If the Goblins had good land from the start, how would that be better?

[Fyraltari]

This is a good point though. Whatever the reason the the goblins having poor lands at the start of the comic, why has the seizure of Azure City not remedied it? Are there any theories for why Redcloak presses on, other than zealotry?

Gobbotopia is just one city-state. It isn't enough to accommodate the needs of the goblinoid people worldwide. And Redcloak expresses worry that Gobbotopia would be destroyed the moment the Azurite are strong enough to try. Now, I don't think that getting divine recognition would help luch in that regard, but he has a point that with Xykon out of the city, likely for good, Gobbotopia only exists as long as the neighbouring kingdoms allow it too. For the moment Cliffport sees Gobbotopia as an asset in their rivalry with elven lands and it's likely the other states have similar pragmatic reason tolerating its continued existence. But that's hardly a confortable position to be in. If you felt your survival depended on people who hate you finding you useful, wouldn't you look for ways to ensure your safety?

Now that I've advocated for the devil... That isn't the reason Redcloak presses on. He presses on because at this point completing the Plan has become the end rather than the mean. securing one nation-state isn't enough to justify the people he's sacrificed to Xykon in his eye(s), he will accept nothing less than what he set out to do in the first place.

[WanderingMist]

Okay, so here's what I'm thinking. Suppose when the gods create the next world, they're in a more egalitarian mood. They create two sentient species, the Onefolk and the Twofolk, and they give them each equally good land. We can even imagine that they start on islands that are identical copies of each other.

Still, they're probably not going to stay equal forever. Eventually — say 500 years into the history of the world — the Onefolk could have a way better standard of living than the Twofolk. Maybe there was a big war and they won, or maybe they just happened to develop faster, or maybe their leaders are more competent, or maybe it's some combination of factors. But at this point we're 500 years into the history of the world, and the situation between the Onefolk and the Twofolk is basically the same as the situation between the Dwarves and the Goblins. If you're born a Dwarf, then you're lucky: you have a way better start in life than if you were born a Goblin. In the same way, if you're born a Onefolk you're lucky: you have a way better start in life than if you were born a Twofolk.

So how is this situation with the Onefolk and the Twofolk any better than the old situation with the Dwarves and the Goblins? It's true that the gods aren't directly responsible for the Twofolk's plight, whereas they are responsible for the Goblins's plight. But how is that any comfort to the Twofolk? Their lot in life is still just as bad as the Goblins'.

I think Durkon and Redcloak are both wrong to put so much emphasis on the fact that the Goblins were given poor resources from the start. If they'd given everybody equal resources, then at best that would only guarantee that there are no serious inequalities for a couple of generations. But those inequalities could still arise. So the real problem, I think, is that the gods make no efforts to fix serious inequalities when they arise.

There's an actual explanation for this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_effect

Basically, the snowball effect applies in opposite directions in regards to wealth, so the side that starts with more will slowly acquire more, and the side that starts with less will slowly lose more. The inequality doesn't even need to have started out particularly badly, but it would've gotten worse and worse with each passing generation. Like, one side starts with $1 (Side A), and one side starts with -$1 (Side B). Presume both sides earn $1 over their entire lives and each side has two children. At the end of their lives, they give half of their money to their children. Side A, who started with $1, is able to give $1 to each of their children. Side B, who started with -$1, can't give their children anything, so both children must borrow $1 before they can start earning money for themselves. This leaves Side A with $2, while Side B has -$2. This is a simplified explanation, but I'm sure you can extrapolate from here.

[brian 333]

There's an actual explanation for this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_effect

Basically, the snowball effect applies in opposite directions in regards to wealth, so the side that starts with more will slowly acquire more, and the side that starts with less will slowly lose more. The inequality doesn't even need to have started out particularly badly, but it would've gotten worse and worse with each passing generation. Like, one side starts with $1 (Side A), and one side starts with -$1 (Side B). Presume both sides earn $1 over their entire lives and each side has two children. At the end of their lives, they give half of their money to their children. Side A, who started with $1, is able to give $1 to each of their children. Side B, who started with -$1, can't give their children anything, so both children must borrow $1 before they can start earning money for themselves. This leaves Side A with $2, while Side B has -$2. This is a simplified explanation, but I'm sure you can extrapolate from here.

