Second post...
What's to stop someone from saying to a robot factory owner...'I want a robot factory'?
Nothing prevents someone from starting a new robot factory; but just as everything else is at saturation levels, so is the production of robots, so if you build more robots someone else has to build fewer robots.
And certainly the notion of everyone wanting to wear the latest paper clothes ever day is compelling (although some people would not be so compelled), but since it only took a very small percentage of the population to make them for everyone, where do the others get their money?
And capitalism is already failing in America: the percentage of people who are almost fully supported by government handouts is rising, in significant measure because there just are no jobs for them. It might be argued that the reason for this is that jobs are going overseas to workers who are less demanding in countries with lower taxes on facilities and labor costs; but they, too, are riddled with unemployment. I just read that Mexican laborers are dropping off because it's getting too hard to get work in America. The problem, though, is becoming worldwide: it is becoming possible to provide everything for everyone, and thus to reduce the required workforce to a smaller fraction of the total.
--M. J. Young
Oh, yes--Capitalism will create more jobs, and unemployment will fall. It has happened before. The problem is, each time we go through this sort of shift, we return with a larger portion of the population unemployed as the "normal" rate. It doesn't always appear that way, because the government distinguishes "unemployed" as that class that is actually looking for work, and keeps the growing number of fully government dependent welfare cases separate from this.
--M. J. Young
Once everyone has a robot factory, what's to keep them from just living off the produce of their own robot factory?
And everyone has all sorts of desires....including as I said in an earlier post about building hundred mile long starships that can hold a 100 million people. The idea of satiation is simply incorrect, except as a temporary thing.
There's also the idea in Accelerando (which I haven't read but the first few pages) by Charlie Stross...the economy is based on altruism. Entrepreneurs look for ways to benefit other people. This is shown in action by the Open Source movement, and by my creating MV worlds. George Gilder, who's a serious free-enterpriser and tech guru talked about how capitalism was essentially an act of altruism.
The perfect gift is the one you always needed, but didn't realize you did. So too, the perfect item in teh economy. So imagine a world in which everyone is trying to find ways to please others as the primary focus of capitalism instead of a lesser focus as it is now.
Second post...
I'd blame the gov't for our lack of full employment.
I'd blame the gov't for our lack of full employment.
That's not a particularly convincing argument. Unemployment is older than Christ.The collapse of the roman republic is partially attributable to excessive unemployment as a result of imported slave labor.
I, personally, don't buy the idea that open-source is a viable model for the entire economy. I've seen a few too many open-source projects that collapsed due to lack of interest scattering the internet.
The bigger issue, though, is limits to resource extraction that aren't as tractable as labor supply limits. We can't find new mineral fields by massive employment increases, unless we also involve six years of college.
And its collapse is also partially attributable to bad gov't tax decisions that involved the politically connected getting good stuff, and the less connected getting messed over. Another problem is that of politics becoming a blood sport so that if you lose, you die which tends to mean that you don't dare lose, so therefore dictatorship.
Our lack of full employment is probably influenced by too high taxes, too much stupid regulation, a lack of regulatory certainty (in an unstable environment caused by wild gov't shifts you have businessmen seeking to minimize risks), and housing bubble caused by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and demonization of Businessmen, and fascism such as the GM takeover. In a, no two words...Bad Government.
Perhaps you're right about open-source.
Please explain your last point.
And its collapse is also partially attributable to bad gov't tax decisions that involved the politically connected getting good stuff, and the less connected getting messed over. Another problem is that of politics becoming a blood sport so that if you lose, you die which tends to mean that you don't dare lose, so therefore dictatorship.
Actually, the less politically connected became politically connected via massive expenditures of money. The originally politcally connected weren't too fond of this idea, but the equestrian middle class exploited disatisfaction from people left umemployed by simple economics making it better for the rich to import grain and raise livestock using slaves on land bought from the former farmers who got forced into the cities. Dictatorships had worked out fine prior to the general unemployment caused by expansion. That's why history classes talk about cinncinatus entirely too much.
Our lack of full employment is probably influenced by too high taxes, too much stupid regulation, a lack of regulatory certainty (in an unstable environment caused by wild gov't shifts you have businessmen seeking to minimize risks), and housing bubble caused by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and demonization of Businessmen, and fascism such as the GM takeover. In a, no two words...Bad Government.
Allowing the largest employers to collapse isn't a terribly good way to solve an unemployment problem. The housing market bubble was primarily caused by derivatives trading, and the stupidities there can't exactly be blamed on Fannie and Freddie. They may have devised the method by which people attempted to transfer risks to others, but it's not like they forced people to not do underwriting on their loans
I frankly doubt that the demonization of buisnessmen has any effect on unemployment rates whatsoever, given that it's also hardly new.
Also, the magic of the internet means I can quickly locate graphs that demonstrate a central flaw in your argument about taxes.
