The Theory of Interstellar Trade (1978) • Hacker News Board

Re: The Theory of Interstellar Trade (1978)

#71

Post by takinola » Thu, Dec 31, 2020, 6:09 PM UTC

qndreoi wrote: post #67

ryandrake wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In other words, it doesn't matter that he experienced the travel as five minutes. What matters is that his options were limited for five days. > Near light travel time dilation is essentially life extension relative to planetary populations. So any interest paid to the traveler should be calculated at the fraction of time experienced, so 5 minutes to 5 days would be 1 / 1440. Why should either the lender's clock or…

I think the lender's clock would be most valid. If I go to the bank for a loan, they usually aren't open to negotiation. They say "Here are the terms. Want the money?"

That depends on how much money you are borrowing. For very large values of X, the power shifts to the borrower

Re: The Theory of Interstellar Trade (1978)

#72

Post by bluGill » Thu, Dec 31, 2020, 6:09 PM UTC

mybandisbetter wrote: post #41

koheripbal wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm trying to imagine a physical product that is worth transporting on an interstellar level, rather than locally manufactured. It seems to me that the only thing that would ever be exchanged between solar systems, would be information.

It is at least possible that a manufacturing ecosystem would be so difficult to develop that it would require fewer decades to transport products than to develop that ecosystem. Such comparative advantage would likely disappear overtime, unless a given solar system actively keeps its technological know-how secret in some way, or controls the travel of skilled people (as in nuclear tech today). Or, perhaps, some solar…

It is hard to imangine that smart people in the other solar system won't figure things out. The physics of nuclear is mostly known, which is why Iran and North Korea can have nuclear programs despite efforts to stop it. Anything secret that is exported to a different solar system is reverse engineerable.

The first colonists will of course need to bring stuff with them, but it doesn't make sense to assume they won't plan on building most of what they need once they get there. It is a lot easier to setup manufacturing when you don't have to invent the assembly line.

I can maybe see trade of one of a kind things. It hard to believe the Mona Lisa would ever leave earth, but that type of thing where the original is the thing might be worth it. Not enough to sustain trade though, the time line is far too long.

Re: The Theory of Interstellar Trade (1978)

#73

Post by ghaff » Thu, Dec 31, 2020, 6:11 PM UTC

mmhsieh wrote: post #55

nabla9 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you refer to this: How Did Economists Get It So Wrong? https://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/magazine/06Economic-t.htm... Soon Krugman wrote another piece because people misunderstood what he said: Mathematics and economics https://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/11/mathematics-and... >I’ve been getting some comments from people who think my magazine piece was an attack on the use of mathematics in economics. It…

It's somewhat the same thinking, but it was a much more candid essay from an earlier part of his career. It was a frank recollection of why he went into economics as a field; he talks about the Asimov Foundation series, and a practical reflection that he was not really cut out for something like physics. It was back when people had janky self-hosted html sites, and the like; probably written in the late '90s.

>practical reflection that he was not really cut out for something like physics.

And it's definitely the case that a great deal of very accomplished people (including in areas like software development and chemistry) are also not really cut out for a career in physics.

Re: The Theory of Interstellar Trade (1978)

#74

Post by elteto » Thu, Dec 31, 2020, 6:26 PM UTC

koheripbal wrote: post #14

messe wrote: post #2

Abstract: > This paper extends interplanetary trade to an interstellar setting. It is chiefly concerned with the following question: How should interest on goods in tranist be computed when the goods travel at close to the speed of light? This is a problem because the time taken in transit will appear less to an observer travelling with the goods than to a stationary observer. A solution is derived from economic theo…

I'm trying to imagine a physical product that is worth transporting on an interstellar level, rather than locally manufactured. It seems to me that the only thing that would ever be exchanged between solar systems, would be information.

Spice is only produced in a single place in the entire universe.

Re: The Theory of Interstellar Trade (1978)

#75

Post by tw25592285 » Thu, Dec 31, 2020, 6:29 PM UTC

vsareto wrote: post #35

jagged-chisel wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without having read anything but your comment: The economic impact to the attendant ('observer travelling with the goods') is not diminished by his own experience of the passage of time, but is affected by the reduction in his own ability to take on other tasks during the same [external] time frame. In other words, it doesn't matter that he experienced the travel as five minutes. What matters is that his options were…

We can turn this on its head and ask a similarly tricky question: Should a human that can live for 1000 years be allowed to access interest rates that 100 year humans get? A 1,000 year human has many more opportunities, and compounding interest will only grow his wealth further. Here's only an initial $1000 investment over 1000 years: https://www.calculator.net/interest-calculator.html?cstartin... At the end of it, t…

> Should a human that can live for 1000 years be allowed to access interest rates that 100 year humans get?

Curious that you've framed the question in non-market terms (allowed by whom?).

> A 1,000 year human has many more opportunities

No more so than 10 generations of 100 year humans. People can and do coordinate over long time spans and multiple generations. Heck, that's basically what a corporation is.

> compounding interest will only grow his wealth further

Only insofar as they have deferred consumption for longer. This is how interest works.

