[IW] Ordinary Worlds with valuables!

[PTTG]

Originally Posted by (E)

Feel free to yell if this already exists in the thread and I've missed it.
A world with identical currency or bonds etc that is experiencing hyperinflation. $200000 for a loaf of bread.

I think that Homeline has already had to do something about chronocounterfitting. If so, it would be difficult to do anything with that $200,000 that wouldn't get detected. Although I suppose echo worlds would be caught unaware. Still, they'd see strange cash transfers.

Although you could hide it by doing cross-time arbitrage between two worlds with complimentary economic crisises.

[starslayer]

Oh hey- thought of an easy one:

Storage-1

This world has a local plank time 1000x slower than homeline (which is to say that 1 second on this world is ~17 minutes of time passed in homeline).

This makes it an ideal world for storing things like medical radioactive isotopes, sick people waiting for regenerative medicine to finish cloning their replacement parts, and other things that you want to preserve.

It's also a popular 'tourist' spot for futurists who want to 'fast forward'

Stored items don't even require attendance, just put the conveyor on proper return time (often mere minutes) and let it run its course.

The world is otherwise unremarkable, coming out of its first ice age, there is breathable atmosphere, but virtually no surface life.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by (E)

Feel free to yell if this already exists in the thread and I've missed it.
A world with identical currency or bonds etc that is experiencing hyperinflation. $200000 for a loaf of bread.

What good does this do you? It's not as if anything significantly valuable transfers ownership because you have a piece of paper even now, there's a tax registry somewhere that records it's last legal transfer.

I suppose there are still places that might accept deposit of a briefcase full of cash, but that's only a few million dollars (they have to be the same denominations that exist on your destination line, you can't deposit a case full of million dollar bills) and is likely to attract enough law enforcement attention that somebody will notice something wrong.

[SionEwig]

Originally Posted by (E)

Feel free to yell if this already exists in the thread and I've missed it.
A world with identical currency or bonds etc that is experiencing hyperinflation. $200000 for a loaf of bread.

Originally Posted by malloyd

What good does this do you? It's not as if anything significantly valuable transfers ownership because you have a piece of paper even now, there's a tax registry somewhere that records it's last legal transfer.

I suppose there are still places that might accept deposit of a briefcase full of cash, but that's only a few million dollars (they have to be the same denominations that exist on your destination line, you can't deposit a case full of million dollar bills) and is likely to attract enough law enforcement attention that somebody will notice something wrong.

Let's see, take 1000 loaves of bread, sell them for $2000 each, which is a lot under the going rate. Make a couple of restrictions, one loaf to a customer and no bills over a hundred, oh and exact change only. Then you should have some odd $2,000,000 in identical currency. Keep half (I can certainly be happy with that much money, and the other half, well a bunch of rather excellent charities can get some very anonymous cash donations.

[(E)]

Originally Posted by malloyd

What good does this do you? It's not as if anything significantly valuable transfers ownership because you have a piece of paper even now, there's a tax registry somewhere that records it's last legal transfer.

I suppose there are still places that might accept deposit of a briefcase full of cash, but that's only a few million dollars (they have to be the same denominations that exist on your destination line, you can't deposit a case full of million dollar bills) and is likely to attract enough law enforcement attention that somebody will notice something wrong.

I was picturing a photo from Germany's historic hyperinflation where a little girl was pushing a wheelbarrow full of cash.

It was more of a small scale concept, agent illegally uses billions of dollars worth of equipment to jump to a world to make $100,000 that he uses to pay for groceries etc.

The basic idea would work in reverse, take $10,000 out in cash and go to a parallel experiencing a depression, buy up things at cents on the dollar.

[PTTG]

Originally Posted by starslayer

Oh hey- thought of an easy one:

Storage-1

This world has a local plank time 1000x slower than homeline (which is to say that 1 second on this world is ~17 minutes of time passed in homeline).

This makes it an ideal world for storing things like medical radioactive isotopes, sick people waiting for regenerative medicine to finish cloning their replacement parts, and other things that you want to preserve.

It's also a popular 'tourist' spot for futurists who want to 'fast forward'

Stored items don't even require attendance, just put the conveyor on proper return time (often mere minutes) and let it run its course.

The world is otherwise unremarkable, coming out of its first ice age, there is breathable atmosphere, but virtually no surface life.

Sounds good to me. It would especially interesting from an adventure perspective if you ran the entire adventure in combat time and put something moderately critical on Homeline (like an imminent war) so that ever minute puts Homeline 16 hours closer to war...

Then you find an old man camping next to the great lakes, and it looks like he's been living there for six months...

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by robkelk

But there are people in the Turks and Caicos who want their country to become a Canadian province IOTL. Forcing them to join the USA would be "American Imperialism."

I didn't know that the people of the Turks and Caicos actually wanted to be a Canadian Province, I thought they were content with the limited oversight of a British appointed government that tries not to offend them. I was simply playing around with your words and ideas.

[Astromancer]

Try this simple idea. A world were spending on the Arts is noncontroversial in the USA from the 1910's on. Because of investment in Arts education and public sponsored art displays and performances the USA has a great deal more art and because of the vitality of twentieth century US life the art is lively, exciting, and very good. Even better for Homeline, artistic production is plentiful. Genuinely fine paintings and other art objects are available cheap. There is a lively trade in fine art from this world.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

Even better for Homeline, artistic production is plentiful. Genuinely fine paintings and other art objects are available cheap. There is a lively trade in fine art from this world.

Or not. Private spending on art has always been pretty non-controversial, so the difference here is apparently greater public funds. It's not so clear that improves anything - most public art isn't especially amazing, and a lot of forms of art seem to actually benefit from constraint - it forces the artist to focus on the essential part rather than toss in everything because he can. There's probably an optimum. It's unlikely Homeline hits it, but it's unlikely it's anywhere over near massive public funding either.

Edit: Actually I think you might get the best return from funding art appreciation classes in schools - creating a larger private demand.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by malloyd

Or not. Private spending on art has always been pretty non-controversial, so the difference here is apparently greater public funds. It's not so clear that improves anything - most public art isn't especially amazing, and a lot of forms of art seem to actually benefit from constraint - it forces the artist to focus on the essential part rather than toss in everything because he can. There's probably an optimum. It's unlikely Homeline hits it, but it's unlikely it's anywhere over near massive public funding either.

Edit: Actually I think you might get the best return from funding art appreciation classes in schools - creating a larger private demand.

The point was that there was an art market in the USA decades earlier and the idea that art was only important if it came from somewhere else, or had been a hit there first, weren't sustained. American art buyers are among those least likely to want or buy American art to this day. In this world that isn't a problem.