One reason we have high oil prices is that seeking out oil fields and other minerals isn't exactly a simple matter. I may be somewhat overestimating the required education, but interpreting the various methods of detecting underground deposits is complicated and a highly specialized skill. You can't make a starship without the raw materials for the ceramics and other such things.
EDIT: on a side note, the takeover of GM is technically a socialist move. If the factories were converted to producing tanks and placed under the control of military officers to properly order the national economy, that'd be facist. They're very different groups that hate each other, even if they do tend to result in dictatorships.
new edit: seems the graphs weren't quite the right set, they don't show the drop since Obama took office due to the vast array of additional emergency tax rebate measures. They led to about 49% of the populace not paying any taxes this year.
I'm not a Roman history expert, but...
Senate starts War. Senate imposes war tax on people. People go ouch. People borrow money from Senators to pay War tax which doubly hits them because of interest. Romans crush enemy. Spoils of war go to the elite inside Rome while the elite outside of Rome gets nada.
John Ringo, or was it Eric Flint, or perhaps Orson Scott Card....anyways...argued that politics in Rome became a matter of hold power or die. Because if you lost power, your enemies used that power to criminalize you and your family, and have you killed. Thus Julius had no choice but to seize power.
As to largest employers...the best way to pop a blister is to just do it. Get the pain over with. The gov't needs to clearly explain...there are no companies too big to fail. Because otherwise, the company has an insulation which allows it to be stupid and lazy. Enough of this, and you're transferring risk from a large company to the whole economy. The risk doesn't just vanish.
Actually, I think there was an element of forcing people. I think you stood a chance to get in legal trouble. And of course, there's the gov't saying...it's cool, we're behind you, just do it! In that case, you're going to do stupid things which allow more profit because you think you're insulated. Then things turn seriously south, and not even the gov't can totally stop the tsunami.
As to demonization...well, one hopes the President restrains himself. Consider if you were a big businessman, and you'd just seen the President steal GM, and kick the president of GM out...and then he started saying nasty things about your company...you'd be reaching for the anti-acid.
The Laffer Curve is a nice graph too. I'll look at your graphs in a bit, hopefully.
No way. Socialism=Fascism. As Jonah Goldberg explains in 'Liberal Fascism', we have nice-nice fascism in America. His charge that the world's first fascist leader was American...President Woodrow Wilson...is interesting too.
And the Left only started hating the Fascists after Stalin told them too after Hitler double-crossed Stalin.
Senate starts War. Senate imposes war tax on people. People go ouch. People borrow money from Senators to pay War tax which doubly hits them because of interest. Romans crush enemy. Spoils of war go to the elite inside Rome while the elite outside of Rome gets nada.
No, it went more like this: War gets started somehow or other, a whole bunch of men went off to war, their families had to sell to equestrians or senators (They're completely different groups, and the difficulty of equestrians getting power is kind of the flashpoint) to obtain food, or the men die and their families have to sell later, then the living men return and don't have farms, and the equestrians buy slaves because it's cheaper, and the soldiers have nowhere to go. They move to rome, some frustrated equestrians decide to exploit the situation to gain power, and this starts the trend of violence resolving political disputes in about 133 BC with the Gracchi brothers. By 49 BC, thanks in part to Ceaser's extended family, specifically Gaius Marius, it pretty much was true that the people in power tended to kill off their opponents.
EDIT: hey, it seems you cited a graph that completely undermines your argument by placing the optimal point at above the current effective tax rate, at least according to the designer of the curve.
Thanks for the history lesson.
The Laffer Curve argues that there is a point at which raising taxes actually reduces tax revenue. This was supported in the theory in a town in New England where they made yachts. So, the gov't imposed a luxury tax to 'get the evil rich scumbags of bags of moolah' and poof. All the jobs went bye-bye, all the yachts no longer got made. Tax revenues dropped.
Or, in Reagan's admin, the taxes got cut, and the tax revenue doubled (Of course, expenditures quadrupled, but I favor massive federal debts over Global Thermonuclear War any day of the week, and twice on Sunday.)
And I wonder what precisely you mean by 'effective' tax rate.
sorry to interrupt this incredibly stimulating intellectual debate, but it's practically done. the world, not the debate. i've got a few numbers to add and a couple of details to work out, but the document has already reached a satisfactory size for a published world that isn't a gather. i expect to have completed it tonight or tomorrow, lord's will and not mine be done. my intention has been to post the world directly to this thread for feedback, playtesting, and criticism. unfortunately, prior to posting it, i face a question which is based more in the mucky difficult to get a straight answer world or opinions than the solid, rigid world of fact. do referees really expect their players to not use information the player has to the benefit of the character? i believe that many of those who consider this and subsequently feel that players will not do not themselves, and many of those who do themselves would be naive to think their own players wouldn't. if as gm's we're confident that our players will not abuse the system by using information their character does not have, then there's no reason not to post it; if we feel as referees that it would be better not to or as players that we can't resist the temptation, i'm sure that we can work out an alternate method for getting this into the hands of any interested referees without players seeing it.
