Questions tagged [economy]
For questions regarding wealth, trade, or financial concepts.
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How much food surplus would medieval peasants have? [closed]
So, I am working on a setting. It is medieval fantasy with a focus on realism, and in my pursuits of realism, I am trying to figure out many things. One of them is the rough approximation of how much ...
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Litmus test for discerning worthy counterparty of medieval trade
Medieval Europe tends to be regarded as an example of significant fragmented sovereignty. That is to say multiple entities would stake claim to the same land and/or inhabitants. Of course there were ...
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What job could someone do better with super-strength, but without actually revealing that they have it?
Being a superhero without being state-sponsored or independently wealthy is kind of a massive pain. You're essentially working two jobs, one of which is highly dangerous and doesn't even pay. So ...
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How to sell things that have been brought back from another world
The MC from our modern world (2016-ish) has been iseikaied to another world of swords and magics. But after the MC defeated the big bad, she declined the invitation to stay in that world and insists ...
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Evacuating earth in favor of a off-world habitat: Just how many people can be saved?
In 2024, NASA detects a pair of planetoids, each the size of the earth's moon, careening towards our solar system. The good news is that they're set to enter earth's orbit without any collisions (how ...
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Can some countries regress and other advance when petrol will not be available anymore?
In my world, petrol will not be available anymore and there will have been a crisis ending its availability (the story is set after the crisis).
The consequences will be these:
Developing and poor ...
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Energy based economy
I am attempting to design an economy based around energy, namely, within a society possessing practical nuclear fusion. As I currently have it set up currency is backed by Hydrogen, meaning you could ...
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What would be the cost of living in a country where only millionaires and billionaires are allowed to live?
I am imagining a small country with a relatively small population; say around five million people, where by law everyone living there needs to be a millionaire or a multimillionaire/billionaire.
So ...
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How can a country devote centuries of resources to building giant mechas without being stopped?
There is a world where giant monsters the size of mountains come every few hundred years and destroy huge amounts of the world and any organized civilization of humans. The only effective response ...
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most profitable way to operate wormhole "highway" [closed]
"in the near morrows, mankind had gain the might of wormhole. for with this craft man could walk from a stead to another by only a gang of walk.
such crafty man of that day was, that they are ...
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What do I need to do to define resources and economic exchanges? [closed]
How to define the resources of each country/state and the trade route (road)?
I would like to define:
the resources of each country/state in my world;
the trade of goods (economic exchanges) between ...
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How can homunculi be prevented from being used as a slave race for human sacrifice as opposed to conquered populations?
The human body contains mana, the life force that can be transferred for use as a source for magic. The individual's capacity for mana slowly grows with time as the person ages into adulthood, finally ...
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What socio-economic pressure would cause humans to depend on an interstellar resource? [closed]
It's generally cheaper to make it at home, but when we can reach another star, what non-magical pressure would make that not true for humanity? There exist small niche markets in wine and some ...
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What is the most altruistic economic system? [closed]
I'm trying to write about a world with an altruistic society, and want an economy that facilitates that most of the time. I'm looking for an answer that improves public goods, retains some level of ...
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How to monetize soap bubble portals that travel across dimensions and bring various creatures and objects from different times/places in one planet [closed]
In my project there's a species of creatures capable of bending reality, using very advanced technology they achieved the power to travel through dimensions using portals.
The portals work like soap ...
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Why would my central bank suddenly increase the interest rates to over 20%?
Question: My plotline is an alternate history of the US and requires the Federal Reserve bank to increase the prime interest rate to an unheard-of 20% for one full year.
The political environment is ...
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Why would money or any other means of exchange need to exist if AI, robots, automation and nanotechnology produce all goods and services?
Let's say almost everyone is now jobless but almost all goods and services are made by machines including nanobots swarms and 3d printing. Even the government and the justice system in this futuristic ...
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Is a biofuel-backed currency viable? [closed]
I have a world where there are no fossil fuel deposits. This means that biofuels - fuels artificially created out of biological matter, rather than via geological processes - are the sole hydrocarbons ...
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Are Black Holes Military & Economic Assets? [closed]
I'm working on a sandbox astrophysics, economics and military simulation generator (there is no defined setting but I try to use real and hypothesized science for the most part) where different types ...
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kickstarting childbirth by rich investors [closed]
Elves....
The cliche' of elves living a long life thus being very underachieving on the fertility side.
I was thinking of the implication, pregnancy and child not being something that paesants do to ...
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Merfolk Beauty Products (part 1: makeup)
What could an underwater civilization use to produce makeup and cosmetics? Considering that:
The merfolk's tech level is the same as ours (they have fire and metallurgy thanks to magic)
Makeup ...
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Beating “A Good Deal at Any Price”
Over the summer, I had the privilege of listening to a Cherokee storyteller. One of the many things he mentioned was his take on trade between the new colonists and his people.
The gun, he said, was a ...
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How Can River Nomads Protect Themselves?
A tribe of peripatetic nomads (Think Travelers or Romani rather than Mongols) ply their trade along a vast stretch of river, profiting as merchants, moneylenders and cargo haulers for an ...
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Mercenary Nobles
To be elite in much of the ancient world was to be a warrior. There are a few famous kings who spent part of their youth fighting for foreign rulers, like Harald Hadrada, but in my setting there’s a ...
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How many workers are required for a medieval civilization to have metals?
The setting of my story is a medieval refugee community that has found a protected place to settle. They end up remaining in isolation for a few hundred years. The protection is a boost for life, in ...
