Freefall

I don't recall the exact human population of Jean, but EU enjoys both monopoly and monopsony power over the planet's labor force and resources, is the sole importer/exporter of goods, and manufactures all the robots that are the overwhelming majority of the workforce.

It is literally a captive economy. The human population lives in what appears to be post-scarcity or close to it. Taxation is kind of irrelevant, and if the local economy were somehow dependent on EU paying into it other than with salaries, the cutoff of that source of money because of an accounting trick (depreciation) would be devastating to it.

Trust me on this one: Ishiguro having any concern about taxes in the short term is absurd. Assuming that some kind of interplanetary economy exists in this 'verse, the Jean venture is certainly a 100% write-off for decades to come.

edited 4th Dec '15 5:27:07 AM by Fighteer

But we know that it isn't post-scarcity. Sam has even discussed how much money he could make by taking junk from his home planet, selling it for huge profits on Jean, then doing the reverse, and just doing that until he could retire.

The thing with Jean is that what's defined as scarce (primarily, materials derived from macroflora and macrofauna) is much different than what is typically defined as scarce (e.g. metals rare on Earth). It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking it's a post-scarcity society because they don't seem to be lacking in the things our world lacks (either in totality or in places), but it doesn't qualify to the extent that, say, Star Trek tends to.

That said, Fighteer is right to wonder just how the questions of taxation and profits work between colony worlds and Earth when Jean (and probably at least some of the other colony worlds) are effectively closed systems with extremely limited information transmission. The closest I can think of is that Jean is some sort of blind trust, where both EU and the governments look in after a set amount of time to make sure the books are balanced. There's a ton of issues with that model, though.

The thing is, I don't think we have enough information on how the colonial system (for lack of a better term) works to really make any informed speculation.

From the Mayor's discussion with Max, we know that EU doesn't have carte blanche to do what they want, though they do wield a lot of power. Beyond that, details are almost nonexistent.

Sure, EU is the "big fish" in the pond labeled "Jean", but knowledge of other organizations outside of the comic's setting is pretty much nonexistent. They could be "big" only because of the scale of the strip, and other corporations elsewhere may be as big or bigger.

The above said, the following is speculation on my part. Put on your in other words.

I'm guessing there is some kind of organization, government or NGO of some flavor, that keeps an eye on colony worlds, given the RL history of Company Town setups that make the standard response by the colonists to any corporate malfeasance into BOHICA^note Bend Over, Here It Comes Again for all practical purposes. Corporations involved in colonization would also have an incentive to look all above-board, to attract colonists.

RL colonists on Earth tended to be small in total numbers, as going out into the wilderness was a crap shoot at best. "Yeah, there may be plenty of space out there, but as bland as my life is I'm still alive, and not eaten by animals, killed by hostile natives, freezing my butt off with only a wagon or some tents for shelter, or..." Add to the mix Cryonics Failure of the comic's space travel (see the "Day of the Dead" story arc, specifically this strip), and more of the casual colonists are filtered out. Even with frozen embryos ("genetic colonists") it still takes a lot of people to make a viable colony on another world. Discouraging new colonists with scary tales from the relatives/friends of colonists who went before and then vanished into a corporate void is not going to help with recruitment.

Also, do we even know who does control the starships themselves? I don't recall any reference to such, offhand. If EU doesn't control space travel between colony worlds, it would be more difficult to isolate "recalcitrant" colonists from whatever colonist observer organization may exist. And hell, in the absolute extreme case an abused colony world can make a sufficiently powerful laser and use it for sending a message to Earth, though depending on the interstellar geometry it may be a long wait between messages (which is still better than "never").

I'm sure that some supervisory agency exists, otherwise there would be nobody to contract with EU to terraform new planets. I've just got no idea how the logistics of the Jean branch (or, indeed, any branch) paying taxes could possibly work given the communication and travel technology of the setting.

I presume that, by "extinction", Ishiguro is referring to the humans on Jean only.◊ Which is a slightly hyperbolic use of the term.

edited 7th Dec '15 5:03:45 AM by Fighteer

They can do it globally too. Just for a longer time.

But they can basically macro grey goo the galaxy. It takes a hell lot of high tech and effort to freeze and ship humans across star systems; robots are easier. And even in current colonisation, humans are basically overseers for robots. Humans also need to set up both energy production and then production of food using that energy in order to survive, robots only need the former. Humans need specific breathable atmosphere, robots only need something that isn't caustic enough to start melting them. Within 20 years of arrival, able-bodied human population may double from reproduction, while robots reproduce by many millions.

Basically, when building a chain of colonised worlds that start producing equipment to colonise more worlds, things go much faster if you remove the human overseers from the process and replace them with more robots.

edited 7th Dec '15 5:14:40 AM by Adannor

Which, if you think about it, makes humans as obsolete as the dodo in the long term.

Yep. That's the whole THING with the robot emancipation. "Don't want to boldly go where no man has gone before and find out that robots already built a Starbucks there." as it was put in the comic.

I've got another wild stab, but I'm not sure which number it goes at, 4, -1, i or π.

What is the innate price of gold? The answer is that gold has no innate physical quality that equals a value. Its value is instead whatever humans will trade for it.

So my law of robotics is that in the absence of humans robots will adopt an inefficient Soviet style command economy, but once one human arrives in system and starts wanting more of A and less of B, a capitalist economic system emerges.

The basis of this economy is not gold, electric power, or other physical quantity, but these are all valued in terms of the basic credits and their value in terms of these credits rise and fall on the basis of supply and demand.