That actually is disproven by real world experience. Over many generations, wealthy families get less wealthy while impoverished ones get rich. It takes longer in places where the law entrenches privilege, but it happens over time.

The aquisition of wealth has far more to do with innovation and effort than starting position. As an example, when I was young, China could not afford to feed its population. Then the government allowed entrepreneurship. Any guesses where the most, and richest, people can be found? (Happened in one generation.)

Wealth has nothing to do with where you begin. It has everything to do with being able to benefit from effort, and leveraging that benefit for more benefit. Hard work alone is not enough; education is required, so that the one attempting to improve can recognize opportunities.

Any 'solution' that involves giving wealth to those who have not earned it is doomed to fail every time. Not knowing how to acquire it leaves the suddenly wealthy being with no ability to maintain the wealth, and dependant upon the generosity of their benefactors for more when the wealth runs out.

In short, there is nothing the Azurites can do about the goblin's poverty. The solution lies with the goblins. They must educate themselves in agriculture and trade, utilize the resources they do have and leverage them to acquire better.

Economics does not favor a particular appearance, it favors a particular mindset. And it rewards hard work.

[WanderingMist]

That actually is disproven by real world experience. Over many generations, wealthy families get less wealthy while impoverished ones get rich. It takes longer in places where the law entrenches privilege, but it happens over time.

The acquisition of wealth has far more to do with innovation and effort than starting position. As an example, when I was young, China could not afford to feed its population. Then the government allowed entrepreneurship. Any guesses where the most, and richest, people can be found? (Happened in one generation.)

Wealth has nothing to do with where you begin. It has everything to do with being able to benefit from effort, and leveraging that benefit for more benefit. Hard work alone is not enough; education is required, so that the one attempting to improve can recognize opportunities.

Any 'solution' that involves giving wealth to those who have not earned it is doomed to fail every time. Not knowing how to acquire it leaves the suddenly wealthy being with no ability to maintain the wealth, and dependant upon the generosity of their benefactors for more when the wealth runs out.

In short, there is nothing the Azurites can do about the goblin's poverty. The solution lies with the goblins. They must educate themselves in agriculture and trade, utilize the resources they do have and leverage them to acquire better.

Economics does not favor a particular appearance, it favors a particular mindset. And it rewards hard work.

Pretty sure there's not supposed to be real-world talk, but I'd bet almost anything it was people in cities with access to resources that people far away from the cities didn't have, and possibly weren't even aware existed.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There's a reason I called it a simplified explanation. That may apply to singular families within a culture, but not to entire cultures themselves. The richer a culture starts compared to its neighbors, the richer it gets over time compared to them.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Honestly, it's amazing you said it's disproven by real world experience and then immediately proceeded to give examples of exactly how the effect works in the real world, where hard work alone isn't enough even though it's supposed to be, you need to have started out with something to give you an edge over someone else, which is exactly what the goblins are complaining about.

"A poor man will buy 10 pairs of boots for $10 each, while a rich man will buy a single $50 pair of boots. And at the end of the day, the poor man's feet are still wet." -Sam's Vimes Boots Theory Of Socioeconomic Unfairness

The poor spend more money than the rich over time, because they can't pay high up-front costs for quality, which, again, leads to a downward spiral. Again, these are classes as a whole, not individual family's accruings of wealth.

[Mechalich]

Real world examples of are of extremely limited utility with regard to a 3.5e D&D style world, even one like OOTS that is relentlessly unoptimized. Factors like the fertility of the land determining population density and therefore largely determining overall economic output and military power simply do not apply in a world where a single individual can charge into battle against hundreds and slaughter them all.

In this world, where everything about the comparative power and prosperity of a culture is determined by its ability to produce high-level individuals, the formula for societal success is drastically different than the real world. As an extreme example, it is entirely possible to turn 'bad land' into 'good land' permanently with the right spells. The ideal 'starting circumstance' is therefore the one most likely to produce high-level individuals. Now, the comic did advance the argument that the physical resources are important - better armor, better weapons, even better nutrition. And this makes some sense. Mathematically the lowest levels are swingy, and even a small advantage, such as the +1 bonus from having a masterwork weapon, would lead to significantly greater survivorship into the mid-levels across tens of thousands of cases.

