You both have a point, but I'd like to add that maybe aliens aren't as interested in shiny things like collider's and plasma and all that, and more interested in organizations of living things that control resource flow across the oceans, which the US does for the entire world. If I was an alien that already understood the bosons and all that, it would be cool to watch a monkey planet figure that out, but I wouldn't learn much. But I could learn from an organizational structure with unilateral force projection capabilities across all specimens of this creature. There are things the US does that are mighty interesting.
Sure, you might also be just as interested in a society capable of working towards something like the LHC or ITER, by taking care of its citizens and through diplomacy. I think it's a more interesting goal than controlling the seas so that people can get cheap trinkets from China.
And don't get me wrong, I'm just as addicted to my trinkets from China as anybody else, and I benefit from US hegemony. Just trying to think from a total outsider's perspective.
