05.12.2010, 06:21 PM | #1 |
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an economic scifi story
what happens if the means of exchange consist of --- ? how is this exchange organized?-- what sorts of structures does it generate in society?-- what sorts of individuals does this society generate? don't call it "das kapital II: the reckoning" |
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05.12.2010, 06:23 PM | #2 |
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Means of exchange: apples
Result: people have a very high tolerance to sour foods. Result: Money (apples) rot. The ones with the best preservatives/vegetable growth hormones have an advantage. Result: Apocalyptic wars for preservatives. |
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05.12.2010, 06:25 PM | #3 |
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are apple farms feudal? that would turn it into some sort of fantasy shit, which i don't dig
"lord braeburn" and "the pink lady" fight it to the death, with fruit knives somewhere in the middle, an orgy scene, with no preservatives |
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05.12.2010, 06:25 PM | #4 |
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if yr serious....I'm seriously down.
otherwise, welcome to the competition. |
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05.12.2010, 06:26 PM | #5 |
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oh, wait, I read what you wanted to write about, and fell asleep in 3 pages.
maybe I'll just but a copy... |
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05.12.2010, 06:26 PM | #6 |
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No, strictly corporate. Apples corporations have taken over from traditional state governments. Apple corporations have private armies.
The Beatles Apple Records and Apple (iphone and shit) are two of the major players in this global conflict (having gone into apple growing in the later 2020s). |
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05.12.2010, 06:27 PM | #7 | |
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Quote:
it was intended to be something like the write the next word of the sentence thread don't be a killjoy & play |
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05.12.2010, 06:33 PM | #8 | |
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anyway, flotterz is out i wasn't too crazy about the apple premise and now i don't know where to take this. i was originally thinking of something more like "veneral diseases" or "wishes", but i wouldn't know what to do with that either. |
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05.12.2010, 06:38 PM | #9 | |
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Quote:
I just don't want the shame of having to answer "aren't you that guy who wrote that crappy sci-fi book about apples?" -- what happens if the means of exchange consist of --- ? bloodcells from an endangered species how is this exchange organized?-- weekly transfusion "deposits" what sorts of structures does it generate in society?-- society is always based on HAVES and HAVE NOTS. the haves enjoy local farms full of dodo birds and ring-tailed lemurs. the nots lap blood from the sewers. what sorts of individuals does this society generate? -- high power genetic brokers who in deal black market cloned hemoglobins. desperate vampiric sloth-suckers. wealthy ostrich farmers. I hope this helps. ps: fuck apples |
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05.12.2010, 06:53 PM | #10 | |
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05.12.2010, 06:56 PM | #11 |
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You can have this one on me:
A man (let's call him Burt) comes to a town (let's call it Badtown) on assignment to anonymously distribute something (let's say tins of kuppa fish) for a struggling fish-muncher. The antihero of the novel (let's call him Shafter McGee) is a tweenage badpat and wannabe drive-by-shooter. Burt gets a lot of stick from our antihero (let's call him Bugger Mesideways...oh wait we've already given him a name) on account of being called Burt. Burt says "You've got a right nerve with a name like McGee". Shafter says "You've got me back to rights..." etc. A gang war ensues. The anonymous leader of the gang Burt belongs to is finally revealed to be none other than the fish-muncher who had previously seriously over-ordered on kuppa fish and needed the name driven gang war as a cover while he foists his tins of fish (let's call them fish tins) on a confused and scared public. The ending of the story has a real twist in the tale because it's finally revealed that it is actually Shafter that has in fact been using fish-muncher and his fish tins as a cover for his long sought after gang war (his mother was once given a right burting by some "geezer" and he has had a violent objection to the name ever since). The police are called and the final page sees Shafter being led off by the PCSO (it's a minor offence). |
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05.12.2010, 07:02 PM | #12 | ||
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that's different ornaments in the same old christmas tree-- in other words, it's capitalism with a different commodity. i'm looking for a slightly increased mindwarp. Quote:
that's the answer trifecta & it addresses all points. would semen communism be possible? or capitalism even, since you can't hoard it? still, there might be a commodities market-- buying & selleling semen futures-- but buy & sell with what? semen? of course-- so everyone would be compelled to jerk of furiously in adolescence and invest it for old age when the tap has dried. prostate cults, athleticism, the semen olympics, etc. so what's the role of women in this society? |
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05.12.2010, 07:17 PM | #13 | |
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Post nuclear war - nearly everyone's infertile - eggs, semen and fertile men and women become much sought after - the end. |
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05.12.2010, 07:24 PM | #14 | ||
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that's kinda like children of men... i think that was the title Quote:
^^THIS. CAN I HAVE THE MOVIE RIGHTS??? it would be shot in the style of gw pabst's "threepenny opera" |
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05.12.2010, 07:39 PM | #15 |
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Yeah, you would need a gang of ghost writers.
