

You are the representative of an alien high civilization... - zeynel1

... who want to buy the planet earth to exploit its resources - who would you talk - or who do you think owns the earth
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rbanffy
I would just send nanomachines to disassemble and process the materials and
dismantle the planet according to my needs.

If I were a member of a space faring civilization many million years older
than mankind, there is a huge chance I would regard humans as high as humans
regard bacteria. Or insects.

You don't think twice before cleaning your floor with disinfectant, do you?

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zeynel1
\--I would regard humans as high as humans regard bacteria--

but this is the question - you are assuming that -humans- own the earth - this
is not clear - as another poster mentioned - he would deal with china - a
state - or a corporation -bp- and even perhaps the -bacteria- that humans have
a hard time controlling

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rbanffy
They wouldn't deal with humans the same way we wouldn't deal with bacteria.

From a very advanced - and very alien - civilization's point of view, we are
nothing more than nice sources of complex carbon chemistry.

Our only chance would be if we, somehow, reminded them of what they were eons
ago so as to elicit some empathy.

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koeselitz
This is a trick question, right? Presumably a _high civilization_ wouldn't be
simply buying up rich, sustainable, highly bio-diverse planets and just
consuming them; and if it were, it's hard to see what point there would be in
having a conversation with one of the soon-to-be-doomed (or at least orphaned)
inhabitants beforehand.

~~~
zeynel1
Good point. But no, not a trick question. You are sent by an alien
civilization to find out the contact "person" as defined in legal documents
=person=corporation=a natural person or a state= to contact to buy the earth.

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Hume
You could look to China as an example; a country that has re-entered the world
economy fairly abruptly and is looking to acquire raw materials.

They might follow their lead and do deals with countries like Australia,
Canada and Russia or they could just acquire stock in corps like BHP Billiton
or BP.

So it would boil down to stock trades and board meetings.

