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Platystemon posted:My understanding from the books was that basic would be an improvement for more than 80% of the world’s current population. I think I would have preferred it if they showed basic as not all that bad, better than the average belter at least. Just really basic with no hope or sense that you have a life. Like others have said we've seen the "gleaming skyscrapers surrounded by hobo camps" dystopia a million times. Showing everyone on basic living standards akin to a student dorm lifestyle but with absolutely no hope of anything more is a much more interesting dystopia.
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Mar 30, 2017 18:31
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Platystemon posted:My understanding from the books was that basic would be an improvement for more than 80% of the world’s current population. Yes. Globally, the median annual household income is a hair under $3000. A homeless person living under a bridge in America probably makes more than that. Imagine how utterly impoverished most of the world has to be for that to be the *median*. There are something like 3/4ths of a billion people living on less than $1.90 per day. Now realize how much worse it was even 30 years ago: http://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-the-population-living-in-extreme-poverty Baronjutter posted:Showing everyone on basic living standards akin to a student dorm lifestyle but with absolutely no hope of anything more is a much more interesting dystopia. But again, it's not a student dorm lifestyle. A student dorm lifestyle runs to the tens of thousands of dollars per year. It's much worse than that. Take a student dorm, take away anyone's individualized choices of luxury, anything that's not strictly functional, and give it a really, really lovely cafeteria.
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Mar 30, 2017 18:32
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Goddamn. You guys saw a few dozen people in one limited area of future NYC which is just one tiny part of future Earth and jump to the conclusion that that definitely represents the entire scope of the 99% on that fictional future Earth.
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Mar 30, 2017 19:09
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Toast Museum posted:Re: The Churn, It's been a minute, so maybe I'm misremembering, but I thought Amos's ticket out was such an expense because it was originally his boss's escape plan, complete with a bunch of forged identifying information that a crime boss would need to avoid detection.  His boss's name is Amos, the Amos we know and love is Timothy/Timmy, so I'm technically still right 
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Mar 30, 2017 19:09
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Longbaugh01 posted:Goddamn. You guys saw a few dozen people in one limited area of future NYC which is just one tiny part of future Earth and jump to the conclusion that that definitely represents the entire scope of the 99% on that fictional future Earth. If scify has taught me anything planets only have 1 city that entirely represent the conditions on the entire planet.
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Mar 30, 2017 19:13
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Baronjutter posted:If scify has taught me anything planets only have 1 city that entirely represent the conditions on the entire planet. Lol. True enough. You got me there. 
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Mar 30, 2017 19:16
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Boing posted:Are we sure that the people we saw on Earth were on basic, rather than some hobos living under a bridge that Bobby found by going to the wrong neighbourhood? It seemed to me like these were the people living outside the system, which would explain the loudspeaker advertising basic, trying to convince people to sign up
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Mar 30, 2017 19:26
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I think New York, the epicenter of the global UN government, would be an upper tier example of basic.
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Mar 30, 2017 19:27
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Longbaugh01 posted:Lol. True enough. You got me there. If this was starwars and this was all we've seen of earth there'd be a huge wookipedia article about : -All of earth's poor live under highway bridges, their primary economy is washing plastic containers. This is what they all do and here's a very long reason explaining why. -That drug addict who didn't help bobbie? Actually that's Mao's long lost cousin and boy does he have a backstory that intertwines somehow with all the main characters. -That dude who did help bobbie? Yeah, he pretty much is the reason the protomolecule was even discovered. -The island city of New York is earth's capital and main city, the rest of the planet is also smaller island cities because this is the biome of earth. They all have high walls and gray sand beaches and are islands, all of them. -The only non-human lifeform on earth is the See-Gull, spy drones are all inspired by this all seeing bird. -The See-Gull bobbie saw from her window actually had subtle protomolecule powers which it used to create a gravity field which caused her to fall. This was important because if bobbie had not fallen she would have been spotted by Mars security during her escape attempt. This powerful bird has a extremely long backstory and was key to Avasarala's rise to power.
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Mar 30, 2017 19:30
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I mean, we've seen Utah also.
