First, I love your idea of presenting meta-stuff around the story - I'm doing the same.
Second, with regards to economics, I could write an entire thesis on this subject. In fact I sort of am in my Liberal Socialism section. The key point however is psychology. If you are talking about post-scarcity then we are in a situation where there is zero insecurity. Humans only 'behave badly' when they are in an insecure environment - which is, incidentally, precisely how that small minority in charge of neoliberalism currently maintain their social control - in other words, it's not about economics, it is about social control. Money, and its artificial restriction by a privatised banking system (i.e. the money supply), is the most obvious method here, since money is required to buy everything, from necessities to luxuries. Also note that any kind of artificial restriction on what a person can acquire will inevitably lead to negative feelings (social discord and disharmony - divide and conquer etc.).
What I'm really saying here is that if you remove the insecurity (negative emotions) from a group of humans, however large that group is, then you remove vice. People no longer horde, or are greedy. If supply is always greater than demand then there is no insecurity - nor, indeed, 'inflation' (prices don't put themselves up, people do), and you can fix the price of everything. Money then simply becomes a means of making acquisitions easier. In fact, with a sufficiently (emotionally and psychologically) mature population you no longer have money (or credits), because everyone just takes what they want or need. All the 'AI' would do is analyse the stocks and replenish them whenever necessary.
What you then end up with is akin to 'fully automated luxury communism'.
One first step towards this would indeed be a system in which let's say the cost of living (necessities) is 10k credits (per year). So you give everyone 20k per year and say if you want more than that you have to work for it, and how much extra you get depends on your skills, talent, effort, and usefulness to the community. You would also have to set the maximum income at, say, a million a year. Everything would also need a fixed price, of course.
I thought about this wonderful issue when I wrote my own 'long interstellar voyage to another system' story. The massive difference between our two visions, however, is the size of the population. You have a population of 100,000 in your massive toroid I believe. I have a far smaller version, in which the population size is governed by the social cognition number (i.e. Dunbar's number), which is 150 for humans. So the ship starts out with 32 couples (aged 18-22 or so), each of which will have maybe 2-4 children on the 14 year journey to Centauri. The ship is equipped to produce far more than 150 people would ever need. Most of their 'acquisitions' are in fact cultural and leisure, which costs virtually nothing - they have a bar, they play games, they watch visidramas and binge watch retro box sets, put on plays and concerts, make love, that kind of thing.
The other difference is the year of the setting - mine is about 100 years from now rather than your nearly 1000, so there is a big tech difference. But this makes the great irony of my version even more ironic, as far as the present is concerned, because even if they weren't when they set out, by the time they arrive the entire population is irrevocably communist...
Ah - this is also why I believe that any sufficiently advanced lifeform will always be communist.
Great insights, Evelyn! It has had me thinking for days, which is why it's taken me so long to reply. I'm not sure I agree that people only misbehave because of a perception of insecurity. Or if that is true (which it may well be), erasing the measure of material wealth might still not be sufficient to get everyone to be good to one another. Because there are other things people crave, like power and mates, that also influence our behavior. (These will also be topics for future companion pieces - the governance is especially tricky). My society is certainly more communist and kind that present-day humans, but they will slip up along the way. Note also that to make the story more interesting, I have to lean into these issues and try to explore where things could go wrong, otherwise it'll make for fairly uninteresting reading haha. Your story sounds intriguing. I recently heard of Aurora, by Kin Stanley Robinson, but I'm kind of avoiding it because it's too close to mine. Have you read it?
I haven't read Aurora - actually I'm probably a bit like you on this one because I would want to avoid reading things that are too close to mine. Not because of worries about being influenced in any way, quite the opposite - I'd end up getting annoyed if I discovered my version was better but his one got successful and mine didn't! I'd also get annoyed if I spotted glaring psychological and scientific errors etc. So yes, I studiously avoid all that! Mind you at the moment I'm kind of helped by not having enough spare money to buy loads of new books (which is a good excuse).
You make an excellent point about needing to give the characters issues otherwise it gets uninteresting and straightforward, and there's no drama! I guess the drama in mine is all contained in the contact with the ETI, rather than any internal conflict on the ship (well, aside from the alien pathogen issue that is), so it's quite a different story in that sense. But yes - if there's no drama there's no story!
I think you are correct actually about human emotions causing issues even when access to resources is all assured. People need positive emotional things and these aren't exactly economics! Simple jealousy for example if the person you fancy fancies someone else (maybe that's why I had my small crew already married lol). I'm not sure about power though (power over others, I mean), as I've always seen that as a product of insecurity in oneself. Mind you, if there are 100,000 people in the community all these issues are unavoidable. You'll end up with some people who are way more talented (or good-looking, or whatever) than others meaning some people will end up a little bitter and resentful perhaps.