Now, such an analysis presupposes that high-level individuals aren't using their phenomenal power to put their thumb on the scales and shift everything to the permanent advantage of those they favor. That's an unrealistic assumption - Dark Sun, where the first guy to unlock the equivalent of epic level went on a xenocidal rampage, is a much more likely scenario - but Stickworld does seem to maintain it.

Of course, because the leveling system actively mandates conflict as the path to power, it seems more or less inevitable that someone gets the short end. A society becomes strong by having its elite members go out and murder other people, and this is inherently somewhat zero sum. As another extreme example, it is entirely possible for a society to become strong by having its elite members slaughter literally everyone else in that society, which is how necromancer-kings come to power. In a very real sense, the goblins, because of their high birthrate coupled to an apparent willingness to have lots of children even when living in abject poverty, actually serve to empower the rest of the world by providing additional grist for the leveling millstone. The world is a "big ol' soul farm."

Fixing the problem, as I see it, requires finding a way to power up souls without paying the price in other souls. For example, leveling up need not rely on fighting other sapient beings. There's plenty of constructs and such out there that could be slaughtered as level fodder in order to make the world stronger, so long as their invasion could be channeled in a way that made the casualties to soul empowerment ratio work out positively.

Edit: in theory, assuming the Snarl's 'invasion' actually takes the form of some endless horde of killable monsters, the way to save the world is actually to fight to the bitter end and induce mass leveling, and allowing the gods to reap a truly prodigious quantity of energy from the suddenly empowered fallen.

[InvisibleBison]

the leveling system actively mandates conflict as the path to power

No it doesn't. You get XP from overcoming challenges, not from winning fights. Not to mention roleplaying XP, which is confirmed to exist in the comic.

[pearl jam]

That actually is disproven by real world experience. Over many generations, wealthy families get less wealthy while impoverished ones get rich. It takes longer in places where the law entrenches privilege, but it happens over time.

The aquisition of wealth has far more to do with innovation and effort than starting position. As an example, when I was young, China could not afford to feed its population. Then the government allowed entrepreneurship. Any guesses where the most, and richest, people can be found? (Happened in one generation.)

Wealth has nothing to do with where you begin. It has everything to do with being able to benefit from effort, and leveraging that benefit for more benefit. Hard work alone is not enough; education is required, so that the one attempting to improve can recognize opportunities.

Any 'solution' that involves giving wealth to those who have not earned it is doomed to fail every time. Not knowing how to acquire it leaves the suddenly wealthy being with no ability to maintain the wealth, and dependant upon the generosity of their benefactors for more when the wealth runs out.

In short, there is nothing the Azurites can do about the goblin's poverty. The solution lies with the goblins. They must educate themselves in agriculture and trade, utilize the resources they do have and leverage them to acquire better.

Economics does not favor a particular appearance, it favors a particular mindset. And it rewards hard work.

This is absolutely ridiculous. Sure, wealth is not entirely static, it's not entirely impossible for a truly wealthy family to lose that wealth or for someone to rise up from poverty to create generational wealth, but chalking up the success of the wealthy to hard work and and ignoring all the different ways that wealth begets wealth is just the propaganda of the ruling class.

[pendejochy]

I think even if the goblins got "good land" they would have wound up in a similar position as they do today. Being on fertile land doesn't give you the knowledge to farm it, and being on top of rich deposits of gems or precious metals doesn't give you the knowledge to mine it. I think what mainly screwed over the goblins was being abandoned by Fenris. Look at the kobolds, they are similar to goblins in that they are easy "prey" for low level adventurers, and that they live in bad land with another race hogging all the good land. However, the kobolds have Tiamat and possibly other gods supporting them, so they have a place in the society of the western continent than just being raiders and brigands. With the support of gods, other peoples have powerful divine beings with an overt interest in helping your society be prosperous, who can appoint clerics who can hopefully guide your own people. It's like two families living in a run down neighborhood. Even the children of a poor family have a chance to grow up to eventually be prosperous under the guidance of wise and loving parents. But a group of orphans turned loose on the streets with nobody to care for or to protect them is more likely to wind up to turn out badly.