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One reason Taiwan's military would be using weapons sold by China
I need a way to change history so that Taiwan, in 2015, be using weapons manufactured and sold by mainland China as well as some US equipments--sort of like how Pakistan uses both Chinese and US ...
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1-month Free Shipping... To Mars
Amazon has extended to Mars, and their Prime customers there need, if not 1-day shipping, at least 1-month shipping.
They have created a shipping mechanism involving some method, that allows them to ...
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How can witches compete with mega-corporations who benefit from economies of scale?
Mana is the life energy present in all humans. It also gives us the ability to use magical spells and rituals. However, only witches are able to access their Mana in order to use it directly. For ...
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In a supercontinent would ships still be the primary way of transportation before the invention of engines?
introduction
My world is made of a super-continent with very little isles, it has 100 countries, 97 of which are on land. 3 of those are underwater for folk who are able to live confortably in the ...
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Most in-demand items/skills in dystopian future [closed]
Civilization as we know it has fallen. You want to begin to rebuild and/or set up a village shop to turn a quick buck.
What goods or services from the past (aka, now) would be most in demand?
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How easy is it to fake being in a different social class?
Idk if here is the right place to put it so if there is a better place, pls do lmk.
In Fantasy, lots of the stories have some poor person pretending to be a rich person or some rich person pretending ...
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What would inter-system economy and communication look like in a Pre-FTL space colonization future? [closed]
Suppose the world is fairly grounded in real physics (I consider Star Trek relies on way too much space-magic and overly optimistic projections of human accomplishments in the 23-24th century). The ...
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What would prevent Big Pharma from marketing witch potions to consumers in pill form?
Potions have been the traditional solution for medical issues throughout history for populations within witch society. Witches were seen as the doctors of their community, treating people with various ...
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Could mass production of guns be possible by slaves?
I'm imagining a setting with 16th-17th century tech level. In this era, there's the rise of guns and blackpowder, and slavery too.
Slavery was used mostly for agricultural reasons, but there were a ...
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What is the purpose of using tractor beam when there is a teleporting device onboard?
In many sci-fi movie tropes, we see gigantic spaceship using tractor beam to reel in smaller spacecraft. Usually in every scenario that is being played out the smaller spacecraft is trying to flee ...
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Unemployment in a magical world [closed]
Once upon a time, a world parallel to ours inhabited by magical creatures alongside human beings. But these aren't ordinary humans, they have magic. Everyone does, from the humblest farmer to the ...
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Monetary system(or the abscense of it) in an economy where AI and robots have eliminated most jobs [closed]
Where the mejority economic socaity robot have the cloused and personal car 30 ton e.g. tracking
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How could my fruit cartel become a national problem?
In a dramedy science-fantasy children's videogame I want to create (by children's, I mean for 8 to 15 years old), Salade de Fruits (which means Fruit Salad) (my first language is French), there is a ...
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Could these dragons participate in the economy?
The mule-dragons are a rare but extremely powerful type of dragon. They have a supernatural ability to seek out and hoard expensive shiny stuff like gold, silver, and precious stones, which they do ...
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How can heavy molecules slow down the rate of condensation? [closed]
Mana is the background energy by which witches use to create magical spells. The level of mana content within the environment rises and falls with the passage of the tides, and consolidates in certain ...
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How to avoid resource curse with an extremely valuable and exclusive resource?
I have a nation, Arunya, which functions under different magical rules from the rest of the world. The entity governing their magic is much more closely tied to the state due to historical factors, ...
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Everyday life in a world and civilization which do not have any money in the economy ( and not barter too)
I was reading about non monetary economies and it says that it is a kind of economy that do not have any money in the economy and all goods and services are free to everyone according to Wikipedia.
I ...
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I want to simulate Purchase Power Parity in my own universe, how can I do that?
I am currently working on a modern fantasy world, in which I am working on gdp and statistics for, I'm having a issue simulating PPP for each of the nations, and I can't find any good articles on it. ...
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What sort of political/economic power did the nobility wield in Victorian-era England? [closed]
And how did the various titles differ in terms of their influence?
Right now I’m trying to get a better understanding of how European, specifically British, nobility operated and what sorts of duties ...
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How Would it Affect the Galactic Economy if One Planet Controlled 99%+ of the Galaxy's Gold and Silver? [closed]
The Planet Aurea has by far the most gold and silver out of any planet of the entire galaxy (thanks to two mountain ranges it has, one around the size of the US portion of the Rocky Mountains made ...
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Would larger silkworms make silk cheaper?
Let's say that there is a large silkworm species, their body being about 70cm (about 2.3ft) in length. Other than their abnormal size, they are just regular silkworms (except for needing much food, of ...
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Socio-economic effects of a black hole on a civilization [closed]
Suppose a "solar system", or "black-holar system"?, in which the star is replaced by a black hole. There is no source of energy, I know, but somehow an advanced civilization ...
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Could a "vampire restaurant" be logistically feasible?
There's this reasonably common concept in vampire fiction when the vampires are open members of society: oftentimes there are these businesses where vampires pay to drink blood straight from humans' ...
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Reality Check: Medieval economics - could peasants ban rent?
Question:
Is there any economic reason they would be unable to do this / some unforeseen way it would ultimately come back to bite them? Ultimately they want to let their peasants live rent-free in ...
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What percentage of teleporters would a world with teleportation need, before timezones are required?
"Arrive at 3pm"
"Wait, is that 3pm your time, my time or the
destination time?"
"Destination time, it's when the Wizard bar opens
at hub-city"
"When is that for me?&...
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