One of the great things about these sorts of stories, though, is that by exploring them people can confront them, and possibly resolve solutions, in advance of when it actually happens. In that sense, the psychological preparation for long-term space missions is refined (especially the selection of the best personality types). Once the tech side of everything is sorted, the psychology is the most important aspect. My version is much easier in that respect because there's so few people so the selection process for character types is easier. They're more like a large extended family than a society. I think this is also where Dunbar's number comes in - the larger the population size beyond 150, the greater chance of human issues occurring.
I am really looking forward to your other companion pieces - like I said it's a great idea.
I ask this same question when I read various worldbuilding books, but it seems to me that "credits" are often used as a method of exchange in place of money, and yet they seem to function the same way. If you can use credits to buy a dress or get a tattoo isn't that the same as how money is used today? How is this credit system different?
Also, as to this part: "In the future, the definition of work should become broader and include our creative exploits, raising children, and household chores. As work to provide for our basic needs becomes less prevalent, we must think about the allocation of reward according to people’s productivity." Who is paying them for these tasks? Companies? The government? Are you imagining a UBI situation?
Yeah, credits is just dollars I think. The UBI system seems OK to me, from what I've read, and it doesn't seem to promote laziness, as detractors often say. As I ponder these questions, the scenario that keeps coming to mind is one where someone might say 'how much do you earn?' and you'd reply 'enough'. But I know it's more complex than that. Which is why some weird people spend their lives thinking about finance and the economy! Unfortunately, I'm not one of them, so I'm glad I can refer to the Noah Smiths of the world to educate me a little bit.
I love this idea for a companion series. I’m always fascinated by writers’ processes, but taking apart the various aspects of worldbuilding in parallel with the story itself is a new level of interesting for me! I’m not quite ready to deep-think space-based economic theory, but I would kind of wonder if there’d ever be an issue with motivation to work if all basic needs are provided and there’s only a finite amount of extras to spend one’s money or credits on. Does altruism run so deep in these people en route to Kyron that they’d keep harvesting food, for example, just to keep everyone fed, even if they have enough dresses in their closet and they’ve seen all of the broadway shows and have fully fixed up their apartment, and see no real point, then, to earning more credits through work?
Sometimes, the issues people bring up make me think more about the drama and intrigue that could bring to the story than how I can solve the problem. Is that bad? Definitely issues to delve into here!
Where you have credit, you also have debt. Is the AI acting as a bank or at least a ledger? Does inflation exist? Is more wealth a goal? How are basic needs offered for free if credited labour is required to maintain such systems? Who subsidises that labour? Are there taxes? How are education and health and other public services funded? How do children affect this artificial economy? Are there any other forms of currency or bartering system ? Are any deemed illicit? What other rules exist to enforce the status quo? Who decides on those?
Hi Jonathan, great questions! I think AI would definitely track people's balance, yeah. Inside the ships, there is a certain drive for wealth. Don't know if you noticed, but I described the apartment building she lives in as 'ornate'. I imagine they spend a lot of time intricately decorating their buildings in different styles, which is tricky because they have a finite amount of materials (sort of - they have growing forests and animal populations). It's prestigious to have nice clothes and surroundings, but I don't think there'd be a huge incentive to accumulate large amounts of individual wealth in the bank, you know? But maybe. And obviously to make this kind of system work back on Earth, you'd have to get around that aspect. I think I need to sit with your questions for longer. Economics has never been my forte haha. LMK if you have any ideas!
The post-scarcity economics of the Banksian 'Culture' universe seem very aligned to what you're proposing. Commentators consider this setup as ranging from a hedonistic utopian anarchy to a benign form of fascism (especially if your planet/species exists outside of The Culture). One consistent characteristic is uniformity and consistency in benevolent decision-making. Maybe dig into that as part of your research: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture?wprov=sfla1
Wow that is fascinating! I hadn't heard of it before, will definitely dig in. The issue around colonisation and trying to live alongside the species on the planet will come up a bit down the track. For now, I'm mostly focusing on how they manage within their own system.
Player of Games is my fav Iain Banks novel. Some of the content originally horrified me. When I read it a second time as an adult (years later) I remember recognizing the parallels to realities some people experience right here on earth — today. Not surprisingly, this revelation did not unhorrify me. Probably should take another look. May be a different story entirely for me in 2024...
First, I love your idea of presenting meta-stuff around the story - I'm doing the same.