In an alternate scenario where the goblins started off in the most resource rich lands possible, they could have very well have ended up having a similar lot in life as they do in the present world of the comic if Fenris had still abandoned them. Goblin society would stagnate or decline without religious leadership, and then the gods of humans, or dwarves, or elves, or whatever other race wanted that land would still give them clerics, prophets, and other such gifts to make up for their lack of resources, resulting in the goblin lands being raided and the goblins overrun or pushed aside.

[brian 333]

This is absolutely ridiculous. Sure, wealth is not entirely static, it's not entirely impossible for a truly wealthy family to lose that wealth or for someone to rise up from poverty to create generational wealth, but chalking up the success of the wealthy to hard work and and ignoring all the different ways that wealth begets wealth is just the propaganda of the ruling class.

History proves otherwise. Wealth earned in one generation is squandered by the next. In very rare cases several generations grow wealth before it is lost. It is only when governments actively prohibit access to self improvement that multi-generational wealth becomes possible. Various caste and privileged class systems prevent upward mobility, some more successfully than others, but that is a product of societal control rather than economics.

Wealth does not beget wealth. If that was true, Spain would be the wealthiest nation on the planet, considering the volume of American gold and silver that flowed into that nation just a few centuries ago.

One cannot be given wealth. A history of lottery winners illustrates that. Those who have no education in wealth management quickly find out how easy it is to turn millions into millions in debt. On the other hand, with that education and some determination, wealth is not all that hard to acquire, even if you have nothing else. The only limit is how much work you want to put into it.

[Mechalich]

History proves otherwise. Wealth earned in one generation is squandered by the next. In very rare cases several generations grow wealth before it is lost. It is only when governments actively prohibit access to self improvement that multi-generational wealth becomes possible. Various caste and privileged class systems prevent upward mobility, some more successfully than others, but that is a product of societal control rather than economics.

Incorrect. Historically, multi-generational wealth has been the norm. This has only changed since the industrial revolution, due to a combination of government policies (such as estate taxes), rapid societal turnover (such as large-scale wars), and extremely rapid changes in overall economic output. Fortunes that are resistant to such methods, such as those held by the world's remaining royal houses, have successfully endured for centuries.

Wealth does not beget wealth. If that was true, Spain would be the wealthiest nation on the planet, considering the volume of American gold and silver that flowed into that nation just a few centuries ago.

The wealth of the pre-industrial past has been dwarfed by the post-industrial revolutionary present. Spain was, possibly, the richest country in the world in 1550, but total global economic output in 1550 was a mere ~450 billion dollars. Total output in 1900 was 3.4 trillion, and in 2000 was 65 trillion (adjusted for inflation).

One cannot be given wealth. A history of lottery winners illustrates that. Those who have no education in wealth management quickly find out how easy it is to turn millions into millions in debt.

This is a myth. While a small number of highly publicized lottery winners do go bust, most lottery winners are just fine, and many of those who do have trouble had pre-existing gambling problems. Yes, there are certain groups who struggle to manage drastic upward change in their financial circumstances, notably pro athletes, but this is uncommon.


Now, misconceptions aside, there is some truth to the idea that power cannot be given in D&D, since power is spellcasting and there no way to just give someone levels in a Tier I class. It is possible to upgrade a society's spellcasting quotient, for example using Simulacrum or spellstitched undead, but the true ultimate power of 9th level spells does have to be earned.

[theNater]

Spain was, possibly, the richest country in the world in 1550...

Worth noting that Spain is still within the top 15%. Very much not the riches to rags story brian 333 is suggesting.

[hroþila]

Remember that study that said the richest families in Florence in 1427 were still by and large the richest families in Florence in 2016?

[pyrefiend]

That actually is disproven by real world experience. Over many generations, wealthy families get less wealthy while impoverished ones get rich. It takes longer in places where the law entrenches privilege, but it happens over time.

Not disputing this, but it certainly doesn't suffice to establish your conclusion that

Wealth has nothing to do with where you begin.

Wealth has a lot to do with where you begin, even if rich kids tend to squander inherited wealth.

