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Raw materials and the New Economy

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Thu, 2012-03-15 22:13
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quantummechani quantummechani's picture
Raw materials and the New Economy
So one thing I noticed is that the rule book is not very explicit about what manufactured items might need rare resources. In the section on nano technology it says feedstock should be considered [Trivial] cost, but surely that can't be the case for anything one might want to make? In particular it seems odd if mechanical morphs do not require more expensive materials... otherwise it seems the infomorph population problem is quite trivial in the outer system. Admittedly, without rep maybe infomorphs couldn't manage to get anyone to help even the trivial expense but the Titanians alone seem like they could create mechanical bodies for every single stranded infomorph for a pittance. So I suppose my question is, what if any items should have a higher material cost factored in?
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Thu, 2012-03-15 22:59
Decivre Decivre's picture
Re: Raw materials and the New Economy
quantummechani wrote:
So one thing I noticed is that the rule book is not very explicit about what manufactured items might need rare resources. In the section on nano technology it says feedstock should be considered [Trivial] cost, but surely that can't be the case for anything one might want to make? In particular it seems odd if mechanical morphs do not require more expensive materials... otherwise it seems the infomorph population problem is quite trivial in the outer system. Admittedly, without rep maybe infomorphs couldn't manage to get anyone to help even the trivial expense but the Titanians alone seem like they could create mechanical bodies for every single stranded infomorph for a pittance. So I suppose my question is, what if any items should have a higher material cost factored in?
Believe it or not, rarer materials are generally needed in smaller quantities. Gold and other precious metals are in high demand for circuitry, but thin circuits means less gold needed. By 10 AF, a couple nanograms of gold could be enough for a decent-sized circuit. Plus, rarity works a bit different once we leave the earth. Many things that are uncommon here aren't so much uncommon elsewhere. Rare earth elements are probably relatively common in the asteroid belt, and radioactives are easily acquired near the Sun or gas giants. Everything short of antimatter is probably common enough to fit your needs with regards to nanofabricator production (and they can't manipulate antimatter anyways, so it's not really a loss). Blueprint designers likely pride themselves on optimal element usage, only using as much of rare materials as necessary. So I can actually see fab stock being fairly cheap; especially since even today, the majority of a product's cost is held up in the price for manufacture rather than the value of raw materials (exceptions include jewelry).
—
Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]
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Thu, 2012-03-15 23:03
quantummechani quantummechani's picture
Re: Raw materials and the New Economy
Oh, I have no problem with believing in reality feedstock would be cheap. However, the way the game's universe is described seems inconsistent if it is.
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Fri, 2012-03-16 00:57
Decivre Decivre's picture
Re: Raw materials and the New Economy
quantummechani wrote:
Oh, I have no problem with believing in reality feedstock would be cheap. However, the way the game's universe is described seems inconsistent if it is.
Sure it is. Just remember that you also have to take into account market fluctuation. Things aren't going to be as common or the same price in every part of the system. Nanofabricators and feedstock are contraband, and therefore far more expensive in places like the Jovian Republic. In the Inner System, synthmorphs remain expensive because the common citizen does not have access to the fabricator necessary to make one. But in the places where nanofabrication is common, especially the outer system, feedstock is going to be exactly that common and cheap. When it comes to post-scarcity, the real money (and favors) are going to be spent on blueprints, not feedstock.
—
Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]
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Fri, 2012-03-16 01:57
quantummechani quantummechani's picture
Re: Raw materials and the New Economy
Well, as the thread title indicates, I'm not really talking about the Jovian Republic or even most of the inner system, just the new economies. Let me elaborate a bit on the problem. If raw materials cost [Trivial] and a decent synthmorph is cost [High] the cost difference has to be explained somehow. It could be blueprints, but that doesn't seem like it would be the case if you are in the outer system and just want any old synthmorph design. It could be labour time, but the game explicitly states pretty much everything would take only hours with nanofabrication, and that is even without some kind of mass production. Lastly it could be just time on a fabricator but that also doesn't make much since since fabricators can make more fabricators. What I'm getting at here is without further explanation sythmorphs seem to fall into the category of goods that are more or less freely available barring some kind of government restriction. And if they are so freely available then the problem of not enough (mechanical) bodies for everyone doesn't seem like it should exist. EDIT: Would you say in a new economy, the cost of a synthmorph would fluctuate to be [Low] then? Trivial raw materials plus some hours of work (aka a level 2 favor).
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Fri, 2012-03-16 02:01
Decivre Decivre's picture
Re: Raw materials and the New Economy
quantummechani wrote:
Well, as the thread title indicates, I'm not really talking about the Jovian Republic or even most of the inner system, just the new economies. Let me elaborate a bit on the problem. If raw materials cost [Trivial] and a decent synthmorph is cost [Expensive] the cost difference has to be explained somehow. It could be blueprints, but that doesn't seem like it would be the case if you are in the outer system and just want any old synthmorph design. It could be labour time, but the game explicitly states pretty much everything would take only hours with nanofabrication, and that is even without some kind of mass production. Lastly it could be just time on a fabricator but that also doesn't make much since since fabricators can make more fabricators. What I'm getting at here is without further explanation sythmorphs seem to fall into the category of goods that are more or less freely available barring some kind of government restriction. And if they are so freely available then the problem of not enough (mechanical) bodies for everyone doesn't seem like it should exist.