Just as humans strive to first provide for the base necessities and then sufficient more to provide for their pursuits above mere survival, so too will the robots accumulate enough credits (trading with other robots) for the basic maintenance and then they will pursue the most precious thing to them that provides the basis for their credit system.

What is this precious thing that can't be harvested, mined, or mass produced? These credits are in terms of human attention and therefore validation of the robot's worth.

Even anti-social robots who either don't care for human company or aren't well placed to receive it (too many high energy neutrons from the fusion reactor they maintain to make company comfortable), are still part of this overall economy, just like non-exporting companies are still part of the global economy.

"So my law of robotics is that in the absence of humans robots will adopt an inefficient Soviet style command economy..."

Sorry for nitpicking, but why would it be inefficient ? I imagine a communist-type economy would be best for perfectly rational and utilitarian robots.

Command economy ends up bad when 1)the person in charge got there by means other than being a master economist and 2)has goals other than prosperity of the world (i.e. keeping himself in charge, which necessitates undermining everybody else)

Robots won't necessarily have either. Well they won't be master economists initially, but they'll learn.

edited 8th Dec '15 1:52:39 AM by Adannor

My read on it is "making things is good. Making more things is better" resulting in robots who do nothing other than make shoes that no one will wear because production is king, c.f. the parable of Soviet nails.

Robots have inherent advantages in a planned economy — specifically, the ability to instantly assess and negotiate, through their communication network, demand for products. They are also not inclined to seize personal advantage or cheat one another. If such sensibilities develop, then it will be interesting to see the outcome, but right now they are an ideal test case for a Communist society.

There is also another anecdote that a factory had a quota for wood or metal shavings to hand over to recycling, so when one of the workers proposed more efficient method that reduced waste, it was ignored.

Yeah, they are very easily able to create a communist utopia. Also note that the things that are as of yet scarce for humans on Jean (organics) do not hold appeal to robots, so they will be closer to true post scarcity.

My only concern is that we know that sociopathic behavior is quite possible in robots. Edge is the prime example of it, and imagine if Clippy had more autonomy? If we were talking about perfectly analytical robots or ones programmed to always be cooperative, I could see the advantages of a planned economy for robots. In this case, though? Sooner or later, I think someone would be in a prime position to completely exploit it.

Also, there's the Doylist way of looking at things. While Mark Stanley doesn't interject his politics too heavily into Freefall, he's not above doing so, and he is a free-market capitalist that leans conservative. He wouldn't create a working communist setup under any circumstances, even a robot one.

Well, there's no reason why perfectly ethical robot actors could not build a working market economy, either, as the idealized economic systems so beloved of free market proponents are predicated on "rational actors" — that is, fully informed individuals acting out of rational self-interest.

Basically, if you start with a premise of rational, informed people without inherent bias, you can make almost any economic theory work.

Vast majority of robots is cooperative. Clippy was purposefully reprogrammed via a collection of direct orders and Edge is an edge case. Who actually pretty much just wants to be left alone. What would potential "dictators" want anyway?

"rational actors"◊ oh yeah.

Why robots would lean towards communism is that they will have an easy post-scarcity unless they overbuild factories that exceed their energy production. They are going to develop hobbies and pursue them, sure, but that also requires just some extra materials.

edited 8th Dec '15 7:54:44 AM by Adannor

Indeed, it is hard to imagine robots having material wants that could be considered scarce, unless they deliberately seek to emulate human consumerism.

edited 8th Dec '15 8:05:45 AM by Fighteer

Well, they can scarcify themselves. If they lag power plant and material mining facilities behind production of more robots. Or perhaps calculate the perfect balance for unawoken robots but fail to account for robots desiring materials for creative hobbies come 20 years.

However it is solvable by ceasing building of new robots and redirecting resources towards the wants of existing ones until new equilibrium is calculated.

Although thinking more, there is also overpopulation prospect - when the resources of the whole planet or star system are converted into robots and robot accessories, what will they do? Shipping off interplanetarily is not possible on that scale.

I imagine that they would calculate the sustainable population of robots and cease manufacturing new ones except as replacements once that population was reached. It's not like they would have the hard-wired desire to procreate.

What I am curious about is what the basic moral framework of such a society might look like. Unlike humans, robots don't have any built-in imperatives other than the Three Laws. This is part of why Max Post is trying to establish a framework for robot ethics, precisely so they don't randomly decide to exterminate all organic life or steal everyone's money or paint a giant smiley face on the planet's surface.

edited 8th Dec '15 9:33:42 AM by Fighteer

The Parable of Soviet Nails and the scrap quota remind me of a short chapter in a satirical novel I once read.

A guy works in a factory on an assembly line. They build "widgets," which is a name for something that you have no idea what it is, what it does, or why anybody would want or need them. They just build 'em, day in and day out, year after year. They take component parts out of bins and put them together, and the finished widgets roll out of the room on a conveyer belt through a hole in the wall.

One day, they guy gets sent on an errand, and gets lost in the factory complex. He wanders into a section of the factory he's never been in before. He sees the widgets come in on a conveyer belt, and the workers there disassemble them and put the component parts into bins, which are then taken out of the room.

The assembly line and dis-assembly line feed off each other, giving the workers something to do, but having no other apparent purpose.

And apparently Ishiguro planned for Clippy to influence Kormada, not vice versa◊. Oddly enough, I get the impression that Ishiguro will see this as progress on Kormada's part...

Ishiguro may not realize this yet, but his actions directly enabled Kornada's little apocalyptic plan.

The loophole was allowing Kornada to influence Clippy.