Oh, what the heck . . .

cthia wrote:Politics can be so damn complicated. One reason I don't like it.

Apparently I don't understand the rules of the Harrington Doctrine. Why doesn't the seizure of any junctions in League space also tear the fragile rice paper of which the navy has to walk, which bears the Harrington Doctrine?

Seems to me the citizens of the League would be highly pissed off regarding the chutzpah of the barbarians to blockade League space. Imagine some nation doing it to 21st century Americans.

"What?! I can't get my new IPhone-88 because who is blockading us in US space? Barbarians??? Well WTF is the president doing about it! And that ain't a question!"

It seems like this would rally the Solarian citizens as much as any other single transgression of the strategy contained in the Harrington Doctrine.

"I'd truly like to bottle the chutzpah of those phucking barbarians and sell it!"

Also, like current America, the core of the League -- and certainly Old Earth -- is spoiled. A total blockade or even the seizure of junctions in League space would threaten the very balance of a materially oriented world. Especially one who has never experienced such. Spoiled wives and daughters screaming because of a lack of access to their favorite nail polish, etc. The League isn't North Korea. You simply cannot shut off the flow of stuff, without political ramifications leading to a native uprising dwarfing the Great Ides of Stilthy. march, to victory! LOL.

It would cause chaos in the League worst than what more than an inch of snow causes on the East Coast.

a lot of core worlds are self sustaining in most things.

several barely trade anything.

most trade is between those in the shell/ verge most of whom are less then fond of the mandarins and while annoyed by the shipping delays are quietly enjoying someone giving the bureaucrats fits

Dauntless wrote:a lot of core worlds are self sustaining in most things.

several barely trade anything.

most trade is between those in the shell/ verge most of whom are less then fond of the mandarins and while annoyed by the shipping delays are quietly enjoying someone giving the bureaucrats fits

I'm not talking about starving. Sure, Lacoon II will not create any starving babies on Earth. I'm talking something subtly worse, like a materially oriented society suddenly suffering their first gut-check, not having access to their stuff. Like that certain fingernail polish that your spoiled daughter will die without, or the next generation iPhone 88 that people have already killed for!

It can totally throw Old Earth into a state of disarray and political upheaval.

cthia wrote:

Dauntless wrote:a lot of core worlds are self sustaining in most things.

several barely trade anything.

most trade is between those in the shell/ verge most of whom are less then fond of the mandarins and while annoyed by the shipping delays are quietly enjoying someone giving the bureaucrats fits

I'm not talking about starving. Sure, Lacoon II will not create any starving babies on Earth. I'm talking something subtly worse, like a materially oriented society suddenly suffering their first gut-check, not having access to their stuff. Like that certain fingernail polish that your spoiled daughter will die without, or the next generation iPhone 88 that people have already killed for!

It can totally throw Old Earth into a state of disarray and political upheaval.

What happens when Sally's favorite drama serial from New Hollywierd can't get to New Paducah (for the start of Season Thirty-Nine! Reginald and Hortense were about to . . . YOU KNOW!!!) because the GA has shut down the Solly traffic on the wormhole network?

Sally will NOT be happy. And when Sally ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

my point is I don't see anything that trendy/cool/hip whatever adjective you want to use being made off world/ another system! anything that useful to keeping the richer segments of sheep that live on earth happy is not something they are going to leave out of their control by being in another system.

plus it may be one of the many things RFC has left out, so he could focus on bigger things electronics seem to have abandoned the new version every year system of selling, major luxuries have been shown to be gems or things like Montanna Beef.

Filbert that is more likely the scenaro and about the only way around it is to pay for someone neutral like oh say andermani to transfer the dics to one of their ships and have them deliver it. profits will be done which will annoy the company and they are more likely to be able to put pressure on the mandarins.

now i'm not dismissing that this will cause problems and more unrest just that it is going to take much of the 9 month timeline of UC before we see any of it.

I'm not talking about starving. Sure, Lacoon II will not create any starving babies on Earth. I'm talking something subtly worse, like a materially oriented society suddenly suffering their first gut-check, not having access to their stuff. Like that certain fingernail polish that your spoiled daughter will die without, or the next generation iPhone 88 that people have already killed for!