Well, if you're talking about the outer system, then cost is not an issue anyways. The outer system economies are favor-based, not monetary in nature. That means that while getting a new synthmorph from someone will cost you a large favor (which you may need to pay back down the line), it does not denote an actual monetary cost in any way. When you think about it in that context, it still does make sense. Getting relatively common feedstock should be a much smaller favor than having a synthmorph nanofactured for you. It's just like how getting printer paper is a much smaller favor today than printing up a copy of the core book for someone with my house printer... the individual components of that transaction are fairly cheap, but they are essentially requesting my paper, my ink, and time with my printer. Not to mention any real effort that I have to make to ensure that it's a good print-out rather than shoddily done.
quantummechani wrote:
Would you say in a new economy, the cost of a synthmorph would fluctuate to be [Low] then? Trivial raw materials plus some hours of work (aka a level 2 favor).
Probably not, but getting such a body is still pretty easy in the outer system so long as you have a decent reputation. Just ask for one, and be ready to pay back that favor down the line. Of course, you have to take into account some of the other factors regarding bodies. Biochauvinism is a key issue for people in the system, so most would prefer a meat body over a metal one. It's a purely psychological desire in most cases (unless you're an async), but one that many can't get over. So for those sorts of people, synthmorphs aren't an option. Also, do note that there are cheap institutions for getting morphs. Titan is currently trying to push a "morph for every citizen" program so that everyone can be sleeved.
—
Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]
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Fri, 2012-03-16 02:29
quantummechani quantummechani's picture
Re: Raw materials and the New Economy
Decivre wrote:
quantummechani wrote:
Well, as the thread title indicates, I'm not really talking about the Jovian Republic or even most of the inner system, just the new economies. Let me elaborate a bit on the problem. If raw materials cost [Trivial] and a decent synthmorph is cost [Expensive] the cost difference has to be explained somehow. It could be blueprints, but that doesn't seem like it would be the case if you are in the outer system and just want any old synthmorph design. It could be labour time, but the game explicitly states pretty much everything would take only hours with nanofabrication, and that is even without some kind of mass production. Lastly it could be just time on a fabricator but that also doesn't make much since since fabricators can make more fabricators. What I'm getting at here is without further explanation sythmorphs seem to fall into the category of goods that are more or less freely available barring some kind of government restriction. And if they are so freely available then the problem of not enough (mechanical) bodies for everyone doesn't seem like it should exist.
Well, if you're talking about the outer system, then cost is not an issue anyways. The outer system economies are favor-based, not monetary in nature. That means that while getting a new synthmorph from someone will cost you a large favor (which you may need to pay back down the line), it does not denote an actual monetary cost in any way. When you think about it in that context, it still does make sense. Getting relatively common feedstock should be a much smaller favor than having a synthmorph nanofactured for you. It's just like how getting printer paper is a much smaller favor today than printing up a copy of the core book for someone with my house printer... the individual components of that transaction are fairly cheap, but they are essentially requesting my paper, my ink, and time with my printer. Not to mention any real effort that I have to make to ensure that it's a good print-out rather than shoddily done.
quantummechani wrote:
Would you say in a new economy, the cost of a synthmorph would fluctuate to be [Low] then? Trivial raw materials plus some hours of work (aka a level 2 favor).
Probably not, but getting such a body is still pretty easy in the outer system so long as you have a decent reputation. Just ask for one, and be ready to pay back that favor down the line. Of course, you have to take into account some of the other factors regarding bodies. Biochauvinism is a key issue for people in the system, so most would prefer a meat body over a metal one. It's a purely psychological desire in most cases (unless you're an async), but one that many can't get over. So for those sorts of people, synthmorphs aren't an option. Also, do note that there are cheap institutions for getting morphs. Titan is currently trying to push a "morph for every citizen" program so that everyone can be sleeved.
Ah, see, I guess that is what I was trying to get at, is that a morph for every person program would be fairly trivial to achieve. Simply take a bunch of nanofabricators and slave them to a single person's instructions and you can create huge numbers of synthmorphs for almost nothing. EDIT: Misread your response I think, if I follow you, you don't think a synthmorph would be effectively Low cost in a new economy? Why would that be as it is not asking for much more than just a few hours of somone's time?
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Fri, 2012-03-16 02:34
quantummechani quantummechani's picture
Re: Raw materials and the New Economy
While I'm at it I guess I'll also look for a little more general clarification on the new economy. Am I correct in the conclusion that high reputation individuals effect other people reputation more than low reputation people? By that I mean, you would gain more from holding the door for a rep 90 person than saving the life of a rep 1 person (assuming the person you helped is the only one to take note of the action)?
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Fri, 2012-03-16 03:41
Decivre Decivre's picture
Re: Raw materials and the New Economy
quantummechani wrote:
Ah, see, I guess that is what I was trying to get at, is that a morph for every person program would be fairly trivial to achieve. Simply take a bunch of nanofabricators and slave them to a single person's instructions and you can create huge numbers of synthmorphs for almost nothing.
Actually, I think Titan's project is about biomorphs, not synthmorphs.
quantummechani wrote:
Misread your response I think, if I follow you, you don't think a synthmorph would be effectively Low cost in a new economy? Why would that be as it is not asking for much more than just a few hours of somone's time?
Because someone's time, their fabricator's time, access to their blueprints and feedstock all add up to a favor that is more costly than the sum of its parts. As I mentioned before, printing out a copy of this game's rules is going to be a decent-sized favor, even if paper and ink is fairly cheap. The price of goods does not equal the price of raw materials. I never does.
quantummechani wrote:
While I'm at it I guess I'll also look for a little more general clarification on the new economy. Am I correct in the conclusion that high reputation individuals effect other people reputation more than low reputation people? By that I mean, you would gain more from holding the door for a rep 90 person than saving the life of a rep 1 person (assuming the person you helped is the only one to take note of the action)?
Not necessarily. What is most important is the scale of your achievements, rather than who they help specifically. A major breakthrough in science leading to man-made lighthuggers would be worth a lot more r-rep than helping the system's most famous scientist clean his jacket. In the case of your example, almost everyone else besides perhaps that celebrity could care less that you held that door. Even that celebrity probably doesn't care, and may have mistaken you for the doorman. But saving a homeless man's life in front of a crowd of people? That might earn you some good rep. [i]Might[/i].
