Worldbuilding Realism Consultation Thread Mk. 4

[DnalweN acilbupeR]

So, I began to work on the Gaian's law enforcement agencies.

Currently I have-Section 7, who police the Commerce Guilds (Mega-Corporations)

Section 6-Aquatic Coast Guard.

Section 9-Counter-Terrorist organization that also hunt down mutants (only dangerous ones).

So for an interstellar nation that is the Republic of Gaia, what law enforcement agencies should I have?

lol this gave me the mental image of bounty hunters / smugglers being pursued by some sort of govt agents of different races

[Rich and Corporations]

There is also option C:
Cyclists are an evil self centred free loaders who are nothing more than a meance to motor vehcile and foot traffic alike and as such should all be shot on sight.

I support this option. Fuck cyclists, we shouldn't modify our infrastructure to cater to a small group.

If 50% of everyone road bicycles, then there would be merit.

[The High Tatras]

What alternative economics policies are there available to a developing country that wants to industrialize besides import substitution industrialization (which seems to have failed in most of the countries that tried it) and neoliberalism (which can grow the economy but also creates massive income inequality)?

[Radictistan]

What alternative economics policies are there available to a developing country that wants to industrialize besides import substitution industrialization (which seems to have failed in most of the countries that tried it) and neoliberalism (which can grow the economy but also creates massive income inequality)?

Do what all the Asian Tiger countries did. Pick a few export-centric industries and subsidize the hell out of them.

[Spirit of Hope]

What alternative economics policies are there available to a developing country that wants to industrialize besides import substitution industrialization (which seems to have failed in most of the countries that tried it) and neoliberalism (which can grow the economy but also creates massive income inequality)?

Do what all the Asian Tiger countries did. Pick a few export-centric industries and subsidize the hell out of them.

Shipping. Give out all the incentives you can to build up shipping. It doesn't make you the most money, but it requires a large amount of skilled labor, high technology, innovations, strengthens your currency, and supports your merchant marine.

If you want something to look at for a way to build up your economy, work on building up shipping. South Korea did this, and at one point built over 50% of the ships made in the world. China currently sits at 45%.

[The Akasha Colony]

What alternative economics policies are there available to a developing country that wants to industrialize besides import substitution industrialization (which seems to have failed in most of the countries that tried it) and neoliberalism (which can grow the economy but also creates massive income inequality)?

Pick a market you can compete well on the global stage in, and give it as much support as you can. This doesn't actually have to be subsidies, as these lead to unprofitable companies in the long run when they become dependent on a subsidy-based market structure and other countries will start taking protectionist stances against unfairly subsidized competition.

Get your hands on whatever technology or expertise you can with as many methods as you feel comfortable using. Post-WWII, Japan's MITI funded research and exploited whatever means available to it to negotiate for technology-sharing agreements as a government agency, then turned around and quietly provided this information to Japanese companies. It also tended to fund things like research rather than actual production subsidies, which allows the labor force itself to remain competitive, and ensured that overall industrial policy was coordinated to avoid wasted efforts and unnecessary internal competition.

Protectionist trade policies are also generally a hallmark, as these keep foreign goods out and allow for the building of a positive trade balance and foreign currency reserve. Pegging currency value to a wealthy nation, as China does to the US Dollar (and Japan used to) also helps artificially deflate the price of your goods on the export market, making them more competitive while keeping more expensive foreign goods out.

These will generally help carry you pretty far, presuming you can pick a specific niche and successfully compete. At some point once you've become sufficiently developed most of these measures will probably have to be stripped away as other wealthy countries will no longer allow a "handicap," so it's important to ensure that your industries can survive even without these measures on the wider market, otherwise you'll get hit with a downturn.

[Allanea]

The problem I see wit this plan is that if you succeed in developing these industries, you will have then created an interest group (the workers and owners of these businesses, and people who benefit indirectly as well as some others) who would then oppose politically a reduction in the support measures long past their actual usefulness.

P.S. You also need to be careful with research subsidies, as these are very open to corruption.

[The Kievan People]

What alternative economics policies are there available to a developing country that wants to industrialize besides import substitution industrialization (which seems to have failed in most of the countries that tried it) and neoliberalism (which can grow the economy but also creates massive income inequality)?

ISI can work. It just a bad name because it failed so hard in Latin America. But Latin American governments fail at basically everything, so...

