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[Starver]

Space mining and manufacturing (ignoring the ¿40K? reference) will probably primarily affect most of the current launch efforts. Much less satellite assembly (and pre-stack testing) down here. Arbitrarily large/small manufacture up in space of space-refined and then space-machined material (microgravity and near-total vacuum gives some advantages, some disadvantages) means reskewing to launch fuel tankers (until that's manufacturable in quantity from lunar/asteroidal/solar-wind-scooping), purely man-launchers (as long as telepresence doesn't fill the need over all those already up there to do man-vital things), and experimental things/things needed to bootstrap more advanced-manufactury (assuming they don't get cruder/smaller 'space assembly units' to make the better/larger ones someone just thought up).


Which problem gets sorted first, I don't know. We're well on our way with telepresence-robotics (but all are currently created down here), so I suspect man-launchers will remain depressed for everything but the finer final details of slotting together man-habitat components (orbital or lunar, initially), which is a somewhat self-demanding requirement. But we'll probably appreciate what tin-cans-of-humans we can send to work on fuel/mining experiments (after the first simple small-scale probe experiments, but before it can be considered safe to let run autonomously/remotely[1]...) for long enough to develop other reasons (including much more 'tourism') to send people up and out of the well. Or greater capability if we quickly get to tether technology sucfficient for space-elevator or space-bolo (momentum-assist tethers) that trivialise the to-orbit costs.

But all of that is speculative and very much up in the air (if not beyond it) because there's many possible tracks between here and the future, continually shifting as further developments bear fruit or rot on the vine.


@Kagus: *groan...* Shoe! Shoe!


[1] Mars-surface fuel-caching for re-orbitting in the advance of the first manned-landing might be a notable exception, based on current projected plans.

[LordBaal]

ignoring the ¿40K? reference

That is heresy, expect an exterminatus on your planet within the next 200 standard years.

About asteroid mining, relevant: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y8XvQNt26KI

[Zanzetkuken The Great]

The big unknown I see in predicting how things go is space (spaaaaaace): If space-based mining becomes economically feasible first, then the resource caps on production get blown off. If space-based manufacturing then proves biologically feasible for regular humans to live and work in orbit for prolonged periods, all the caps are blown off except feeding the population (and then if we can do space-farming that gets blown off). That would restructure economics in ways we probably can't even predict akin to how the internet restructured things that people never predicted before.

Correction: it blows off the caps for our current levels of population and for a good chunk of time.  But 200-300 years of population and economic growth will end up with a different story if we can't crack the barriers involved with shipping between stars which would prove a similar barrier to a solar system society as getting off the planet in large numbers to a planetary-based one.  Especially if you get stuck with a Kessler Syndrome by accidents wrought form ever increasing space travel.  Though you also pick up the speed of light becoming a delay in communications.  Generations ships could be a slight solution, but you'll still end up with the issue of everything around a given system just not being able to be shipped there because it is a 40+ year trip for people planetside.

[MorleyDev]

If regular humans can live and work in orbit indefinitely, then you can just keep building orbital habitats at that point. Why live on a planet at all? There's enough material and space in the solar system to support a growing population for more than just a few hundred years when physical space can be constructed.

Which is why I think of 'space mining and manufacturing' as a likely to be another singularity, where civilisation would be altered so profoundly that life after cannot be reasonably predicted by life before. Like the invention of Agriculture, the Industrial Revolution, and the Internet. We can hypothesize, but my money is on no matter what we predict it'll all be wrong because of some fundamental idea we lack the capacity to think of. Like a hunter-gatherer trying to conceive of a sewer system. Doesn't mean it isn't fun/interesting to think about though.

But this is drifting off into the space thread.

[LordBaal]

Some materials like gold and some hydrocarburos will become overabundant in time with  their prices driven down. In fact if we manage to get to that point almost anything will be like that and only scale(mass), energy requirements and distance will determine prices.

As for travel times and distances. Expect a miriad of blocs/republics/kingdoms.

[MaxTheFox]

The economic model I want: The government controls a large part of the industry for the purposes of providing affordable goods and services to the populace, and also things like weapons or power generation, the latter because it's easier to push environmental regulations if you're in charge of the main culprit of climate change. Everything else the free market does OK. The government physically can't administer everything.

Basically, China-style state capitalism. Despite myself lowkey hating how China does things (nothing against the people). At least they're decent at managing their economy. If we're going to have oligarchs they better be under the thumb of the government.