—
Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]
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Fri, 2012-03-16 04:09
quantummechani quantummechani's picture
Re: Raw materials and the New Economy
Decivre wrote:
Actually, I think Titan's project is about biomorphs, not synthmorphs.
Well I guess that only begs the question then why there isn't such a program for synthmorphs. It fact it occurs to me to wonder how biomorphs could even be vaguely in the same price range as synthmorphs as the latter take only trivial materials and a few hours of someone's time and the former take years of development.
Decivre wrote:
Because someone's time, their fabricator's time, access to their blueprints and feedstock all add up to a favor that is more costly than the sum of its parts. As I mentioned before, printing out a copy of this game's rules is going to be a decent-sized favor, even if paper and ink is fairly cheap. The price of goods does not equal the price of raw materials. I never does.
Even if you imagine it takes all day to round up all the materials and put it to use, that still maxes out at a moderate favor. And that's just getting some random dude to make you one, it's hard to believe there would not be people specialized in producing them given the high demand. As I said I don't see why one guy with a with a bunch of fabricators (or, hey, even one fabricator with a 'repeat last item' button) couldn't make basically as many as anyone could want for almost nothing. Maybe I'm misunderstanding how the nanofabrication process is supposed to work?
Decivre wrote:
Not necessarily. What is most important is the scale of your achievements, rather than who they help specifically. A major breakthrough in science leading to man-made lighthuggers would be worth a lot more r-rep than helping the system's most famous scientist clean his jacket. In the case of your example, almost everyone else besides perhaps that celebrity could care less that you held that door. Even that celebrity probably doesn't care, and may have mistaken you for the doorman. But saving a homeless man's life in front of a crowd of people? That might earn you some good rep. [i]Might[/i].
I suppose my question is, if rep is basically weight of reviews, how are the reviews weighted? If it is just straight up number of positive reviews vs negative that doesn't really account for helping one or few people a lot. On the other hand if people can weight their reviews to be more seriously positive or negative surely there must be limitations or it would be trivial to game the system.
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Fri, 2012-03-16 04:45
Decivre Decivre's picture
Re: Raw materials and the New Economy
quantummechani wrote:
Well I guess that only begs the question then why there isn't such a program for synthmorphs. It fact it occurs to me to wonder how biomorphs could even be vaguely in the same price range as synthmorphs as the latter take only trivial materials and a few hours of someone's time and the former take years of development.
As I mentioned before, most people don't want synthmorphs. Even amongst the most morphologically liberal groups around, biomorphs are considered the best, and it's likely that only infolife (and minorities of people who prefer synthmorphs) would disagree with that sentiment.
quantummechani wrote:
Even if you imagine it takes all day to round up all the materials and put it to use, that still maxes out at a moderate favor. And that's just getting some random dude to make you one, it's hard to believe there would not be people specialized in producing them given the high demand. As I said I don't see why one guy with a with a bunch of fabricators (or, hey, even one fabricator with a 'repeat last item' button) couldn't make basically as many as anyone could want for almost nothing. Maybe I'm misunderstanding how the nanofabrication process is supposed to work?
How common do you think synthmorph blueprints are? The average person isn't going to have copies of morph blueprints just sitting around. It's a large favor to get ahold of that, and the majority of blueprints that an autonomist will have would probably focus around daily things... food, clothing, recreational goods and the like. I highly doubt that synthmorph blueprints are as common as you think they are.
quantummechani wrote:
I suppose my question is, if rep is basically weight of reviews, how are the reviews weighted? If it is just straight up number of positive reviews vs negative that doesn't really account for helping one or few people a lot. On the other hand if people can weight their reviews to be more seriously positive or negative surely there must be limitations or it would be trivial to game the system.
Trivial to game the system in the context of modern reputation systems, yes. But we don't really know what safeguards would be in place by 10 AF that would disallow such things as sockpuppeting... something that any reliable reputation-based economic model must have a means of combating.
—
Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]
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Fri, 2012-03-16 05:13
quantummechani quantummechani's picture
Re: Raw materials and the New Economy
Decivre wrote:
quantummechani wrote:
Well I guess that only begs the question then why there isn't such a program for synthmorphs. It fact it occurs to me to wonder how biomorphs could even be vaguely in the same price range as synthmorphs as the latter take only trivial materials and a few hours of someone's time and the former take years of development.
As I mentioned before, most people don't want synthmorphs. Even amongst the most morphologically liberal groups around, biomorphs are considered the best, and it's likely that only infolife (and minorities of people who prefer synthmorphs) would disagree with that sentiment.
I can certainly see biomorphs being more sought after, what I'm having trouble seeing is how they could cost anywhere in the same ballpark as synthmorph. It's seemingly the difference in time and effort between creating a glass of aged wine vs a glass of kool-aid.
Decivre wrote:
How common do you think synthmorph blueprints are? The average person isn't going to have copies of morph blueprints just sitting around. It's a large favor to get ahold of that, and the majority of blueprints that an autonomist will have would probably focus around daily things... food, clothing, recreational goods and the like. I highly doubt that synthmorph blueprints are as common as you think they are.
The whole point of the mesh is that you don't need that kind of data just setting around though. I have trouble believing that finding blueprints to something like a synthmorph would be any kind of difficulty if the information was not restricted. Google can find you an open-source version of pretty much any commonly used type of software and I don't see any reason why using the mesh to find blueprints would be harder. Keep in mind you are hardly having to sift around for particular features... just pick whatever seems popular and has good reviews.