First, the commodity does not make the economy. We must consider a basic political power dynamic in which a value can be found. I think, in contrast to our times, a good premise would be an intergalactic anarcho-communist religion would be interesting in giving a stark investigation on the birth, as it were, of an economy. Perhaps, among this religious economic quietism, a sect of technology-worshipers begin to barter data? |
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05.12.2010, 07:47 PM | #16 |
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"When in doubt, have a man come through a door with a gun in his hand" - Raymond Chandler
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05.12.2010, 08:08 PM | #17 | |||||
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yeah. how's your treatise coming? Quote:
according to marx, it's the means of production that makes the economy. i posited the question as a "means of exchange" instead, presuming the existence of markets-- which actually are not necessary, come to think of it... you can have a "market-free" economy" instead of a "free market" one. our economy however commodifies-- the initial question ("means of exchange") does not beg a commodity. the commodity is in our XXI century minds. but can there be exchange without markets? i'd say yes-- look at bees-- there is an exchange of calories between the colony members but nothing i could think of as "a market". Quote:
so for you power precedes the economy? i'm more of the persuasion that it's the economy that creates political power. but one can disagree on that. Quote:
i don't understand this Quote:
a good idea-- in the intergalactic thing or in the birth of an economy? (as you can see i didn't get the above). anyway, time for tea and key lime pie. /end of line |
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05.12.2010, 08:47 PM | #18 |
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Fuck, is everything Marx with you?
Excuse me if I disagree with the master, and have been confusing in my terms, but what I am saying is that we cannot formulate an fictional economy without first considering the groups in which it is involved and what those groups value. So what I am suggesting as a premise to the fiction, which I am semi-borrowing from Dune, is a pan-galactic religion that negates the possibility of an economy because it values all creation equally. They've largely forgotten how they've gotten to such an expansive and technological state as their past is obscured in mysticism. However, this extremist sect pops up that begins to barter data. The rest of the novel investigates why. Thus, you have a story of something like the monastic tradition of the middle ages jump to something like speculative e-commerce and see what comes of it (playing around with notions of religious radicalism, the limits (or lack) of non-material goods, etc) Anyway, it seems like I've become incapable of responding to you without inspiring a quarrel. Just layoff the sentence-by-sentence debate, I have a head cold. |
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05.12.2010, 08:57 PM | #19 |
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ok...so EVERYBODY...even the stinkin' hippies get free endangered animal blood (and here's the mindblowing twist) mixed with SEMEN. kind of like soylent green, but it's more like soylent red and white.
--- Bugger Mesideways, unsatisfied with his lot of reconstituted manatee and manjuice, turned the kuppa fish on the crowd, ripping them to shreds in a hail of freeze-dried sea-bullets. "Take that, you fucking commies" Bugger cried, as he emptied the full clip into a particulary smelly pack of elderly hippies. |
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05.12.2010, 09:04 PM | #20 |
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gah...it may have already been done. I googled Soylent Manatee and got this:
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