Ask yourself: if you had to give a newborn baby to either a very rich family or a very poor family, and if were just trying to maximize the amount of money that baby will have when it grows to be an adult, which would you choose? (You don't know anything else about the families, other than how wealthy they are.) I think it is absolutely obvious that you would give the newborn to the rich family. It's ridiculous to suppose that being born in a rich or poor family has nothing to do with your future financial prospects.

[Liquor Box]

Spoiler: Pyrefiend

Show

I thought he started to address this in his talk with Durkon, although Durkon cut him off. Something about wanting more recognition from the gods for the Goblins. Ideally he probably wants the gods to (i) apologize and (ii) make reparations to the Goblins.

Spoiler: Mechalich

Show

Two reasons.

The first is that Redcloak is a priest and all the evidence is that he's genuinely devout. The Plan is, so far as he knows, the Dark One's will, and therefore it's his sacred duty to carry it out. If the Dark One told him to stop, he'd stop. He'd probably be upset about all that wasted effort, but he'd do it.

The second reason is Xykon. Redcloak has sold Xykon a bill of goods and if Xykon doesn't get what he believes he deserves he will absolutely turn his skeletal but around and lay waste to Gobbotoppia out of pure spite. Redcloak is very aware of this and as such his continued pursuit of the plan is also a means to protect Gobbotoppia. Now Redcloak should have the means to stop Xykon, since he has control of the phylactery, but because he believes that he needs Xykon's power to complete the plan - and he does, for the action economy if nothing else - so long as reason one remains he needs to keep Xykon moving.

Now, this does mean that the continued plot is entirely dependent upon the Dark One holding the divine idiot ball. A ten minute frank conversation with basically any of the other gods, with the possible exception of Hel, could resolve this. However, pretty that's not going to happen. OOTS has reached a point where the overall plot is that the mortals must rectify the failures of the gods.

Spoiler: Fyraltari

Show

Gobbotopia is just one city-state. It isn't enough to accommodate the needs of the goblinoid people worldwide. And Redcloak expresses worry that Gobbotopia would be destroyed the moment the Azurite are strong enough to try. Now, I don't think that getting divine recognition would help luch in that regard, but he has a point that with Xykon out of the city, likely for good, Gobbotopia only exists as long as the neighbouring kingdoms allow it too. For the moment Cliffport sees Gobbotopia as an asset in their rivalry with elven lands and it's likely the other states have similar pragmatic reason tolerating its continued existence. But that's hardly a confortable position to be in. If you felt your survival depended on people who hate you finding you useful, wouldn't you look for ways to ensure your safety?

Now that I've advocated for the devil... That isn't the reason Redcloak presses on. He presses on because at this point completing the Plan has become the end rather than the mean. securing one nation-state isn't enough to justify the people he's sacrificed to Xykon in his eye(s), he will accept nothing less than what he set out to do in the first place.

Asked and answered, thank you.

There's an actual explanation for this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_effect

Basically, the snowball effect applies in opposite directions in regards to wealth, so the side that starts with more will slowly acquire more, and the side that starts with less will slowly lose more. The inequality doesn't even need to have started out particularly badly, but it would've gotten worse and worse with each passing generation. Like, one side starts with $1 (Side A), and one side starts with -$1 (Side B). Presume both sides earn $1 over their entire lives and each side has two children. At the end of their lives, they give half of their money to their children. Side A, who started with $1, is able to give $1 to each of their children. Side B, who started with -$1, can't give their children anything, so both children must borrow $1 before they can start earning money for themselves. This leaves Side A with $2, while Side B has -$2. This is a simplified explanation, but I'm sure you can extrapolate from here.

This is about having status attributed to you for your scientific work (the greater your initial profile, the more recognition for later works). I don't think it has much application to the question of whether peoples with more or less resources will snowball to become even more extreme.

As noted earlier, Africa is probably the continent with the most resources but most peoples from there have quite low standards of living nowadays. Japan has almost no natural resources, but the people there have a high standard of living (same is true of Europe, which is not particularly well endowed with resources). There are so many other factors that go into the success of a society/country/people that starting resources is generally not a strong indicator.