Decivre wrote:
Trivial to game the system in the context of modern reputation systems, yes. But we don't really know what safeguards would be in place by 10 AF that would disallow such things as sockpuppeting... something that any reliable reputation-based economic model must have a means of combating.
Yeah, I would hope it would, though there are a lot of gray areas when it comes to such 'gaming'. It seems natural you might rate people you are actually friends with higher for favors they do than just some random guy, for instance. After all, the grade of the favor is more or less in the eye of beholder... if a couple of people keep making each other sandwiches and really really enjoy them (and/or work really really hard on them) can you really say that's illicit rep?
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Fri, 2012-03-16 05:58
Decivre Decivre's picture
Re: Raw materials and the New Economy
quantummechani wrote:
I can certainly see biomorphs being more sought after, what I'm having trouble seeing is how they could cost anywhere in the same ballpark as synthmorph. It's seemingly the difference in time and effort between creating a glass of aged wine vs a glass of kool-aid.
Actually, they don't. A cursory look through the books will show you that synthmorphs tend to be cheaper. Some are more expensive than your average biomorph (reapers being the first to come to mind), but it's not that common. For the most part, you'll pay more for a biomorph. And that's not just in initial purchase. Biomorphs need more maintenance, and just more work all around. When you store a biomorph, you even have to spend money to keep it on ice... whereas a synthmorph could probably just sit in your garage. So really, biomorphs are just plain more expensive.
quantummechani wrote:
The whole point of the mesh is that you don't need that kind of data just setting around though. I have trouble believing that finding blueprints to something like a synthmorph would be any kind of difficulty if the information was not restricted. Google can find you an open-source version of pretty much any commonly used type of software and I don't see any reason why using the mesh to find blueprints would be harder. Keep in mind you are hardly having to sift around for particular features... just pick whatever seems popular and has good reviews.
The mesh is not the same as the internet. The internet connects the entire human race together. The mesh generally only reaches as far as your habitat, and any habitats in local radio range. That means you only have access to any public blueprints within your region, and nothing more. Public blueprints aren't likely to have morphs. Common local foods, basic necessities, sure... but probably not morphs. The only instance where I can see publicly available morph blueprints being common is in a scenario where you have a habitat that requires certain morphs be sleeved or used. You might have public blueprints so that new ones can be nanofactured as needs arise.
quantummechani wrote:
Yeah, I would hope it would, though there are a lot of gray areas when it comes to such 'gaming'. It seems natural you might rate people you are actually friends with higher for favors they do than just some random guy, for instance. After all, the grade of the favor is more or less in the eye of beholder... if a couple of people keep making each other sandwiches and really really enjoy them (and/or work really really hard on them) can you really say that's illicit rep?
True, but I'd imagine that the system would be designed for such scenarios. You forget; we're talking about a time period at least a hundred years into our future. Since reputation systems exist today, easily gamed, this gives reputation system designers a century... at [b]least[/b]... to work the kinks out and make it functional enough for an economic model. Saying that it's going to be just as easily gamed as reputation systems today would be like looking at the phonograph and saying "yup... music technology will never get better than this!" So I'm expecting to see algorithms designed to sort general good deeds from actions you do for your friends, the ability to pinpoint and track criminals using activity-detection software, and even the ability to sort through and eliminate fake IDs by comparing them to personality-fingerprinting models. You think Facebook is invasive and complex now, just wait until 10 AF: when the Facebooks of transhumanity are semi-autonomous mega-scale decentralized sorting networks with computing power exponentially greater than anything that exists today.
—
Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]
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Fri, 2012-03-16 14:57
quantummechani quantummechani's picture
Re: Raw materials and the New Economy
Decivre wrote:
quantummechani wrote:
I can certainly see biomorphs being more sought after, what I'm having trouble seeing is how they could cost anywhere in the same ballpark as synthmorph. It's seemingly the difference in time and effort between creating a glass of aged wine vs a glass of kool-aid.
Actually, they don't. A cursory look through the books will show you that synthmorphs tend to be cheaper. Some are more expensive than your average biomorph (reapers being the first to come to mind), but it's not that common. For the most part, you'll pay more for a biomorph. And that's not just in initial purchase. Biomorphs need more maintenance, and just more work all around. When you store a biomorph, you even have to spend money to keep it on ice... whereas a synthmorph could probably just sit in your garage. So really, biomorphs are just plain more expensive.
Heh, sorry, perhaps I should have been more clear... my point from the very start was that synthmorphs would be extremely cheap. What suddenly occurred to me was just that biomorphs would have precisely the kind of costs attached that you mention. Even a reaper should in theory cost nothing more than trivial materials and about a day of work as long as you have the blueprints (which I grant you might be quite difficult). Where as any biomorph takes not only presumably the equivalent of a blueprint but years and years of supervised growth. Thus the aged wine vs kool-aid comparison (I'd imagine biomorphs to cost about that many times more than synthmorphs).
Decivre wrote:
The mesh is not the same as the internet. The internet connects the entire human race together. The mesh generally only reaches as far as your habitat, and any habitats in local radio range. That means you only have access to any public blueprints within your region, and nothing more. Public blueprints aren't likely to have morphs. Common local foods, basic necessities, sure... but probably not morphs. The only instance where I can see publicly available morph blueprints being common is in a scenario where you have a habitat that requires certain morphs be sleeved or used. You might have public blueprints so that new ones can be nanofactured as needs arise.
That argument doesn't seem to hold much water given the sourcebook specifically states even an individual user's surplus data storage capacity easily surpasses all the data on the internet today. It would be ridiculous to imagine in a habitat of thousands - let alone millions - the local mesh would not have pretty much any technical information an average person might want. Even something completely obscure would probably still be there... because why not unless someone has specifically restricted the information? And synthmorph blueprints are far from obscure- any times someone's morph bites it they might well be looking at needing one.
