Cosmic Capitals

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One day our civilization may settle our whole galaxy, with mighty star empires consisting of millions if not billions of worlds, but what would the centers of such empires be like?
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Credits:
Cosmic Capitals
Episode 447; May 16, 2024
Written, Produced & Narrated by:
Isaac Arthur
Editors:
Lukas Konecny
Graphics:
Jeremy Jozwik
YD Visual
Music Courtesy of
Epidemic Sound Epidemic Sound epidemicsound.com/creator
Stellardrone, "Red Giant", "Ultra Deep Field", "Billions and Billions"
Lombus, "Cosmic Soup", "Hydrogen Sonata"

[@playmaka2007]

It is my lifelong dream to be the assistant to the assistant of the protege to the understudy of the secretary of the coffee master lieutenant general of the entire letter "A" of the ID auditing department.

[@harleyspawn]

Coffee master lieutenant general is a rank I could imagine my supervisor being most excellent at.

[@misterflibble6601]

Wow, what a coincidence! Me too!

[@TovenDo.O.Video-]

I'm sorry but every person on my planet already dreams of that position, you'll never get it

[@playmaka2007]

@@TovenDo.O.Video- You see, what you don't understand is that I am on a 30th name basis with the 34th son of the assistant janitor, for the 7,438th floor of the 356th administrative building on the 27th Ecumenopolis for the capital system of the coffee filter supply guild. So yeah, I've got connections.

[@TovenDo.O.Video-]

@@playmaka2007 And that's why everyone hates mid-floorers, always thinking they're hot shit. Just remember that you're closer to being a soil dweller than an orbital ringer, pal.

[@tombruner9634]

That's a lot of paper. It will require many paperclips. I think I know what we'll need.

[@caejones2792]

I want to like this comment, but it's currently at 12, and the subject makes me want to avoid 4, 13, and 6s. You know, because the Numerophobic Basilisk and all.

[@xXx_Regulus_xXx]

this would be a great setup for a Hitchhiker's Guide style novel about a paperclip maximizer AI

[@DocWolph]

NOOOOOOOOOoooooooo!!!!!!!

[@mahdeensyhr]

Captain Kevin Darling commanding a Women's Auxiliary Balloon Corps with about the population of China and India combined in it?

[@hibbs1712]

Zapp Brannigan is a foreboding omen that humanity should maintain awareness of.

[@djunior874]

"The spirit is willing...But the flesh is spongy and bruised!"

[@Reclusiarch_jakal]

You’re a fool and a fool’s fool

[@wade5014]

Were you born with a heart full of neutrality?

[@carlosvasquez9890]

"Omega Supreme" HAS TO become a formal military rank. So say we all.

[@Strideo1]

Omega Supreme is also my favorite pizza.

[@TheDreamerintheStarlight]

Love how major”insert rank here” is ranked lower than said rank without major

[@chinmaychandraunshuh]

​@@TheDreamerintheStarlight I wonder where, minor "insert rank here" would be placed

[@Grevnor]

There is a throwaway line in the Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy about the complaints department (by far the biggest department) of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation taking up the surface area of several continents, and their company slogan, visible from space, causing a sinkhole and killing untold numbers of workers who had the misfortune of having their offices below it, and the resultant half-buried letters spelling out the words for "Go stick your head in a pig" in the local language. Suddenly seems perfectly reasonable, from a scale perspective.

[@vipondiu]

9:20 "I'm sorry guys, I can't follow if you both do your presentation simultaneously"

[@KurusuPanda]

NCIS hacking scene energy

[@theapexsurvivor9538]

Just picturing the highest ranked general of a K4 Earth descended empire being given a 21st century style American Flag with all 50 stars to attach to their uniform...

[@mill2712]

The greatest helldiver of super earth. A general that has so many stars that he/she is generally call the USA by some circles. The first dispenser of liber-tea.

[@FlintIronstag23]

This episode illustrates the danger of trying to micromanage a galactic empire. Broad directives with mostly local autonomy seems to be the most logical way to run a massive empire. The cosmic capital could house the galactic supreme court that would decide if the local or regional governments have interpreted the broad directives and laws of the empire in the correct way.

[@wade5014]

Its really to hard to say right now. I would think engineered humans with cybernetic upgrades and leveraging AI, a single human could manually inspect billions of complex forms a minute, while having their lunch and having a few hundred conversations.