[McTraveller]

I'd prefer an economic model where the government's role is to remove barriers to entry and facilitate individuals / private groups to create competition.

I don't know that the government should be the "supplier of last resort."  In some ways it is appealing, but I think the dependencies it espouses are problematic.

I'd be all for "startup funding grants" that use the government's huge power to generate cashflow (either via taxes or by new money creation) where the government's return on investment isn't huge payoffs (like venture capitalism) but rather a more stable, robust society.

[JoshuaFH]

I had a thought a few days ago, concerning alternatives to price fixing. (as a means to prevent the "pass the buck" inflation cycle, specifically as a UBI is concerned)


Consider:  The federal government enters EVERY consumer market, for essential products, with an overt goal of gaining NO MORE than 30% market share. 70% of the market remains in the hands of private enterprises, and they operate exactly the same way they do now.


However, the federally owned production system sets a price point that forces the transaction calculus lower than what private enterprise wants.


See for instance-- The price of insulin.  Marked up thousands of percent. It does NOT cost that much to produce, nor to distribute.  The prices are high, because people have to have it, or they literally die.  This causes it to have a naturally high demand, and high demand -> High price.

If the Fed owned 30% of pharmaceutical production, they could set the product they produce in the "Easily affordable, but still profitable" range, which would drive down what the big makers charge. It would accomplish that by lowering the effective demand. (people get their insulin at affordable prices from a non-profit-motive source, which takes the air out of demanding the higher price)


Similar things could be done with rent, food, etc.


People would have the choice of purchasing commercial products, or govt produced products.  The jobs created by the govt entering those markets would further force the positions of employers to reconsider employee conditions and benefits as well, since the fed would be a major competitor in terms of labor.


Rather than pure planned economy, where the govt owns *ALL* industries, 100%, this would just be a regulated economy, where downward pressure is applied through market means, via govt set prices for govt produced goods.

Functionally, it bears a resemblance to a price-war downward spiral, but unlike a price-war, the fed's pockets are theoretically endless, and the price they set, is not set to destroy competitors-- It is set to control market valuation of products, in a "soft" manner.  (nothing would stop commercial companies from continuing to demand their desired price points-- aside from the fact they wont have market dominance.  EG, they could still be the Apple "premium product" compared to the android "baseline option")

I'd honestly been thinking about the "Government entering the industry as a stabilizing entity" for a while now, and I think the largest problems are:

1. How do you go about deciding which industries and which products/services are essential enough to warrant the government's direct entry and interference. This hearkens back to one of the key flaws of communism, the government having to deduce demand and then supply accordingly, and it's such an enormous hassle for a command economy that they can't help but produce either too little and have no impact, or produce too much and glut the market. Say what you will about the evils of the profit motive, it atleast directs people's actions towards people's wants and needs in a timely manner; a government body without that motive is bound hand-and-foot not by the desire for survival but by arbitrary quotas and regulations, leading to under or over-performance. Most likely under.

2. Does a government entering into competition only do so on one level of a supply chain, or does it try to inhabit every single portion of a supply chain of a particular industry, ala Mcdonald's? I can easily imagine an overbudgeted government factory for "Product X" having an unbelievable number of leeches and hanger-ons who make it their business to exploit the unlimited wallet of these government-company wannabes. This would naturally stifle the intended effect of a company designed to regulate by having every portion of the supply chain trying to gouge them as an easy target.

3. The businesses these Government-companies are meant to compete with are, in the largest cases, international companies. At most they could fill a portion of the domestic market, but that constitutes only a portion of the offending company's bottom line. If anything, I could see large companies deciding to play hard ball and simply deciding to pull out completely of areas that have government sponsored competition, forcing the government to enlarge themselves to fill up that market and introducing the many economic problems that entails, until they inevitably fail and collapse, damning the well-intentioned idea in the public's eyes as another communistic failure.

4. The hardest part, of course, is getting corrupt politicians to turn on their corporate masters. Can't do nuthin' if your political system is broke as fuck from top to bottom.

[Frumple]

I'd honestly been thinking about the "Government entering the industry as a stabilizing entity" for a while now, and I think the largest problems are:

1. How do you go about deciding which industries and which products/services are essential enough to warrant the government's direct entry and interference.

I mean. Other questions are more discussion I'm too tired for, but that one's pretty damn easy? If people die, get crippled, or end up impoverished/homeless without it, that's a target. So food, housing/utilities, healthcare, transportation/education, probably general environmental/ecological stuff, military/whatever-your-equivalent-to-law-enforcement-is. Y'know. Essential, like in the word essential

Stuff even the US gov already intervenes in, just half-assed and/or captured by relevant industries a lot of the time.

