[IW] Ordinary Worlds with valuables!

[Kax]

Originally Posted by Kax

Actually, this leads to an alternate: what happens to the world with no wifi data connections? When a G2 phone connection is as good as it gets? Maybe ultrawideband becomes a thing.

...and for valuables, an alternate where IT standards like Bluetooth and SSL and so on don't have security vulnerabilities, and software is dead solid because someone worked out how to write a good reliable secure compiler and optimiser, and have since added an optimising and bug-checking neural network system to all software development.

Easy-to-transport treasure, that.

[AlexanderHowl]

Neural-network software rapidly becomes autonomous self-learning software on sophisticated enough networks. While they might not be strong AI, they are better than weak AI, and they might be capable of proliferating through a TL8 network. All it takes is replication errors and digital evolution takes off...

Imagine a computer program that is capable of actively hacking a system without human activity and imagine allowing that to proliferate uncontrollably throughout the Internet. How long does it take for it to learn to counter less sophisticated software? How long does it take for it to overwhelm the capacity of the Internet with its transmission? How long does it take over every connected device?

The consequences of such unrestrained replication is the collapse of the banking system, the energy sytem, the health care system, etc. Cell phones are connected computers, so they are silenced. A majority of new cars are connected computers, so they shut down. Within a few weeks, human civilization comes to a grinding halt as it must remove every connected computer from its infrastructure.

[Kax]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Neural-network software rapidly becomes autonomous self-learning software on sophisticated enough networks. While they might not be strong AI, they are better than weak AI, and they might be capable of proliferating through a TL8 network. All it takes is replication errors and digital evolution takes off...

Imagine a computer program that is capable of actively hacking a system without human activity and imagine allowing that to proliferate uncontrollably throughout the Internet. How long does it take for it to learn to counter less sophisticated software? How long does it take for it to overwhelm the capacity of the Internet with its transmission? How long does it take over every connected device?

The consequences of such unrestrained replication is the collapse of the banking system, the energy sytem, the health care system, etc. Cell phones are connected computers, so they are silenced. A majority of new cars are connected computers, so they shut down. Within a few weeks, human civilization comes to a grinding halt as it must remove every connected computer from its infrastructure.

One can only hope that it becomes sophisticated enough to become sapient and curious, and want to keep the whole system running to see what it's doing and why rather than acting like a cancer or virus.

So, Skynet/Worldnet.

How we treat it and what it sees and how determines how it reacts. Will it be a preserver and anti-virus, or a destroyer?

How many cracker attacks will it withstand per hour? Because they will happen. And what will it do about them?

And what poor world-hopping innocents get caught in the middle and try and pull something valuable from the situation?

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

...
The problem isn't 'one shot at popularity', it's that without copyright if the first print run of your book sells the second print run is probably being sold by someone else who isn't giving you any royalties.

Right, and the issue of recouping costs with income gets really big for entertainment projects that have a high cost to begin with.

In an already risky business no one's going to bother risking large upfront production costs if they can't be assured of receiving income even if their thing is a popular success.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by starslayer

...

I would imagine that copycat can follow a largely similar technological progression that we see today, but the iteration cycles would be faster (and the subsequent 'new medicine costs' would be higher)-

Only the thing is if the iteration cycle is faster that means you are relying on people upfronting the cost on a quicker cycle. Only those costs are harder to recoup because your only way to do so is to make them very quickly before anyone cracks your product, or you have to spend money creating a process that not only creates your product but somehow inherently makes it hard to copy.

Now since making a profit on a new idea has been disincentivized you incentivise in comparison copying other products. This will have positive feedback effect.

The thing is the idea is basically "but if we ease up on copyright we encourage piggy back development and further innovation". Only those would be piggy backers have the same issue as those who the are piggybacking off, i.e they themselves will be piggybacked off of down the line.

Now I agree the corporate espionage / R&D security industries will likely flourish. Which is great for them, but both are ultimately a extra cost of business that makes everything more expensive without really adding any net benefit to anything as they are antagonistic in purpose.

Originally Posted by starslayer

likely this would result in a much more permissive 'good enough to start selling with a warning label' view of consumer safety,

Which would not be good a thing. (and has been the situation before)

Originally Posted by starslayer

and pharma companies would be VERY closed doors with their newest 'secret sauce'- but you'd also see a lot of philanthropic and humanitarian groups engaging directly in drug research by trying to modify existing drugs (since they would have no concerns about submarined by a phantom patent holder, and would not need a team of lawyers to make sure that what they are doing is ok).

No but they need a team of scientists and considerable other resources to do this. Also it's a bit of an assumption that such groups will exist (in their necessary form) or will more than compensate for the issues of those hastily formulated drugs hitting a market with as you say rather laxer safety concerns

Originally Posted by starslayer

The entertainment industry however would be so completely different than what we have today that it is not worth considering what 'copycats JRR Martin' because, really, he won't exist.