[@bobinthewest8559]

“Let’s just all agree to be nice to each other. Other than that, you can pretty much do whatever you want.”

[@cannonfodder4376]

The sheer scale of such civilizations and their bureaucracies breaks my mind. It's amusing that WH40K, despite its own absurdities, does do justice to its sheer scale and plays around with them. A great many stories and skits can be done about such galactic bureaucratic turf wars. 😂 Wonderful video, Isaac.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Yeah, it is total hyperbole when I say 40k is one of the weirdly most realistic scifi settings, and they do mess up scale all the time too, but they seem the only major setting that ever even vaguely nails 'really damn huge' very well when it comes to human numbers and what that indicates.

[@koch190085]

Paper for the Papergod!

[@aishalotter9995]

Brazil the film by Terry Gillingham on a galactic scale !!!

[@danielsneed3235]

​@@isaacarthurSFIA and the WH40K universe covers only one galaxy, not multiple ones.

[@TheRezro]

@@isaacarthurSFIA Warhammer 40k is a intentional satire of Space Opera. So that is actually twisted result of someone actually making calculations. And realizing that things easily become out of hand. I just wait until they address other modern tropes and make Emperor actually a woman, or something. Like rewriting history and historical figures becoming politicized fantasy over time. Is something what would fit the setting. After all entire thing is already a heresy of original intentions of the big guy.

[@keithplymale2374]

Also don't forget the Peter Principle; everyone is promoted to the level of there greatest incompetence and then remains there.

[@theapexsurvivor9538]

Unless they're too annoying and get promoted higher to get rid of them...

[@rusharnmal7425]

You forgot the Dilbert principle. The incompetent get promoted until they are in a position where they can do the least damage or hit the top.

[@aceundead4750]

Me and the guys're headed down to the Clam.

[@tturi2]

performance punishment 😂

[@custodialfatherintexas9362]

It's actually that you're promoted to the level at which competence begins failing. You're promoted above your competence. Not to your greatest level of incompetence is what I mean

[@hherpdderp]

Top Secret clearances probably wouldn't feel as special when a population the size of Earth has it 😢

[@alexv3357]

That's all relative, though. If only 8 billion people out a population of quadrillions have that level of access, then you'd still be in a pretty select club

[@VainerCactus0]

How many leaks on warthunder forums per second would an entire planet worth of security clearances generate?

[@L_mattox]

On one hand, I’d love to read and/or write a space opera political thriller that depicts all of this… on the other hand… I’m… I’m far FAR too sober to imagine all this bureaucracy and rank.

[@twenty-fifth420]

Ah yes, note to self: program cosmic capital name generator. That is going in the ‘please do soon’ category. Any broad category also will do, planetary system need not be required 😂! ❤

[@Comicsluvr]

You might also consider a title generator. By the time Isaac got to 'senior mega-general' or whatever, it sounded like he was running out of titles!

[@Pcr12]

"25 Star General"

[@linz8291]

lol...why not the galactic council President🍷

[@SamuelGracefell]

The gacha games in the future must be wild lol

[@dansmith1661]

@@SamuelGracefell The power creep is real

[@harbl99]

That's a Constellation General, Five-Squared Grade.

[@linz8291]

well...nice to see more starfleets and space civilian transportation system in process, and welcome our constellation generals who keeping galactic safety.

[@oliviamaynard9372]

I wonder what a one bedroom apartment costs.

[@theapexsurvivor9538]

Probably 90% of a minimum-wage salary on the planet, so more than any of us will see in the next 3 centuries and simultaneously virtually nothing compared to the average salary on the planet, much less than the maximum salary. N.b. 10% of such a wage can probably allow you to live incredibly comfortably, the cost of the apartment is mostly bureaucratic in nature, basically just massive residency taxes for living on the planet to prevent excess economic migration.

[@John-ou4rm]

​@@theapexsurvivor9538 I'd say it's more likely that the rich and wealthy will incubate billions of embryos who once alive become a ready source of underclass that will work and provide in order to maintain the basic minimum of not dying. The future will be more like the industrial revolution and 1984 rather than Eutopia for the masses... Otherwise that Eutopia would already exist.

