Say What?

From Tyler Cowen.

Adam asks:

If you were offered a true statistic about an alien civilization, but only one, what would it be?

Cowen's choices are rather droll:

How about the real rate of return on capital? The risk premium? The percentage of the population which dies in war each year?

He's not ready to assume that their biology is similar, but they are bound to be capitalists, right?

Does anybody know the answers to any of these questions for Earth? Maybe for the last one.

I'm far from sure that statistics are very relevant unless you know some other things about the underlying variables. But what kind of information about an alien culture would tell us the most? Suppose that you have an hour to look through what appears to be an abandoned alien city. What would you look for to learn about the inhabitants? (Try to name five things).

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