Monday 1 May 2023

Earth In The Solar Commonwealth II

"How To Be Ethnic..."

Adzel, the single Wodenite on Earth, commutes by gyrotrain from a rented shack in "...a moldering conurb..." (p. 189) of the San Jose district of San Francisco Integrate to his laboratory and lectures at the Clement Institute of Planetology and probably has problems feeding his massive body on his League scholarship. He drinks a lot of whiskey and champagne which seems unusual for a Buddhist but we must make allowances for differences of period and species. 

Whereas Jim Ching favours restaurants serving outsystem food, Adzel happily accepts:

"...an unlimited meal ticket at the Silver Dragon Chinese Food and Chop Suey Palace." (p. 195)

- after his performance as the dragon in a Chinese parade has led to a revival of the Lunar New Year celebration.

I have scoured this short story for information about life on Earth in the Solar Commonwealth but have perhaps exhausted it by now. "Lodestar," although set entirely off Earth, also conveys a sense of life in the Commonwealth a short while later.

4 comments:

S.M. Stirling said...
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S.M. Stirling said...

Sorry, got the math wrong first time:


In re Adzel's problems feeding himself: Note that one historical constant is the long-term drop in the price of food relative to other costs.

For example, a loaf of bread cost $0.6 in 1914, and $2.80 in 2023.

But in 1914, $5.00 a day was an excellent skilled-labor wage; an unskilled manual worker got something like $1.00 to $1.50.

In 2023, in most places in the US unskilled labor starts at about $18.00 per hour -- effectively, about $144.00 a day.

The laborer in 1914 could buy 16-17 loaves with a day's wages; in 2023, they could buy between 50 and 60.

Other foods are even cheaper by comparison -- meat, milk, chicken even more than that, etc. They're also much safer with regards to decay and adulteration.

So in 1914, a loaf of bread cost much more than it does now, in terms of the percentage of your wages needed to buy it.

So in the Technic universe, in Adzel's time, food would be even cheaper.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Mr. Stirling!

But, even granting your argument, the proprietors of the Silver Dragon probably counted on Adzel's "side show" attraction drawing in enough new customers to offset the cost of feeding him.

Ad astra! Sean

Jim Baerg said...

"one historical constant is the long-term drop in the price of food relative to other costs"

How long has that been happening?
I would be surprised if that trend started earlier than a few centuries ago, when scientific principles & labor saving machinery started being applied to agriculture in a big way.