[@claxvii177th6]

I mean, if 100% of the people in such capital didn't have comfortable lives, why even bother doing? Eventually 0.001% would be enough to destroy the whole thing if statistics have taught us anything. If it wasn't a paradise all the way through, it would be a declining empire from the get go.

[@dansmith1661]

You get a closet and a VR headset.

[@WaterPickle]

Probably free

[@prophetofthesingularity]

Love Foundation, it is my all time favorite sci-fi series. One thing that was so great about it is that he came up with the concept clear back in 1941 and it started as short stories, then in 1951 they were collected into the Foundation trilogy. Then between 1982 and 1993 he released 3 more books into the series and brought in elements from some of his stories that spanned his lifetime. This series is the Lord of the Rings for Sci-Fi, it was an example of creating its own universe with a lot of depth and that is one of the reasons why this was such a daunting series to tackle, like Dune the time scale was just thought to be too immense for a movie. I am glad they are trying to do his work justice now, he invented things like the positronic brain, which influenced Data and he is probably the single most important sci-fi author not just for his works but for his Asimov magazine that promoted other sci-fi authors. Issac (Arthur, great name btw lol) makes such great videos and seems to have boundless imagination, I love the fact he started this one off with a mention of Foundation because it is the pen-ultimate series about a galactic political structure that paved the way for many other sci-fi authors, it is a must read series for sci fi fans.

[@oneMeVz]

Ironic how this giga-bureaucracy is equally plausible and satirical...

[@MogofWar]

29:25"...the Grand Admiral of Snacks and Beverages..." so Issac Aurthors job if virtually infinite life extension happens in our lifetimes, and the real power behind the Imperial Throne.

[@Comicsluvr]

GREAT episode! If I may be so bold, I would like to see an episode on education of the future. Without significant life extension, will we reach a point where the top-end of education is difficult to achieve simply because folks don't live long enough?

[@Eldagusto]

This was one of those excellent perspectives on scale videos that are interesting to meditate on. Much awaited and it didn’t let me down. Man I wish I had content like this as a wee lad.

[@AzeAlter]

Isaac, your channel really is the coolest thing ever. Thank you.

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Thank you too!

[@jonchedgy6654]

I fully expect that in 5 billion years time the Sol system will be at the centre of our galaxy. But it won't be Sol that has moved.

[@UmVtCg]

Sol is moving constantly

[@cthulhufhtagn7520]

I think you missed the point​@@UmVtCg

[@bobinthewest8559]

In 5 billion years time… the Sol system will be a very different place.

[@palfers1]

"He's the Universal Soldier and he really is to blame"

[@kingBing101]

Why are we assuming AI would play no administrative role, or that the nation-state is the form society will take in the future? That seems awful limited

[@OpreanMircea]

well, yeah, we are assuming that, otherwise the whole video would be "AI will do it"

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

I think it would play a huge role, it already does, but unless we have "AI does everything" civilizations, you presumably have work for people too, which you probably would just to avoid idle hands problems and self-esteem issues. More importantly though, I assume smart enough AI, ones who can complete replace humans in all facets of work, are simply people too.

[@StacheMan26]

If you've got AI running everything you just get an AI bureaucracy instead, and its probably only a few orders of magnitude smaller personnel wise than an equivalent fleshy bureaucracy and maybe a couple more orders of magnitude smaller counting by physical size of the bureaucratic apparatus.

[@xXx_Regulus_xXx]

​@@StacheMan26yep, instead of office drones you have subroutines on servers. they can probably take up less physical space without the need for a three-pound brain and a ~100 pound meat body for each subroutine, but it'd still be massive.

[@dariustiapula]

My capital should be that every building is just grounded warships by themselves. Meaning a heavily fortify bunkers with guns.

[@theapexsurvivor9538]

Pretty sure after a certain point it becomes fortified guns with bunkers...

[@thekaxmax]

With absolutely huge maintenance requirements and costs

[@MidwitObservations]

Love you Isaac! Happy Arthur's day everybody. Every thrursday is a holiday! Gosh I really love this channel.

[@felineboy1586]

Please make an episode on artificial magnetosphere

[@TyeFuchs]

I remember that there’s an episode for giving mars a magnetosphere, I think that would be an ordinary enough case.