1. Don't make the walls so high nothing can enter the country at all. Either set tariffs just high enough to keep local producers competitive or offset high tariffs with liberal rules on foreign investment. Most foreign corporations won't complain about tariffs too much if they can open a branch plant in your country and repatriate the profits without excessive taxation. You need capital, but you also need foreign knowledge and competitive pressure. Foreign know-how can also be acquired by more underhanded means, which has been a defining characteristic of East Asian economies.

2. Make sure there is an adequate market for your goods, industries will go nowhere if there are no customers. If your country is small you must export. If your country is big you do not need exports so much, but you need to walk before you run and develop low-value industries that the peasant masses can actually buy instead of immediately rushing towards the highest value added industries. A lot of policymakers have trouble with this, which is why empty biotech and software clusters are a dime a dozen IRL in the developing world. Large, poor countries also have a bad habit of making it easier to trade abroad (usually the responsibility of the central government) than within their own country (usually impeded by powerful local interests). A customs union with other countries at a similar development level is highly beneficial if you can arrange it. A wealthy patron that is willing to turn a blind eye to your industrial policy is another promising avenue.

[The Macabees]

The problem with ISI extended beyond the corruption of S. American governments. In most cases, ISI is meant to replace the import of heavy equipment, the type of things you need ample capital stock for. You get at least two major issues. (A) You sacrifice the production of things that would have been otherwise produced, whether those goods are agricultural or w/e (usually labor-intensive, because the type of countries that practice ISI are relatively labor abundant). (B) You're promoting industries that aren't internationally competitive, so you're sacrificing industries that are internationally competitive (because that's where the country's competitive advantage is, given the relative abundance of labor, economies of scale elsewhere, etc). A third issue, (C), is that you drive the real income level down in your country, because now your people are going to have to pay more for the same goods.

Tariffs might be a bit better. In industries with economies of scale, a tariff can protect them until they reach a part of the average cost curve where the local industry suddenly becomes internationally competitive. The problem is public choice: it's hard to tell which industries will be internationally competitive, because we don't really know the shape of the average cost curve, and so every business and their mother is going to ask for tariff protection. It's usually better off to minimize tariffs.

[Costa Fierro]

So I RP as a South American country and whilst we're talking about economies, I want to see what people think of Costa Fiero's economy.

Basically it's an export driven economy primarily revolving around the exportation of natural resources and manufactured products. It also includes finance and tourism as substantial aspects of the economy. Manufacturing used to be a more significant part of economic activity but was severely depleted during a sovereign debt crisis in the 1980's. I also want to have economic growth based on commodities booms historically during the 1950's, 1970's, and late 1990's/2000's.

[Radictistan]

I don't know how precisely to decide upon realistic statistics beyond GDP, hence why I don't have them on my own economy page. Your GDP per capita seems in line with countries that would be poor if it were not for oil. I think you could probably have greater Forex reserves. Equatorial guinea has $4 billion, almost a quarter of its GDP.

[Vitaphone Racing]

So I RP as a South American country and whilst we're talking about economies, I want to see what people think of Costa Fiero's economy.

Basically it's an export driven economy primarily revolving around the exportation of natural resources and manufactured products. It also includes finance and tourism as substantial aspects of the economy. Manufacturing used to be a more significant part of economic activity but was severely depleted during a sovereign debt crisis in the 1980's. I also want to have economic growth based on commodities booms historically during the 1950's, 1970's, and late 1990's/2000's.

Seems like Chile + 10% if that's what you're going for.

[Ainin]

Made a little diagram of how bus lanes work in most of Ainin. U-turn lane is exempt from red light.



Thoughts?

EDIT: Diagram not to scale. U-turn lane shouldn't be intruding so much on the intersection like that.

[Costa Fierro]

So I RP as a South American country and whilst we're talking about economies, I want to see what people think of Costa Fiero's economy.

Basically it's an export driven economy primarily revolving around the exportation of natural resources and manufactured products. It also includes finance and tourism as substantial aspects of the economy. Manufacturing used to be a more significant part of economic activity but was severely depleted during a sovereign debt crisis in the 1980's. I also want to have economic growth based on commodities booms historically during the 1950's, 1970's, and late 1990's/2000's.

Seems like Chile + 10% if that's what you're going for.

I based most of the economic data off Argentina in addition to my own RP statistics.

[Costa Fierro]

Made a little diagram of how bus lanes work in most of Ainin. U-turn lane is exempt from red light.

(Image)

Thoughts?

