That alien doesn’t even have a numeral for 4, so it wouldn’t have a word for it either. If it speaks English, uses base 4, and uses the same words we do for numbers, it would sound like this when counting rocks: “One, two, three, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, twenty…”. But when it says “twelve”, it means the same thing as when we say “six”.

The joke: In any base X, the Xth number is always the first number to require a second digit. Base 4 goes 1,2,3,10,11,12,13,20,21,etc. Base 7 goes 1,2,3,4,5,6,10,etc.

I wasn’t making an argument for any particular economic system. Just pointing out the absurdity of the idea that food is “free” or doesn’t require work to produce.

I’m for an equitable distribution of resources and drudgery. Unfortunately, drudgery is an unavoidable aspect of civilization, but I think we can all agree that civilization is (or should be) a net positive. We just need to spread it out evenly.

I guess we could go back to a hunter gatherer lifestyle tomorrow. There would certainly be a lot of complaining, not the least of which would be about the food options. Long pig would be on the table for the first year or so