So, about Authoritarian Empires.... (based on info from stream)

[Kat Tsun]

Well I would call it fair because they can simply leave the town and seek better work somewhere else, or if they are being paid very low wages it is likely that a new company will come in and take advantage of the generally low wages in the town and offer slightly higher wages to the workers so everyone would go and work for them instead.

Fair wages in the sense of freedom of movement and freedom of employment only exists in thought experiments and economics lectures.

Neither of these are true in real life.

Poverty traps are becoming more commonplace in super-industrial economies because escaping poverty relies more and more on genetic dice rolls and social welfare vice work ethic. If you're not smart enough to go through university and become an engineer or a research physicist, or become an entrepreneur, you're basically doomed to work a fairly low wage job forever in countries that are favourable towards free trade policies. Eventually that job may be replaced in which case you are out of work forever. Most entrepreneurship in the knowledge economy looks for knowledge workers as machine labour replaces human labour.

Large companies are bad about it especially because the law of diminishing returns makes hiring and retaining people a more and more difficult task with each new employee, but even Facebook and Microsoft got off the ground by hiring computer science doctorates or people with similar IQs, not Joe Six-Pack who was contracted to replace the HVAC filters because none of the PhDs knew how to do that. Since intelligence is broadly genetic and hereditary, it's not really a surprise given that and increasing intellectual requirements for well paid work, that people are becoming poorer and worse off than they were in the past. You can no longer make a living by simply being a hard worker, you need to be smart, which is something that can't be learned but is innate.

I suggest you read Average Is Over by T. Cowen. It lays out a fairly neutral view of the way super-industrial economies are headed. He simply states trends and extrapolates, no politics or judgments made.

 

[Drakonn]

I guess my point is I'm not sure how you'd make slavery worthwhile over a EC producing race,

That's a really good point.

Let's not derail the thread people.

 

[Rubidium]

If you can provide everyone with pleasant and benevolent conditions it's called communism.

There are always nasty jobs to do. The difference between slavery and free labor, is that the free laborer is getting paid to compensate for the nastiness. The slave lacks even the theoretical ability to legally say "take this job and shove it."

Or to put it another way, there is an obvious reason why every slaveholding society in history (from ancient Rome to the American South) has had to deal with runaway slaves, and lived in mortal terror of slave revolts. It's not because the slaves were ignorant of the true benevolence of their masters.

 

[Kat Tsun]

That's a really good point.

Let's not derail the thread people.

My thinking is that this won't change much, but it will make authoritarians plus perhaps a Thrifty trait to be the optimal.

They might not have the EC bonus of Egalitarian, but they have both early game and comparable late-game advantages. EG/Thrifty only has the mid- to late-game advantage, which makes them weak in the start. If the Authoritarian player deals it right in the beginning, they could start an unstoppable train of destruction if they time their transitions from Caste or Chattel Slavery to Egalitarian properly. They wouldn't be able to catch up to a well husbanded EG/Thrifty race, but they would have inertia that might carry them to the end game while the egalitarian players are still foundering a bit in the transition period from early- to mid-game.

A global research penalty would offset this a bit. There are two issues I can foresee immediately though:

1) It would be such a dastardly pro strat that I don't think the average player could pull it off properly without fumbling at some point, so the risk of a wrecking ball carrying itself on a properly timed transition and early game inertia might be really low in practice. It might also rely too heavily on proper card draws and a bunch of other factors going right (like knowing how much your EG opponent has expanded).

2) The research penalty provided by pops and such may already be adequate to curtail the snowball effect of a mineral boost in the early game.

Assuming that authoritarians and egalitarians are like they are now, then the switch from slavery to a full citizenship system wouldn't be big enough to let the inertia carry you over to toppling the +15% or +5% EC production per pop of a Fan. EG/EG, even with Thrifty, but it would probably still be a strong competitor for debates lasting ages in single-player. The AI isn't exactly Hyper Optimized like MP players might be if they want to pretend Stellaris is an MLG eSports competition, so an early mineral boost might not be terrible if you take the hit in EC.

ATM Fan. Individualist is definitely optimal simply because of the ethos tolerance and the EC bonuses it provides. It's practically OP. Collectivism can't really compare because mineral bonuses are *yawn* and food production is almost a jape.

 

[Madzai]

There are always nasty jobs to do. The difference between slavery and free labor, is that the free laborer is getting paid to compensate for the nastiness. The slave lacks even the theoretical ability to legally say "take this job and shove it."

