Re: TL Loss & Trade

> From: [email removed] (Michael A. Surman)
> Subject: (3522) TL Loss & Trade
>
> My question is this: How does a planet maintain the loss of its tech
> level? If a planet went from TL 12 to TL 9 it wouldn't take long to
> get back to 12. It may take awhile to spread over the entire planet
> but it would occur. And it would occur much more quickly than the
> first time since the knowledge is still there.

  The answer according to Hard Times is apparently that the Imperium was
just a big version of the Soviet Union where one planet made TL15 left shoes,
coathangers, and eggspoons and nothing else.

  Then Hard Times strike and all that they have left when the trade stopped
coming is a huge surplus of left shoes, coathangers, and eggspoons bursting
out of the warehouses to drown everyone and inflict irreparable ecologic
damage as all the polished eggspoons reflect sunlight, increasing the albedo
of the planet and making its temperature drop.

  No, I'm not drunk, there is an almost as silly example in Hard Times on
page 49.

- -bertil-
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