Needs Help: Ridiculous Future Inflation

Most the examples here are just ridiculous inflation, regardless of time. Can we get rid of the future from the title?

The description mostly speaks about inflation and related terms. It doesn't really say that the trope is about the future. There's only, "When a show pulls out this trope, use this to compare what future prices are actually likely to be at that time."

Personally I think it doesn't matter if it's in the future or not. Inflation involves some kind of time difference anyway, and that's enough about time, in my opinion.

I've not read the examples, but if they're a lot about non-future inflation, I don't see a problem with expanding the trope to cover those too.

edited 23rd Sep '12 12:51:44 PM by AnotherDuck

But the trope is "if The Future is depicted, goods will likely be (by the standards of The Present Day) highly overpriced. At this rate, a Zillion Dollar Bill will just get you a cup of coffee and a newspaper. " That is, "Using ridiculous inflation to underline that it's The FUTURE."

Getting rid of the requirement that the work be set in the future gets rid of the whole trope and makes it People Sit On Chairs: Currency suffers inflation, sometimes to extreme levels.

Gutting a trope definition to keep poor examples is a really bad choice. Especially since most of the bad examples are in the Real Life section.

edited 23rd Sep '12 10:40:31 AM by Madrugada

Okay, now that I've actually had time to read the examples, I have a somewhat different opinion. It's one of those tropes where the examples describe the trope far better than its actual description.

I see three tropes in the title, description, and the examples (Real Life excluded). The description say inflation. The examples say future. The title says ridiculous. Well, more or less.

So, now I'm of the opinion that the description should be mostly just cut or shortened significantly, since it obscures the point of the trope, which is using inflation to show it's in the future. That is, I mostly agree with Maddy above. I don't think the inflation has to be ridiculous, just show off that prices are vastly different.

A few examples, like most of the Real Life ones, seem to be a trope that's about Ridiculous Inflation.

edited 23rd Sep '12 1:34:43 PM by AnotherDuck

^A good name for this trope wuld be Futuristic Hyperinflation. Or Futuristic Superinflation.

My problem is with the word "future", not the word "ridiculous". Enforcing the future will make it almost sci-fi-exclusive, since it's the future.

So? Some tropes are limited to one or only a few genres. That's no reason to broaden them.

Duck: I have already chopped a whole lot of natter about economics and inflation in general out of the description. Take a look at the edit history to see what I cut. What else do you think can/should go?

edited 23rd Sep '12 2:45:29 PM by Madrugada

Progress. However, enforcing the future part of the trope (read: cutting almost all of the content) will make this trope a lot worse than it is now. That's why I simply want the word "future" removed from the name.

What do you mean "cutting nearly all of the content?" The examples from fiction are all set sometime in the future, from the setting of the work. The Real Life section is the part that isn't "future", and frankly, it's not germane to the trope anyway and would be no great loss if it were cut entirely.

Cutting "future" from the name guts the rope entirely, since the trope, the storytelling device, is "To emphasize that a work is set in the future, an author inflates prices to a great degree."

edited 23rd Sep '12 10:25:01 PM by Madrugada

The Real Life section is almost never necessary for a trope page. It's only relevant if Real Life uses the actual tropes deliberately. Otherwise it's basically just Trivia or Useful Notes. It's never something you should use to determine the definition of the page.

As I implied before (after I corrected my opinion), I think the future part of the trope is the second most important part, after it being about inflation. That it's ridiculous doesn't really matter that much. If the story is set fifty years in the future, and things cost thirty times as much, it would, according to the description, amount to almost a 7% average inflation, which isn't unreasonable. However, the prices would seem unreasonable to us, in this time.

I'll also restate that I got this opinion of the trope by reading the examples. Thus, I don't see that there would be any significant difference to them if we made that clearer.

@Maddy: I'm not sure the second paragraph is needed. It speaks about revaluation, but that's not an issue, since the trope isn't about hyperinflation. It's about what may look like it, but isn't treated as such In-Universe (by the future characters, that is). It's assumed that this inflation is natural, so revaluing the currency isn't a solution, except to make the money look prettier by having fewer zeroes. All according to what the paragraph says itself.

The third paragraph can be shortened a little. "To this day, there's been no consensus as to what caused this period of 'stagflation.' For all we knew at the time, this high inflation rate might continue indefinitely," seems a little wordy and awkward to me. The first sentence there doesn't seem necessary at all.

Otherwise I think it looks good.

I think we need a trope about hyperinflation in general. Might need a wick/example check done to see if most of the examples are of the future.

Also, from another thread; "(Ridiculous Future Inflation) That's only supposed to be in science fiction works extrapolating current inflation into the future, though." Is it true?

edited 24th Sep '12 12:08:44 AM by spacemarine50

Yup. The trope dates back to at least 2007, and has always been about science fiction. That's why the word "Future" appears in the title.

Hyperinflation itself wouldn't be a trope so much as a Useful Note. On the other hand, Hyperinflation As A Sign Of Political Chaos might be a trope (though I'd try to find a pithier name for it).

edited 24th Sep '12 12:59:18 AM by Xtifr

It doesn't have to be science fiction, really, although most works that are set in the future could be considered science fiction to some degree. "Science fiction" as a genre has a very fuzzy definition. And it doesn't have extrapolate current inflation into the future.

It's really a simple trope: absurdly high prices used as an indicator or to emphasize that a work takes place in the future.

edited 24th Sep '12 7:07:59 AM by Madrugada

I agree that a Hyperinflation supertrope would be a good idea. That could cover non-future examples of high inflation, as well as inflation caused by fantastic scenarios such as, say, duplicating money (as in one Duck Tales episode).

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