Communication Record 8
The seconds have flown by, and negotiations have been, predictably, one-sided. As I feared, the humans are ready to relinquish the whole of their cultural output for little more than sustainable survival of their species. I have had to restrain the less moral of my Union colleagues more than once.
Some of the humans have been able to grasp the fact that material goods have less value than intellectual products, but the number of offers I have had for cultural items in exchange for mere trinkets is amazing to me. The metal gold is rare among the humans, and I have been approached by artists I greatly admire who say they will work in perpetuity for the Union for a few mere tons of the stuff a year. Tempting though it has been, I have explained to each of them that in their economy, the introduction of that much gold into the market would deflate its value. Especially once matter transmutation becomes more commonplace among them.
On the selfish side, I have a feed of their "Internet" directly to my quarters at the ComNode, and it is more than I had dared to hope for. It will take decades to plumb the depths of this aspect of human society, decades I am more than happy to spend. Alas, for the necessity of work. Perhaps I’ll be able to train an assistant to take my place in the coming century; most of earth’s culture should still be untouched then, and I will be able to spend my time among the humans doing more than negotiating.
There has been some interest in the sexual aspects of human culture, particularly after the ComNode was hooked up to the human Internet, and I have spoken with some of the humans about the possibility of sexual tourists among their people. They have been surprisingly squeamish about it. I assured them that we would handle any injury or disease that arose from such interactions, and use any manner of contraception they designated, but that seemed to only make them more uncomfortable. The humans are a fascinating species, but odd in so many ways.