Actually even today some countries are on the level where most of nasty jobs could be automated, and remaining ones, could be done by a few very skilfully specialist with such a high pay, that job itself wouldn't feel so nasty. The question is that to do with a huge pool of POP that cannot\ don't want do anything besides most simple jobs.

 

[Akka le Vil]

The main advantage of an Authoritarian empire is in mineral production. Slaves get a bonus to it *and* have reduced consumer goods use, and Caste System ensures optimal pop placement on tiles. The effects are fairly small to begin with (any large advantage in the first years of game would not be good) but once you stack some slave bonuses and Consumer Goods cost starts increasing due to the size of your empire, it's a different story. The price you pay is always having to deal with some unrest, but that's just the cost of doing business, and the amounts aren't nearly as bad as a fully enslaved planet under Xenophobes.

I don't really see the link between "authoritarian" and "mineral production". That's just very weird.
Authoritarian should be about the ability to suppress discontent and to be free to decide whatever you want - so ability to increase happiness/decrease ethics divergence through military/police might, and less restriction on your policy choices. But "more mineral" ? Seriously ?

 

[Subcomandante]

The more minerals a mine yields, the fewer mines you need and the more energy producing tiles/pops you can employ. Funny is that this could lead to a more egalitarian society: Fewer slaves around, maybe even concentrated on mining worlds for added efficiency, leads to more egalitarian pull in your pops. More egalitarians means more unrest in a slave society, so it could be better to use robots or change the government. Soon you become a democracy anyway.

 

[MGoods]

I may be misinterpreting but do people on the whole believe that having slaves on a planet will cause non-slave pops to become egalitarian? Because my reading of the stuff we've seen is that having slaves on a planet increases authoritarian attraction (for every pop on the planet), but being enslaved increases egalitarian attraction (for that specific pop). I'll grant you I might be wrong, but I want to be sure that that is actually what other people believe before I start doubting myself.

 

[Kat Tsun]

I may be misinterpreting but do people on the whole believe that having slaves on a planet will cause non-slave pops to become egalitarian? Because my reading of the stuff we've seen is that having slaves on a planet increases authoritarian attraction (for every pop on the planet), but being enslaved increases egalitarian attraction (for that specific pop). I'll grant you I might be wrong, but I want to be sure that that is actually what other people believe before I start doubting myself.

I don't remember the former being mentioned but slaves will gravitate to egalitarianism AFAIK was mentioned in the stream.

 

[The Founder]

Wage-slavery is a modern expression of slavery- it turns out you don't need whips and chains to force somebody to work for you if you place them in a nigh-inescapable economic model (and the entire narrative of "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" is easily read as a variant on "buy your way out of slavery").

Then by your own definition, slaves (wheter wage or classical) do have poorer standart of living then a non-slave. Wich is represented by the Unity cost and mineral cost of consuemr goods right now. That mechanics might change. We have to see how important Unity is in actually play.

You really ought to look up the history of "company towns" and how exploitive they were. It very much wasn't as simple as "moving somewhere else" (with what money? All your wages go into staying alive and are potentially even taken directly out of your pay) or hoping another company offers something better.

It was an economic model designed to entrap and exploit people- something which, again, exists today on a much larger and interconnected scale.

The Company sees "a good situation".
The competiton sees "hey, a recruitment ground where somebody else took care of training those people" (in that model of living and/or the limited skills they need), just need to offer 10% more (wich is still a bargain).
That is a marked difference to Slavery. Nobody could hire your slaves from you. They could be killed or bought, both of wich do not benefit the competition directly.

I may be misinterpreting but do people on the whole believe that having slaves on a planet will cause non-slave pops to become egalitarian? Because my reading of the stuff we've seen is that having slaves on a planet increases authoritarian attraction (for every pop on the planet), but being enslaved increases egalitarian attraction (for that specific pop). I'll grant you I might be wrong, but I want to be sure that that is actually what other people believe before I start doubting myself.

That is how I understand it too. Collectivsit (and maybe Xenophonbe) for non-enslaved pops. Egalitarian for enslaved pops.
Of course asuming that slaves are not hardcoded into a slavery rebel faction anymore, that could cause it's own issues. Especially if you are forced to abolish slavery due to a war.

 

[Hanebuch]

I don't really see the link between "authoritarian" and "mineral production". That's just very weird.
Authoritarian should be about the ability to suppress discontent and to be free to decide whatever you want - so ability to increase happiness/decrease ethics divergence through military/police might, and less restriction on your policy choices. But "more mineral" ? Seriously ?

