Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Sirus]

Assuming that actually pans out (heh, mining joke), I've gotta figure out how to get in on something like that. I bet the people doing the labor will be extremely well-paid.

[Scelly9]

Even better than deep sea welders!

[MetalSlimeHunt]

There's one big problem: Once we hit the payoff, platinum, palladium, and whatever else they bring back will hit post-scarcity and be almost worthless. On the other hand, we'll have a lot of it to sell.

Still, better than not having enough of it.

[Sirus]

Yes, but there will still be plenty of demand for the stuff. It's not like they're only used in jewelry or whatever.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Yes, but the demand will never reach the supply. Just one asteroid will be worth 175 years of our current demand.

[Bauglir]

There's one big problem: Once we hit the payoff, platinum, palladium, and whatever else they bring back will hit post-scarcity and be almost worthless. On the other hand, we'll have a lot of it to sell.

Still, better than not having enough of it.

Hooray, another reason to move past an economic system where scarcity is considered worth preserving.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

There are issues with having an economy where some things are post-scarcity and some things aren't. coughcoughinternetpiracycoughcough

[Mlamlah]

Well, fortunatly/unfortunatly it's extremely unlikely that they are just going to release all of it into the market. It's highly likely that instead they will simply keep control of the entire supply, trickling it in rather than flooding, that way they make steady income and it maintains value.

[Bauglir]

There are issues with having an economy where some things are post-scarcity and some things aren't. coughcoughinternetpiracycoughcough

Yeah, I know. That's why the paradigm needs revision, because it's already the case that some things aren't scarce. The more situations where its profitable to fail at progress, the more obvious it becomes that an economy defined by scarcity is not sustainable. Kinda wish I were smart enough to figure out a workaround that wouldn't involve outcries of "But that's not fair!", but I think that at that point we're reaching beyond the scope of this thread and might want to migrate over to the Occupy one. >_____>

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I would predict that we'll stay mostly behind the scarcity barrier even if we have to enforce it until such a time that the majority of our resources are stably post-scarce. At that point we'll start dismantling the economy.

[Euld]

One small step for humanity, one giant leap until Star Trek is a reality 

[Solifuge]

http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/04/good-morning-everyone-im-chris-lewicki-and-im-an-asteroid-miner-planetary-resources-announces-aste/

Who here has heard of this awesomery yet?

Caught one of their first live press releases on this, and put it up on Livestream. Really exciting stuff... orbital hydrogen fuel and oxygen plants would help build the infrastructure for future space travel.

In other awesomery, Mercury has water, and spectrometry says it has organic matter on it (carbon compounds, possible organisms, etc). And it's formed on ice deposits on our closest planet to the sun... friggin' crazy!

[RedKing]

There are issues with having an economy where some things are post-scarcity and some things aren't. coughcoughinternetpiracycoughcough

Not sure where you're going with this, but if the end result is space pirates, count me in. Yarr.

[Sheb]

No one is afraid they'll crash that asteroid in Earth? Or the weapon potential of controlling a huge rock above our heads?

Sure it's really awesome... But a bit crazy too. I really need to write a sci-fi novel where a mining corp decide the best way to make money is actually to ransom Earth with a giant asteroid.

[Scoops Novel]

I wonder how many miners will take the leap.