Decivre wrote:
True, but I'd imagine that the system would be designed for such scenarios. You forget; we're talking about a time period at least a hundred years into our future. Since reputation systems exist today, easily gamed, this gives reputation system designers a century... at [b]least[/b]... to work the kinks out and make it functional enough for an economic model. Saying that it's going to be just as easily gamed as reputation systems today would be like looking at the phonograph and saying "yup... music technology will never get better than this!" So I'm expecting to see algorithms designed to sort general good deeds from actions you do for your friends, the ability to pinpoint and track criminals using activity-detection software, and even the ability to sort through and eliminate fake IDs by comparing them to personality-fingerprinting models. You think Facebook is invasive and complex now, just wait until 10 AF: when the Facebooks of transhumanity are semi-autonomous mega-scale decentralized sorting networks with computing power exponentially greater than anything that exists today.
It seems like there are some philosophical issues that need to be resolved before an algorithm could even begin to unravel the problem. Should helping random strangers earn you more rep than friends or family members? If so how do you actually tell if someone should qualify as a friend? If the sandwich thing is an exploit, why is it? If you make someone as happy by making them a sandwich as loaning them 100,000 credits why should one be worth less? The only way I see this sort of thing being resolved is nailing down a fairly rigid system where only certain things can grant rep and there are great limits on how much one person can effect others rep. Either that or it's run by the promeathens but then you have to explain corp and criminal rep.
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Fri, 2012-03-16 16:04
Decivre Decivre's picture
Re: Raw materials and the New Economy
quantummechani wrote:
Heh, sorry, perhaps I should have been more clear... my point from the very start was that synthmorphs would be extremely cheap. What suddenly occurred to me was just that biomorphs would have precisely the kind of costs attached that you mention. Even a reaper should in theory cost nothing more than trivial materials and about a day of work as long as you have the blueprints (which I grant you might be quite difficult). Where as any biomorph takes not only presumably the equivalent of a blueprint but years and years of supervised growth. Thus the aged wine vs kool-aid comparison (I'd imagine biomorphs to cost about that many times more than synthmorphs).
Nah. Synthmorphs still have a purpose, just not for sleeving. Synthmorphs like the reaper are popular for jamming and AI functions. A reaper is a heavily-armed and armored combat weapon superior to virtually any biomorph combatant. Just because the majority of people dislike using the reaper as a morph, doesn't mean it's not functional as the Abrams of 10 AF. In that same vein, most other synthmorphs are in high demand for AI and indenture labor. They just aren't in high demand as morphs. Besides, the premium biomorphs in the books are pretty damn expensive. Synthmorphs tend to slip into very high prices when they have exotic purposes (like living on the sun or being a swarm or tank), but otherwise tend to be moderate or high cost (high cost being ¼ the value of expensive in the usual case; the cheapest synthmorphs are a fifth of that at moderate cost). The only biomorphs that dip below expensive are splicers and flats... which are in very low demand for those that resleeve, and only in high demand with people that avoid transhuman technologies altogether.
quantummechani wrote:
That argument doesn't seem to hold much water given the sourcebook specifically states even an individual user's surplus data storage capacity easily surpasses all the data on the internet today. It would be ridiculous to imagine in a habitat of thousands - let alone millions - the local mesh would not have pretty much any technical information an average person might want. Even something completely obscure would probably still be there... because why not unless someone has specifically restricted the information? And synthmorph blueprints are far from obscure- any times someone's morph bites it they might well be looking at needing one.
Having the space is not the same as having the file. I have enough space in my hard drive cluster to contain pretty much every film ever put in theatres, but I don't have every film ever put in theatres (yes, I have a LOT of hard drive space). In that same vein, there's probably a lot of space on hard drives in 10 AF that goes unused, or is for certain purposes like AI cache (which I imagine to be massive), ego storage (also massive), XP recording (again, massive as crap) and more. I don't see why synthmorph blueprints would be fairly common anyways. We've already discussed how synthmorphs aren't nearly as popular as sleeves, but beyond that there's the fact that people probably avoid death with as much gusto as they do today (with some exceptions, I'm sure). Death isn't a fun event, so you're going to do everything in your power to avoid it best you can. And if they are going to die, most people would rather have a biomorph on backup than any synthmorph body. Plus, synthmorphs can be pretty damn cheap. A Case or Spare has a cost of moderate, and blueprints at high cost. That's well below the cost for virtually every biomorph, and right around the pricepoint you were expecting for synthmorphs. Hell, an infomorph can be gotten for the price of an ecto (because it is one)... and that's at low price.
quantummechani wrote:
It seems like there are some philosophical issues that need to be resolved before an algorithm could even begin to unravel the problem. Should helping random strangers earn you more rep than friends or family members? If so how do you actually tell if someone should qualify as a friend? If the sandwich thing is an exploit, why is it? If you make someone as happy by making them a sandwich as loaning them 100,000 credits why should one be worth less? The only way I see this sort of thing being resolved is nailing down a fairly rigid system where only certain things can grant rep and there are great limits on how much one person can effect others rep. Either that or it's run by the promeathens but then you have to explain corp and criminal rep.
Why does the system have to be rigid? Just because modern algorithms are linear in concept does not mean that algorithms in 10 AF cannot involve complex moral issues. Hell, in 10 AF, algorithms can give birth to AGI... programs that are just as complex and intelligent as human beings! I have no doubt that the systems in place to monitor and run the reputation systems are just as complex as human thought. Hell, these systems may in fact be three-shakes from AGI themselves, limited only in their contextualization of personality. This would give them the means to gauge the moral issues inherent in reputation systems without engendering a bias based on feelings.