Slavery increases mineral production, not the authoritarian ethos. The authoritarian ethos decreases slave unrest and decreases resettlement cost. It also allows you to use slavery and decrease the living standards, because it has less restrictions on your policy choices. Slavery and decreasing the living standards will increase your mineral production/decrease the mineral costs.

 

[Chaos_TLW]

Since intelligence is broadly genetic and hereditary

It is even worse than that, really: intelligence has a genetic base to it, but a very large part of it, if not most, is dependent on early-infancy and in-gestation nutrition and stress, which effectively means the cycle is self-perpetuating and the chasm ever-increasing. But yeah, this part of the thread is veering a little bit too off-topic.

Slavery increases mineral production, not the authoritarian ethos. The authoritarian ethos decreases slave unrest and decreases resettlement cost. It also allows you to use slavery and decrease the living standards, because it has less restrictions on your policy choices. Slavery and decreasing the living standards will increase your mineral production/decrease the mineral costs.

Bingo. Auth ethos is not a direct bonus to minerals, but it allows you to effectively exploit slavery, which is a direct bonus to your mineral balance.

 

[Drakonn]

Funny is that this could lead to a more egalitarian society

How so? More slaves=more egalitarian attraction. However, the non slaved POPS enjoying the benefits of the slaves will increase towards Authoritarian. So wouldn't have less slaves lead to more Authoritarian?

I may be misinterpreting but do people on the whole believe that having slaves on a planet will cause non-slave pops to become egalitarian? Because my reading of the stuff we've seen is that having slaves on a planet increases authoritarian attraction (for every pop on the planet), but being enslaved increases egalitarian attraction (for that specific pop). I'll grant you I might be wrong, but I want to be sure that that is actually what other people believe before I start doubting myself.

I believe you have it right here.

I don't remember the former being mentioned but slaves will gravitate to egalitarianism AFAIK was mentioned in the stream.

Pretty certain the non enslaved pops go towards Authoritarian. It's a bit odd because it seems like more slaves is a risk of your empire becoming intolerant of slaves. Unless you can counteract that with the armies maybe diminishing this a bit.

 

[Promethian]

It looks like Authoritarian is going to get a lot from the (current pre-release form of) Harmony tree. The base adoption is 10% happiness to counter some slave unhappiness. Then the right side of the tree gives -20 unrest on the first tradition. These two choices eliminate much of the downside of being authoritarian recognized in this thread.

The 3rd tradition on the right side gives the Paradise Dome which gives 4 food, 2 unity and 10% happiness on the planet. A perfect farm replacement which will have a spot on every planet as well as counter a bit more slave unhappiness.

 

[The Founder]

It looks like Authoritarian is going to get a lot from the (current pre-release form of) Harmony tree. The base adoption is 10% happiness to counter some slave unhappiness. Then the right side of the tree gives -20 unrest on the first tradition. These two choices eliminate much of the downside of being authoritarian recognized in this thread.

The 3rd tradition on the right side gives the Paradise Dome which gives 4 food, 2 unity and 10% happiness on the planet. A perfect farm replacement which will have a spot on every planet as well as counter a bit more slave unhappiness.

It sounds like that would pull you into "Harmonois Collective" territory. Wich is indeed a "benevolent Autocrat".
That Harmony will propably have a strong Pacifist atraction is kind of a no-brainer. Considering it basically is the pacifist Ethos bonus selection. Down to the old "Defensive War" War Economics.

Also note that as of 1.4, slaves do not benefit in any way from Happiness bonuses or penalties. Wich includes them not getting the bonus to Ethics Divergence of free pops, meaning they are liable to diverge more already.

 

[Madzai]

Also note that as of 1.4, slaves do not benefit in any way from Happiness bonuses or penalties. Wich includes them not getting the bonus to Ethics Divergence of free pops, meaning they are liable to diverge more already.

I hope this will change for 1.5. Because judging from the stream (and again. i can be wrong) unhappy slaves cause more unrest, so the are affect by happiness (unlike 1.4). So if slaves being unhappy can cause additional negative effect, but positive effects from happiness and divergence don't apply it looks like double penalty.

 

[Cat Crusade]

Oddly, while the slavery meme seems useful and necessary for gaming purposes, its economic value has always been either marginal or contingent. Certainly slavery has been a common economic form throughout human history, but this is really because pockets of it have existed in some places at all times. It's never really existed in all places at any time, let alone all places in all times.