[@jouniosmala9921]

It's always annoying when writers cannot do a simple math to check their numbers to what they describe. The densest city on earth had density of 1.3M people per square kilometer. Island of Manhattan has population density around 30k per square kilometer. Earth has half a billion square kilometers. So total population of earth if it was like first example, it would around 600 trillion and Manhattan example would be 15 trillion. And sci-fi writers often describe things where population is WAY denser than that and then come with a number that's very low. Quite typical sci-fi slum would be described like the actual 1.3M density living condition area IF it were built to 13 floors height, which is practically nothing compared to sci-fi cities.

[@carbonstar9091]

Most scifi is like that. Some is way worse than others. Battletech is a pretty egregious example that gets the numbers horribly wrong with almost everything. Inhabited space is basically empty in that universe. And the militaries of the major factions are beyond tiny. I understand that it was just background noise meant to sell minis for a kitchen table game but no one ever really put any thought into any of it. They have tried to explain some of it away over the years but the math aint mathin as they say.

[@bobinthewest8559]

In a story that I’m outlining… I decided to skirt the issue of that math, with a casual reference to an attempt to conduct a census. The team assembled to design a protocol for, plan and conduct the census… numbered a little over 2.5 billion, and still took over half a century to develop the most efficient methodology for conducting the census, and then were given the approval to proceed. That “was over four centuries ago, and they haven’t been heard from since.”

[@jouniosmala9921]

@@bobinthewest8559 That comes with issues that are other way. Anything related to design and planning team needs to be relatively small simply because after relatively short increase in efficiency more people make that process worse. People implementing the plan needs a large to fit the scale but actual planning process well there's saying too many chefs in the kitchen.

[@boobah5643]

@@carbonstar9091 My only nitpick with that is that _BattleTech_ wasn't meant to sell minis, but rulebooks. Which is, arguably, one reason FASA went out of business.

[@rikk319]

@@carbonstar9091 It depends on what you want out of a tabletop game. Some people want tons of accurate detail to revel in...some people want surface-level detail but smooth rules to facilitate social interactions with the people you're playing with.

[@TovenDo.O.Video-]

I LOVE these videos where you effectively create insanely huge and vast sci fi settings. They make my mind travel FAR.

[@projectarduino2295]

To solve the kardeshev army problem of too many stars, I propose the unit of one Galaxy, a Galaxy being 10 stars. Example: a two galaxy, seven star general. Equivalent to 27 stars. Easier to manage. Maybe the galaxies are the only thing visible on the shirt, and there is a little handkerchief sewn into the shirt you pull out to show off your rank. Or maybe the stars just orbit the galaxies with a holographic display, where the stars are also designators of constellation fleets under your command.

[@SirSpence99]

I believe a relatively common one is actually a "nova", though the equivalence varies.

[@egoalter1276]

Most military organisations work on a base 4 basis. Current highest rank is usually Marshall of the Armies, , a commander over multiple army groups, usually 2-5 million soldiers. This is sufficient numbers of man to wage war on multiple continent wide fronts, but a whole planetary theater might require one more step up. But beyond that there really isnt any point in concentrating forces. Its likely the tiers of command wont expand significantly, but the number of subordinate units within a tier will increase, for example moving to a base 10 organisarion structure.

[@Cmdtheartist]

I dont know why I thought of this, but...there's a tiny kingdom in the Land of Oz called Oogaboo that has a population of 18 men, 27 women, and 44 children. All the men are in the army, which is mostly officers, ie generals, colonels, majors, etc, and only one private. Usually, when they encounter a powerful foe, the private would be the only one treated with respect by the enemy.

[@briishperson5166]

Keep up the great work

[@isaacarthurSFIA]

Thanks, will do!

[@karbengo]

8:58 That made me chuckle, nice one. :D

[@rezaganjizadeh4263]

A K2 civillization around the super massive blackhole at the galactic center sounds good

[@boobah5643]

A K2 at that size would be pretty tiny... It's planet/star/galaxy as 1/2/3.

[@lillyanneserrelio2187]

21:37 reminds me of the bureaucracy scene in Jupiter ascending movie.

[@metaplante]

Next topic: A galactic empire, which can no longer evolve because of its bureaucracy

[@hibbs1712]

“this week on SFIA, we’re discussing how American colonizers gained control of Andromeda and how it’s first round of settlers are enacting an “independence” from Earth”

[@harbl99]

Frank Herbert did it. It was the basis of his Department of Sabotage stories. The government became so all-encompassing that they deliberately instituted an official department to hamstring themselves and allow room for human initiative.