I remember one LARP where another player walks up to me and says 'hey, I want to tell you something out of character, ok?'
"m'kay?"
'I'm going to kill your character. And you can't defend against this because your character doesn't know.'
Grrrrrrr.
Earlier the fortune teller had told me that she knew Everything. So, I considered that asking her if there was anyone out to get me was a reasonable question to ask in character, and thus I was able to transfer out character knowledge to my character.
I'm not totally proud of this, but it was clever.
Most players aren't that good at not using data, or they will find a way to incorporate it into their character. And yes, I'm one of those bad players.
And if you get it up quickly enough, I might be able to playtest it this Saturday along with Gates of the EDF/Horror and Amish Zombies aka Daywalkers.
My direct response to the LARPer.
"I am going to punch you in your face, and since you weren't expecting it, you can't defend against it." :P
Jhiaxus
this saturday? it's what, monday now? if it isn't done by thursday i will be suprised -- as i said, lord willing.
It needs to be done by late Thursday night. I'll be leaving on Friday around two, and going to the con on that day. I'll be running MV on Saturday.
Your leaving me er us on our own for like 3 days :P
alright, it's not done; but I don't know if it ever will be. Considering that all that's left is numbers for indigs, and those will probably need adjusting during play for specific players who may be too weak or strong for the scenario, I've decided to provide you with the world that I was working on. Run it or don't, makes no difference really, I had the creative juices flowing and felt the absolute need to put it to paper.
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Utopia
Bias
T13@7
P0@1
M1@1
B13@1
What happens when robotic technology renders the majority of workers' jobs obsolete? In this world, the ten percent lucky enough to be the working class become the ruling class, and the remaining ninety percent are the soldier class, forced to constantly place themselves in mortal danger in exchange for their basic needs.
A description of the history of this world will be helpful in understanding the culture of the indigs. It begins with a world very similar to our own, with robotics slowly replacing more and more jobs in much of the advanced world. Unemployment levels rose unchecked in spite of the initiatives taken by those in power, eventually peaking at a staggering ninety percent. Crime was also at an extreme level. The only jobs left were those of the quality control people, who make sure that the robots perform their tasks to specifications. One of the world's more powerful governments, recognizing that the economy was faltering, attempted to pass laws forcing those working to support those out of work. These attempts ultimately failed, largely due to the lack of faith in the government but also due to a lack of power in the government generally. Since the government also was hurt by the floundering economy, they had no power with which to enforce their law. Shortly after, this government collapsed with the resignations of many prominent figures. Many others shortly followed suit.
Still there remained the ten percent with food and the ninety percent without; however, with the fall of the governments, a brand new period of lawlessness had come to pass. In response to this, people flocked to those with food and power, and something akin to a feudal society sprang up. However, the majority of the people had no jobs, as robots still took care of the majority of these. Rather than have these people freeload, many of their sovereign lords and ladies chose to form armies comprised of the unemployed. Those who did not form armies or explore the possibilities of warfare were quickly overcome.
Over a large period of time, spanning many generations, a new world order was again established. Several of the world's most powerful "nations" had joined forces and conquered the world under one banner. They dubbed their new world "Utopia." It was a world where the rich were in power and the poor had little chance of becoming rich; this was possible only through extreme luck, marked loyalty, and intelligence within the top 2% of the population, not to mention having a well-connected history with the "nation."
At this time, the top ten percent had taken to calling their social class the Elite, and all the rest simply the Common. Among the Common, copulation was prohibited and reproduction was mandatory through the use of artificial insemination. Males would provide their semen to the robots, and females would report for insemination at least three times between the ages of 15 and 25. The Common were seen as a commodity, not only for their expendability in battle, but also for their organs in the case that an Elite required a transplant. Also by this time, the Common have evolved into only one race, a mixture of all the human races, due to the selective breeding process the Elite have put into effect.
The Elite, in contrast to the Common, lead ridiculously luxurious lives. They are ethnically diverse; sexual reproduction is encouraged after marriage. Children of the two social classes are raised separately; those of the Common are raised solely by machines and begin combat training as soon as they are able, generally around age 3. Their education focuses on physical education, mathematics, and battle tactics at the expense of subjects deemed unnecessary for their lives, such as history (other than war history), science (other than direct applications to weaponry), and language. They never meet their parents, and those who rebel against authority are made examples of through extreme punishment and generally death. The children of the Elite are educated in many subjects, mostly by machines. Curiosity is fostered and encouraged, and the education they receive outside of that from the machines comes from their parents, who are almost always married. Otherwise they receive a basic education with a strong focus on computer science. Their education in the computer and robotics field will extend into their adult lives in the form of on-the-job training.
