Right... All my comments last chapter about Lola trying to be seen as helpful, and the waste dumping involving a lot of money, contracts and powerful people? Yeah...
She's trying. This is something ultimately out of her power to fix (she might find a minor short term patch on one tiny section by the end of this arc), but she's trying.
Unfortunately there are few, if any, true fixes for resource inequality. Oh, we can raise taxes on billionaires and corporations, and that will help, a little bit, but won't fix the issue. About a decade ago I took the Forbes and Fortune estimates of global wealth - remembering wealth includes buildings, boats, stocks, general assets...y'know, EVERYTHING, and divided that number by the estimated population of the world. This gave me a result of about $35,000 per person. $35k is "your fair share," and if you control more than $35k worth of stuff you have "too much." Problem being, if we magically liquidated everything and did a fair distribution, we have no stuff and have to remake all our stuff (since, in this thought experiment, I've converted all the cars and factories, et al to cash). And I sadly can guarantee within a hypothetical year a lot of people wouldn't have most of their $35k while a few people would have orders of magnitude more from combinations of theft, grift, or (hah) actual growth.
Of course the problem is limited amounts of stuff. Earth is a closed system. A big one, but closed (not counting gasses blown away by solar wind - like our wasted, non renewable helium which is thrown away in party balloons - or the small amount of matter added by meteor and dust impacts). We have to open the system. This is the only viable long term strategy. And that's not Elon Musk jerking off and promising to put a million people on Mars in 10 years. That's asteroid mining. NASA is about to probe an asteroid with more mineral wealth than the entire global economy. If only we could bring some of that back.
You want Ian Banks' "Culture" or "Star Trek" style space socialism? You need more resources than your one planet can give. For EVERYONE to be "rich," you need everything to cheap, and the numbers ultimately don't fall that way right now.
Ah, you've invoked Banks' Culture novels. I need to carry on with my reading of those. I read the first few and adored them, but had to take a break because a) they're a lot and b) I only started reading his stuff after he died, so I don't want to rush them.
Only read a few myself, but 1) remembered you'd read a few and liked them (you've used them as newsletter/notes examples) and 2) Banks made many of the space socialism points I made. Banks cheerfully admitted Culture only works with near-limitless resources.
But, in spec-fic the space Libertarians (Niven, Pournelle, Heinlein, et al) ALSO require resource mining. It's pretty self evident the key to universal prosperity on Earth is to grub the rest of the system.
Ok, so that just pushes resource stress down a few millenia, but, hey, a few millenia without it? Unheard of in human history!
Great chapter! The "harried, patronising, slightly lazy bureaucrat" reminded me of this classic 90s TV show we have here in Austria which is essentially parodying pointless bureaucracy to the extreme. If I could imagine him with a Viennese accent, I would. Come to think of it, this is actually a nice contrast to the grim reality of the refugee camp scenes. Lola is definitely learning some hard lessons!
I like how the central mystery is continuing but around it we get to see the issues with immigration, healthcare and social structures that mirror our own problems. Like you said, “Something was fundamentally broken”
The non linear story telling worked really well and Arrival is a great example. It’s one of my favourite Villeneuve movies second only to Blade Runner 2049
Good luck with the pancakes! Have a great weekend 👍🏼
Thanks, Daniel! My aim was always to build a fictional setting that would be broad and versatile and able to poke at all sorts of different ideas and topics. The characters provide the glue, so that it doesn't just feel wildly inconsistent, but each story can go off and do its own thing.
Figuring out the pacing and when to do 'main story' stuff and 'episode of the week' stuff is a real challenge, though!
Glad the non-linearity worked for you. That's one of the benefits of a weekly release schedule: that natural break makes it easier to shift styles and structures without it being too jarring.
Right... All my comments last chapter about Lola trying to be seen as helpful, and the waste dumping involving a lot of money, contracts and powerful people? Yeah...
She's trying. This is something ultimately out of her power to fix (she might find a minor short term patch on one tiny section by the end of this arc), but she's trying.
