08-13-2009, 09:17 AM | #11 |
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Oz
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Re: Sectors of an Ultra-Tech/Bio-Tech economy
Easy FTL is no more superscience than difficult FTL.
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Decay is inherent in all composite things. Nod head. Get treat. |
08-13-2009, 09:17 AM | #12 | ||
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
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Re: Sectors of an Ultra-Tech/Bio-Tech economy
Quote:
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08-13-2009, 09:18 AM | #13 |
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Eindhoven, the Netherlands
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Re: Sectors of an Ultra-Tech/Bio-Tech economy
Oh, is this Flat Black?
That explains Icelander's comments. |
08-13-2009, 09:52 AM | #14 | ||||
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: Sectors of an Ultra-Tech/Bio-Tech economy
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One Suite world enforces (by cultural pressure, not law) suicide after the first century of life, ensuring that there are no old and unproductive people. Other colonies have their own ways of dealing with the problem, which can include just not dealing with it and accepting these demographics. Note, though, that the marginal value of unskilled human labour is not high at TL10 (and not all that high at TL7-9). Even semi-skilled human labour is not very valuable at TL10. This means that most TL9 worlds (except those with low populations but a burgeoning economy) will have had to come to terms with the fact that most people may not be able to sustain an acceptable (to them, at least) standard of living with their own labour. Quote:
Finance and insurance, on an interstellar scale, I get the impression is pretty robust. There are many opportunities for fast growth for the canny investor who takes it upon himself to help a colony just shedding a repressive form of government modernise a bit (by contrast, those who bet that a change of government will mean more security for investors often turn out wrong, broke or even dead). Real estate in the smallest sense varies by colony. Often enough the ownership of individuals will be restricted or not present at all, given that capital will usually be much more important than labour in the economy and the governments will be have been responsible for the welfare of the majority of people for centuries. Some colonies have a large class of people without possessions that are functionally recipients of state doles and nothing else (even called 'Recipients' on at least one colony). In order to finance this, some colonies own all the land and receive rent (also a consequence of some colonies that began as commercial enterprises and are governed by the remains of the corporation which bought the rights to development of the planet). On a macroscale, the Imperial monopoly on space travel and exploration means that new habitable colonies or planets ready for terraforming are a resource that only the Empire can find, sell and utilise. They are prevented by law (at least in later periods) from colonising them on their own, but they can and do sell them to raise the operational funds needed to keep the Empire running. Quote:
Creative jobs are likely to be a major factor in any TL9+ economy and the largest factor in TL10 ones. Any economy where the basic needs are met will be hungry for new entertainment, arts or other things to keep the masses happy. But any creative people on lower TL colonies have massive competition in that there is a constant stream of information for anyone asking for it. Not only do licensing costs for Suite tech and Suite entertainment finance the massive economies of those colonies, but the Empire makes sure that anything that is no longer restricted by IP laws remains useful. The Empire freely dissemnates blueprints and supporting documentation of any* technology where the patent has expired, which owing to the long time TL10 has been maintained, will include nearly any item up to mature TL10. This means that TL10 factories are relatively easy to build anywhere that can afford them and can mass produce almost anything relatively cheaply. But since raw materials are plentiful and low-tech manufactured goods only have any value at all beacuse of Ricardo's law, most low-tech colonies will not be able to afford much in the way of higher tech goods, services or even technological assistance to bootstrap themselves up to a higher standard. Of course, the Empire has people who help with that, but given the size of the known space and the shortage of people motivated and trustworthy enough to be in Imperial Service, most colonies that don't have at least moderately sensible and moral government (rarer than you'd think) still languish at a standard far below TL10. *Except weapons of mass destruction, which in this setting includes FTL drives. Quote:
Trade in information, blueprints and all sorts of new ideas is robust, of course. The Suite mostly comes up with them and the Empire transports them.
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08-13-2009, 10:14 AM | #15 |
Banned
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Bristol
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Re: Sectors of an Ultra-Tech/Bio-Tech economy
May be another question is how many people in the future of this Ultra Tech society will work? What would constitute as work, doing 16 hours a week?
Judge Dredd's world was a parody that 94% of the population were unemployed and 97.7% of society were potential 'perps'. From my reading the economy was split into 3 parts and this could be expanded up to about 6. But here is the 3 to keep it simple. Making stuff to consume: food, clothes, white goods etc... Making stuff to make stuff: New tools, machines, roads, lighting etc... Making stuff (which in this example is wastage) that does not 'enhance society'... guns, bombs etc. The 3rd example is like the 1st but guns and bombs can only be successful in the destruction of themselves and of parts 1 and 2. Then the can of worms opens up for all sorts of a debate. The 3rd example also allows profits from 1 and 2 to be absorbed and may off set crisis. Now in a future society of great tech, we hope great wisdom too and the option of blowing stuff up is relegated to a historical past time. But the question is how many people will be employed and what will they be employed to do? |
08-13-2009, 10:28 AM | #16 |
Join Date: Jul 2006
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Re: Sectors of an Ultra-Tech/Bio-Tech economy
If you are UT enough to be post scarcity - or close enough to post scarcity then more and more of the enconomy is going to be in non-esssentials.