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Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]
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Fri, 2012-03-16 17:10
quantummechani quantummechani's picture
Re: Raw materials and the New Economy
Decivre wrote:
Nah. Synthmorphs still have a purpose, just not for sleeving. Synthmorphs like the reaper are popular for jamming and AI functions. A reaper is a heavily-armed and armored combat weapon superior to virtually any biomorph combatant. Just because the majority of people dislike using the reaper as a morph, doesn't mean it's not functional as the Abrams of 10 AF. In that same vein, most other synthmorphs are in high demand for AI and indenture labor. They just aren't in high demand as morphs. Besides, the premium biomorphs in the books are pretty damn expensive. Synthmorphs tend to slip into very high prices when they have exotic purposes (like living on the sun or being a swarm or tank), but otherwise tend to be moderate or high cost (high cost being ¼ the value of expensive in the usual case; the cheapest synthmorphs are a fifth of that at moderate cost). The only biomorphs that dip below expensive are splicers and flats... which are in very low demand for those that resleeve, and only in high demand with people that avoid transhuman technologies altogether.
We still don't seem to be on the same wavelength. I totally agree biomorphs should be expensive. My argument is merely that synthmorphs should by comparison be far chaeper, to the point of more or less freely being available to anyone that wants one. Your point that they are in demand for use by indentures and AI only makes that all the more true- the more demand the more they can be mass produced which in the world of nano technology would seem to drop the labour cost to near 0.
Decivre wrote:
Having the space is not the same as having the file. I have enough space in my hard drive cluster to contain pretty much every film ever put in theatres, but I don't have every film ever put in theatres (yes, I have a LOT of hard drive space). In that same vein, there's probably a lot of space on hard drives in 10 AF that goes unused, or is for certain purposes like AI cache (which I imagine to be massive), ego storage (also massive), XP recording (again, massive as crap) and more. I don't see why synthmorph blueprints would be fairly common anyways. We've already discussed how synthmorphs aren't nearly as popular as sleeves, but beyond that there's the fact that people probably avoid death with as much gusto as they do today (with some exceptions, I'm sure). Death isn't a fun event, so you're going to do everything in your power to avoid it best you can. And if they are going to die, most people would rather have a biomorph on backup than any synthmorph body.
Isn't part of the reason you don't have every film put in theaters at least partially due to copyright though? If there were no copyright and effectively limitless bandwidth I can't imagine some enthusiasts would not have compiled (nearly) every film into one convenient downloadable database. And the same would be true of pretty much any other category of data from the universe's biggest book of baby names to blueprints for salad forks. At that point it would be similarly strange if no one combined these into one big database that any autonomist habitat would have access to. Such data bases would surely be no more complete than Wikipedia but you hardly need that for a basic practical blueprint. Also, even without such a database, all it would require for a blueprint to be in a habitat's data storage would be for a single person at some point in the past to have requested or created such a blueprint publicly (and I assume publicly would be the norm in most autonomist habitats).
Decivre wrote:
Plus, synthmorphs can be pretty damn cheap. A Case or Spare has a cost of moderate, and blueprints at high cost. That's well below the cost for virtually every biomorph, and right around the pricepoint you were expecting for synthmorphs. Hell, an infomorph can be gotten for the price of an ecto (because it is one)... and that's at low price.
See, that's exactly what doesn't make sense to me... why should a synthmorh cost significantly more than an ecto in the new economy? Ectos might be somewhat more common, but not hugely more so (most people prefer direct mesh connection just like must people prefer biomorphs). They also might be slightly more complex but an extra hour or so of labour doesn't really make up the difference either.
Decivre wrote:
Why does the system have to be rigid? Just because modern algorithms are linear in concept does not mean that algorithms in 10 AF cannot involve complex moral issues. Hell, in 10 AF, algorithms can give birth to AGI... programs that are just as complex and intelligent as human beings! I have no doubt that the systems in place to monitor and run the reputation systems are just as complex as human thought. Hell, these systems may in fact be three-shakes from AGI themselves, limited only in their contextualization of personality. This would give them the means to gauge the moral issues inherent in reputation systems without engendering a bias based on feelings.
Yes, you could imagine that the alrorithems are nearly as good at the job as a human being... but I have my doubts a system entirely supervised by humans would work either (ignoring the pratical difficulties of employing enough humans). We still haven't answered some pretty basic questions about how rep should be accumulated, and without that no entity can really begin to judge what is or isn't legit. Also, if these algorithms have to analyze in detail whether any particular action should count or not that seems to make the reviews of others pretty superfluous- just feed it to the algorithm to see if you've advanced the public good. EDIT: I'm also a little disappointed no one else seems to want to discuss this stuff, not that this isn't fun but it would be nice to hears some other perspectives.
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Fri, 2012-03-16 17:11
Prophet710 Prophet710's picture
Re: Raw materials and the New Economy
It sounds like you're trying to squeeze a sensible routine on a game that is designed for a strong development for on the fly and implied interpretation. I see reputation networks being completely human and each favor is based on a scale that the favored decides. Yes, there are going to be some manipulations of the system, but when said person who makes sammiches with millions in rep scores meets someone who actually saved an entire habitat, and the one realizes that said dude is just a spoiled sammich maker, said person and other people are going to take action, especially concerning autonomist factions, to remedy the situation and bring the sammich king back down to Earth.
—
"And yet, across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this Earth with envious eyes. And slowly, and surely, they drew their plans against us."
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Fri, 2012-03-16 17:22
quantummechani quantummechani's picture
Re: Raw materials and the New Economy
Prophet710 wrote:
It sounds like you're trying to squeeze a sensible routine on a game that is designed for a strong development for on the fly and implied interpretation. I see reputation networks being completely human and each favor is based on a scale that the favored decides. Yes, there are going to be some manipulations of the system, but when said person who makes sammiches with millions in rep scores meets someone who actually saved an entire habitat, and the one realizes that said dude is just a spoiled sammich maker, said person and other people are going to take action, especially concerning autonomist factions, to remedy the situation and bring the sammich king back down to Earth.