Worth noting that Spain is still within the top 15%. Very much not the riches to rags story brian 333 is suggesting.

I think the point was that it did not snowball upward, but instead declined.

For more stark examples of riches to rags, take the Ottomon Empire to now Turkey, or Mali from 800 years ago until now. The reverse is the very poor Japan of a couple of hundred years ago to now.

[brian 333]

Not disputing this, but it certainly doesn't suffice to establish your conclusion that



Wealth has a lot to do with where you begin, even if rich kids tend to squander inherited wealth.

Ask yourself: if you had to give a newborn baby to either a very rich family or a very poor family, and if were just trying to maximize the amount of money that baby will have when it grows to be an adult, which would you choose? (You don't know anything else about the families, other than how wealthy they are.) I think it is absolutely obvious that you would give the newborn to the rich family. It's ridiculous to suppose that being born in a rich or poor family has nothing to do with your future financial prospects.

This has more to do with access to education {scrubbed}.

With that education, and scrubbed, formerly impoverished people become wealthy in staggering numbers. The starting point really does not matter.

[pyrefiend]

The starting point really does not matter.

Are you really saying that, all else being equal, children of poor families are just as likely as children of wealthy families to end up being wealthy themselves?

[theNater]

This has more to do with access to education...

You know that familial wealth influences access to education, right?

[brian 333]

Are you really saying that, all else being equal, children of poor families are just as likely as children of wealthy families to end up being wealthy themselves?

No. I'm saying that, rich or poor, education and drive enable the person to recognize opportunity and improve their economic situation. Poor children seldom have the same educational opportunities that rich ones do. But a person who understands money can make the best of what he has and improve, the only limit being how much effort he is willing to put into it.

Example: when I was 10, my mother made me wash the windows on our house. My aunt saw me doing this and offered me $2/window to wash hers. With the $20 I bought a bucket, a brush on a pole, and a bottle of detergent, (and some candy,) and went around my neighborhood washing windows. The next summer I bought a pump-up sprayer and a cheap, $120) pressure washer. I did windows and vinyl siding. My friend joined, and we expanded our customer base to his family's houses. By the time I was 13 I had established myself as the kid who washed houses, and even after getting a full time job washing dishes at a Chinese restaurant I would get calls from former customers to do windows on my days off. In fact, after I got out of the navy my friend and I continued to earn money on the side washing houses. I could have built a business around it. I made other choices, but when I began all I had was a strong back and a mother who wanted clean windows.

(If you need money, give it a try. A scrub brush, a bucket of dishwashing liquid and water, and a garden hose will earn you $10/window and take about ten minutes each. Want to make $60/hour?)

It really isn't where you start that matters. It's that you start. And keep learning and keep trying even when you fail.

[Peelee]

No. I'm saying that, rich or poor, education and drive enable the person to recognize opportunity and improve their economic situation. Poor children seldom have the same educational opportunities that rich ones do. But a person who understands money can make the best of what he has and improve, the only limit being how much effort he is willing to put into it.

Example: when I was 10, my mother made me wash the windows on our house. My aunt saw me doing this and offered me $2/window to wash hers. With the $20 I bought a bucket, a brush on a pole, and a bottle of detergent, (and some candy,) and went around my neighborhood washing windows. The next summer I bought a pump-up sprayer and a cheap, $120) pressure washer. I did windows and vinyl siding. My friend joined, and we expanded our customer base to his family's houses. By the time I was 13 I had established myself as the kid who washed houses, and even after getting a full time job washing dishes at a Chinese restaurant I would get calls from former customers to do windows on my days off. In fact, after I got out of the navy my friend and I continued to earn money on the side washing houses. I could have built a business around it. I made other choices, but when I began all I had was a strong back and a mother who wanted clean windows.

(If you need money, give it a try. A scrub brush, a bucket of dishwashing liquid and water, and a garden hose will earn you $10/window and take about ten minutes each. Want to make $60/hour?)

It really isn't where you start that matters. It's that you start. And keep learning and keep trying even when you fail.

I read Star Wars books and played Guitar Hero while you were washing windows. I now have two cars with no car payments and two houses with no mortgage payment, because it's all paid off, because I was born into generational wealth. I am soon to have a third house.