U-turn lane could be problematic. Presumably this is a controlled intersection.

[Ainin]

Made a little diagram of how bus lanes work in most of Ainin. U-turn lane is exempt from red light.

(Image)

Thoughts?

U-turn lane could be problematic. Presumably this is a controlled intersection.

Traffic lights on all sides. Left them out because laziness.

[Costa Fierro]

U-turn lane could be problematic. Presumably this is a controlled intersection.

Traffic lights on all sides. Left them out because laziness.

Hmm. It would make sense if the lanes were tram lines but I don't think it'd work for buses, IMO.

[Ainin]

Traffic lights on all sides. Left them out because laziness.

Hmm. It would make sense if the lanes were tram lines but I don't think it'd work for buses, IMO.

What part? The intersection or the concept of bus lines in the centre itself?

[Costa Fierro]

Hmm. It would make sense if the lanes were tram lines but I don't think it'd work for buses, IMO.

What part? The intersection or the concept of bus lines in the centre itself?

The concept. It just seems bizarre.

[Ainin]

What part? The intersection or the concept of bus lines in the centre itself?

The concept. It just seems bizarre.

It's a design popular in Eastern and Southern Asian countries (China, India, Indonesia, South Korea, etc.) alongside major suburban arteries. Putting them in the middle has the benefits of lessening the impact of bus lanes on roadside parking lot access (adding dedicated U-turn lanes and legalising U-turns on red almost completely negates the impact), letting buses easily pass each other and slightly making right turns easier for drivers. It's not without flaw though, its infrastructure is significantly more expensive (since usually, the stops in the middle of the road need to be connected to the sidewalks with an overhead pedestrian bridge) and stops become very inaccessible for folks in wheelchairs unless the staircase to the elevated bridge is replaced by like a 80m long slope (that actually exists in Beijing, believe it or not).

[Costa Fierro]

The concept. It just seems bizarre.

It's a design popular in Eastern and Southern Asian countries (China, India, Indonesia, South Korea, etc.) alongside major suburban arteries. Putting them in the middle has the benefits of lessening the impact of bus lanes on roadside parking lot access (adding dedicated U-turn lanes and legalising U-turns on red almost completely negates the impact), letting buses easily pass each other and slightly making right turns easier for drivers. It's not without flaw though, its infrastructure is significantly more expensive (since usually, the stops in the middle of the road need to be connected to the sidewalks with an overhead pedestrian bridge) and stops become very inaccessible for folks in wheelchairs unless the staircase to the elevated bridge is replaced by like a 80m long slope (that actually exists in Beijing, believe it or not).

Damnit Ainin. The Chinese are getting to you!

[Korva]

My nation is based on the combined territories of Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. Of these three it seems Azerbaijan has the strongest economy, though it is heavily reliant on oil exports. How can I diversify my economy in order to secure a more stable economic future?

[Ainin]

It's a design popular in Eastern and Southern Asian countries (China, India, Indonesia, South Korea, etc.) alongside major suburban arteries. Putting them in the middle has the benefits of lessening the impact of bus lanes on roadside parking lot access (adding dedicated U-turn lanes and legalising U-turns on red almost completely negates the impact), letting buses easily pass each other and slightly making right turns easier for drivers. It's not without flaw though, its infrastructure is significantly more expensive (since usually, the stops in the middle of the road need to be connected to the sidewalks with an overhead pedestrian bridge) and stops become very inaccessible for folks in wheelchairs unless the staircase to the elevated bridge is replaced by like a 80m long slope (that actually exists in Beijing, believe it or not).

Damnit Ainin. The Chinese are getting to you!

Hail Mao il-Reagan.

[Proskoya]

I'm unsure if this is the place to go for this one, but I'm trying to write up a fictitious religion for my Chechens to have started following so that they don't have to be Muslim (nothing against that, just want something other than Islam). I'm thinking of something that calls for the veneration of warriors but allows for the sorts of freedoms one would expect of an average Western nation. There any other "warrior's religions" I should look to for inspiration?

[DnalweN acilbupeR]

I'm unsure if this is the place to go for this one, but I'm trying to write up a fictitious religion for my Chechens to have started following so that they don't have to be Muslim (nothing against that, just want something other than Islam). I'm thinking of something that calls for the veneration of warriors but allows for the sorts of freedoms one would expect of an average Western nation. There any other "warrior's religions" I should look to for inspiration?

as OP of this thread I approve of asking this here, if it makes a difference