Yeah, now this I can see, but it does make the new economy look a little less utopian than it's usually painted. Your fortune can quite easily rise and fall on a (quite possibly unfair) whim. Experiencing the boom and bust cycle on your own rep score would probably be quite common.
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Fri, 2012-03-16 17:29
Prophet710 Prophet710's picture
Re: Raw materials and the New Economy
Perhaps, though I don't see it as being very common at all, considering the Autonomists are painted as a Randian Anarchy where personal gain is measured by personal work. Autonomists are also supposed to be notorious for their devotion to the new society so 'spamming' someones rep score either up or down is liable to get you ousted from common channels, rendering your word as useless as your rep score. The whole point of the reputation system is to show worth through deed as opposed to amassed wealth through whatever means. If the Autonomists want to keep that ideal, they had better take reputation deadly serious, which I'm sure they invariably do.
—
"And yet, across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this Earth with envious eyes. And slowly, and surely, they drew their plans against us."
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Fri, 2012-03-16 17:40
quantummechani quantummechani's picture
Re: Raw materials and the New Economy
Well, like I was saying before there is a ton of grey area as to what should be counted as worthwhile personal work. In the sandwich example no one need be intentionally trying to game the system- just giving out their honest opinions. Say you wright a fan fiction that it turns out a small minority of people really really like it. Your rep surges until somebody comes along and looks closely at the rep, thinks it's bogus, and suddenly your in the middle of a shitstorm and it plummets. In essence, it seems like there is inevitably going to be problems with people disagreeing about what rep should mean. The fact that different factions have different networks is obviously designed to combat this but there is still a crazily huge range whiten one network.
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Fri, 2012-03-16 17:51
Prophet710 Prophet710's picture
Re: Raw materials and the New Economy
Not really, each network is going to have its own protocol. As Dec was saying before, making a sammich for a scientist isn't really going to get you any R-rep, but keep in mind that people will know why this person has such a high reputation. So I'm sure he'll have plenty of customers if the sammich making is deified. However, no-one is going to go to said person for a favor other than mixing good ole' bread and cheese. The same works for any rep network. Firewall keeps track of mission successes, failures, people saved, information obtained. Jovian rep-net follows bio-conservative action, augmentation awareness, etc. just the same. Trying to establish and all ruling set of rules for all reputation networks is going to be a grand gesture of frivolous guesswork that will just lead you to dead ends. You're putting much, much too much thought behind this. It is as simple as I do deed Alpha for person One. Person One weighs said favor and gives me a reputation score based on his opinion. Let it be known that deed Alpha now counts as one moderate favor for person One and that I am capable to perform said favor again for roughly the same reimbursement under the same circumstances. If either deed or services are changed, we adjudicate with another opinion. That's what is so great about being a player AND a GM, YOU get to decide what such is worth (following the very loose guidelines in the book) which, are very adjustable. If you're friends with a morph engineer, he will probably get you a high end morph for a much cheaper price/favor rating than another random joe. Adaptability at its finest.
—
"And yet, across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this Earth with envious eyes. And slowly, and surely, they drew their plans against us."
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Fri, 2012-03-16 17:55
Prophet710 Prophet710's picture
Re: Raw materials and the New Economy
Additionally concerning adaptability of the system. If you feel that synthmorphs are justifiably less expensive than the rule-books (which are little more than established guidelines), change the flavor of your campaign to fit such. You've proven that you think it should be a certain way, the beauty of the system is, it can be. With a wave of your pencil synthmorphs are suddenly freely available and just about anyone can have one, now we have a population of cases, shells, and other assorted synthform life. Clanking Masses Unite!
—
"And yet, across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this Earth with envious eyes. And slowly, and surely, they drew their plans against us."
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Fri, 2012-03-16 19:52
Decivre Decivre's picture
Re: Raw materials and the New Economy
quantummechani wrote:
We still don't seem to be on the same wavelength. I totally agree biomorphs should be expensive. My argument is merely that synthmorphs should by comparison be far chaeper, to the point of more or less freely being available to anyone that wants one. Your point that they are in demand for use by indentures and AI only makes that all the more true- the more demand the more they can be mass produced which in the world of nano technology would seem to drop the labour cost to near 0.
Except it wouldn't. The cost of using your nanofabricator is not 0. In fact, it may be somewhat pricey considering that you need power from some source. A rechargeable battery is great, and probably what nanofabs run on... but how are you charging it in the outer system, where the sun grants a microfraction of the power it does in the inner system? And while producing the rechargeables might be cheap, charging them probably won't be. And nuclear batteries aren't an option unless you are packing a whole lot of them (nanotechnology is a power eater). Besides, as I've already stated, cases and spares can be gotten at 1/20th the price of an expensive morph, and far less than the price of one with a larger minimum cost. Why ignore that when talking about the high cost of synthmorphs?
quantummechani wrote:
Isn't part of the reason you don't have every film put in theaters at least partially due to copyright though? If there were no copyright and effectively limitless bandwidth I can't imagine some enthusiasts would not have compiled (nearly) every film into one convenient downloadable database. And the same would be true of pretty much any other category of data from the universe's biggest book of baby names to blueprints for salad forks. At that point it would be similarly strange if no one combined these into one big database that any autonomist habitat would have access to. Such data bases would surely be no more complete than Wikipedia but you hardly need that for a basic practical blueprint. Also, even without such a database, all it would require for a blueprint to be in a habitat's data storage would be for a single person at some point in the past to have requested or created such a blueprint publicly (and I assume publicly would be the norm in most autonomist habitats).
