203
votes
Accepted
How can a banker successfully (and safely) lend money to an autocrat?
So nice to have interesting questions to which real history provides a ready made and exemplary answer which is also a great tale to be told.
Consider the Fuggers
The beginnings:
It all begins with ...
- 85.9k
180
votes
Accepted
What would an immortal-run American bank have to do to secretly maintain bank accounts for immortal customers?
Maintain a Bank Account for Above-Board Immortals
American law already grants personhood to immortal, soulless entities bent on twisting the minds of innocents to their will and consuming everything ...
- 30.1k
127
votes
Accepted
What can be used as a money in a high-fantasy magic world where noble metals are in practical use?
Manacoin
Manacoin (abbreviated as mc) is an ethereal currency that only exists as shared thoughts in the astral plane. Everyone can create astral "wallets" to store manacoins. Wallets have ...
- 135k
112
votes
With some exceptions, what makes the most powerful mage on the planet, not kill a merchant and steal his goods?
If you plant merchants, they don't grow so good.
Jingo (Pratchett)
Merchants have goods you want. They tend to repeatedly have goods you want, not just the once. A merchant might tell his ...
- 116k
110
votes
Can Communism become a stable economic strategy? How?
You need perfect information, uncorruptable leaders, and an enforcement mechanism.
Why does communism sort of work at a small scale (small groups < 15) but hit tons of problems at large scale?
...
- 7,792
109
votes
How would you bring wealth back to the past?
Knowledge.
Bringing wealth to the past requires simply knowledge.
You have the outcome of horse races, lotteries, inventions, share prices, stock market falls etc etc etc.
Your head could easily ...
- 45.8k
105
votes
What would happen if a country weighted voting in inverse proportion to wealth?
Likely nothing would be different at all. Today, the poor substantially outweigh the rich, as such, the ultra-rich directly control less than 0.1% of the vote. The political power that the rich wield ...
- 771
100
votes
Accepted
Why buy tech from the future?
Yes, 100% Yes
Just because the stranger doesn't know how to build it or how it was manufactured doesn't mean that you can't reverse engineer it. With 10 devices, you even have some spares so you can ...
- 15.3k
95
votes
Accepted
On a world with differently sized humans, how do I keep wages fair?
You don't need to 'do' anything - economics takes care of it
Much like it does in the real world.
There are two different economic issues: Value of work (money in), and cost of goods (money out).
...
- 1,130
94
votes
Justifying Affordable Bespoke Spaceships
Let's look at the world of shipping here on Earth for inspiration
I have a suspicion that if you look at the history of shipping, you'll discover that whether it's a cart or a bullet train, the basic ...
- 116k
91
votes
What would be the most expensive material to an intergalactic society?
Moving away from a pure element (covered by other answers) to a material, something that has a special property.
Consider something that is made rare by the very presence of your intergalactic ...
- 3,451
89
votes
Accepted
How to monetize uploaded consciousness?
We give the minds some hobbies to do
We have lots of people who have literally nothing else to do than think. That will probably be boring for quite a few of them. Why don't we put them to us-... I ...
- 17.7k
85
votes
How can a colony of teleporters make the most money while keeping their teleportation a secret?
First of all they should only teleport things, not people. People talk. Otherwise, they're in the shipping business.
They should use their teleportation ability to mimic real world transportation so ...
- 4,933
83
votes
Accepted
If I build a railroad around the edge of a supercontinent, will that kill the oceangoing shipping industry?
Firstly, shipping is generally more efficient for bulk cargoes - such as coal, lumber, ore, etc. (assuming you are using a similar technology to power both the ships and trains - i.e. both steam, or ...
- 6,869
81
votes
Accepted
How can a colony of teleporters make the most money while keeping their teleportation a secret?
Think Small
Instead of moving items very large distances; why not move them small distances; it's not like you get paid per mile. You could almost entirely remove the equipment cost and drastically ...
- 1,186
80
votes
Accepted
How can I make female battle mages a good investment for warfare?
A spear has a lot more force than a needle, but that doesn't make it more useful. If you want to skewer an enemy, the choice is obvious; but try knitting with the larger instrument.
Runes may be more ...
- 14.2k
80
votes
Accepted
Why is this less profitable for an adventurer to craft and then sell an artefact, rather than to sell ingredients needed to craft the artefact?
Because the adventure's skill and reputation is always below that of a specialized craftsman.
Bob the Blacksmith has been making swords all his life. He's spent 40 years perfecting the art of the ...
- 44.1k
79
votes
Signs of wealth in a world where private planet ownership is common
The same things that make houses expensive today
First of all, while the wealthy generally live in bigger houses, the price does not scale linearly with square meters of living space. A five million ...
- 21.1k
78
votes
Accepted
Crime rates in a post-scarcity economy
This cannot be answered. But rather than just voting to close as opinion based, it might have value to stop and think about the reasons this cannot be answered. As the reasons are kind of interesting ...
- 43.2k
78
votes
Can a store that doesn't need to buy merchandise stay unnoticed?
I've run a small retail store for over a decade.
This is a complete non-issue.
Tax authorities don't care one whit for deliveries, nor vendors, nor for whatever accounting system you use. All they ...
- 28.5k
76
votes
Why is this less profitable for an adventurer to craft and then sell an artefact, rather than to sell ingredients needed to craft the artefact?
Because you are selling to shops, not to adventurers
I agree with the accepted answer in most settings, but not in the context of the genre. In many games, the best weapons are the ones you craft ...
- 87.8k
75
votes
Accepted
Selling the right to kill one's convicted abuser: how could an NGO make this profitable?
Live-Streaming
Have you ever heard of Twitch? The streaming platform that allows you to let other people watch you play a game and give you donations if they like to watch you play? Where hundred or ...
- 17.7k
74
votes
Accepted
What makes trading cities rich?
The short answer is trade.
The larger answer is that the act of trading develops and requires a range of secondary and tertiary activities which are themselves economically significant.
Consider, ...
- 97.6k
74
votes
Can Communism become a stable economic strategy? How?
No system with humans is ever truly stable. They just have different instabilities to deal with. If you think about it, the stable state for humans is "dead." To remain alive, we need a constant ...
- 131k
74
votes
Fallout from aliens destabilizing economy by counterfeiting all global currencies?
what policies would the world's various administrations put in place?
Switch to digital currencies and eliminate paper money.
Explain to the nice aliens that we were just settling on paper money. ...
- 25.3k
71
votes
How to monetize uploaded consciousness?
Crowley [a demon] had been extremely impressed with the warranties offered by the computer industry, and had in fact sent a bundle Below [to hell] to the department that drew up the Immortal Soul ...
- 135k
71
votes
How could a goverment sell prisoners as slaves (without giving advantage to richs)?
It used to be commonplace
The question show a misconception about pre-modern societies. They were not modern societies in which people dressed funny and had a handful of unusual laws; they were ...
- 85.9k
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