[@ChaosAlchemistX]

28:20 "...a Statue of a Great 25-star General being literally as tall as a Mountain..." The Statue: *REMEMBER ME!!!*

[@sakuraslight]

SNACK and BEVERAGE FORM SB01 NAME : Sakuraslight SNACK : Biscuits : chocolate coated (malted milk) AMMOUNT : 5 BEVERAGE : Coffee ADDITIONS : Milk - x2 sugar DATE : 16/05/2024 SIGNATURE : X

[@sequoyahrice6966]

why are beverage and signature spelled like that? am i missing the joke?

[@uncleanunicorn4571]

Having met the supreme secondary imperial deputy of snacks and beverages for office Departments of letters a through c, I favor much greater automation of repetitive tasks

[@my_chi_is_rising]

snack n drinks whilst issac speaks ,, another banga bro thanks

[@reginaldnzemeka818]

I would totally watch any sci-fi movie you write or produce, you have such expansive mind

[@Not_An_Alien]

I always love the stock videos of actors pretending to do things.

[@scurvydog20]

I would counter that we find cities tend to squash birth rates, a planet sized city may hold less people for the sole reason that it can't replenish itself and would be reliant on vassal planets shipping in politicans in which case it may have massive logistics issues and the menial labor would always be in short supply. Become a interplanetary politician may be seen as a punishment rather than a privilege

[@cthulhufhtagn7520]

Simply existing within a city isn't what lowers birth rates. It has more to do with things like cost of raising children, women gaining rights and agency and ability to balance a family and a career

[@Fenrir5530]

City did not had replacement level of births in the middle ages and even before that. It is nothing new the only thing new is that the large majority of the human population lives in the cities.

[@scurvydog20]

@@cthulhufhtagn7520 considering we are below replacement rates doesn't that technically mean we never got the ability to balance it just the ability to put job over family. We may have gotten the opportunity but based on results, not the ability, like if I ran in the Olympics I'd have opportunity to win but no ability to do so.

[@boobah5643]

@@cthulhufhtagn7520 The only time cities have ever come close to replacement rate is a brief period between the advent of modern medicine and sanitation (so disease stopped killing the tight-packed, epidemic-prone masses) and the invention of modern childhood (so children became a luxury good rather than an extra set of hands to keep the household running.)

[@GrayShark09]

Cool video! I like this ideea!

[@dannywells88]

This channel never fails.

[@campbellcollins1396]

Excellent as always. I always wondered why space operas had such low population numbers.

[@SocksWithSandals]

My goodness. Sci-fi rarely goes into the preposterous bureaucracy of galactic scale civilisations. Except the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy!

[@harbl99]

Warhams 40K manages it. Entire generations born, living, and dying in the queue for the Imperium equivalent of the DMV. Whole linear micro-societies with moving markets, hawkers, messengers, roving predators, etc. Riots breaking out because rumours start that the department at the head of the queue has been re-organised and you're going to have to go to another department now. "But this is all we've ever known!" "Head of the queue? What nonsense! Everyone knows the queue is eternal, as ordained by the Emperor his own self."

[@francoiseeduard303]

I imagine my colony’s “middle” (in between the Class-M “Mars” and Class-M “Venus”) M-class planet being home to the capital. It will be decentralized with the executive capital being 1 city, the “Council” being another, the highest court in yet another, while the departments of War, Justice, State, Treasury, Interior, and Protection of Public Safety and Order all being HQ’d in different other cities. Also, system will be divided into states and “Regions”. “Regions” each sub-type (ethnic/cultural) within the population retains its ethnic characteristics. These “Regions” are free to enact their respective Regional laws without hindrance from the Imperium. The Imperium does not interfere in the Dominium sphere of each Region. The core mass of each respective sub-types will basically remain unaltered. Funny, that he should mention colonizing empty (of people) parallel Earths. The background for my tabletop character that I’ve been world building for years. He’s from an illegal (without the UN’s knowledge or consent) colony on a peopleless parallel Earth. His colony has no compunction about following the “Prime Directives” of the UN and acquire science & technology from the Future & more advanced parallels making them very advanced. On it every resident, and I MEAN EVERY, is an able bodied genetically enhanced person for reasons similar to why under the reign of Henry II all men had a sword and that was to protect the realm, it’s all hands on deck.