[MorleyDev]

I tend to think of the 'means of production' as the enablers of production. So for businesses to optimally produce and grow production in a country that country needs a well-educated and healthy workforce with a constant supply of electricity and clean water, with shelter and roads and public transport to move goods and people around on, with access to the internet, and a safety net of support to enable continued healthy living whilst retraining or unable to find work due to health or skill-related reasons.

These are things a private enterprise isn't incentivised to serve in a way that optimises overall growth despite all private enterprises requiring them to function and grow, since providing them to the general public as a business is literally creating or supporting your own potential/future/current competition.

Governments can have longer and wider horizons than just 'what benefits this one company for this one quarter' so are better positioned to manage these things long-term. Sometimes ensuring long-term prosperity requires a sacrifice of short-term gains, but businesses are organised in such a way that it often benefits the decision maker to pursue short-term gains over the long-term.

[McTraveller]

Companies can also have longer and wider horizons than one quarter - in fact the most successful companies do have the long view.

When it comes to economic influences, the difference between governments and corporations is that corporations have to turn a profit to keep operating, where a government... doesn't?  Well that's not entirely true, the government needs to have enough of a "soft" profit in terms of quality of life and the like, otherwise the government is going to collapse (in practice, even if not officially).

Part of this is that a government is really just a special class of "corporation" - they are both just groups of people operating collectively.  If we don't like corporations to have a monopoly, how can we ensure that the government doesn't abuse its privileged position as monopoly over certain things.

[MorleyDev]

The decision maker isn't a whole corporation, it's often a board, or an owner, or even just a manager, or an employee. Board members and owners typically will increase the value of the company and then sell their part in the ownership in that company. Investors require growth from their investments, and pressure the board to do such or will sell on their investment. Which means at this level people aren't incentivised to be interested in the success of the business beyond when they will decide to 'cash out' and move on to the next one.

And as such, managers and employees are usually pressured to deliver immediate results else be replaced, or are 'motivated' with things like commission, which incentivises the screwing over of the customer by encouraging prioritising the immediate sale over a long-term success with that customer: Most people will take more guaranteed money now over potential money later.

All this creates an environment where a business that is merely turning a consistent profit isn't enough: a business that doesn't have exponential growth is regarded as failing. There are exceptions, and those exceptions are often the most successful long-term, but they're exceptions in spite of the system not because of it. So long as the system continues to incentivise short-term gains over long-term and wider successes, they'll always be the rare exception.

The political process and elections and independent branches of legislature and independent-to-party regulators are the oversight on the government, an effective democratic government has oversight built into it's very structure.

[McTraveller]

The political process and elections and independent branches of legislature and independent-to-party regulators are the oversight on the government, an effective democratic government has oversight built into it's very structure.

I like the idea of democracy, but the practice seems... lacking.  I mean for one thing, I don't know that "ability to get elected" is effective oversight...  plus, as we've seen, if you don't have government branches that are willing to actually exercise their oversight responsibility, what recourse does the public have?

I guess ultimately my stance is I don't think corporations are the devil and I don't think government is the savior.

[MorleyDev]

Any system allowed to run unchecked or taken to excess becomes dystopian. State regulation needs to be a balancing factor on business to protect citizens, and state support by the providing of means of production an uplifting factor on business and citizens.

Voting is one part of democracy, but there need to be other checks and balances beyond that. An elected dictatorship is still a dictatorship. A two-party system is still anti-democratic.

In an actually functioning democracy the available actions of the government need are regulated by laws and constitution and codes of practice that they must follow, and there need to be structures of oversight that go beyond the electorate that all work together to ensure that these laws/consitutions/codes both do ensure the running of overall system and can be altered at a pace capable of keeping up with social progress. It's a series of interacting and balancing systems, as opposed to a single leadership making direct and unchallenged decisions.

An extreme two-party system due to first-past-the-post is part of the US's problem, since FPTP inevitably creates a two-party system. A more representative system would allow for the establishment or more nuanced, niche, and single-issue parties which together form coalition governments.

[MaxTheFox]

Democracy is a spectrum. Like, America is definitely much more democratic than Russia but somewhat less so than some other countries.

I'd still want to live in the USA instead of this bullshit country, nothing about it is better than America, it sucks.