Sectors of an Ultra-Tech/Bio-Tech economy

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Training isn't just schooling and it makes little sense to edit something unless you understand it.

As a professional editor, I can tell you that you are wrong. I have edited many issues of the Journal of Algebra (you may know, but I will note for the benefit of anyone who doesn't that this is "abstract algebra," not the stuff you studied in high school). I never understood even the general point of a single one of those articles; they were at least two years of graduate work past the point where my mathematical brain flamed out for lack of oxygen. And my office mate, who shared it with me, was a humanities major who had never taken a serious math course.

Bill Stoddard

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

I don't doubt there is an answer, but what is the role of the the poor worlds trying to maintain TL8 in the economy dominated by the Suite?

They make the less challenging components and assemblies, which they export cheaply owing to high real exchange rates. With the foreign exchange thus earned they import a minimum of crucial components and assemble most high-tech products locally. Imagine a laptop computer that was assembled in Thailand with chips from California, LCD screen from South Korea, a chassis shaped in Thailand using aluminium from Australia, and a case moulded in Thailand with polycarbonate made in Germany, all running software written in Mumbai. High tech products in Flat Black are similar, except that economies of scale have changed so that you need whole planets to do what cities do on Earth today.

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by whswhs

As a professional editor, I can tell you that you are wrong.

It must be some help some times, surely?

There seems to be a sub-editor at The Economist these days who is replacing (or allowing a spelling checker to replace) "autarky" with "autarchy" and so forth. A modicum of editorial knowledge would save a certain amount of lip-biting and chagrin.

[capnq]

Originally Posted by whswhs

I don't see how anyone makes sense of economics by thinking of it purely monetary terms.

I don't think all that many people try to "make sense" of economics; they mostly just keep doing whatever seems to work. And keep doing it even after it stops working, until reality slaps them upside the head. And sometimes even that isn't enough to stop them.

(Don't mind me; I get terribly cynical when the governor starts "joking" about gassing the budget negotiations committee.)

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Brett

There seems to be a sub-editor at The Economist these days who is replacing (or allowing a spelling checker to replace) "autarky" with "autarchy" and so forth. A modicum of editorial knowledge would save a certain amount of lip-biting and chagrin.

That is not a symptom of failing to understand the field; it's a symptom of failing to become familiar with the language of the field, and of having the arrogance to rely on one's own ignorance rather than looking it up or querying the author. It's one of the two or three big sins of copy editing.

Bill Stoddard

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by capnq

I don't think all that many people try to "make sense" of economics; they mostly just keep doing whatever seems to work. And keep doing it even after it stops working, until reality slaps them upside the head. And sometimes even that isn't enough to stop them.

There is a fascinating book, "The Myth of the Rational Voter," whose author points out that nearly every economics instructor has stories to tell of the folk economics their students believe when they come into their first course, and all too often when they leave it, despite the instructor's best efforts to give them the straight dope . . . and yet many economists believe that voters decide how to vote in a way that is consistent with their rational economic interests.

Bill Stoddard

[dcarson]

Is there a university planet? Getting your PhD on the planet that specializes in the field the degree in in makes sense in most cases but for Bachelor degrees for many fields a more general knowledge base can be good. Most planets would have universities of course but even now there are concentrations of the best ones.

[SuedodeuS]

Originally Posted by dcarson

Is there a university planet? Getting your PhD on the planet that specializes in the field the degree in in makes sense in most cases but for Bachelor degrees for many fields a more general knowledge base can be good. Most planets would have universities of course but even now there are concentrations of the best ones.

That sounds like an interesting concept. If students in the Flat Black setting are anything like those in the present day, there would also be a high concentration of bars, liquor stores, and Chinese restaurants on such a planet.

This took me off on a tangent, which isn't entirely related to the issue at hand (but isn't entirely unrelated either). What about a planet that is extremely well known for its wine? Such a planet could also be used for other agriculture, but maybe the soil is of a particular consistency that lends itself well to making wines? I know a lot of people comment on a certain "earthy" flavor found only in French wines - a planet with a region with similar properties to France would do quite well on the wine market after Old Earth went thermonuclear. With sufficiently high tech level, virtually any flavor might be capable of being recreated flawlessly, but I'd expect authentic wines to have much more luxury associated with them. As wine is generally a luxury item already, I'd think "artificial" wines, regardless of how good they tasted, would be essentially taboo in higher cultures.

[martinl]

Just to make sure I have this right:

FTL shipping moves stuff about 1000 LY/year.

How far are Suite planets from each other, roughly?

What is the cost (by mass or volume) of FTL shipping?

Is this cost dominated by the cost of running the ship or the cost of making sure the cargo can't be used to hijack the ship?

[martinl]

RE: Planned economies in FB. Flat Black has psychiatry as reliable as our physics, and has demonstrated fledgling psychohistory (a rich individual isolated every single one of the potential revolutionary leaders on a politically seething planet.) With the addition of TL10 computers, they can probably do considerably better at planned economies than we can.

Note also that the people in the best spot to exploit the Empire's monopoly - the officals of the Empire itself, are canonically incorruptible, competent, and selfless [1], primarily motivated by the desire to prevent massive deaths via WMDs in a setting where planetbusters are at least one full TL old. They are undoubtedly manipulating the planned economy away from economic optimums, but their manipulations are quite arguably absolutely necessary.

[1] These aren't quite absolutes - Mink probably aren't "absolutely selfless," but they are the kind of people who would spend half of their life ruthlessly advocating their position ad bureaucracy because they deemed it necessary to do so, and then file a memo to their superior to get the whole thing canned when they deemed it obsolete. This is not an ideal, this is an average.