Both Common children who are born disabled and Common who are unable to perform their duties are killed; among the Elite, many exhibit cannibalistic tendencies and consider the Common, especially the children, something of a delicacy in prepared foods after they have been put to death. Their primary defense of this behavior is that it is not cannibalistic because the Common are not of the same species of the Elite; under professional scrutiny this argument will collapse, but the Elite will be upset enough by someone suggesting that their social conventions are evil or wrong as to order the person put to death (and then possibly feast upon them). The Common are aware of this practice and believe what they are told by the Elite about the genetic differences between the two social classes.
During the two hundred year rule of the Utopians, the Common were pitted against one another or against robots for sport, and these laws governing them as have been described were standardized across the world. However, "Utopia" collapsed due to the corrupt Elite class fighting within. More energy, more resources, more territory, most of the Elite are selfish and greedy and proud. Under Utopian rule, there were many provinces of the world; in present day, there are twenty six large territories. I recommend that the referee name them as the verser discovers them, with the first country he discovers beginning with an A, the third C, and so on.
At times throughout history, the number of the Elite have expanded past the available job market; theoretically, the number of jobs will continue to decrease, and population will expand. It is also possible for a Common class individual to become an Elite
(but extremely rare, and even when it happens, no self-respecting Elite woman will lay with a Commoner, and marriage is still illegal for the Common-made-Elite). When the numbers of the Elite exceed the number of jobs, a computer program analyzes the situation based on each individual's skill level and standing in the community, and all of the Elite vote confidentially on who among their number will be exiled to the Common. The Elite are all equals with one another, and exist in a barter system. Differences will at times arise, but will be short-lived of fear of the ultimate punishment - exile to the Common determined by vote of the Elite. Those Elite who are among the Common do face the prospect of becoming an Elite again; when another group of Elite proves victorious, they will often exile those Elite to the Common and try to find new individuals to oversee the machines where applicable.
The Elite are in relatively small groups in underground nuclear fallout bunkers in confidential locations. Although there are several such locations throughout each province, a newcomer will be noticed immediately in their midst. Therefore, many versers in this world will find it easiest to blend in among the Common. Religion is not pursued by the Elite, and is illegal for the Common to practice; however, history has proven that governmental pressure will not stop religion from being passed down through world of mouth through generations. Most of the weaponry of the Common is simplistic and primitive, swords, axes, and bows, but there are also some present-day firearms. As far as more advanced weaponry is concerned, anything within the level 13 and curve of 20 (fire, electricity, sonic, kinetic, mutagenic virus to name a few but not limit your imagination) is theoretically possible, but should be limited to very few and far between pieces unless they are attached to robots.
The greatest strategists and warriors among the Common are given the opportunity to become bodyguards of the Elite; all men and women who survive to age thirty are considered to be stronger than most and are given the chance to join a force to police the Common. Although there is a great amount of video and audio surveillance in many areas, these people are asked to report to the Elite on the activities of the Common. They are an additional social class, between the common and the Elite; we will refer to them as the Trusted. Those who prove to be the most loyal to the Elite are given the opportunity to become bodyguards for the Elite. For this process, they have T13@7 robotic mind-machine interfaces installed directly into their brains and nerves, which are used to pilot their power armor. Power armor is made specifically for the individual who will use it. It is a jointed alloy made from various hard metals and gem materials, acting as jointed full plate armor for purposes of cover with a density of 4@9. The face can be exposed by moving a translucent visor, but once the armor has been installed, it is not intended to ever be removed. Altogether, the suits each weigh roughly 1500 pounds, or three quarters of a ton. This measurement fluctuates slightly depending on the height and weight of the wearer. There are multiple input jacks installed around the body: five in the crown, one in the back of the neck, seven down the spine, one on each tricep and hamstring, one on the back of each hand, one on the top of each foot, and one at the navel. Separation from the armor requires a 13@1 disable or disconnect mind-machine interface; as decommission was never intended until after the death of the user, the user will need to make a difficult resistance check; if unsuccessful, the user rolls 2d10+10 against the Bod bias Botch Injuiries table (located on page 441 in The Book). The armor draws power from the human body and requires the user to consume twice the normal amount of food and sleep once every 16 hours for 8 hours. Thus, in a world such as this one with a 24 hour day the armor will be active 16 hours of the day and shut down for 8 hours. These 8 hours can be taken at any time and can be broken into as many sections as the user wishes; however, the suit only has a 16 hour total battery life, at the end of which it will shut down until the battery reaches a full charge. It will never activate until it reaches a full charge; if it has been running for 30 minutes, it will need to charge for 15; for 45 minutes, a recharge time of 22 minutes and 30 seconds.