[@mildsoup8978]

Speaking of Azamof, thanks for introducing me to him, I read my daughter the Foundation series as a bedtime story last year, it worked, and... I kept reading every night long after she fell asleep 😄

[@jockeb2651]

Finally Arthursday again!!!

[@user-pv9tl4wz5l]

The Actual problem here is Population. Space travel is going to be extremely expensive always. Which means all mission members have a dedicated purpose. This leaves little room for breeders. That population dynamic is happening in all developed countries on Earth. Demographics (population age distribution) mean most developed countries will run out of workers and have an aged population where the system reaches breaking point. Not enough workers, little elderly care, = economic and social disfunction.

[@vakusdrake3224]

See his other episodes on life extension. Also from personal knowledge people can already reverse aging in rodents, so it seems hard to imagine we don't make further progress in our lifetimes.

[@user-pv9tl4wz5l]

@@vakusdrake3224 Proxima Centauri is at present a 70,000 year Journey. There is a likely hood that life on Earth would be gone by Super Volcano, Climate Change, Meteor Impact, Nuclear War etc etc One way communication would take 4 years. Imagine the Biological Protection problem from Bacteria and Viruses that no Earth Life has ever encountered. One ravenous bug and the Colony is Kaput. The fastest Matter Object we know of travels at 7% Light Speed propelled by a Blackhole Sling Shot. So the most powerful object we know of makes the Journey to Proxima 70 Years. Sorry but the dreams and fantasies will remain just that. Dreams and Fantasies. Advanced AI Sentients may have a future in Space Travel but Humans are quite simply not designed for that purpose.

[@ramuk1933]

A good empire needs a great Foundation!

[@Lyze]

An entire society of people who's job it is to replace toilet paper rolls in public restrooms and a giant holy war breaks out over whether it's paper in front or behind the roller.

[@irishgovna2995]

Times that drink and snack but perfectly

[@BarbarosaAlexander]

Grand Admiral of Snacks and Beverages. Life goal now set.

[@timothy8428]

Me in the far future: gets job manually checking IDs. Also me: Writes a python script to automate the process.

[@theochristopher8873]

"I am Alpharious... Hydra Dominatus."

[@bluekoi455]

Nice show, I’ve thought about all this.. bureaucracy takes a lot of effort

[@imperialofficer6185]

I don't think jsut scaling existing government structures straight up gives a realistic picture. Even Warhammer 40k's Imperium actually operates more like a religious-fundamentalist UN than any modern government

[@consciouscode8150]

My biggest takeaway from all this is that hierarchy and bureaucracy as we've understood it thus far don't scale very well and we need to come up with more decentralized governance models.

[@nekomakhea9440]

Petition to rename the K4 69 Star Admiral to "Grand Chalupa Supreme"

[@mamadoubah3143]

thinking about this, i think Ian m banks series the culture series, where they have super minds to do all this is what is required

[@richardkenney9636]

Hydra Dominatus!

[@Alexander-tu3iv]

I think massive STL civilisations would probably have nomadic capitals. Basically large fleets with beurucrats, administrators and tax collectors backed up by millitary force going on a circuit of regional star systems to collect taxes, trade, appoint new governors etc.

[@s0ulwind]

I try to do good about keeping the scale of scifi empires in mind, but WOW that's eye opening.

[@englishcoach7772]

Thanks. I love this content. Waste from the metropolitan planets would be pumped down into subterranean factories that would accelerate decomposition using the methane to produce gas and heating for lower working class levels whose residential zones recieve no light and possibly no heat. Methane could also br more cheaply converted to energy in the future. Also methane can be used for lighting the lower levels of the cities, prisons, warehouses and mega recycling plants, which will be far under the city planet surface.

[@jimmackey2909]

Sometimes you scare me. lol Interesting concepts. Thank you.

[@kenneth_k256]

Reminds me of Coruscant - Star Wars

[@AntonioRattesdeFarias]

This is a field trip for anyone trying to work on a hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy like story.

[@sarcasmo57]

I would like to visit Trantor.

[@nellyjohnson7316]

Traffic jams would be mind boggeling😊.

[@bobinthewest8559]

People might live out their entire lives without ever leaving the “building” they were born in.