I can speculate that big entertainment will be made by big names (whoever the current shakespears are); but you can bet that if the big name ignores a section of media- someone else will fill the void. So 'true artists' will create new things, and 'make ends meet' artists will adapt those things to squeeze more money out of them (and most likely any given artist will be in both camps over their career).

I can further speculate that 'big entertainment' won't be nearly as big as it is on our earth or homeline- likely the concept of an 'entertainment studio that funds your project' will just be right out there, everyone will instead have a bigger piece of the pie on completed production, but have to be out of pocket until then

Right two points on that

1). the pie itself will be smaller (the pie is realisable income after all, the costs are the ingredient of the pie).

2). Out of pocket here doesn't just mean will have to wait longer to realise income*, but means less likely to see return on investment. Which means pockets will have to big enough to do that and live in the mean time and that some pockets that are big enough will just go elsewhere for less risky outcomes. i.e the number of interested pockets will be smaller.

(big entertainment is already risky, it's just the rewards for a big hit are proportionally huge, but it also why they tend to be most vociferous in securing their revenue streams as well as being less adventurous out side the bit hit model)

Originally Posted by starslayer

(which will put a lot of the special effects we enjoyed from the 70s to the 2010 zone out of reach; but perhaps this would have accelerated CG/green screening/animation and other ways to get special effects without a huge budget that is sunk into material things)

This assumes that the CG stuff didn't come with it's own expensive development cycle / and production costs.


Anyway don't get me wrong the copyright/patent system is anything but immaculately conceived and perfectly implemented. And like any other tool can be put to bad purposes and abused. And it most certainly needs to be constantly checked and regulated (irony). But we tried it the other way before and that wasn't great either.

Ironically one of the end results of this could be monopolies enforced with old fashioned direct action like closed shops and guilds, because profits will be harder to maintain in a more open market. Another kind of direct actaion thay you mentioned i.e. reliance on corporate espionage and in other ways directly combating your competitors is basically what we used to rely on (and of course it still goes on to an extent)

[PTTG]

Simple echos have special valuables all the time, but the problem is attaining them legally. The good news is you also know the future. So, take a few thousand dollars worth of gold to some echo days before a big stock boom. Sell the gold and buy stock.

Reap the price increase and then sell it off. Buy a liquid asset that's rare in Homeline.

Disappear.

[Flyndaran]

Interfering in echoes like that is generally a no-no. Also, how sure are you that it is an echo, or that outtimer actions such as yours won't change the likely future?
I remember one of the first episodes of a time travel series where the character went back 7 days. He bet all his money on a close sports' game. He lost because of slight differences in how things played out.

[Astromancer]

Here's a simple valuable with interesting adventure hooks. Jazz, called Ragtime in period, was probably around since at least 1890. However, the first jazz recording was a novelty record recorded by a white band in Chicago in 1917.. What jazz sounded like in its formative years is unknown.

Getting good recordings of early jazz acts wouldn't be simple. "Rags" the social settings were jazz was born, the term Ragtime refers to the dance music played at a Rag, were notoriously violent. White folks would rarely be welcomed.

As late as 1951, Ken Colyer, a once famous British jazzman, was thrown in jail for daring to perform with a black jazz band in New Orleans. So a group moving around Storyville researching jazz in its early days could constantly face police interference. A group of researchers, which would have to be racially mixed to function, would constantly rub the powers that be seriously the wrong way. Your agents would be under constant stress.

[AlexanderHowl]

I agree. It is probably better to not depend on knowledge of the 'future', especially when it comes to something like a specific stock. One thing that could work is going back to a parallel concurrent with the 1980's and using a Homeline laptop with advanced market forecasting software to predict the movement of the markets within that parallel.

In the scenario, you could bring 100 pounds of silver with you to the parallel (silver was around $49 per ounce in January of 1980, which is 200% of the current price of silver). After selling the silver for $78,400 in local currency, you could take 50% of the currency and put it in the stock market and live off the other 50% of the currency. Since you would likely be the only one using advanced market forecasting software, you could probably predict the daily movements of the stock market with a 90% accuracy a day ahead of time, allowing you to safely purchase on margin for long and short selling. You could probably increase your original stake of $39,200 to $1.6 million by 1981, to $66 million by 1982, and $2.7 billion by 1983. After you reach $2.7 billion, switch over to stocks that offer dividends of 5% per year, and live off the $135 million per year that you will be earning in dividends.

[Dr. Beckenstein]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Since you would likely be the only one using advanced market forecasting software, you could probably predict the daily movements of the stock market with a 90% accuracy a day ahead of time, allowing you to safely purchase on margin for long and short selling. You could probably increase your original stake of $39,200 to $1.6 million by 1981, to $66 million by 1982, and $2.7 billion by 1983. After you reach $2.7 billion, switch over to stocks that offer dividends of 5% per year, and live off the $135 million per year that you will be earning in dividends.

Yeah, but as least as you are worth $ 66M, you will have caught the attention of some people. If you are lucky, it is just your bank or your stockbroker who wants to hire the new "wunderkind".