The battery is not powered by electricity, but by the conscious and subconscious thoughts and feelings of the user. Therefore, the power source used is a T10@10 Crystal Technology as explained in The Book. It is of special concern if the verser achieves stable form within such a powered suit of armor, or ascertains a follower within one, due to the fact that such armor will not work by tech means outside a tech curve of at least 20. Also, a character closely examining or tinkering with such a piece may discover rapidly that the machine does not run on electricity. Those who spend an extended period of time within the suit (as is expected of most) face serious permanent degradation to their natural physical attributes over time. There are two skills the power armor makes use of to offset these attribute losses for combat purposes.
T12@4 Targeting: Success = RS sitmod to success. This offsets the loss of martial and ranged strike value.
T12@4 Avoidance = Success = RS penalty to opponent success. This offsets the loss of target value and damage value.
Any time the skilled user needs to make a strength, stamina, flexibility, agility, or hand/eye attribute check, rather than an attribute check being rolled, a skill check will be rolled against their 12@4 Operate Power Armor skill. Once this skill reaches 1@10, specialized skill headings such as "T12@4 Push/Lift object (Power Armor)", "T12@4 Balance (Power Armor)", "T12@4 Climbing (Power Armor)" must be created at the professional level, and these skills will be used in the future case when an attribute check for one of these physical attributes will be performed. Any time the skilled user attempts to use a technological weapon skill (for instance, a sword), they will instead roll a check against 12@4 Operate Power Armor skill -- until they achieve professional level, at which time they will gain professional level in the specific heading (in this case, 12@4 Use sword (Power Armor)). It is necessary to say that many bod skills, including martial arts, will not be possible from within the armor.
It is my suggestion that the verser be dropped into a remote location in order to give him a chance to get acclimated to his environment and gather his equipment from the immediate area, then be thrown into a combat situation with no more than one or two non-automatic firearms and skilled users of more primitive weapons such as swords and bows, with no combat robots present for this introductory battle unless the verser is exceptionally good and means business. How the verser wishes to handle this situation will probably have little effect on the scenario as a whole, other than allowing him to get an idea for what exactly is going on here; they will assume he is an Elite-turned-Commoner and will be generally accepting of almost any story he will present, although they will have determined before he says anything that he is likely lying. They will not be persuaded to not fight, as they know that not fighting means certain death, either when they return to or are found by the Elite or from starvation in the wild.
The verser who approaches a settlement of the Common will be accepted with open arms. They will assume initially that the verser has an understanding of the way the world works; if the verser asks questions there will be some confusion among the indigs as to where the verser could possibly have come from. If he claims to have something wrong with him such as amnesia, this could call for a GE roll, as it is possible that any of several of the Trusted would attempt to kill a Commoner who is defective, thus earning the trust of the Elite, who will put to death any Commoner they determine to be defective themselves -- on a somewhat bad GE roll, a member of the Trusted may have chosen not to strike now but to report on him to the Elite, and on a good GE roll the verser may be advised to not go around telling people that there's something wrong with him because it could prove his end. They will show him where and when food becomes available, instruct him to input his name and age into their computer database (during this process he will definitely be recorded on video by the computer system - numbers which are too high will invariably raise questions and the Trusted will ask questions and possibly kill the verser for the transgression of lying to the Elite (especially for a lie as blatantly false as the truth) - and when the time comes to fight, they will naturally tell him to come along with them.
Approaching a bunker of the Elite is a dangerous task. On the lowest tier, the Trusted are instructed by remote computer, and they never actually see the Elite; they are given instructions and they follow the instructions. When they have proven themselves more trustworthy they are permitted to stand watch outside of and around the compound of the bunker and no longer mingle with the Commoners. They are equipped with automatic weapons as well as whatever weapons they choose. The only Trusted permitted inside the compound are those who are the most loyal, those wearing the suits of power armor.
A verser who is able to enter the compound, either by killing the Trusted outside or somehow managing to get past them, will be subject to motion sensors, temperature sensors, pressure sensors, and sound sensors. If any of these are triggered, an alarm will sound, and the verser will encounter d2 Trusted equipped with power armor and d4 combat robots equipped with automatic slug-throwers in d6 minutes. Once they arrive, d6+2 more in power armor will arrive with d10+5 combat robots equipped with automatic large explosive-driven slug-throwers in d10 minutes. After the d6 arrive, another d10+10 in power armor with d10+15 combat robots equipped with automatic large explosive-driven slug-throwers will arrive in d8 minutes. If these are all defeated, the character will have defeated all of the defense force in the base other than those protecting the Elite themselves; congratulations. However, there will be at least 15 in powered suits and 30 robots at the heart of the bunker protecting the Elite. At the GM's discretion, more or less forces may be provided, depending on the abilities of the verser; this should be no easy task for anyone, however, and it should be considered the equivalent of suicide going it alone.
During their time in power armor, a character will lose attributes according to this table. 1/100 indicates that every hundred days a character will lose one intensity towards their attribute. Those attributes which will be lowered are Strength, Stamina, Flexibility, Agility, and Hand/Eye. Note that to lower a level 3 attribute takes 9 times as long as a level 1 attribute, and that to lower a level 2 attribute takes 4 times as long. Attributes will not drop beneath 0@1.