> At the end of it, they have $358,816,... a huge amount of money.

Signifying the economic benefit from deferring consumption and instead putting those resources to productive use. This is a Good Thing.

> So any interest paid to the traveler should be calculated at the fraction of time experienced, so 5 minutes to 5 days would be 1 / 1440.

As you've described it, those travelers will already be more inclined to accept a lower interest rate than non-travelers. What's the problem?

Re: The Theory of Interstellar Trade (1978)

#76

Post by tachyonbeam » Thu, Dec 31, 2020, 6:34 PM UTC

phreeza wrote: post #21

koheripbal wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm trying to imagine a physical product that is worth transporting on an interstellar level, rather than locally manufactured. It seems to me that the only thing that would ever be exchanged between solar systems, would be information.

I've probably read too much sci-fi, but high-density computronium left behind by a fallen civilization might make it worthwhile?

I hope it's ARM or RISC-V, and not x86-based computronium.

Re: The Theory of Interstellar Trade (1978)

#77

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Thu, Dec 31, 2020, 6:41 PM UTC

thanatos519 wrote: post #53

jmcqk6 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are Stradivarius violins held in such high regard? The presence of natural resources is not the same as having the craftmanship able to best utilize them. And when scarcity of resources are not a problem, craftsmanship becomes even more important to people.

Precise instructions of exquisite violin construction followed by acoustic parameters of concert halls and then hq multichannel recordings of said instruments played in set halls would indeed be an effective use of bandwidth

An impulse response would be significantly more effective.

Re: The Theory of Interstellar Trade (1978)

#78

Post by generalizations » Thu, Dec 31, 2020, 6:42 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #66

generalizations wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we cannot assume the distribution of elements across solar systems is homogenous, I imagine there might be some other system largely composed of heavy or noble elements we have a hard time obtaining locally. Edit: come to think of it, interstellar trade might become necessary once we start building at larger scales - moon sized space stations, asteroid-sized interstellar ships, etc. That's a lot of material to min…

The elements point is an interesting one. I'm trying to imagine what element or group of elements would be hard to do without. The elements related to carbon-based life of course (although hydrogen at least is not realistically scarce)--though I guess life doesn't need to be carbon-based. There are the conductive metals--gold, silver, copper--although aluminum at least could fill in in a pinch. Silicon? Although you'…

Stuff on the far right of the periodic table seems like prime candidates also, just because they're easy to lose and probably some of the hardest to obtain. Helium is basically a limited resource unless we figure out how to get it back out of the upper atmosphere; same goes for the argon we use for fire suppression - that stuff is already super expensive.

Re: The Theory of Interstellar Trade (1978)

#79

Post by dnautics » Thu, Dec 31, 2020, 6:43 PM UTC

QuesnayJr wrote: post #60

dnautics wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but was good at preventing 2008 in turning into 1929 That is such an unfair comparison. You don't know that 2008 wasn't as bad as 1929 because we have a better food supply chain and food productivity (norman borlaug and all that), and healthcare technology, and not because of macroeconomic guidance. Macroeconomic guidance, after all, is what has got us to a state where we bail out the rich by stealing from the prod…

We do know that it was because of macroeconomic guidance. The money supply contracted sharply because of the collapse of the banking system in 1930-31, and the gold standard was too inflexible to allow rapidly expanding the money supply. The economic contraction for each country right around when the country went off the gold standard. In 2008, governments prevented the banking system from collapsing, and were able t…

> The economic contraction for each country right around when the country went off the gold standard.

Classic case of correlation != causation. Also, it's very selective memory. Why did you not include the data point of 1920/1921 contraction where they did not go off the gold standard and the economy snapped back? In relative terms, the contraction bottomed out worse than the '29 contraction.

This "recovered faster" talk is all insane. All of the metrics you are using are basically metrics that apply to the top maybe 10% of income earners. The only metric that maybe applies to the rest of us is "employment", but who can know anymore, as the real returns to labor have been totally distorted, and in a lot of ways employment numbers are measured in a funny fashion (we don't count people not seeking work). The rest of the population is not necessarily doing as great.

> the lesson of 2020 is that governments should follow the advice of macroeconomists more than they already do.

Don't forget the lesson of King Edward II, who was discovered to have debased the currency and funnelled the funds to political cronies (mostly Hugh Despenser). Who knows if the account of the exact method of his death were true, but what is true is that the people got so angry at the real returns to their income that they triggered a civil war to depose him.

Re: The Theory of Interstellar Trade (1978)

#80

Post by dustingetz » Thu, Dec 31, 2020, 6:44 PM UTC

samizdis wrote: post #22

gravitas wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Paul Krugman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Krugman

As a Brit who reads the NYT and knows Krugman mainly by his writing there, I found that Wiki piece enlightening and fascinating. I will make an effort to read him more widely. Thanks. FWIW, I also enjoyed reading his latest NYT piece for its substance, observation and its humour: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/28/opinion/reagan-economy-co...

You should also read his critics, there's a whole podcast dedicated to picking apart his weekly column