Bad and good science in Avatar!

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

Workers can go on strike, and corporation-influenced governments can go against the corporation. Do you really think Quaritch's little army can beat up the U.S. Air Force? Probably not.

RDA can also be split up.

The unobtanium trade would NOT be stopped. The only reason why Avatar happened was because of evil Quaritch. It is possible to find a "diplomatic solution" in fact. For example, why destroy Hometree? Why not just go under Hometree, get the unobtanium out, and leave the hometree on top untouched? Besides, the fallen Hometree is one hell of a mess to clean. The only reason why it happened is because Quaritch hates the Na'vi and likes to have their home destroyed.

The profit motive is not a question here. If Pandoran plants are brought back it really would be worth $20 million a kilo. Much more in fact. Think about this. Cleaner Earth -> more productivity for factories and agriculture -> less need for unobtanium -> saves lots of antimatter for Pandora

[Tsyal Maktoyu]

Well if the RDA controls the government (and thus the military), well, I'm sure you know where this goes...

And going under Hometree would compromise the root system. Imagine how far deep the roots run on a skyscraper sized tree! And the RDA could care less about the mess, it's not like cleaning it up is their job.

And if the military-industrial complex that the RDA operates under is anything like the one today, unobtainium would still be worth more. The whole operation is only to enrich a small minority of wealthy people. They could care less if the world is forced to live on a polluted planet and eat ocean-grown algea. They have their own business interests to look out for, and that interest is unobtainium.

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

A small minority of wealthy people? Wow...sounds like Marxism! Sorry for the pun, but what I mean is that if you get the wealthy people really rich, then the people working for the wealthy people also get somewhat richer. Think about this. What earns you more money: working for Bill Gates or working for a tiny company about to go bankrupt? And the RDA employees look quite well-fed and so on. The people on Earth look dirty, but not really poor.

[Tsyal Maktoyu]

Well, that's exactly what it has become. Corporate marxism. Instead of working for the people, the government is working for Wall Street.

And don't get me started on trickle down economics... If you're working for Bill Gate's electronics manufactorers, probably not. You're most likely working in a sweatshop somewhere.



All it has done is made the rich richer, and the middleclass and poor even poorer. Concentration of market power in a handful is businesses is a bad thing, it allows managment to do whatever they want. People were doing much better when there were more small businesses in the world.

It states in the Survival Guide that most people on Earth are pale and sickly. Things might be somewhat better for the Secops guys, but a world not run by the RDA at all would be even better, no?

Watch the movie, dude.

[Txura Rolyu]

From the looks of the people sitting around the bar in the movie they werent exactly pale and sckly... in the special edition opening when Jake fights the guy for hitting the lady he was with.

[Tsyal Maktoyu]

The one's in the street did, though. Same with the pics in the SG. With all the people wearing gas masks.

This is all just peanuts, though. I stand by my idea that the Earth would be better off if the RDA was toppled.

[Txura Rolyu]

Walmart could use to go as well.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Uniltìrantokx te Skxawng I think the issue in difference between you  me and Tsyal is that me and Tsyal see, at least this is what I'm reading, see the RDA and other corps, like Matanza, -are- the governments of the world, and they only the the "real" governments exist because its good PR if it -seems- that they are at the will of those "real" governments. Especially when the Corps really do control everything.

The Sec-ops, and everyone on Hell's gate would be extremely well taken care of. Reason is is that the investment was so great to get those people out there in the first place, they will do everything in their power to make sure that investment out there is highly protected. Remember there can only be about 5,000 people in the complex, not really that much more. If you lose even a single person, the severely diminishes production capacity, or in terms of the SecOps, protection. Thus, food, medical, and physical protections/advancements would be made to keep their investments alive.

Regarding workers going onstrikes, I point my next arguement to the old mining towns in America. Here, these towns would be built up entirely by the corporation that owned the mines for the workers that would work there. they lived in corporate housing, were paid in corporate currency, which was then used to buy groceries at a corporately owned supermarket. I see the Earth of Pandora being very similar to this kind of lifestyle, where the corporation owns you. So much so, that you don't even have the OPTION to strike. Well, you would always have the option, but then your family wont have food/a place to live.

The situation regarding the RDA going down, or even walmart, is something of a very big catch-22. I honestly doubt that the RDA is the only mega-corp that exists in 2154. I'm pretty sure that there are others there too. It's just that the RDA owns a niche in the market, and owns it completely.

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

You seem to forget a fact of economics - diseconomy of scale. If a company grows so large that it controls governments and et cetera, it will break up by itself. Think of what happened to AT&T. The only thing viable is that the RDA has a monopoly on unobtanium and NOTHING ELSE, no news media, no supermarkets, nothing but unobtanium. This way prospective competitors to RDA can actually use the things on Pandora as THEIR propaganda against the RDA.

I truly believe that it is totally impossible to have a company control the government. Yes, it can back a candidate with campaign money, but it does not have any true power.