Level 0 attribute: 1/50
Level 1 attribute: 1/100
Level 2 attribute: 1/400
Level 3 attribute: 1/900
So, to drop from 3@1 to 2@10 takes 900 days (about 2 and a half years), but to drop from 2@10 to 2@9 takes 400 days (slightly longer than a year), and to drop from 1@10 to 1@9 takes only 100 days, or more than three and a half intensities per year; twice that for a level 0 attribute, or over 7 intensities per year. Thus, it takes only 40 years in a power suit for an individual with a strength of 3@10 to deteriorate to a strength of 0@1. A verser intent on getting a suit of power armor should not be informed of these detriments; as no indig has ever observed these detriments in a living being, there is no reason for the character to have any understanding of the most important drawbacks.
Indig stats
These stats are provided as guidelines, please adjust them for your scenario as you see fit.
Elite
Persuasion 1@6
Charisma 1@3
Animal Magnetism 1@3
Strength 1@4
Stamina 1@4
Resistance 1@10
Density 1@1
Flexibility 1@4
Agility 1@4
Hand/Eye 1@8
Intellect 1@9
Intuition 1@9
Ed Lev 2@1 – 2@4
Will Power 1@6
AA
TV 1@5
DV 1@5
RSV 1@9
MSV 1@7
BRA
T 2@1 – 2@4: Ed Lev
P 1@9: Intuition
M 1@9: Intuition/Intellect
B: 1@6: Will Power
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Thoughts?
Ky
Kyler,
Fear not. I've already ran Lilith's World with Misty and she enjoyed it a great deal. I'll try to run this one soon.
What weapons do you suggest the power armored guys have?
I'd give the power armored lasers, but you might not want that tech in this world.
One thing that might be worth keeping in mind: Only some of the remaining jobs will actually require advanced training. The guy with the E-stop button next to his chair only needs to be able to see things pretty well and resist boredom. However, that job probably won't ever go away, and although theoretically guys with better perceptions and intelligence would do it somewhat better, they really wouldn't do it enough better to cancel out them charging 3$ an hour more than random average guy.
The feudal idea does seem pretty plausible, though, with war machine designers basically at the top.
Eric - limit not your imagination on my account. From my mind to your table.
My first thought was actually "Sparta" when I read the thread initially, but this "Utopia" with a feudal system instead of a militaristic society seemed to me to have greater plot appeal.
It's a very interesting solution to the problem posed, using capitalist principles and an aversion to socialist solutions to result in a feudal world. Fascinating.
--M. J. Young
Thank you, I hold the compliment in high esteem. Fascinating, yes, but a very dark outlook on things to come; hopefully in our world we manage to solve the crisis in some way that is more beneficial to the masses.
You know, I'm not entirely sure it would end up going feudal. The thing is, apparently power-armored guys are superior to robots, otherwise the Elite wouldn't bother making power armor, so the Elite actually rely on the Trusted for military power. In the feudal system, the knights themselves were the warriors and the peasants didn't contribute much military power because of their lack of training and equipment. I'd actually expect the Trusted to end up with the most power, since they are apparently more combat-effective than robots and could simply shoot the Elite.
Also, the non-Trusted Common don't seem like they actually contribute anything the Elite would care about. Axes aren't going to faze an attack drone, and sheer numbers mean little against machine guns and nerve gas. They do, of course, give 90% of the Elite their jobs, but only if Common standard of living is pretty good. Now, if Common in active military service had NBC gear and some of them had weaponry capable of damaging power armor to a noticeable extent, then there would be a reason for them. Once a portion of the Common can threaten power armor, more of them are needed to protect power armored guys against them and defend allied anti-armor.
Axes are secretly equipped with a device that when considered active by the computers will switch off the robot is a 'good' hit is made.
Humans in this combat serve as a variability factor and they also add gore and human interest to the fight for the voyeuristic watching Leet.
Another idea, the Leet are becoming considered Mages because they say a word and a power armor stops working or the user dies, or whatever (computer voice recognition)...it could be that the Trusted are not taught the theory behind things.....of course this leans toward MJ's first idea about this problem. This last idea is also less organic than the first two to the base text, but it still fits in pretty well.
