Also… if you’re up for it, could you just sort of ramble a bit about what this video is about, on the object and meta level? (I wouldn’t have put effort into interpreting it if I’d come across it randomly, it’s now elevated to my attention as something I might want to be put effort into interpreting, but I think given time constraints I’m more interested in hearing what it means to you.)
The protagonist is fixated on an image that’s been marketed to her by someone wealthy enough to control a planet. The image isn’t very high-content, and she’s willing to undertake a dangerous and arduous journey, which implies that things aren’t very good at home.
She’s in a world where travel is expensive. Somehow, improbably, in outer space, she has to pay a toll. This should clue us in that something sketchy is going on. Tolls are one of the classic modes of rent extraction, second only to land rents in their centrality as an image. There’s a plausible excuse for tolls on improvements like bridges, but you don’t need bridges in space—you can only collect the toll by preventing people from going around you. This should inform how we interpret the subsequent interactions where she pays for fuel, repair to her spaceship, and repair to her body; it’s not obvious how much of the price is needed to pay for the cost of the service, and how much is a rent extracted by a predatory monopolist.
At each stage, the protagonist sacrifices capacity (in the form of mobility affordances, maybe the most concrete and central instance of capacity, from the Latin capere, meaning to take hold of something—she trades away her hand, then her leg, then her remaining limbs, then her spaceship (albeit getting a fully functioning body back as far as we know)) for some progress towards her destination. Then, once she gets there, she finds that she’s traded away her ability to move, for relocation to a place that’s no longer providing the service it advertised. It’s true at each point that you wouldn’t be helping her by preventing her from making the trade, but focusing on that aspect of the situation makes one a price-taker in a case where that attitude doesn’t actually unlock any value.
The resort planet owner likely never colluded with the toll collector, the fueling station, the repair station, or the rescue team. They just imposed complementary negative externalities. The resort planet owner doesn’t pay the price of disappointed customers who arrive after the resort shuts down, so they simply don’t bother pulling their ads. The other actors don’t need to know why people want to go from point A to point B, they just know that they can interpose themselves in the middle and take resources they want.
It’s important to bear in mind that no one overtly cheats anyone else in this scenario—all the parties are operating as honest traders, at least when considered within the bounds of the specific transaction they’re executing. And yet, the whole situation is horrible in a way that the trades don’t actually alleviate.
Also… if you’re up for it, could you just sort of ramble a bit about what this video is about, on the object and meta level? (I wouldn’t have put effort into interpreting it if I’d come across it randomly, it’s now elevated to my attention as something I might want to be put effort into interpreting, but I think given time constraints I’m more interested in hearing what it means to you.)
Sure!
Here are a few interesting characteristic facts:
The protagonist is fixated on an image that’s been marketed to her by someone wealthy enough to control a planet. The image isn’t very high-content, and she’s willing to undertake a dangerous and arduous journey, which implies that things aren’t very good at home.
She’s in a world where travel is expensive. Somehow, improbably, in outer space, she has to pay a toll. This should clue us in that something sketchy is going on. Tolls are one of the classic modes of rent extraction, second only to land rents in their centrality as an image. There’s a plausible excuse for tolls on improvements like bridges, but you don’t need bridges in space—you can only collect the toll by preventing people from going around you. This should inform how we interpret the subsequent interactions where she pays for fuel, repair to her spaceship, and repair to her body; it’s not obvious how much of the price is needed to pay for the cost of the service, and how much is a rent extracted by a predatory monopolist.
At each stage, the protagonist sacrifices capacity (in the form of mobility affordances, maybe the most concrete and central instance of capacity, from the Latin capere, meaning to take hold of something—she trades away her hand, then her leg, then her remaining limbs, then her spaceship (albeit getting a fully functioning body back as far as we know)) for some progress towards her destination. Then, once she gets there, she finds that she’s traded away her ability to move, for relocation to a place that’s no longer providing the service it advertised. It’s true at each point that you wouldn’t be helping her by preventing her from making the trade, but focusing on that aspect of the situation makes one a price-taker in a case where that attitude doesn’t actually unlock any value.
The resort planet owner likely never colluded with the toll collector, the fueling station, the repair station, or the rescue team. They just imposed complementary negative externalities. The resort planet owner doesn’t pay the price of disappointed customers who arrive after the resort shuts down, so they simply don’t bother pulling their ads. The other actors don’t need to know why people want to go from point A to point B, they just know that they can interpose themselves in the middle and take resources they want.
It’s important to bear in mind that no one overtly cheats anyone else in this scenario—all the parties are operating as honest traders, at least when considered within the bounds of the specific transaction they’re executing. And yet, the whole situation is horrible in a way that the trades don’t actually alleviate.
woah.