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Mar 30, 2017 19:34
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Baronjutter posted:If this was starwars and this was all we've seen of earth there'd be a huge wookipedia article about :  I wish I could've made this post. The Star Wars EU deserves as much piss taking as possible. That one Mormon who talked to Miller on that transport ship was a plant put there by Mao and is actually a clone of Mao's long lost drug addicted cousin, and his real name is Brewce Endersin. He is the greatest secret agent specializing in talking to bitter people and instilling hope in them while they're being transported from planet to planet.
vermin fucked around with this message at 19:46 on Mar 30, 2017 |
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Mar 30, 2017 19:42
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Even if people living like that were possible in this universe, it doesn't make any sense for them to live like that in what seems to be the capital of Earth, especially with how close it all was to where Bobbie was. If I were the UNN, I would make sure that no hobos were living around the UNN building. You don't want diplomats coming from Mars and wherever and seeing that you can't even provide for your own people. Even North Korea makes sure the people living in Pyongyang look like well fed normal people.
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Mar 30, 2017 19:58
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Cojawfee posted:Even if people living like that were possible in this universe, it doesn't make any sense for them to live like that in what seems to be the capital of Earth, especially with how close it all was to where Bobbie was. If I were the UNN, I would make sure that no hobos were living around the UNN building. You don't want diplomats coming from Mars and wherever and seeing that you can't even provide for your own people. Even North Korea makes sure the people living in Pyongyang look like well fed normal people. Have you been to DC? It's been booming recently but historically it had horrible poverty issues. The moment you got away from the capital area there were serious segregated slums and desperate poverty.
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Mar 30, 2017 19:58
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I got the impression the hobos were part of an underground economy, hence barter and scrip (nobody was taxing anything going on there) and not representative of people on basic who lives in all those residential buildings we saw an episode ago in the large shot of the area if everyone's a hobo
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Mar 30, 2017 20:19
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the hobo camp is just there to show Bobbie that not all Earthers are fat and happy layabouts. not much more to it than that. pointless to extrapolate.
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Mar 30, 2017 20:45
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pointless extrapolation is the entire point of discussing tv on the internet
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Mar 30, 2017 20:48
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Baronjutter posted:Have you been to DC? It's been booming recently but historically it had horrible poverty issues. The moment you got away from the capital area there were serious segregated slums and desperate poverty. Yeah, as someone who grew up in D.C. in the 80s and 90s, this was very true during that period. One of the most dangerous areas was along North Capitol Street within full view of the Capitol Building.
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Mar 30, 2017 20:50
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Longbaugh01 posted:Yeah, as someone who grew up in D.C. in the 80s and 90s, this was very true during that period. One of the most dangerous areas was along North Capitol Street within full view of the Capitol Building. Yeah but you also had leaded fuel back then.
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Mar 30, 2017 20:57
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Having to drink sewer water seems a bit extreme. Also he mentioned people getting sick from the drive plant nearby. Interesting that there's still major heavy industry on earth, double interesting that it's for making spaceships. Why wouldn't this all be done in orbit?
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Mar 30, 2017 21:00
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Bare survival necessities and no money strikes me as a horrible way to do government assistance. How demoralizing would it be to browse your throttled internet and constantly see ads for goods and services meant for The Better Half of the population that were able to get jobs (still a whole fifteen billion people in the books, I think), that you can never hope to be able to afford for yourself? VVVV EDIT: Well, if the poors get a whole separate network, I wonder what they'd put on it to begin with. A good poster fucked around with this message at 21:19 on Mar 30, 2017 |
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Mar 30, 2017 21:09
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But why would advertisers buy ads on the lovely internet?
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Mar 30, 2017 21:11
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The state-religion should be an ascetic sex cult. That'd keep consumption and unrest down.
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Mar 30, 2017 21:13
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Speaking of fitting 30,000,000,000 on one planet this video was pretty interesting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_iNRGac_uM
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Mar 30, 2017 21:43
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Apparently Adam Savage is an expanse "superfan" and has some cameo coming up?
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Mar 30, 2017 22:15
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Tested just posted a video of him going through makeup.
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Mar 30, 2017 22:20
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He had already done a video previously about expanse costumes.
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Mar 31, 2017 00:09
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vermin posted:Speaking of fitting 30,000,000,000 on one planet this video was pretty interesting. Trigger warning, that video recognizes the state of Palestine. Here's a palate cleanser: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtB2ZfVuLhY
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Mar 31, 2017 00:17
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Longbaugh01 posted:He had already done a video previously about expanse costumes. Most badass costume had be season 1 one Avasarala had when she visited Holden's family.
