Infinite Economics
January 12, 2011 10:39 AM Subscribe
Do the economics in Nick Spencer and Christian Ward's Infinite Vacation make sense? Are supply and demand meaningless concepts when an infinite multiverse is brought into the picture?
Infinite Vacation is a new comic series that started today. Here's how Image describes it:
> Mark lives in a world where alternate realities are up for
> sale, and buying and trading your way through unlimited
> variations of yourself is as commonplace as checking your
> email or updating your status. But when other "hims" start
> dying suddenly and he meets a mysterious girl who wants
> nothing to do with "life-changing," he'll learn the truth
> about the universe he stumbles through, and what happens
> when your vacation turns on you.
Restating the premise of the series, there's an online marketplace that lets you trade places with alternate versions of yourself from parallel worlds. A simple scenario would be, say I slipped on the ice this morning and got my clothes all dirty. I could log into the Infinite Vacation app and bid on a world where I didn't slip. Another "me" from a parallel world who wants to make some cash and has time to go home and change could sell, we'd trade places, and both be happy. The comic goes into scenarios like finding a world where you wind up with your high school girlfriend, a world where you're president, and also mundane things like one where you didn't forget to buy milk. The idea seems to be that more drastic/desirable alternate worlds are more expensive.
My question is, if the multiverse is infinite, wouldn't the sort of scarcity that drives supply/demand be moot? If there are infinite "me"s out there, it should be simple to find one who's living the life I want to trade into (and wants to trade out of it). Or do I not understand infinity?
Infinite Vacation is a new comic series that started today. Here's how Image describes it:
> Mark lives in a world where alternate realities are up for
> sale, and buying and trading your way through unlimited
> variations of yourself is as commonplace as checking your
> email or updating your status. But when other "hims" start
> dying suddenly and he meets a mysterious girl who wants
> nothing to do with "life-changing," he'll learn the truth
> about the universe he stumbles through, and what happens
> when your vacation turns on you.
Restating the premise of the series, there's an online marketplace that lets you trade places with alternate versions of yourself from parallel worlds. A simple scenario would be, say I slipped on the ice this morning and got my clothes all dirty. I could log into the Infinite Vacation app and bid on a world where I didn't slip. Another "me" from a parallel world who wants to make some cash and has time to go home and change could sell, we'd trade places, and both be happy. The comic goes into scenarios like finding a world where you wind up with your high school girlfriend, a world where you're president, and also mundane things like one where you didn't forget to buy milk. The idea seems to be that more drastic/desirable alternate worlds are more expensive.
My question is, if the multiverse is infinite, wouldn't the sort of scarcity that drives supply/demand be moot? If there are infinite "me"s out there, it should be simple to find one who's living the life I want to trade into (and wants to trade out of it). Or do I not understand infinity?
Any economic system which involves the word "infinite" in it somewhere almost by definition does not make sense.
posted by valkyryn at 10:55 AM on January 12, 2011
posted by valkyryn at 10:55 AM on January 12, 2011
It makes sense to me if someone is providing you the service that connects you to these alternate yous. Presumably there is some technology involved that is not widely available. By charging more for "big" experiences and less for more mundane ones they're maximizing their profit, assuming there's a consistent base cost for supplying any experience. People aren't willing to pay as much to remember to pick up milk as they would be to rekindle an old romance.
posted by ghharr at 11:07 AM on January 12, 2011
posted by ghharr at 11:07 AM on January 12, 2011
I haven't read the series, but it would seem to me:
If there are infinite versions of me, such that there was one who didn't slip on the ice this morning, then there would would have to be infinite versions that didn't slip on the ice this morning (this step is probably where the comic disagrees?). If there were infinite versions, there would be not just one, but infinite of them, who were willing to sell for $0.01. So prices wouldn't mean much?
posted by piato at 11:08 AM on January 12, 2011
If there are infinite versions of me, such that there was one who didn't slip on the ice this morning, then there would would have to be infinite versions that didn't slip on the ice this morning (this step is probably where the comic disagrees?). If there were infinite versions, there would be not just one, but infinite of them, who were willing to sell for $0.01. So prices wouldn't mean much?
posted by piato at 11:08 AM on January 12, 2011
Cool Papa Bell: I think you're forgetting that there are an equal number of buyers and sellers. So while there's a near-infinite number of people selling universes where you hook up with your high school girlfriend with a molecule or so's difference, there's an equally large number of people trying to buy those universes. So, the price should still reflect the desirability of the universe being sold.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 11:38 AM on January 12, 2011
posted by TheophileEscargot at 11:38 AM on January 12, 2011
Cool Papa Bell: I think you're forgetting that there are an equal number of buyers and sellers.
