08-14-2009, 07:55 PM | #121 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Sectors of an Ultra-Tech/Bio-Tech economy
Quote:
Bill Stoddard |
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08-14-2009, 08:15 PM | #122 |
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Oz
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Re: Sectors of an Ultra-Tech/Bio-Tech economy
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.
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Decay is inherent in all composite things. Nod head. Get treat. |
08-14-2009, 09:06 PM | #123 |
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Oz
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Re: Sectors of an Ultra-Tech/Bio-Tech economy
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.
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Decay is inherent in all composite things. Nod head. Get treat. Last edited by Agemegos; 08-15-2009 at 02:13 AM. |
08-14-2009, 09:42 PM | #124 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Pittsburgh PA USA
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Re: Sectors of an Ultra-Tech/Bio-Tech economy
Quote:
(Don't mind me; I get terribly cynical when the governor starts "joking" about gassing the budget negotiations committee.)
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Cap'n Q When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained. -- Mark Twain |
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08-14-2009, 10:51 PM | #125 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Sectors of an Ultra-Tech/Bio-Tech economy
Quote:
Bill Stoddard |
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08-14-2009, 10:55 PM | #126 | |
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Lawrence, KS
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Re: Sectors of an Ultra-Tech/Bio-Tech economy
Quote:
Bill Stoddard |
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08-14-2009, 11:22 PM | #127 |
Join Date: Mar 2008
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Re: Sectors of an Ultra-Tech/Bio-Tech economy
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.
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08-14-2009, 11:38 PM | #128 | |
Join Date: Sep 2008
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Re: Sectors of an Ultra-Tech/Bio-Tech economy
Quote:
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.
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Quos deus vult perdere, prius dementat. Latin: Those whom a god wishes to destroy, he first drives mad. |
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08-15-2009, 12:41 AM | #129 |
Join Date: Jan 2006
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Re: Sectors of an Ultra-Tech/Bio-Tech economy
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? |
08-15-2009, 12:54 AM | #130 |
Join Date: Jan 2006
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Re: Sectors of an Ultra-Tech/Bio-Tech economy
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. |
Tags |
bio-tech, economics, flat black, trade, ultra-tech |
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