that the average joe values.

My argument is that an alien civilization would be more interested in trading rather taking. This is because by the time an alien civilization had enough abundance to reach us...they would have realized that abundance depends on free-trade.

You mentioned that we don't know far we are from having the capability to travel to distant planets. I agree...but whether it happens sooner or later depends on how well we use our limited resources. And how well we use our limited resources depends on giving people the freedom to exchange one thing that they value for another thing that they value even more. In other words...progress depends on profit. And I'm using the word "profit" in the broadest possible sense...as in "gain".

You can't gain abundance by wasting limited resources. That's why we say that a mind is a terrible thing to waste. But if you don't have the freedom to spend your time/money as you see fit...then does your mind matter? No...it doesn't. Right now the minds of millions and millions of our most productive citizens are being wasted in the public sector. It's a fail of epic proportions. It's absurd to pretend that 538 congresspeople were somehow productive enough to earn 1/4 of our nation's revenue...which is around $4 trillion dollars. Yet, we allow them to spend money they did not earn...and by doing so we waste the minds of our most productive citizens and greatly reduce our rate of progress.

It IS true that humanity values progress...because progress provides abundance. Consider these prayers which Edward Burnett Tylor shared in his book...Primitive Culture...

"Let our herds be so numerous that they cannot be housed; let children so abound that the care of them shall overcome their parents - as shall be seen by their burned hands; let our heads ever strike against brass pots innumerable hanging from our roofs; let the rats form their nests of shreds of scarlet cloth and silk; let all the kites in the country be seen in the trees of our village, from beasts being killed there every day. We are ignorant of what it is good to ask for. You know what is good for us. Give it to us!"

"What, Indra, has not yet been given me by thee, Lightning-hurler, all good things bring us hither with both hands...with mighty riches fill me, with wealth of cattle, for thou art great!"

"O Allah! unloose the captivity of the captives, and annul the debts of the debtors: and make this town to be safe and secure, and blessed with wealth and plenty, and all the towns of the Moslems, O Lord of all creates! and decree safety and health to us and to all travellers, and pilgrims, and warriors, and wanderers upon thy earth, and upon thy sea, such as are Moslems, O Lord of all creatures!"

"I seek refuge with Allah from Satan the accursed. In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful...O Lord of all creatures! O Allah! destroy the infidels and polytheists, thine enemies, the enemies of the religion! O Allah! make their children orphans, and defile their abodes, and cause their feet to slip, and give them and their families and their households and their women and their children and their relations by marriage and their brothers and their friends and their possessions and their race and their wealth and their lands as booty to the Moslems! O Lord of all creatures!"

Everybody wants abundance...but most people don't understand the connection between abundance and tolerance. Abundance is tied to tolerance because no culture has a monopoly on discovery. We're all just blind men touching different parts of an elephant. When a culture is certain it has discovered Truth...it stifles any deviant beliefs and is intolerant of doubt and disbelief. But if you force people to believe one thing...if you allow for a monopoly...then it prevents people from shopping around for the most profitable ideas to consume. That's why Bastiat said, "treat all economic questions from the viewpoint of the consumer, for the interests of the consumer are the interests of the human race."

We're not just consumers of products and services...we're also consumers of ideas and beliefs. A Christian is a consumer of the ideas promoted by Christ...and a Democrat is a consumer of the ideas of liberals...and so on. Both Christianity and liberalism guarantee abundance in exchange for your time/money. When we give consumers the freedom to choose who they give their limited resources to...then we allow markets to shift limited resources to the most productive organizations. That's why taxpayers should be allowed to choose which government organizations they give their taxes to. Conservatives would tolerate the tax allocation decisions of liberals and vice versa. Intolerance for people with different beliefs is dogma...and dogma is a blind person who believes that he can see.

By the time a civilization has progressed to the point it can travel to distant planets...it will have realized that tolerance....allowing people to spend their time/money as they see fit...aka free-trade...increases the rate of progress. Nobody has a monopoly on truth.

Why the hell can't libertarians EVER argue from the real world ...?

The fact is if aliens come to earth we'd first have to explain to them the economic framework and institutions.

Infact this already happened, the different economic framework of the capitalist europeans and the more loose communalist economic framework of the north american natives.

Not buying it. For the sake of argument let’s say the evolved similarly to us, which is near impossible but I’ll play along. Perhaps in their earlier days they did participate in trade. But then at some point their technology advanced to the point that they could just take what they wanted from other civilizations. Seriously, once you have the technology to travel to another planet and take what you want, what is to stop you other than some form of ethical system?