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Old 04-25-2017, 06:49 AM   #41
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Default Re: Post Apocalyptic Economics

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Originally Posted by Boomerang View Post
Except that in the scenario described the food is analysed and meticulously recorded. You don't want to be known as the person who tried to pass off dodgy poisonous food to what is bound to be a close knit community.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that if he tried to poison his neighbors, he'd wind up with a noose around his neck, or just beaten to death, in short order.

However, that possibility is why I said it would only work if the system started out with nutrition experts, in a tightly-knit community, so as to establish strong trust, from the get-go. After that, the sheer utility means that nobody with any brains tries to screw the system -- but then, again, if everyone was smart a society would have far fewer criminals.

The comment about the venison is cogent, though. You'd need to convert it to jerky or something, before they'd take it, in the first place. That said, I'd imagine the venison would get sold in a market, somewhere, for more tokens than the basic calorie count would suggest -- assuming any other market existed secure enough that business could take place, at all.
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Old 04-25-2017, 06:57 AM   #42
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Default Re: Post Apocalyptic Economics

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Just wanted to point out that the food calorie we all know and love is actually a kilocalorie. A true calorie would be in the neighborhood a single grain of sugar. Not that the post apocalyptic culture would necessarily know that, but it might cause some who read it to skip a mental gear (as it did me). On the other hand, you're also using centi (10^-2 in SI) as being 1/10 of kilo (10^3), so you aren't using SI prefix standards anyway.
Tells you what I know. :)

It's been a long time since I took any chemistry, at all.
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Old 04-25-2017, 07:31 AM   #43
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Default Re: Post Apocalyptic Economics

If you're counting by pure calories, the foods of choice will be potatoes and corn. If I were running this granary, I might give a slight bonus for wheat. I'd also build in a caveat that the form of the calories handed back out is at my discretion, not yours.

And selling poisoned grain is a crime in any society.

I suspect most communities will be small enough that they each have their own psuedo currency, backed by a local commodity.
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Old 04-25-2017, 08:11 AM   #44
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Default Re: Post Apocalyptic Economics

I would give a premium for food that gave complete protein, if that was known to the people who had the granary.
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Old 04-25-2017, 08:55 AM   #45
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Default Re: Post Apocalyptic Economics

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I'm thinking either gift-based economies like those found in some pre-barter/pre-currency cultures, or duty-based ones similar to some medieval societies. If there's no way to keep currency viable and barter convenient, it may make sense for communities to forego both.
Communities that function at either required level are not an immediate after the end sort of thing. The pseudo-medieval level would probably require written records of obligations. It'd be very close to the level that could issue paper (or at least parchment) money.
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Old 04-25-2017, 10:05 AM   #46
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Default Re: Post Apocalyptic Economics

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Communities that function at either required level are not an immediate after the end sort of thing. The pseudo-medieval level would probably require written records of obligations. It'd be very close to the level that could issue paper (or at least parchment) money.
IIRC not all medievalesque societies had significant literacy percentages. And gift economies definitely are a thing in illiterate societies!
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Old 04-25-2017, 10:24 AM   #47
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Default Re: Post Apocalyptic Economics

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Communities that function at either required level are not an immediate after the end sort of thing. The pseudo-medieval level would probably require written records of obligations. It'd be very close to the level that could issue paper (or at least parchment) money.
How long after the end is this discussion focused on? Because if we're talking about during the end, I don't see how any "currency" is going to work. It certainly won't "establish" itself over a wide area: it will end up being barter.

Backed paper money works better than paper money if you're just starting out or if you're small compared to everyone else, because fiat currencies need momentum to keep them going.
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Old 04-25-2017, 11:03 AM   #48
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Default Re: Post Apocalyptic Economics

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IIRC not all medievalesque societies had significant literacy percentages. And gift economies definitely are a thing in illiterate societies!
Illiterate people use paper money or at least they did before they were given credit cards. :)

I didn't say that gift economies weren't a thing in pre-literate societies. I said that such a society requires stability. For a society to have expectations about who should give what gifts to whom and what benefits the giver should reap from his generosity presupposes such a society's existence and those expectations would require a certain time to develop.
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Old 04-25-2017, 12:13 PM   #49
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Default Re: Post Apocalyptic Economics

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Illiterate people use paper money or at least they did before they were given credit cards. :)

I didn't say that gift economies weren't a thing in pre-literate societies. I said that such a society requires stability. For a society to have expectations about who should give what gifts to whom and what benefits the giver should reap from his generosity presupposes such a society's existence and those expectations would require a certain time to develop.
Gift economies seem to require less stability than establishing and enforcing currencies.
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Old 04-25-2017, 12:33 PM   #50
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Default Re: Post Apocalyptic Economics

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Gift economies seem to require less stability than establishing and enforcing currencies.
They would require at least some level of shared social expectations, I would think, which (in turn) would require at least some level of shared cultural values and a concommittant level of trust in one's trading partners.

So, I'd think market enforcement takes place through social pressures, rather than formal legal structures backed by authoized force.
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