Next time you make your mortgage payment make sure to write me a note on how generational wealth doesn't matter.

[hroþila]

It really isn't where you start that matters. It's that you start.

But if you hadn't started in suburbia you wouldn't have been able to do any of that. And your family needed money to get there in the first place.

[Mechalich]

All this discussion of individual wealth is largely beside the point. While a society is assembled from individuals, that aggregation is not constant. One of the biggest reasons the wealth of any given society changes is that its membership changes, sometimes peacefully through immigration or emigration, but often through warfare. In pre-industrial societies where wealth is largely represented by land, societies lose or gain wealth through the accumulation or loss of land via the change in boundaries with their neighbors.

With regards to the goblins, this does lead to the consideration of xenophobia/ethnic prejudice and its relation to wealth. The very idea of 'goblin lands' is an extremely racialized concept, since it intrinsically rejects the idea of multiracial society where everyone can participate in the economy and the economic fate of the entire society is not tied to the fortunes of a specific racial or ethnic group. And we know such a thing is possible. The Empire of Blood, notably, was multi-racial with non-humans in high-level positions and as far as can be determined no explicitly race-based legal oppression (now, this is at least partly through the expedient of universal evil autocracy: 'oppression for everybody!' so it's hard to generalize from that).

Of the other hand, goblins are not humans and speciesism is not equal to racism, because of the difference between apparent variation and actual variation. The apparent variation, in the case of the goblins, would be their green skin, which does not appear to have any practical impact of any kind. By contrast their reduced lifespans and higher reproductive rate are actual variations that would result in a goblin society having a different structure from a human society even if all other factors were equal. OOTS has, IMO, not handled this well, alternatively conflating goblins with humans when it suits the narrative and dividing them from humans when it doesn't. It also doesn't help that the principle differences - lifespan and birth rate - are difficult to show in the timescale of the narrative. A more obvious difference, like inability to eat the same foods, would make this clear. Note that this doesn't have to be some huge variance like obligate carnivory, it could simply be something like inability to eat the same crops. Azure City had an east Asian theme, so the principal crop was probably rice. Imagine if the goblins couldn't eat rice and had to replant every field for corn instead. that would mean every time the goblins conquered an Azurite settlement that'd have to completely restructure the agriculture base.

Actually, that sort of thing is also how the 'bad land' issue could persist long term. If the goblins were initially given some sort of upland hill environment and their bodies are optimized to consume crops native to that environment - ex. root vegetables - that don't have the same level of productivity as lowland cereals, even when they are able to expand to such areas the goblins might be unable to reach the same density as humans because they cannot achieve the same level of hectare-to-hectare productivity as human farmers. Now, D&D is a bad system to use to try and make a point like this because it includes various ways to produce infinite food - such as the endless hydra head restaurant example in the comic - but the idea is sound.

[Liquor Box]

You know that familial wealth influences access to education, right?

The extent to which it does, if at all, differs a lot from place to place. Brian appears to acknowledge that not everyone in every country has access to education by his use of the word 'if'.

Brian's premise seems to be that, if a person has access to education, and if they are sufficiently capable then they will have a comparable chance of getting a well paid job regardless of wealth. He acknowledges that the education point is an 'if'. Some people might thing that lack of wealth might present other barriers (and this may even be true in some cases), but I don't Brian's point is clearly wrong. When we discussed IQ tests some months back, we found research that IQ was a much greater predictor of economic success that starting wealth.

That does though apply more to income from employment. You need seed money to get wealth through investments, and it's a significant disadvantage if you have to generate that seed money yourself. So Brian's point probably means that a clever person with access to education can make their way to the upper middle class (doctors, lawyers etc) without a good starting point, but it will be unusual for them to become actually rich.

All this discussion of individual wealth is largely beside the point.

This is absolutely true. Social mobility of individuals/families within a lifetime has little to do with the point of the thread - whether starting land for a whole people is a strong predictor of their standard of living thousands of years later. The discussion on individuals is just an aside.

[Reach Weapon]

(If you need money, give it a try. A scrub brush, a bucket of dishwashing liquid and water, and a garden hose will earn you $10/window and take about ten minutes each. Want to make $60/hour?)

