I'm watching, on Netflix, the Star Trek Enterprise series--a
more recent one that ran for four years, covering the time before the
Enterprise was led by Captain James T. Kirk.
It got me thinking, how could humanity pay for the massive
costs involved in interstellar, trans-galactic travel? What would humanity have
to offer in trade to interstellar species for new technologies, new
information, resources and services? The USA's biggest exports are currently things--technology,
oil, cars.
It's hard to imagine that such products would be in demand
from interstellar traders.
I doubt that our military goods would be of interest. Our
drugs and bioactive compounds might be. It seems that any beings with the
ability to reach distant star systems would not need fossil fuels, though they
might find them useful for other complex chemical uses. They would probably
know how to take fossil fuels and make profoundly smarter, more complex
products with them.
It's interesting to consider, through the eyes (eye,
compound eyes, magnetic sensors) of an alien race, what humans produce that
would be valued.
What would earthlings have to offer extraterrestrial beings
with the advanced technology resources to engage in interstellar travel?
We might have rare elements or metals that would be of
value. Or there might be bio materials that were worth something to visiting
traders. Or they might not consider it ethical to engage in trade for any life
form--and see our exploitation of animals as barbaric.
I have a feeling our cultural products would be of most
interest--arts, crafts, perhaps music and stories. Or it could be our feelings.
There might be a way to transduce emotional experiences so they could be
experienced by other beings.
Next Page 1 | 2
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
Rob Kall is an award winning journalist, inventor, software architect,
connector and visionary. His work and his writing have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC, the HuffingtonPost, Success, Discover and other media.
Check out his platform at RobKall.com
He is the author of The Bottom-up Revolution; Mastering the Emerging World of Connectivity
He's given talks and workshops to Fortune
500 execs and national medical and psychological organizations, and pioneered
first-of-their-kind conferences in Positive Psychology, Brain Science and
Story. He hosts some of the world's smartest, most interesting and powerful
people on his Bottom Up Radio Show,
and founded and publishes one of the top Google- ranked progressive news and
opinion sites, OpEdNews.com
more detailed bio:
Rob Kall has spent his adult life as an awakener and empowerer-- first in the field of biofeedback, inventing products, developing software and a music recording label, MuPsych, within the company he founded in 1978-- Futurehealth, and founding, organizing and running 3 conferences: Winter Brain, on Neurofeedback and consciousness, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology (a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, first presenting workshops on it in 1985) and Storycon Summit Meeting on the Art Science and Application of Story-- each the first of their kind. Then, when he found the process of raising people's consciousness and empowering them to take more control of their lives one person at a time was too slow, he founded Opednews.com-- which has been the top search result on Google for the terms liberal news and progressive opinion for several years. Rob began his Bottom-up Radio show, broadcast on WNJC 1360 AM to Metro Philly, also available on iTunes, covering the transition of our culture, business and world from predominantly Top-down (hierarchical, centralized, authoritarian, patriarchal, big) to bottom-up (egalitarian, local, interdependent, grassroots, archetypal feminine and small.) Recent long-term projects include a book, Bottom-up-- The Connection Revolution, debillionairizing the planet and the Psychopathy Defense and Optimization (more...)
1
1