Copyright.... hmm.... While I respect it more today due to the rapidly increasing crackdowns regarding copyright infringement, I didn't even make a concerted effort to gain that much data back when I could care less. Hell, now that you mention Wikipedia, I have enough storage space to grab 5 copies of the entire website (in every language) 4 times over, yet it doesn't rest on my hard drive. And I like Wikipedia. Not all autonomist habitats are going to have zero care about the distribution of data and files. And just because something is open source does not mean that they can't make it a commercial venture... look at this game, for instance. Open source simply means I won't put restrictions on what you do with the files you get from me, and many autonomist collectives may still frown upon the public distribution of commercial files, especially open source ones. And there may very well be places where access to certain synthmorph blueprints is public and easy... but that doesn't mean it will be as such everywhere.
quantummechani wrote:
See, that's exactly what doesn't make sense to me... why should a synthmorh cost significantly more than an ecto in the new economy? Ectos might be somewhat more common, but not hugely more so (most people prefer direct mesh connection just like must people prefer biomorphs). They also might be slightly more complex but an extra hour or so of labour doesn't really make up the difference either.
Because an ecto takes up a credit card-sized amount of material to nanofacture, whereas a morph takes up a significantly larger amount. Hell, if anything, you should be complaining that ectos are too expensive in a new economy. If you base value strictly on raw materials, or only slightly more expensive than raw materials, then ectos should still be three-shakes from completely free.
quantummechani wrote:
Yes, you could imagine that the alrorithems are nearly as good at the job as a human being... but I have my doubts a system entirely supervised by humans would work either (ignoring the pratical difficulties of employing enough humans). We still haven't answered some pretty basic questions about how rep should be accumulated, and without that no entity can really begin to judge what is or isn't legit. Also, if these algorithms have to analyze in detail whether any particular action should count or not that seems to make the reviews of others pretty superfluous- just feed it to the algorithm to see if you've advanced the public good.
It'll depend on the GM and the players, to be honest. In my game groups, each reputation network works slightly different, and I've changed the mechanics from the system that is present in the books to something that borrows the advantages of modern reputation networks, such as their stability over extended member histories. I've also taken into account the fact that reputation networks are going to determine what constitutes a reputable action based on the type of network... it makes no sense for someone to earn Fame rep for criminal favors, and it makes no sense for someone to earn RNA rep for making a public video... but it does make sense for someone to earn Fame rep for a public video, and Guanxi rep for a criminal favor doesn't it? In the games I GM, your reputation score is determined by the gravity of your actions with regards to the network in question, and the people that know about them. Not simply that you did x favor for y person. Some people will feel the same as I. Some won't. You'll likely see different interpretations of rep at different tables.
—
Transhumans will one day be the Luddites of the posthuman age. [url=http://bit.ly/2p3wk7c]Help me get my gaming fix, if you want.[/url]
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Tue, 2012-03-20 10:53
nezumi.hebereke nezumi.hebereke's picture
Re: Raw materials and the New Economy
Our group has made up some basic mechanics for tracking feedstock (and cost of replacing it). The book really handwaves it and leaves it up to the GM to impose appropriate penalties. The problem is, the mechanics for tracking feedstock is complex and boring. By canon, a character with a cornucopia machine can make a serious headache for GMs, and it's really up to the GM to say 'no, you can't just make a nuclear battery in ten minutes without anything else'. Regarding synthmorphs, i'm sure there are a number of rare elements you need, plus it takes time, and some components perhaps just can't be fabricated like that. And when you're producing not one morph, but one hundred thousand, some resources suddenly become a LOT more scarce.
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Tue, 2012-03-20 12:34
Prophet710 Prophet710's picture
Re: Raw materials and the New Economy
There are also additional rules in this forum or the Homebrew forum that have number crunch errata for you to peruse. Too much headache if you ask me.
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"And yet, across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this Earth with envious eyes. And slowly, and surely, they drew their plans against us."
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Tue, 2012-03-20 22:22
Axel the Chimeric Axel the Chimeric's picture
Re: Raw materials and the New Economy
A good rule of thumb for dealing with the cost of more expensive feedstock is thus: 1. Is it bigger than a one cubic foot? Two cubic feet? 6 cubic feet? The more material involved, the higher the cost. 2. What is it primarily composed of? If it's mostly carbon or other common materials, the cost is cheap. The more heavy/unstable elements involved, however, the more expensive it becomes. Radioactive materials are especially expensive and strictly controlled, and likely illegal in many places without the proper licenses. Most any electronic device is going to be made of the cheapest materials, so something like an ecto will be a few credits at most. Thanks to the ubiquitous nature of disassemblers, you can probably make your own fabricator brick by shoveling Martian soil into a machine to sort it and bind it into the right form. A similar state of affairs exists most anywhere. Even space stations can have robotic drones harvest materials in their vicinity. Plus, trash is sort of an archaic concept here. Something you no longer use isn't garbage, it's something to feed into a disassembler. In short, most feedstock is going to be very cheap. A standard synth can probably be made with basic feedstock, but you're going to need a fair number of bricks. As such, this scales up the cost. It's still utterly trivial overall, though; we're talking less than 200 credits, so the low end of [Low Cost], if even that. More rare stuff, though, is going to cost you, and that cost will rise commensurately with rarity and risk. Buying an illegal uranium feedblock is going to be [Expensive].
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[img]http://img813.imageshack.us/img813/982/exhumanbar.jpg[/img] [img]http://img804.imageshack.us/img804/4473/scumbar.jpg[/img] [img]http://img818.imageshack.us/img818/1396/gatecrasherbar.jpg[/img] [code][@-rep +1, f-rep +2][/code]
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