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I’ve seen a fair amount of discussion about the financial wisdom of the Empire in Star Wars building the Death Star. What all the analysis seems to miss, though, is how incredibly cheap such a device would be to build for an advanced civilization. People often forget how radically technology will change our ideas of cost.
If you have great robotics, very good artificial intelligence and faster than light travel, all technology present in the Star Wars Universe, a Death Star should be nearly free to construct with enough time.
To understand this we need to examine what we currently think of as wealth. With current technology such a thing would be prohibitively expensive, because it would require a lot of material, a lot of energy and a lot of labor. All three are costly now but would be extremely cheap for his fictional advance civilization.
- Material - it costs a lot to find the right metals, pull them out of the ground and refine them on Earth. The resources are limited here on Earth. A civilization with faster than light travel, though, doesn’t have this problem. Over thousands of star systems it should be easy to find an asteroid that is the right size made of mostly pure metal.
- Energy – Energy costs a lot based on our limited technology, but space is full of easy to get unlimited energy. Simply place some solar panels or solar sails near a star and you have a huge amount of energy to work it.
- Labor – With good intelligent robots the whole thing could basically be constructed without any person needing to work on building it. If need be you can even start with just a few robots and have them build more robots until the labor force is an optimum. This is basically what the mathematician John von Neumann suggested.
The basic Death Star construction plan is simple. Find the large space rock, drop off some robots with the plans and a power source, and come back later when it is finished. It is more like you grow it from seed than actually construct it. Total cost is almost nothing.
I’m writing this not only because it is fun to be incredibly nerdy, but I think it highlights the important point that ideas of wealth and value will be impacted by future technological development. Only 150 years ago aluminum was much more valuable than gold. In 1850 a single aluminum chair would cost the equivalent of half a million dollars, but I can buy one for $50. Similarly a few generations ago fresh imported fruit was an unimaginable luxury, but now I can buy Mangos for $3.99 a pound.
Technological change can make what was once extremely costly nearly free. It can make the once incredibly rare a common place luxury or even a necessity. Technology’s ability to radically change things shouldn’t be forgotten. It will likely make any very long term budget projections based on currently spending patterns completely worthless.
The Economist Keynes once said, “in the long run, we are all dead.” I would like to add that in the long run, technology will radically change our society, our industries and costs in ways that are today unimaginable.
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I think we already have a Death Star. It’s called the US military/NATO — or any nation’s military. It’s often used to protect the key energy source, oil, and it’s paid for not because technology is “cheap” from innovation, but because a huge amount of spending can be done by government, with minimal costs, if it decides it wants to create money for that purpose.
Somehow, all the “deficit spending” for that purpose does not harm the economy, and stopping it would cause unemployment, but it is well known that if you spent that on health care or feeding/sheltering people, the Empire would ask the regional governors to crush the rebellion.
We already have a Debt Star.
Wouldn’t a “resort star” be more practical. LIke a combination of Cancun and Las Vegas, only a little cooler in the summer.
Jon, I disagree with your last sentence. I think you did a pretty good job of it right here.
After the singularity, advanced AI will probably consider biology a nuisance and death stars a necessity.
I saw the original article and I thought it was very nerdy (made me smile). To see John give it a shot, just made it way more interesting. I think I would agree to John’s take that cost would not be an issue.
The original article’s point was that there are far better allocation of resources to achieve the goal of the death star then the death star. But if it is basically free to construct one, then why not an all of the above approach for such an advance civilization!
Uh-oh … deathstar economics.
I don’t see how placing solar collectors near a fixed source such as a sun could provide power for a deathstar that moves from star system to star system destroying planetoids.
Also. Faster-than-light travel doesn’t necessarily mean cost-free faster-than-light travel.
I was talking about energy to construct it not to run it
To see John give it a shot, just made it way more interesting. I think I would agree to John’s take that cost would not be an issue.
Jon isn’t called “the thinking man’s Ezra Klein” for nothing.
The expense of a Death Star does not come from the three elements listed. The true inflation of Death Star prices comes from Management which is determined to extract the full price and the Government which will so overload the Death Star with new and exciting missions that it will never do any of them well. But it will cost a fortune to try and achieve them. Technology will never improve the idiots in charge.
You mean a Rich People And Corporations Refuse To Pay Taxes Star.
Talk about a fucking mixed message.
Technology drives humans insane.