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In a nearly-real-life version of Earth there is a moderately abundant amount of alien life. However, most aliens are, in fact, not interested in humanity. So there will be no grand-landing revelation.

There are aliens among us for different reasons. Some live underground trying to escape repressive governments on their home planets, some take vacations, and others study us.

What logically and objectively speaking, with what primary justifications would an advanced alien species that has surpassed us both evolution and technology gain by studying humanity. This presumes that the aliens did not "seed" Earth with humans and that our planet isn't part of any mining/military related scenarios?

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    $\begingroup$ Why do people spend decades studying ants? Why are wildlife documentaries produced at great expense and watched by billions of people? $\endgroup$ – AlexP May 31 '18 at 8:40
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    $\begingroup$ I think this is too broad. You're pretty much asking for all the possible reasons why sociological, historical, biological and political research (and more) are done. $\endgroup$ – StephenG May 31 '18 at 8:42
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    $\begingroup$ What do we gain from observing other species? There are many people that watch birds, some people observe even bigger animals, some even live with the monkeys. I think this question could be solved with simple common sense $\endgroup$ – Raditz_35 May 31 '18 at 8:58
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    $\begingroup$ Also please try to make the intro less convoluted. It's hard to understand as it is now. $\endgroup$ – L.Dutch - Reinstate Monica♦ May 31 '18 at 9:24
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The primary gain of an advanced peaceful scientific alien race observing a less advanced one (such as humans in their current state) is the information on sociological advancement of sentient species and what causes them to gain various behavior trends.

Humans are at a particularly interesting part of social and intellectual evolution right now, so we would make excellent observation subjects. We are suddenly able to rapidly exchange ideas around the world and have individual access to more knowledge than ever before. This is already creating massive shifts in our society and will continue to do so for some time (if we don't destroy ourselves first.)

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We are their rats.

Psychology struggles to find good test subjects that they can use to model human behavior. As using humans for many of their experiments is inhumane, and humans do not quite follow the same behavioral pattern that rats do, because our brains function softly differently. But psychology can be extent profitable, add or makes adds more effective, Lada to fame design elements that have n people spending thousands of dollars on a free to play game. Understanding human behavior makes it easier to manipulate other humans more effectively.

On a less evil side, it can lead to better methods for treating depression, scizophrenia, and other mental illnesses.

Maybe we are their more effective rats as we are more intellectually and socially advanced then rats so form a better model for psychological behavior then their space rats do.

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