Power-armored guys wouldn't ordinarily leave the compound the Elite live in. Only the Trusted who are the most trusted are permitted to wear it. I would say tentatively, yes, power armor has advantages over war machine robots; the robots are decision machines, but the human mind has intelligence, resourcefulness, and adaptability. It also costs much more in time and resources to make a suit of power armor than it costs to make a war machine; think along the lines of several thousad war machines. The power armor exists to protect the Elite in their inner sanctum, designed as a last line of defense against invading forces. I suppose I was unfortunately not clear enough on this point, so let's throw a couple more social classes out there to clarify: the Common are the low man on the totem pole. The Trusted are Commoners over 30 who have shown marked loyalty to the Elite of their territory for their entire lives. When a Trusted proves their worth and loyalty further, they become one of the Chosen, living in a community around the bunker, never again to mingle with the Common, existing to assist with the guarding of the bunker. Those among the Chosen who manage to prove their worth and loyalty become... uhh... Power Armor Guys. The process is time consuming and involves intense, invasive tailoring and surgery, obviously, but from day 1, power armor guys enter the bunker knowing that they will likely never leave the compound again; in an extreme circumstance they might have the opportunity, if the Elite need to move to another bunker for some reason (for instance, T-virus outbreak, haha). MJ and I talked about whether or not to include a remote self-destruct feature on the power armor; it's your call as referee. I would not because my version of the Elite are so proud they could not imagine any Commoner standing up to them, and my version of the Power Armor Guys have been so thoroughly screened that it's not a thing that's happened before. It does sound like an interesting plot line; verser forms underground resistance group and years later one of them gets power armor and fights the Elite from the inside; no, it would be better to wait until you had ten or twenty guys in power armor, because one guy in power armor won't beat thirty to fifty.
Eric; I must've cross posted you this morning, since I didn't see your post til now. I agree with you that humans on the battlefield makes it more interesting for the Elite. Also, I should add: no matter how powerful robots are, Common are expendable; if they were all to die, the Elite wouldn't really care very much. In comparison to robots, they cost less resources to produce.
I've played enough starcraft, dominions 3, and other strategy games to know that random cheap guys are often useful, but they're always either capable of effecting expensive guys by direct damage or killing other guys who can deal said damage, or can effectively soak attacks, or can be transformed into effective guys by the magic of additive bonuses. Unless some of the Common have rocket launchers/lasers/whatever or the Elite have magically lost the knowledge of machine guns, that's not true here.
Now, Common capable of killing robots with rocket launchers will be easier to produce than robots until a certain threshold of robot power is reached and they become nonexistent, and their existence makes other Common useful because they can kill rocket launcher guys, or protect them against non-rocket launcher guys. It's like why tanks aren't deployed unsupported. Because of the precise nature of the powerbase of the Elite, they don't have the same fear of the armed populace as the knights, as long as they only antagonize about half the Common at any given point.
The thing is, if the Common don't provide something useful to the Elite, the Elite have no reason to feed them.
EDIT: In order for power-armor's advantage to be having a human brain, something must inhibit the effectiveness of drones. Actually, I'm now tempted to write a world where the setup is similar but the Common are used to control drones.
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One idea I had for addressing the problem posed at the start: It's not percisely true to say that 10% of the workers can do 100% of current production, it's more accurate to say that 10% of the current man hours will be able to do 100% of the work. There would be serious socialogical shock from cutting people's hours per week on average to 4, but then you could avoid many of the messy problems from other solutions.
It'd probably need some sort of social pressure for people to expend a great deal of effort on other things, but we already have the start of that. It's called World Of Warcraft. Doing it without providing something for people to expend effort on would potentially lead to all sorts of problems. Or maybe not, our baseline for negative consequences is only in societies where most people work a lot. Still, not worth risking. Maybe we could have a partial rebirth and expansion of Renaissance Men, once people have enough free time to actually become experts in Science.
Ok, I agree with you, the scenario is less likely than mass genocide; for the world Utopia, though, this is how it worked out. Edit: By all means, run the world however you like; it's in your hands now. Nothing needs to inhibit the drones; they're decision machines; they react to situations based on a set number of relatively simple functions which can't possibly apply to every (edit: complex) situation. second edit: possible functions, This is an ally robot, don't damage it; this is an ally human, it is expendable; this is an enemy robot, destroy it; this is an enemy human, it is expendable (Common are after all a commodity); unfortunately, as decision machines, they are very far from perfect and do not have artificial intelligence.
Well, actually, the funny thing about the genocide solution is that it does fairly little to solve the problem at hand, because once it is over only 1% of the original population is needed to do work. It would probably end up with a larger percentage of the final population working, but only because of design and research jobs. Theoretically, you could keep doing it until the total population is equal to the design and research jobs plus the manufacturing jobs needed to support them, but I'd guess people would see where that was headed, and decide they don't want them and their families being part of the next set of "unnecessary" people to get killed.
That's actually the other issue with Utopia: If the Common don't have modern standards of living, the Elite don't actually all have jobs. Unless war is common enough that they all get sucked into arms manufacturing, in which case Versertopia would defeat everyone else once they get convinced that they can recruit Common to do minimal-skill work, like watching the assembly line. That is a totally possible society, however.
EDIT: I'm using Drone as opposed to Robot to mean UAVs and UGVs (as opposed to autonomous or semi-autonomous vehicles), where a human makes the decisions via control stick from an air-conditioned bunker on the other side of the planet. If communications can be kept secure and quick, it combines the advantages of both. It'd also refer to anything that's completely controlled by an external AI.