The film also tells us something. Back on Earth, these guys were Army dogs, marines. Here, they're just taking the money, working for the company. This means that there are army dogs and marines on Earth. Even though the Sec-Ops has lots of ex-marines and such, I will place my bet on the Army if it attacks the Sec-Ops. Additionally, RDA might control the US army, but how about the UN? If insurgent groups bombing up places and killing tens of people bother the UN, why wouldn't a paramilitary "security" force of a COMPANY killing HUNDREDS of Na'vi JUST FOR UNOBTANIUM??? It will probably anger the UN and everybody.

And as Thomas R said, amateur news is getting more and more popular and cost-effective. Again, diseconomy of scale. It is hard to keep a secret if there are lots of people involved. This is also the reason why there can't be any 9/11 conspiracy, UFO conspiracy, and such. It is way too hard to keep a secret even in the CIA (think Wikileaks) and it is even harder to keep a secret in the RDA, which is a company. Companies are required to report accurately on their business practices.

Again, you cannot use "without the RDA there wouldn't be any unobtanium" as a reason. Why couldn't you just get rid of the RDA the same way you get rid of Enron? According to economics the market will always fill itself up. Maybe it will turn into a competitive oligopoly and people will get cheaper unobtanium.

The socialist-y thing about the rich people getting richer on artificially inflated prices just doesn't apply on unobtanium. Think about this:

RDA breaks up -> cheaper unobtanium due to competition -> lower cost for superconducting wires -> lower cost of capital goods -> higher profit -> people complain -> lower consumer good prices -> still a higher profit than before -> companies get rich -> consumers get rich (low prices & high wages)

Unless the RDA CEO is a very shortsighted skxawng who only sees revenue and not total profit, of course...

[Tsyal Maktoyu]

Again, how do you know they don't have control over other services on Earth? Just under different labels? It happens all the time right here in modern times. Again, look at GE, they control aerospace products, appliances, and even MSNBC. Most food companies are controlled by 4 main corporations (including all sub-brands that we are supposed to see as independent smaller businesses).

And there's a difference between the secops working directly for the RDA and indirectly through the military-industrial complex. Sure, on Earth, they worked under the title of the government (controlled by RDA), now they are answering straight to the RDA. And the UN? The UN has little actual power, sadly. They're decent at organizing operations with governments (like Libya), but they're weak as an organization. Plus, if the governments are controlled by the corporations, so much for that...

And you don't think corporations can control government? Consider this: In the US, by the Constitution, the yearly income of a Congressman is $174,000, but at the same time, there are 237 millionares in Congress. Think about that...

And that's not what diseconomy of scale is. Diseconomy of scale refers to the increase of prices as a corporation gains power, which is exactly why monopolisation of a bad thing.

And income disparity does not come from artificial inflation (not completely, at least). It comes from outsourcing and lower wages, which a corporation can get away with if there is very little competition for employees to go to (as is the situation with the RDA). And yes, this can come from CEOs focusing on short term profits. This is one of the fatal flaws with modern corporate structures. The focus must be on immediate-returns for stockholders, with little focus on long-term externalities.

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

For GE and Walmart diseconomy of scale does mean higher prices. For RDA it means bankruptcy. You see, how can you coordinate a company with branches with communication delays of more than 4 years (A.Centauri and Earth)

And the RDA is not controlling the government. The government actually made the RDA sign an agreement banning nukes and WMDs on Pandora - do you think that the government is subject to the RDA? If so it will probably grant the RDA an exception on the rule and let them ship WMDs to Pandora and blast the Na'vi with viruses and nukes.

For the GE thing, that is not a lot. Imagine GE controlling every single news source on Earth, of every single country, of every single town. Even the school newspapers are bought by GE. This is to keep the thing about GE killing a bunch of Na'vi secret. Is this possible? I doubt so. Maybe MSNBC will help GE do propaganda, but MSNBC is not everybody's favorite news outlet, and of course there will be dissent within MSNBC and stories will leak out. Think about Wikileaks. Except that those RDA skxawngs actually recorded footage of the falling of Hometree.

As for millionaires in Congress, why can't an oil tycoon be a congressman? Are we discriminating against CEOs? Does an oil tycoon congressman have any more power in Congress than an ordinary-person congressman? No! If we continue to do this it will be the RICH people who come out and yell, "Equality for the rich! Money is not bad!" and it will be a big mess.

And for the people on Earth, look at Jake's huge TV. Yeah, malnutrition could be a problem, but the people have pretty clean and fancy clothes.

The money trickling down is not a hoax. It is real. The only reason why sweatshops exist is that because in China labor HAS to be cheap. The labor in China is just too menial and the people just too many to demand a high wage without destroying the company. For example on Chinese highways there are about three to four people crowded together collecting the fees. Only one of them is actually doing the work, and the rest two or three just hang around and chat. Does four people doing things more slowly than one person or just a machine can do demand high wages? No! You don't know how many companies actually LOST money hiring workers in "sweatshops." I'm not saying that sweatshops are good or anything, they are just a sad reality in an overpopulated place like China where a higher wage means either lots of firing or lots of bankrupting companies.