It can totally throw Old Earth into a state of disarray and political upheaval.[/quote]

Actually, it might well cause starvation on Earth. According to textev, there are a real lot of people on earth at that time. There might not be enough food for all. Some might be grown in orbit but those might be taken down.

Destroying trade will be annoying for some planets and really devastating for others. Those under thrall to the OFS might be happy knowing there might not be any reinforcements.

The key element might just be the loss of taxes. Remember the League gets all of its money from trade. Lose that and things will get bad. And transstellars will be really unhappy losing a real lot of money.

Pressure will be on the mandarins to do SOMETHING, ANYTHING that will bring back trade.

Dauntless wrote:my point is I don't see anything that trendy/cool/hip whatever adjective you want to use being made off world/ another system! anything that useful to keeping the richer segments of sheep that live on earth happy is not something they are going to leave out of their control by being in another system.

plus it may be one of the many things RFC has left out, so he could focus on bigger things electronics seem to have abandoned the new version every year system of selling, major luxuries have been shown to be gems or things like Montanna Beef.

Filbert that is more likely the scenaro and about the only way around it is to pay for someone neutral like oh say andermani to transfer the dics to one of their ships and have them deliver it. profits will be done which will annoy the company and they are more likely to be able to put pressure on the mandarins.

now i'm not dismissing that this will cause problems and more unrest just that it is going to take much of the 9 month timeline of UC before we see any of it.

I think the big impact of the wormhole network shutdown (I use that phrase because I have difficulty spelling Laoocoon . . . too many o's) will be probably be in high-value products for which there has been a differentiation within the Solarian League due to comparative advantage.

If you assume that comparative advantage is a significant feature of the Solarian League economy considered as a whole, then you're looking at some very, very serious impacts of the wormhole shutdown.

Say that Planet A makes Widget K just a bit better (more functional, cheaper even with shipping) than everyone else, and over the years (and centuries?) other planets basically start saying "well, Planet A makes such good K-widgets that we might as well just buy theirs and concentrate on Widget Q production instead."

This doesn't mean that there aren't manufacturers on Planet Z who can't make K-widgets, it's just that those manufacturers are better at making Q-widgets.

The disruption will be two-fold:
1) The immediate disruption of the galactic market for K-widgets. Scarcity drives K-widget prices up on Planet Z (and everywhere else that uses but doesn't preferentially produce K-widgets). This drives up prices for things which incorporate a K-widget. This is a fairly immediate disruption (weeks/months).
2) The shift of planet Z resources from whatever else they were doing, to making K-widget replacement-- if the trade disruption goes on long enough. This is costly not only in the immediate cost in shifting the production capability to K-widgets, but also the likelihood that the locally-produced K-widget-replacements won't be *quite* as good as the K-widgets from Planet A. This is probably one of those chaos-theory effects which would be essentially impossible to accurately predict, except to say that it will be significant in the long term.

How significant is of course up to RFC.

The issue would resolve to a steady state inside of 48 months assuming no other changes. Mostly because there will be tens of thousands of additional freighters produced and in service.

But things will change.

kzt wrote:The issue would resolve to a steady state inside of 48 months assuming no other changes. Mostly because there will be tens of thousands of additional freighters produced and in service.

But things will change.

Maybe... Of course the real question is if there will still be a League in 48 months or if the goals of the Harrington doctrine will have been achieved.

Don

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filbert wrote:
What happens when Sally's favorite drama serial from New Hollywierd can't get to New Paducah (for the start of Season Thirty-Nine! Reginald and Hortense were about to . . . YOU KNOW!!!) because the GA has shut down the Solly traffic on the wormhole network?

Sally will NOT be happy. And when Sally ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

That's not going to happen. After all, courier boats and News services dispatch boats are still allowed to transit through the network. And serials, sent through the galaxy, are more or less pure data. To put them on the 100th generation BluRay and send some copies around is a job, even a courier boat is properly fitted to do. It will be problematical if some of the stars of the serial in question intend to promote the new season in person - dispatch boats are made for speed, not for luxury, after all - but else ...