08-06-2016, 02:09 AM | #11 |
Join Date: May 2016
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Re: Question about Infinity, Centrum, the Cabal...
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08-06-2016, 08:32 AM | #12 |
Untitled
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: between keyboard and chair
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Re: Question about Infinity, Centrum, the Cabal...
That sounds like something out of Lensman, right down to the name "Unattached".
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Rob Kelk “Every man has a right to his own opinion, but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts.” – Bernard Baruch, Deming (New Mexico) Headlight, 6 January 1950 No longer reading these forums regularly. |
08-06-2016, 09:35 AM | #13 | |
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Re: Question about Infinity, Centrum, the Cabal...
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08-06-2016, 07:26 PM | #14 |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: Question about Infinity, Centrum, the Cabal...
I believe "arbitrary" _is_ a part of the definition. Inefficient is just the result in all of our experience and corrupt is very common. If Centrum is none of these things then lumping it in with what we call "command economies" is misleading.
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Fred Brackin |
08-06-2016, 07:50 PM | #15 | |
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Re: Question about Infinity, Centrum, the Cabal...
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Centrum IS a command economy. Any society in which everyone is employed by a single entity which monopolizes all goods and services is. If you believe that a command economy can't be one which managed well (an idea that I feel inclined to agree with)...then the conclusion is obvious. Centrum's economy is not managed well and we've just never seen that because we've never been there. Mind you there a lot of parallels that have capabilities that are impossible in reality. And Centrum does have an advantage over real command economies in that it can subsidize inefficiencies using access to "unlimited resources" from outside. |
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08-07-2016, 03:16 AM | #16 | |
Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Kenai, Alaska
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Re: Question about Infinity, Centrum, the Cabal...
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08-07-2016, 08:38 AM | #17 | ||
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Re: Question about Infinity, Centrum, the Cabal...
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08-07-2016, 09:36 AM | #18 |
Night Watchman
Join Date: Oct 2010
Location: Cambridge, UK
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Re: Question about Infinity, Centrum, the Cabal...
Among the reasons that command economies don't work are that humans can't actually make plans of the needed complexity for an entire modern economy, and even if they could, they wouldn't stick to them, preferring to "do things their own way", either for personal advantage or local optimisations that upset the larger plan.
Since Centrum's homeworld was built up after a very destructive war, it seems possible that their economy is very much simpler than that of any normal world, making a planned economy only inefficient rather than disastrous. It also seems possible that they are a sufficiently disciplined culture that they actually will stick to plans. That suggests that the Interworld Service is where they put people who aren't good at conforming.
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The Path of Cunning. Indexes: DFRPG Characters, Advantage of the Week, Disadvantage of the Week, Skill of the Week, Techniques. |
08-07-2016, 04:56 PM | #19 | |
Join Date: May 2016
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Re: Question about Infinity, Centrum, the Cabal...
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08-07-2016, 05:09 PM | #20 |
Hero of Democracy
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: far from the ocean
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Re: Question about Infinity, Centrum, the Cabal...
I don't know if this has been mentioned yet, but on a lot of world's centrum's advantage is time: They've been in this game for over a 100 years. On the worlds where they are entrenched, they are well entrenched. Additionally the technology gap is the most glaring where parachronics are concerned.
-------------------------------------------------------------- I suppose in retrospect the only way for centrum to have anything resembling capitalism is to have either services that compete against each other, or at the very least different branches of the same service. Also in retrospect, centrum would probably view the lack of capitalism as desirable. Capitalists tend to upset the social order in general.
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Tags |
cabal, centrum, help me out here, infinite worlds, infinity, parachronics |
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