The robots aren't controlled by remote in my envisioning; they act on their own. Arms manufacture would be one of the primary jobs, but there would also be food production and, of course, the design and production of other robots other than those used for battle; teachers, distributors, servants, or whatever else the referee feels is necessary to the scenario.
I like James' point that it's not men but man hours that are reduced, and we could reduce everyone to a four-hour week. That's weird shift-work, since you'll want to keep everything functioning and a four hour shift in many occupations is barely enough time to find out what's happening from the person you relieve and pass the information to the person who relieves you, but it's an interesting challenge.
I imagine, for example, that medical personnel would still be needed, because even with advanced diagnostic machines someone has to make determinations as to what tests should be run, what symptoms are meaningful, what treatments should be tried and how long to try them before deciding whether they're working--and there needs to be some kind of continuity of care there, which makes it more difficult for one person to work four hours a week.
That's an example of a job that doesn't lend itself to the shorter workweek pattern.
--M. J. Young
I'd be inclined to think that jobs for which four solid hours isn't workable will also be harder to automate. The easiest jobs to automate will be ones that sort of exist in a vacuum, such as assembly lines, whereas medical jobs will be very hard to automate for pretty much the same reason that they'd be resistant to a four-hour work week. Of course, that would make it even more vital to have some sort of socially mandated labor-intensive activity for people on the four-hour work week. Otherwise you run into a slightly-modified form of the problem with socialist solutions. It might be optimal, if difficult, to make the non-work activity be education for the remaining traditional jobs.
Another possibility, though this one wouldn't be as all-inclusive, is to try upping the number of research and design jobs. More researchers means more theories, and the general spread of automation would make it easier to test said theories. They'd be among the last jobs that would be automateable. Food service and similar jobs might hang around longer depending on social mores, and art/food design jobs might potentially last longer, depending on how neuroscience goes.
Yes, I keep thinking about how to automate the basic nursing care, and coming against brick walls.
Someone has to pass meds. That means they have to know that they're giving the correct pill to the correct person. The protocol always includes that you check the patient bracelet and ask the patient to confirm who he is, even if you know him. Already bar code bracelets are being used for confirmation. You also have to observe that the medicine is actually taken. So I could envision a robot reading the bar code on the bracelet and issuing the meds, but I'm not sure how the robot could ascertain that this is the correct person if the bracelet was switched--perhaps facial and voice recognition software? Then it would be much more difficult for the robot to be certain that the pill was swallowed, I think--you can make it appear that a pill was swallowed without swallowing it, palm it, hide it--things for which a person knows to watch, and how to watch, but might be difficult to program into the machine.
There's also the body inspection--looking for bed sores, bruises, wounds of all sorts. I can imagine a robot being able to recognize such injuries, but the ability to turn and manipulate a human body to examine it thoroughly without injuring it is a tricky bit of business, particularly since some patients are going to resist, some are going to be heavy, and some are going to be more fragile, so the technique has to be adapted to the patient. Is the patient fighting because he is confused and belligerent, or is he resisting because the motion is causing pain, or is he in fact not resisting but simply limp and heavy? And the video analysis of spots on the body is not going to be very easy for a machine as compared with a trained human.
And it all works much smoother if the same nurse sees the patient several days a week, because he can remember from one visit to the next what was there. (This is not as opposed to the machine, which obviously can remember, but as opposed to short shifts.)
Complicated. I'm sure there are a lot of jobs like that.
--M. J. Young
Someone has to pass meds. That means they have to know that they're giving the correct pill to the correct person. The protocol always includes that you check the patient bracelet and ask the patient to confirm who he is, even if you know him. Already bar code bracelets are being used for confirmation. You also have to observe that the medicine is actually taken. So I could envision a robot reading the bar code on the bracelet and issuing the meds, but I'm not sure how the robot could ascertain that this is the correct person if the bracelet was switched--perhaps facial and voice recognition software? Then it would be much more difficult for the robot to be certain that the pill was swallowed, I think--you can make it appear that a pill was swallowed without swallowing it, palm it, hide it--things for which a person knows to watch, and how to watch, but might be difficult to program into the machine.
How about blood pricks and then analyzing the blood and identifying the name of the patient by DNA check?
As for the rest, all good questions and considerations. The problem solving creativeness and the social/emotional connections with other people are not really compatible with machinery.
The damage from bed sores could be solved by anti-grav beds or something? The people would be easier to treat when they turn freely, right? But the invasive actions in privacy (if they would normally resist) is hard for the patients then. Someone should still be able to talk with them to keep them emotionally healthy.
Actually, there's this Japanese animation film that addresses that. It's called Roujin Z or Rojin Z, if I remember correctly. It's a pretty awesome movie. To bad I threw it away in a clean(s)ing frenzy.