[@definitlynotbenlente7671]

Giant trains anf rfficient public transit

[@TraditionalAnglican]

The highest rank during the Civil War was a Lieutenant General, and he headed up all of the armies of the United States (~600,000 total men under arms). It should also be noted that we had a total of 7 - 4-Star Generals in WW 2 when we had 15+ million men under arms, while we have 45 4-Stars now with fewer than 1/5 of the total personnel!

[@harbl99]

The traditional form of the criticism is "...pullulating like admirals in a South American navy..." as Orwell(?) put it. Kind of ironic now given that the RN has more admirals than it does hulls in the water.

[@egoalter1276]

Armies in WW2 were relatively officier light, and logistics heavy. It was a matter of insufficient preexisting training, not of ideal ratios.

[@MikeG-js1jt]

Coffee Marshall!!

[@Siferis]

I feel like the Caveman to Cosmos mod for Civ 4 might add more to this videos sense of scale. It's likely to illuminate some of what those people(s) are in some kind of physical sense, and capable of. If it is truly a intercluster travelling cosmic spanning civilization they are likely immortal shapeshifting luminal beings that are capable of time travel and creating stable time loops, they're likely to have something similar to zerio-point energy, zeptotech, etc...

[@tiffanynajberg5177]

The DMV on the capital planet would be the definition of hell, with wait times of months to years…

[@VitaKet]

Futurama episode.

[@timothy8428]

Have you played Fallout 76? There's a quest where you have to get an ID from the DMV robot in Charleston and boy is that robot a dick.

[@rikk319]

"What would the center of such a civilization be like?" An interesting question, but somewhat begging that there needs to be a center at all when discussing a galaxy-spanning civilization.

[@wagon9082]

Good video

[@lokai7914]

I loved the paperless society. My investments in paper mills were never higher,

[@bentuovila5296]

There are economies of scale that everyone knows about. What most people dont know about is diseconomy of scale. I think this video is the best example of them ive ever seen.

[@boobah5643]

Everybody is, at least nominally, aware that too many layers in an organization breaks it. And this video doesn't really touch on the problems of getting information or directives from the bottom to the top or vice versa, just the sheer scale of the organization's work force.

[@xyreniaofcthrayn1195]

Most cities post galactic conquest would have entire districts dedicated to given management like the barrack districts for military adjacent to the military divisions, civilian districts bordering farming districts etc. There would come a time that grand admiral is a rank exclusive to someone managing several armada's under the ministry of warfare while the actual government resembles a (insert political terminology for governmental control here) monarchy.

[@erikoftheinternet]

Not gonna lie Isaac working as one of 10,000 coffee machine repair people in a sub sub sub department reporting to the office of snacks and beverages for the ID auditors who cross check licence names against regional linguistic variations in a massive office building larger than the combined volume of all buildings on modern earth sounds like a kickass setting for an rpg

[@nonya9120]

Decades back I played a science fiction ttrpg. Ran with the same group for almost 3 years real time. Coffee was wiped out by a truly evil alien threat, our group were "special force operatives" sent to find the cure and once again make the empire safe.

[@seanbrennan5469]

The multiple dimensional colonization thing reminded me of the long Earth book series...

[@airborneranger-ret]

Norton wrote about this in "Galactic Derelict"

[@bigboxofstuff]

I want to see that Sci-Fi series of the great war of the coffee staff between abe-abi and be-bi.

[@thesenate1844]

Ive always thought the Star Wars galactic scale empire would work equally well narratively if it was just a 100 light year bubble in some corner of the galaxy, with this space being what has been sufficiently mapped accurately for safe hyperspace travel. The Star Wars universe feels like 150 planets at most, and governing that would actually be somewhat manageable

[@PartigradeCannon]

Amusingly, if you look at the map that Obi-Wan is pointing to when he's trying to find Kamino, he seems to point to some galaxy-looking thing in the top left-corner, then look at where the map zooms in on, which is close to the center, that shot would imply the Star Wars Galaxy is only a few hundred light years across. Obviously, it isn't but it's still funny.

[@kotharianlightning]

Certainly an interesting concept. I will say that it seems weird how in sci-fi so many advanced civilizations are portrayed as destroying their home planet's eco-system in favor of converting it into a single sprawling city. If you have the option of twenty thousand planets to inhabit, seems more likely that the home world would be turned into some sort of ecological reserve, or at least part of it would be preserved in that way. Basically turn the home world into a cradle of life that people can sometimes visit as tourists.