Interesting. But in this model, the prices would rise to the point of infinity, too.
There are (infinity - 1) number of suitable high school girlfriend universes (because at some point, the "molecule's difference" adds up to the universe not matching the desire).
But there's an infinite number of buyers (because while there's a limit to the number of workable scenarios, there's no limit the number of "yous" that want them). The infinite buyers will collectively bid the price up to infinity.
I think.
My head hurts.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 11:56 AM on January 12, 2011
Interesting. But in this model, the prices would rise to the point of infinity, too.
There are (infinity - 1) number of suitable high school girlfriend universes (because at some point, the "molecule's difference" adds up to the universe not matching the desire).
But there's an infinite number of buyers (because while there's a limit to the number of workable scenarios, there's no limit the number of "yous" that want them). The infinite buyers will collectively bid the price up to infinity.
I think.
My head hurts.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 11:56 AM on January 12, 2011
Once you bring infinity into the picture you can play all kinds of games that make economics effectively meaningless.
But as long as we're playing: If it's a perfectly efficient market, and there's an infinite number of infinitely varying universes, then I think all prices would be zero: for any given universe A there must exist at least one other universe B which the resident of A -- and only the resident of A -- would find perfect, and vice-versa. (B has a total sexual fetish for ice bruising.) So every shopper could find their ideal swap, trade places, and that would be that.
(We can't say that some universes will be more desirable than others, because the notion of what's "desirable" will also vary.)
But if it's not a perfectly efficient market, then while there's an infinite number of possible universes to choose from, there isn't infinite time to riffle through the big Catalog Of Worlds or whatever to find your perfect one, so you're back to a bidding scenario. Here's where my head starts to hurt; I think prices would rise to infinity as the others above have described, but I'm not certain of that.
Eventually somebody's going to bring up Cantor diagonals and we'll all be even more confused.
posted by ook at 3:13 PM on January 12, 2011
But as long as we're playing: If it's a perfectly efficient market, and there's an infinite number of infinitely varying universes, then I think all prices would be zero: for any given universe A there must exist at least one other universe B which the resident of A -- and only the resident of A -- would find perfect, and vice-versa. (B has a total sexual fetish for ice bruising.) So every shopper could find their ideal swap, trade places, and that would be that.
(We can't say that some universes will be more desirable than others, because the notion of what's "desirable" will also vary.)
But if it's not a perfectly efficient market, then while there's an infinite number of possible universes to choose from, there isn't infinite time to riffle through the big Catalog Of Worlds or whatever to find your perfect one, so you're back to a bidding scenario. Here's where my head starts to hurt; I think prices would rise to infinity as the others above have described, but I'm not certain of that.
Eventually somebody's going to bring up Cantor diagonals and we'll all be even more confused.
posted by ook at 3:13 PM on January 12, 2011
There is no place where "infinite" and "market" intersect, by definition. It sounds like an interesting premise, possibly a fantastic story (and I wish the author well), but it has no basis in economics.
posted by kjs3 at 9:34 PM on January 12, 2011
posted by kjs3 at 9:34 PM on January 12, 2011
Response by poster: > But if it's not a perfectly efficient market, then while
> there's an infinite number of possible universes to choose
> from, there isn't infinite time to riffle through the big
> Catalog Of Worlds or whatever to find your perfect one, so
> you're back to a bidding scenario.
I think you've got it there. In fact, at one point in the story the main character comments about how sometimes you can't find what you want immediately. So perhaps the search engine has practical limits which would introduce scarcity.
posted by davextreme at 4:54 AM on January 13, 2011
> there's an infinite number of possible universes to choose
> from, there isn't infinite time to riffle through the big
> Catalog Of Worlds or whatever to find your perfect one, so
> you're back to a bidding scenario.
I think you've got it there. In fact, at one point in the story the main character comments about how sometimes you can't find what you want immediately. So perhaps the search engine has practical limits which would introduce scarcity.
posted by davextreme at 4:54 AM on January 13, 2011
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Scarcity, though, could be introduced by limiting the means of purchase, not the product itself. I can go buy food and cook it myself. Or I can buy food cooked by Mario Batali. They are not the same, and Mario charges handsomely for the expertise he provides.
Conceivably, one could make a business in curating your "infinite experience" purchase ("Look, I spent hours and found you a universe that meets your exacting standards ... now pay up.") Or providing the equipment, expertise, etc, to actually make this switch ("It'll be $10 to step into my universe-switching machine").
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 10:47 AM on January 12, 2011