Unfortunately there are few, if any, true fixes for resource inequality. Oh, we can raise taxes on billionaires and corporations, and that will help, a little bit, but won't fix the issue. About a decade ago I took the Forbes and Fortune estimates of global wealth - remembering wealth includes buildings, boats, stocks, general assets...y'know, EVERYTHING, and divided that number by the estimated population of the world. This gave me a result of about $35,000 per person. $35k is "your fair share," and if you control more than $35k worth of stuff you have "too much." Problem being, if we magically liquidated everything and did a fair distribution, we have no stuff and have to remake all our stuff (since, in this thought experiment, I've converted all the cars and factories, et al to cash). And I sadly can guarantee within a hypothetical year a lot of people wouldn't have most of their $35k while a few people would have orders of magnitude more from combinations of theft, grift, or (hah) actual growth.
Of course the problem is limited amounts of stuff. Earth is a closed system. A big one, but closed (not counting gasses blown away by solar wind - like our wasted, non renewable helium which is thrown away in party balloons - or the small amount of matter added by meteor and dust impacts). We have to open the system. This is the only viable long term strategy. And that's not Elon Musk jerking off and promising to put a million people on Mars in 10 years. That's asteroid mining. NASA is about to probe an asteroid with more mineral wealth than the entire global economy. If only we could bring some of that back.
You want Ian Banks' "Culture" or "Star Trek" style space socialism? You need more resources than your one planet can give. For EVERYONE to be "rich," you need everything to cheap, and the numbers ultimately don't fall that way right now.
Ah, you've invoked Banks' Culture novels. I need to carry on with my reading of those. I read the first few and adored them, but had to take a break because a) they're a lot and b) I only started reading his stuff after he died, so I don't want to rush them.
Only read a few myself, but 1) remembered you'd read a few and liked them (you've used them as newsletter/notes examples) and 2) Banks made many of the space socialism points I made. Banks cheerfully admitted Culture only works with near-limitless resources.
But, in spec-fic the space Libertarians (Niven, Pournelle, Heinlein, et al) ALSO require resource mining. It's pretty self evident the key to universal prosperity on Earth is to grub the rest of the system.
Ok, so that just pushes resource stress down a few millenia, but, hey, a few millenia without it? Unheard of in human history!
Yeah, you're always pushing the problem down the road to someone else.
Makes you wonder how longevity treatments might affect that mentality - when you know that YOU are going to be the 'person down the road'.
Thing about space mining.
We have ONE rock we know contains more mineral wealth than our entire economy. Space mining pushes the problem really far down the road...
Great chapter! The "harried, patronising, slightly lazy bureaucrat" reminded me of this classic 90s TV show we have here in Austria which is essentially parodying pointless bureaucracy to the extreme. If I could imagine him with a Viennese accent, I would. Come to think of it, this is actually a nice contrast to the grim reality of the refugee camp scenes. Lola is definitely learning some hard lessons!
Thanks, Vanessa! I feel like every country and culture has this archetype and, weirdly, we often have an associated accent as well. :P
Really enjoyed this weeks chapter, Simon
I like how the central mystery is continuing but around it we get to see the issues with immigration, healthcare and social structures that mirror our own problems. Like you said, “Something was fundamentally broken”
The non linear story telling worked really well and Arrival is a great example. It’s one of my favourite Villeneuve movies second only to Blade Runner 2049
Good luck with the pancakes! Have a great weekend 👍🏼
Thanks, Daniel! My aim was always to build a fictional setting that would be broad and versatile and able to poke at all sorts of different ideas and topics. The characters provide the glue, so that it doesn't just feel wildly inconsistent, but each story can go off and do its own thing.
Figuring out the pacing and when to do 'main story' stuff and 'episode of the week' stuff is a real challenge, though!
Glad the non-linearity worked for you. That's one of the benefits of a weekly release schedule: that natural break makes it easier to shift styles and structures without it being too jarring.
(pancakes went well!)
There is now! (thanks)