Slavery is always very contingent upon social, economic and political circumstances, and it's therefore unstable. Any polity relying on it, rather than using it as just another minor mode of production, seems compelled to either reform/abolish/adapt it or become ossified and fail economically. The theories trying to "universally" rationalize or explain the phenomenon, such as John Locke and Adam Smith (who in rationalizing its economic merits may have been trying to avoid the fate of some of his disciples), have never been very convincing seen from a distance, even on their own merits within their own theories. The more recent "biological" attempts have been both laughable and narrowly limited to African slavery. That illustrates the core problem. The issue is that there are many types of radically incompatible slavery, sometimes coexisting even within the same societies - from helots and Hollywood's galley-slave fleets, through the Roman latifundia/mining slaves and domestics/bureaucrats, to the Mamelukes and Janissaries, through to modern slaves used for marginal and usually technically unlawful prostitution and gangs/factory work.

In the most-popularized slavery model, New World slavery from the sixteenth century, curiously African slaves often might expect to be treated more humanely than English free-born ("indentured") slaves doing the same work, simply because they were valuable property and remained so even if they had escaped. (Until disrupted by Mansfield CJ's very narrow 1772 decision in Somersett v Steuart that slaves in England lawfully could not be taken to the colonies against their will. This was, of course, one of the core grievances of the Thirteen Colonies, setting the scene for continuation of slavery in the USA after it was abolished by statute in the British Empire just three decades after independence).

This is way too complicated for simulation, of course. But I guess all we need to remember is that slavery ought to be economically useful at some times and in some circumstances (ethics?/traits?governments?), rather than universally viable or sustainable; while at the same time undermining social stability.

I view the way the game uses it as a reference to sci-fi works that tend to have slaver empires as the bad guys. So I agree that the economics of slavery on the scale present in Stellaris is kind of silly realistically speaking, particularly with interstellar societies which should be able to adapt a more profitable model, but the rule of cool makes it a thing that's just plain fun to have in the game. Slaver empires just make such good bad guys to fight against and are so obviously evil the game would be more dull without them.

 

[Kat Tsun]

More likely it's because popular science fiction is the 1840s Wild West/America sociopolitics transplanted to space travel and zero gravity gangsters (microgravity marauders?). Chattel slavery was a serious question in American politics at the time, so it exists in science fiction and works too, because it worked in the 1840s.

 

[Madzai]

I view the way the game uses it as a reference to sci-fi works that tend to have slaver empires as the bad guys. So I agree that the economics of slavery on the scale present in Stellaris is kind of silly realistically speaking, particularly with interstellar societies which should be able to adapt a more profitable model, but the rule of cool makes it a thing that's just plain fun to have in the game. Slaver empires just make such good bad guys to fight against and are so obviously evil the game would be more dull without them.

It's not only slavery that's unrealistic - it's fairly obvious that soon almost in every field where manual labor was used, we soon use full automation, so for a civilization that reached stars not using full automation of such processes is retarded (no matter what ideology or religion they use). Same goes for production - a person can never achieve precision of modern CNC machine. So sectors of economy where where you need people in huge numbers will be rare.

More likely it's because popular science fiction is the 1840s Wild West/America sociopolitics transplanted to space travel and zero gravity gangsters (microgravity marauders?). Chattel slavery was a serious question in American politics at the time, so it exists in science fiction and works too, because it worked in the 1840s.

Even Founding Father of hard science fiction were unable to predict how our computing will grow and where Moore's Law will take our society. So they tried to image futuristic societies based on modern ones. Now it's quite obvious that those ideas are long obsolete.

 

[Cat Crusade]

More likely it's because popular science fiction is the 1840s Wild West/America sociopolitics transplanted to space travel and zero gravity gangsters (microgravity marauders?). Chattel slavery was a serious question in American politics at the time, so it exists in science fiction and works too, because it worked in the 1840s.

Well yes, I meant to say that because of the social consensus that developed since marking slavery as a "societal evil" slavery in sci-fi is an easy way to create a badguy.

It's not only slavery that's unrealistic - it's fairly obvious that soon almost in every field where manual labor was used, we soon use full automation, so for a civilization that reached stars not using full automation of such processes is retarded (no matter what ideology or religion they use). Same goes for production - a person can never achieve precision of modern CNC machine. So sectors of economy where where you need people in huge numbers will be rare.

I also find it silly that societies where there is gradually less room for manual labor workforce would have need of slavery so in that sense I agree. Still want it in the game as a standard sci-fi trope though. And to give more variety of game styles. Can always justify it in my head by some unique sci-fi doohickey that somehow makes slavery more economic than machine work.