Readercon 25: Dystopian Economies

[This is the outline of the talk I gave at Readercon 25 about Dystopian Economies. I am currently in talks with glyphpress to expand this and some other writings into a sourcebook for gamebuilders and GMs that use the Shock system (and for anybody interested in inventing fictional but reality-influenced futureworlds). You can download the original Shock: Social Science Fiction here, or buy the follow up, Human Contact, here. ]

INTRO:

 

I'm going to start with a personal anecdote. When 9/11 happened, I was a senior in college.

                - changed majors late (operations engineering; program folded)

                - taking all econ classes

                - in-class experiments. You play games as a teaching device.

                                a) prisoner's dilemma

                                b) deciding how to split money

                                c)  choosing to give $5 to class or $1 to self

                - 9/11 "broke" the games.

                                a) always a little broken; people not perfectly selfish even "Best" of times

                                b) measurably more generous with each other

                                c) similar effect across country

                                d) has happened after other national tragedies

                - after a year or so, tapers off, like our response to Katrina, Boston Marathon. Back to "normal."

 

My point is: you don't make people better by changing the game. By which I mean:

                - incentives are important, as are penalties

                - but behavior is too complicated to "fix" with conditioning tricks

                                a) don't get rid of criminals by making perfect laws

                                b) don't get rid of kindness in concentration camps

                - I say this even though there's a sub-field, econometrics

                                a) tries to quantify, predict, measure effects of policy change

                                b) Psychohistory

                                c) CBO, Fed - if futurist, be following their press releases

                                d) econ like weather forecasting

                                                i. real science

                                                ii. better than random chance

                                                iii. but a lot of chaos

 

I don't believe an economic utopia is possible.

                - not a SYSTEM which fixes the problem independent of PEOPLE

 

I do think you could get to a kind of utopia even in a very compromised system

                - it's the goofiest thing in the world, but the answer really is LOVE

                - family, social bonds

                - seeing yourself as part of something bigger than you, something noble

 

So I'm going to talk about economics, and what I'm going to say is mostly about the bad actors

                - because antagonists are good for stories

                - and I trust you all know how to be good guys

                - RIGHT? (laugh line)

 

Anyway, keep in mind when I talk about EVIL corporations it's because I'm talking about EVIL corporations.

                 - "not all men"

                - yes, I know.

                - OK….

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