By the way, let's get back to the science and not the social science, OK? I'll start:

[Tsyal Maktoyu]

Fine. But I still think you give too much benefit of the doubt to the world's corporate power (or according to you, lackthereof). We're obviously on different sides of the political spectrum.

Back on topic.

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

Has any of you calculated the force on an average Na'vi body resulting from a 9,600,000,000 Tesla magnetic field?

[ExLibrisMortis]

I would like to add that the RDA has exclusive rights to the Unobtanium. But nevertheless, continue with the science discussion.

[Clarke]

Has any of you calculated the force on an average Na'vi body resulting from a 9,600,000,000 Tesla magnetic field?

Assuming a body temperature of 310K, (37 and a bit C) then every water molecule in the field is accelerated at 10²⁰m/s², in a basically random direction. Ouch.  

Uniltìrantokx te Skxawng I think the issue in difference between you  me and Tsyal is that me and Tsyal see, at least this is what I'm reading, see the RDA and other corps, like Matanza, -are- the governments of the world, and they only the the "real" governments exist because its good PR if it -seems- that they are at the will of those "real" governments. Especially when the Corps really do control everything.

The nuke-em-from-orbit solution is for the Joint Chiefs of Staff to... convince Congress (through whatever means ) to authorize the military to defend the US internally. If that goes through, then it's game over as far as RDA control is concerned. The JCoS can then implement pretty much anything, even dissolution of the RDA, since they'd be "defending the US". Though that option really depends on whether the combined US Military can be more persuasive than the RDA.

Also, for IRL cred, look up the News of the World hacking scandal. A journalist working for NotW was found hacking into peoples voicemails, and arrested in 2005. But then, someone re-opened the case, with the end result that the NotW ceased to be, and News International itself is now under heavy scrutiny, to the point where the two Murdochs (who own the majority share in News Corp., the owners of NI) were pulled up in front of Parliament.
A minor footnote is that Rupert Murdoch submitted a request to buy out the remainder of BSkyB, (he already owns about 45%) a large TV broadcaster. He pulled out the request in the middle of the scandal, but most people think he only did that so that the Government didn't have a chance to say "no".

Are you sure monopolies can't be toppled with the right words in the right place?  

[Niwantaw]

Uniltìrantokx te Skxawng you live in a country that is controlled entirely by the government. Most of the rest of the world doesn't. In america or even most of the UN is run by governments that can only act for as long as they have the support to act. And no matter how bad somewhere is the last thing people ever want to do is get involved in someone else's war. They don't even know what the hell is going on on pandora so back on earth the government couldn't give a s*** about things they don't know about. so really while they will ban things like WMDs on a different planet they don't really care about the rest. In the eyes of the public they look good, the RDA looks good and the public is happy that nothing bad can happen to the natives of pandora. Net result: the RDA can do what the hell they like because the only people who will ever know work for them.

just my 2p.

[Clarke]

However, that does rely on nobody releasing a tape of Hometree being destroyed.

[Niwantaw]

However, that does rely on nobody releasing a tape of Hometree being destroyed.

That's the point. As long as they keep a  tight control on the information coming from pandora they can do whatever they damn well please

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

Do you know that most leakers work for the company that they are leaking info about? The very fact that they work for the RDA means that they will tell others about it.

It is extremely easy to release a tape of Hometree being destroyed. Jake can easily beam it to every government agency and army (the RDA cannot control ALL of them!) and all media outlets (the RDA cannot coerce EVERY one of them!) and perhaps Wikileaks. And that would be two years before the ISV arrives. Think about it...

[Irtaviš Ačankif]

Uniltìrantokx te Skxawng you live in a country that is controlled entirely by the government. Most of the rest of the world doesn't. In america or even most of the UN is run by governments that can only act for as long as they have the support to act. And no matter how bad somewhere is the last thing people ever want to do is get involved in someone else's war. They don't even know what the hell is going on on pandora so back on earth the government couldn't give a s*** about things they don't know about. so really while they will ban things like WMDs on a different planet they don't really care about the rest. In the eyes of the public they look good, the RDA looks good and the public is happy that nothing bad can happen to the natives of pandora. Net result: the RDA can do what the hell they like because the only people who will ever know work for them.

just my 2p.

I live in a country that is controlled entirely by the government. Yeah, mostly. Even what you know. However, in the US you have a country that is controlled entirely by the people. Are their more pople in the RDA or outside? If more than half of the US population works for the RDA, then maybe the RDA is actually being fair!

However, if RDA is just like Walmart, it's moot. Since legally a company is ONE person, it can only cast ONE vote.