[@PerfectAlibi1]

I feel an intergalactic government that large would NEED go heavily decentralised governing. So the the actual capital of that giant empire, would only need to really administer it's own local systems. With a little bit extra to oversee the other government centres

[@boobah5643]

Of course, at that point is the capital actually administering those provinces? And what prevents those provinces from ignoring the capital's policies?

[@Septicaemic_]

reminds me of a book story. This lady was tasked with tracking down some secret assassin group no one believed existed. She said something about tea that, by the time it had worked its way through the government, had a task force following her everywhere in secret. whenever she would order a beverage anywhere, this team would swoop in out of nowhere and kill everyone in the area. She got mad one time and screamed about how she hated tea and the planet she was on when she said it was completely destroyed. The names of departments were all related to food, but they all actually did work related to counter intelligence and espionage. it was hilarious.

[@PointyHairedJedi]

Suddenly that Bureau of Imperial Standards cubicle farm we see in Star Wars Andor seems far, far too small.

[@petrz5474]

Maybe they use AI agents

[@tirlonburke9875]

just a quick "kudo" i listen to your broadcasts sometimes while playing online mmo you are actually so interesting that we "wiped" on a trial because people were listening to you instead of paying attention to the video game mechanic.

[@irishspartanstudios]

Geramy was just a middle middle manager of the Coffee Stock Department of the Ministry of Letter A Identification, and the anniversary of his tenth year of service was looking little different than the one before. Coffee riots had gotten worse, but not just for A department. Coffee riots were occuring from departments A to G, and no one knew how to record the issue. The Assistant Coffee Sub-Marshal Boris CVI was summoned, but he could do nothing to rectify the crisis. Then the deaths began. People began dropping dead of heart failure and kidney diseases. Borris was sent with an off-the-main-books expedition to the decommissioned Letter "J" ID department, to investigate the arcology records and see if any supply can be claimed after being left behind over three decades ago. But such a journey would lead to self discovery, conspiracy, and one of the darkest secrets of the Coffee Stock Department Ministry of Identification... Read more

[@ASpaceOstrich]

I read the sci fi story Accelerando a while back and I was wondering about the feasability of some of the tech involved in it. In particular the brain augmentation through "ghosts" and the way it handled singularity. Not as some magic "AI suddenly starts instantly improving itself in a loop and turns into god" scenario, but an inflection point where the sheer amount of processing bandwidth available hits a point where the AI agents involved become incomprehensible to human minds. It also had an interesting potential Fermi Paradox solution, though one which does not account for non exlusivity. Specifically, the bandwidth. In Accelerando, post singularity civilisations tend to not travel much, both because the original species that created them has gone extinct (replaced by something so transformed by the available processing power as to be fundamentally a different species, or replaced by vastly superior AI agents that effectively wipe them out when they disassemble the star system for computronium, and that doesn't really have the human-like biological urge to explore), and because any exploratory effort will lack the bandwidth to communicate back home, which means being left behind by the advancing matrioshka brain, which is incredibly unappealing to the entities of the time. They would also likely have to give up the massive processing capabilities they are used to, or even require to exist in their preferred form, all to explore a universe that they may very well be able to simulate instead. A more pessimistic view of things than you generally have, but I'd love a Fermi paradox episode on it.

[@christophe5756]

Finally… Finally, after seven years… -I paused the video. I topped off my drink. I put together a snack. I restarted the video. The channel was always great. Now, it’s even better!

[@1____-____1]

Hydra Dominatus.

[@argentaegis]

I can't decide which is a bigger threat, a bureaucracy that needs a grand mega admiral of verifying ABE-ABI, or AI smart enough to make that unnecessary.

[@user-kr7zh9sk8x]

This was a 2 drink & snack episode! The Supreme Grand Admiral is firing Quasar Rockets at you for not scheduling this episode with Him!!

[@christiancorralejo8726]

With how complex and convoluted that all sounds, you’d think people would start wanting to avoid becoming a type 1 or above civilization.

[@andrasbiro3007]

8:35 is a missed opportunity for a VPN ad.

[@nellyjohnson7316]

An empire such as envisaged here is best created in a globular cluster where thousands of star systems are in close proximity with each other.

[@SirHeinzbond]

scale, real scale sounds bonkers, but i guess it sounds also right...