A friendly empire came to me today and asked for the technology to produce Entertainers. I don't mind trading the tech, but it's valuable. I'm not giving it away - so I declined the request - fearing that the friend might think less of me. I then went back and offered a trade deal, offered Entertainers and Star Federation and gained 75% of this vastly superior civilization's technologies and enough money to get out of debt - after all, as I mentioned in a previous post - I fell into deficit spending. It was a deal that put me ahead of where I might otherwise have been. 

Still, it would have been nice to have a direct link to negotiate the gift request instead of an outright dissing of an insanely powerful ideological friend.