Even in a late TL8 developed world nation at the moment, an awfully big chunk of the economy revolves around stuff people don't actually need, and as you reduce the cost of production further you shrink the 'productive' sector. You also reduce the requirement to work - we already, on average, do less physical work than our parents or grandparents, let alone earlier ancestors. Extrapolate that and you will be faced with a largely idle population whose efforts will mostly be centred around amusing themselves. Potentially this could lead to a very low volume economy... |
08-13-2009, 10:29 AM | #17 | |
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
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Re: Sectors of an Ultra-Tech/Bio-Tech economy
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This means that any question about 'how many work?' can only be answered on a per colony basis, or perhaps, if we feel really comfortable about broad generalisations, for each group of colonies which share common economic features. Imperials mostly all work. But they are an exception and in any case such a small percentage of the total population that they may be ignored in a demographical sense (though their political, economic and military influence is superlative, of course). In the Suite, I believe that it is considered rather commonplace that the majority of people are engaged in some combination of hobbies, make-work and volunteer work for non-profit organisations. Only the creative or the narrowly technically trained may be assured of work and work is more often than not less than onerous. Working what we would consider 25% or 50% work weeks in rather easy bot-bossing jobs is not uncommon, but even more common is devoting most of one's time to a pursuit that is more a vocation than a career and has, strictly speaking, no economic incentive. How each colony in the Suite deals with this is different, but laws enforcing mandatory retirement ages, maximum hours per work weeks and such are nearly universal in all TL10 societies in Flat Black. So is some form of welfare, social security, dole or a the encouragement of a non-governmental support system. A common economic system is one where capital gains are appropriated by the state and (after paying for governmental services and costs) divided equally between all citizens.
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08-13-2009, 10:42 AM | #18 | |
Join Date: Sep 2007
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Re: Sectors of an Ultra-Tech/Bio-Tech economy
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Of course, buried in the article, they admit that the cost was closer to $1,000,000 — and the doctor's "cost" of $50,000 was his estimated share of the 20 or so sequences the machine could be expected to perform over its lifetime. Similar principle. What is the cost of creating a 1-meter long carbon nanofilament, versus the cost of creating ten million of same? First you gotta invent the technology to understand how to make the tool ... then you gotta make the tool. Anyway: I would personally begin with the chart I provided earlier, and start tweaking the balance of percentages. Remembering that the stat chart I provided was based on labor statistics and not economic volume, you could start to revise the balance. Is the growth rate high? Put more into construction and education. Has the field of education been automated? Transfer some of education into manufacturing (for robots, teaching software, etc). Is the empire far-flung? Put more into travel (eg, shipping, distribution, supply lines, and starship manufacturing). Are the markets regulated? Reduce finance. And so on. Since what you want to create is a way for worlds to specialize in certain sectors of the economy, I think you do want to begin with labor statistics — in order to specialize in a sector, it's got to have a certain critical mass of labor/manhours. |
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08-13-2009, 05:46 PM | #19 | |
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Oz
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Re: Sectors of an Ultra-Tech/Bio-Tech economy
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__________________
Decay is inherent in all composite things. Nod head. Get treat. |
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08-13-2009, 07:19 PM | #20 | |
Join Date: May 2008
Location: CA
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Re: Sectors of an Ultra-Tech/Bio-Tech economy
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None. High-tech devices require way too many things for splitting up manufacturing into completely different worlds to be viable unless transportation is essentially zero-cost. Electronics in particular require a hell of a lot of different devices and technology, and are used in a hell of a lot of applications. The more complicated a device is, the more likely it is that it requires things from multiple disciplines to build it. A starship, for example, pretty much requires every possible thing in an economy except bioresearch to construct. Spreading all the different bits onto seperate worlds that are weeks or months apart is incredibly inefficient, especially if the companies in question want to be able to adapt to changes in costumer demand. On-demand inventory control is becoming a big thing nowadays because it lets you cut a whole bunch of costs, and it's not something you can do if you can't phone up the company you buy stuff from and say 'hey, I need twice my normal order please' or 'my next order is only half of my usual'. Worlds that have everything needed for their industries all on-hand are going to outperform worlds that depend upon week or month long supply chains. |
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bio-tech, economics, flat black, trade, ultra-tech |
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