Second, with regards to economics, I could write an entire thesis on this subject. In fact I sort of am in my Liberal Socialism section. The key point however is psychology. If you are talking about post-scarcity then we are in a situation where there is zero insecurity. Humans only 'behave badly' when they are in an insecure environment - which is, incidentally, precisely how that small minority in charge of neoliberalism currently maintain their social control - in other words, it's not about economics, it is about social control. Money, and its artificial restriction by a privatised banking system (i.e. the money supply), is the most obvious method here, since money is required to buy everything, from necessities to luxuries. Also note that any kind of artificial restriction on what a person can acquire will inevitably lead to negative feelings (social discord and disharmony - divide and conquer etc.).
What I'm really saying here is that if you remove the insecurity (negative emotions) from a group of humans, however large that group is, then you remove vice. People no longer horde, or are greedy. If supply is always greater than demand then there is no insecurity - nor, indeed, 'inflation' (prices don't put themselves up, people do), and you can fix the price of everything. Money then simply becomes a means of making acquisitions easier. In fact, with a sufficiently (emotionally and psychologically) mature population you no longer have money (or credits), because everyone just takes what they want or need. All the 'AI' would do is analyse the stocks and replenish them whenever necessary.
What you then end up with is akin to 'fully automated luxury communism'.
One first step towards this would indeed be a system in which let's say the cost of living (necessities) is 10k credits (per year). So you give everyone 20k per year and say if you want more than that you have to work for it, and how much extra you get depends on your skills, talent, effort, and usefulness to the community. You would also have to set the maximum income at, say, a million a year. Everything would also need a fixed price, of course.
I thought about this wonderful issue when I wrote my own 'long interstellar voyage to another system' story. The massive difference between our two visions, however, is the size of the population. You have a population of 100,000 in your massive toroid I believe. I have a far smaller version, in which the population size is governed by the social cognition number (i.e. Dunbar's number), which is 150 for humans. So the ship starts out with 32 couples (aged 18-22 or so), each of which will have maybe 2-4 children on the 14 year journey to Centauri. The ship is equipped to produce far more than 150 people would ever need. Most of their 'acquisitions' are in fact cultural and leisure, which costs virtually nothing - they have a bar, they play games, they watch visidramas and binge watch retro box sets, put on plays and concerts, make love, that kind of thing.
The other difference is the year of the setting - mine is about 100 years from now rather than your nearly 1000, so there is a big tech difference. But this makes the great irony of my version even more ironic, as far as the present is concerned, because even if they weren't when they set out, by the time they arrive the entire population is irrevocably communist...
Ah - this is also why I believe that any sufficiently advanced lifeform will always be communist.
Great insights, Evelyn! It has had me thinking for days, which is why it's taken me so long to reply. I'm not sure I agree that people only misbehave because of a perception of insecurity. Or if that is true (which it may well be), erasing the measure of material wealth might still not be sufficient to get everyone to be good to one another. Because there are other things people crave, like power and mates, that also influence our behavior. (These will also be topics for future companion pieces - the governance is especially tricky). My society is certainly more communist and kind that present-day humans, but they will slip up along the way. Note also that to make the story more interesting, I have to lean into these issues and try to explore where things could go wrong, otherwise it'll make for fairly uninteresting reading haha. Your story sounds intriguing. I recently heard of Aurora, by Kin Stanley Robinson, but I'm kind of avoiding it because it's too close to mine. Have you read it?
I haven't read Aurora - actually I'm probably a bit like you on this one because I would want to avoid reading things that are too close to mine. Not because of worries about being influenced in any way, quite the opposite - I'd end up getting annoyed if I discovered my version was better but his one got successful and mine didn't! I'd also get annoyed if I spotted glaring psychological and scientific errors etc. So yes, I studiously avoid all that! Mind you at the moment I'm kind of helped by not having enough spare money to buy loads of new books (which is a good excuse).
You make an excellent point about needing to give the characters issues otherwise it gets uninteresting and straightforward, and there's no drama! I guess the drama in mine is all contained in the contact with the ETI, rather than any internal conflict on the ship (well, aside from the alien pathogen issue that is), so it's quite a different story in that sense. But yes - if there's no drama there's no story!
I think you are correct actually about human emotions causing issues even when access to resources is all assured. People need positive emotional things and these aren't exactly economics! Simple jealousy for example if the person you fancy fancies someone else (maybe that's why I had my small crew already married lol). I'm not sure about power though (power over others, I mean), as I've always seen that as a product of insecurity in oneself. Mind you, if there are 100,000 people in the community all these issues are unavoidable. You'll end up with some people who are way more talented (or good-looking, or whatever) than others meaning some people will end up a little bitter and resentful perhaps.