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Mar 31, 2017 00:18
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The depiction of the homeless in this episode was probably more about underlining the theme of class conflict in the show. Up until now Earth has been portrayed mostly through the eyes of Avasarala who has grown up with a lot of economic privileges, and now we're seeing the other side of Earth where people actually look even more poorly treated that the belters are. This also sort of serves as a wake up call to Bobbie who has now been forced to actually look at how misguided her lazy Earther rhetoric was in the previous episode. None of this stuff is hard for me to believe to be honest, but we do live in a world where people thought Elysium was unrealistic because the rich would never, ever make healthcare unavailable to the people who can't afford it.
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Mar 31, 2017 00:51
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[quote="Gorn None of this stuff is hard for me to believe to be honest, but we do live in a world where people thought Elysium was unrealistic because the rich would never, ever decline to be threatened with violence to take their stuff away. [/quote]  Have these people never heard of the American revolution? Space George Washington didn't ask for Meso-American Hessians to be imported into his land to oppress him, you've got to expect him to say "no, thanks" and peacefully separate. The only moral choice is to let him.
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Mar 31, 2017 01:24
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Gorn Myson posted:None of this stuff is hard for me to believe to be honest, but we do live in a world where people thought Elysium was unrealistic because the rich would never, ever decline to be threatened with violence to take their stuff away. Have these people never heard of the American revolution? Space George Washington didn't ask for Meso-American Hessians to be imported into his land to oppress him, you've got to expect him to say "no, thanks" and peacefully separate. The only moral choice is to let him.
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Mar 31, 2017 01:24
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Number Ten Cocks posted:
what Are you ok
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Mar 31, 2017 01:37
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When I see people saying that Basic is actually just fine to live on, I assume they've never seen what things like welfare cards and regulation of what people can and can't buy and what communities can and can't do will do to people. Come on, there's people in this thread saying that they mustn't be on Basic because they're "bartering" (??) or "asking for money" (????). Next to the point that, surely, corporate overlords and the moneyed elite would lobby for an increase to Basic (?????), that's some of the weirder things people are saying in this thread. Am I the only person who's seen people bartering for cash and things outside a supermarket simply because their welfare card can only be used on specific food? Has no one here used a tightly-regulated corporate Internet? What, do you think the free clothing or free apartments they provide are actually good? That's the difference between surviving and living, which I'm surprised has to be illustrated. People on Basic will survive - they won't be dying in the streets, for the most part. But they certainly won't be living. If you want to live, like, enjoy your life and decide things for yourself, people turn to the underworld. edit: Surviving is taking care of your physical needs - food, water, sleep, medicine. Living is taking care of your mental and emotional needs. Everything we see about Basic is that it does nothing for that latter category, which is why crime flourishes in certain areas and why people are so willing to barter for real money. As to the unrest thing - what, you think you could have a successful armed revolution today? You think you could do it two-hundred years in the future where peacekeeping technology has become more militarised (hello, The Churn)? What're hungry, dissatisfied people going to do against people with power armor, military drones, automatic rifles that fire less-than-lethal ammo, and whatever else the UN might have on hand? Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 01:51 on Mar 31, 2017 |
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Mar 31, 2017 01:37
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I mean obviously corporate overlords wouldn't lobby for an increase to it, but it would definitely be in both their and the government's interest for people to be purchasing from them than using grey markets. It's realistic in that it's an entirely unsustainable system, but it's an entirely unsustainable system.
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Mar 31, 2017 01:41
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They would argue that any money given to the basics to spend on things would just be taken from their own pockets by the government and given back to them by the basics.
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Mar 31, 2017 01:45
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Which is still better than having money taken from their pockets and not given back. It's why paying people wages is better than having slaves. It creates demand. WhiskeyWhiskers fucked around with this message at 01:54 on Mar 31, 2017 |
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Mar 31, 2017 01:52
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I think it should also be clarified for the thread, too, that it is Basic Assistance and not basic income.
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Mar 31, 2017 01:53
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Cojawfee posted:They would argue that any money given to the basics to spend on things would just be taken from their own pockets by the government and given back to them by the basics. Food stamps are excellent economic stimulus and you're basically describing food stamps. Edit: Relevant chart: 
Accretionist fucked around with this message at 02:07 on Mar 31, 2017 |
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Mar 31, 2017 01:55
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I'm not saying I agree with the post I made, that's just an argument someone with lots of money who doesn't want to pay taxes would make.
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Mar 31, 2017 02:30
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Then it's a question of elite culture. Do they want more from society than it merely being as far beneath them as possible? I mean, that's the kind of nonsense argument you make when all you care about is conveyed meaning, meaning you can't very well admit to ("eat the poor").
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Mar 31, 2017 02:36
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