One of the great things about these sorts of stories, though, is that by exploring them people can confront them, and possibly resolve solutions, in advance of when it actually happens. In that sense, the psychological preparation for long-term space missions is refined (especially the selection of the best personality types). Once the tech side of everything is sorted, the psychology is the most important aspect. My version is much easier in that respect because there's so few people so the selection process for character types is easier. They're more like a large extended family than a society. I think this is also where Dunbar's number comes in - the larger the population size beyond 150, the greater chance of human issues occurring.
I am really looking forward to your other companion pieces - like I said it's a great idea.
I ask this same question when I read various worldbuilding books, but it seems to me that "credits" are often used as a method of exchange in place of money, and yet they seem to function the same way. If you can use credits to buy a dress or get a tattoo isn't that the same as how money is used today? How is this credit system different?
Also, as to this part: "In the future, the definition of work should become broader and include our creative exploits, raising children, and household chores. As work to provide for our basic needs becomes less prevalent, we must think about the allocation of reward according to people’s productivity." Who is paying them for these tasks? Companies? The government? Are you imagining a UBI situation?
Yeah, credits is just dollars I think. The UBI system seems OK to me, from what I've read, and it doesn't seem to promote laziness, as detractors often say. As I ponder these questions, the scenario that keeps coming to mind is one where someone might say 'how much do you earn?' and you'd reply 'enough'. But I know it's more complex than that. Which is why some weird people spend their lives thinking about finance and the economy! Unfortunately, I'm not one of them, so I'm glad I can refer to the Noah Smiths of the world to educate me a little bit.
Hahahaha fair enough!
I love this idea for a companion series. I’m always fascinated by writers’ processes, but taking apart the various aspects of worldbuilding in parallel with the story itself is a new level of interesting for me! I’m not quite ready to deep-think space-based economic theory, but I would kind of wonder if there’d ever be an issue with motivation to work if all basic needs are provided and there’s only a finite amount of extras to spend one’s money or credits on. Does altruism run so deep in these people en route to Kyron that they’d keep harvesting food, for example, just to keep everyone fed, even if they have enough dresses in their closet and they’ve seen all of the broadway shows and have fully fixed up their apartment, and see no real point, then, to earning more credits through work?
Sometimes, the issues people bring up make me think more about the drama and intrigue that could bring to the story than how I can solve the problem. Is that bad? Definitely issues to delve into here!
Not bad! Keep going! The fact that you’ve started up a discussion is nothing but valuable.
Where you have credit, you also have debt. Is the AI acting as a bank or at least a ledger? Does inflation exist? Is more wealth a goal? How are basic needs offered for free if credited labour is required to maintain such systems? Who subsidises that labour? Are there taxes? How are education and health and other public services funded? How do children affect this artificial economy? Are there any other forms of currency or bartering system ? Are any deemed illicit? What other rules exist to enforce the status quo? Who decides on those?
Hi Jonathan, great questions! I think AI would definitely track people's balance, yeah. Inside the ships, there is a certain drive for wealth. Don't know if you noticed, but I described the apartment building she lives in as 'ornate'. I imagine they spend a lot of time intricately decorating their buildings in different styles, which is tricky because they have a finite amount of materials (sort of - they have growing forests and animal populations). It's prestigious to have nice clothes and surroundings, but I don't think there'd be a huge incentive to accumulate large amounts of individual wealth in the bank, you know? But maybe. And obviously to make this kind of system work back on Earth, you'd have to get around that aspect. I think I need to sit with your questions for longer. Economics has never been my forte haha. LMK if you have any ideas!
The post-scarcity economics of the Banksian 'Culture' universe seem very aligned to what you're proposing. Commentators consider this setup as ranging from a hedonistic utopian anarchy to a benign form of fascism (especially if your planet/species exists outside of The Culture). One consistent characteristic is uniformity and consistency in benevolent decision-making. Maybe dig into that as part of your research: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture?wprov=sfla1
Wow that is fascinating! I hadn't heard of it before, will definitely dig in. The issue around colonisation and trying to live alongside the species on the planet will come up a bit down the track. For now, I'm mostly focusing on how they manage within their own system.
Player of Games is my fav Iain Banks novel. Some of the content originally horrified me. When I read it a second time as an adult (years later) I remember recognizing the parallels to realities some people experience right here on earth — today. Not surprisingly, this revelation did not unhorrify me. Probably should take another look. May be a different story entirely for me in 2024...
Do let me know (if you go back to it) what are your takeaways!