In fairness, if it was generally acceptable for some elf to hire you to wash some upper story windows and then push you to your death, it would limit the success of your entrepreneurial endeavor, no?

(The level of headwinds against any specific individuals or groups need not be so stark, but this example was supported by prior comics, so...)

[pyrefiend]

Are you really saying that, all else being equal, children of poor families are just as likely as children of wealthy families to end up being wealthy themselves?

No.

It really isn't where you start that matters.

This is a contradiction, isn’t it? If your answer to my question is “no”, then you do think that where you start matters. It’s not all that matters, obviously, but it does matter.

I read Star Wars books and played Guitar Hero while you were washing windows. I now have two cars with no car payments and two houses with no mortgage payment, because it's all paid off, because I was born into generational wealth. I am soon to have a third house.

I agree with you that being born into a rich family matters for one’s future prospects, but this really seems to be reinforcing Brian’s point about what happens to generational wealth.

[Mechalich]

I agree with you that being born into a rich family matters for one’s future prospects, but this really seems to be reinforcing Brian’s point about what happens to generational wealth.

Except real estate is wealth, so being in a position to buy a third house means considerable wealth accumulation has occurred. In fact real estate is one of the largest stores of wealth known and a big part of the reason why certain extremely long-enduring organizations tend to be exceedingly wealthy, because they've held lots of land over the long term. This is doubly true in pre-industrial agrarian economies in which economic growth was both drastically lower than it is now and also much less variable. In such economies the reason a rich family lost a fortune was most commonly that someone else took it from them, usually by force of arms, in which case the fortune by no means disappeared, it was just inherited via iron rather than blood. Fortunes based in land ownership could be lost due to factors such as climate change (common in irrigation dependent 'oasis states') or due to siltation (common in harbor cities), but these processes tend to operate on a timescale of centuries.

It would, in fact, be possible to measure the variance in starting position given to a species via a form of survey of their starting lands, by assigning every hectare a value based on things like agricultural productivity, game production level, mineral resources, timber resources, and the presence of miscellaneous resources like lacquer or spices. Certain video games, like Civilization, already do this, and while it's an approximation, it's certain suitable to make a point about one group starting in a position of disadvantage. Here, I'll throw around some simplified numbers. Let's say that when Stickworld was created each major species got 100 squares worth of land. Those squares all have some average value. Combine these two together and there's a 'starting real estate value' for each species. It's entirely possible that species like Dwarves and Humans had numbers like 5,000, while the Goblins only got 2,500.

Now, there's the very important question of, if such a thing happened, why did it happen. If you're building a world 4x style it is generally intended that every species or civ has the same amount of starting points. So if the goblins got shorted in the 'initial real estate' category they should have gotten compensated for in some other area, but, and this is an important but, as most veteran 4x players know, even when games are intending to be balanced, it generally turns out that certain traits are actually way more valuable than others and certain traits are trap options and should never be taken. That's why games like Stellaris have 'species build' lists.

The key factor here is that the Gods have a 'no post-creation edits' rule in place and are deeply imperfect and flawed beings. This means that basically every time they create the world they're using the alpha version, with no patches allowed. That's going to have species fall out in an unbalanced fashion, and in the case of Stickworld it was the goblins who ended up with the crummy build (though honestly their build still seems to be pretty good, it's not like they have an Int or Wis penalty or something that would be really crippling in 3.5 D&D).

So, actually, thinking this way, the plight of the goblins really comes down to insufficient playtesting. Which, as a moral regarding TTRPG game and setting design is very much on point, though I don't feel like it was the originally intended one.

[BloodSquirrel]

I read Star Wars books and played Guitar Hero while you were washing windows. I now have two cars with no car payments and two houses with no mortgage payment, because it's all paid off, because I was born into generational wealth. I am soon to have a third house.

Next time you make your mortgage payment make sure to write me a note on how generational wealth doesn't matter.

This is binary thinking.

The son of a billionaire is almost certainly going to go through life more well-off than the son of a welfare recipient, but both are very likely to deviate significantly from their father. We can see- both from basic math and from real-world examples- that even a 50% difference from generation to generation will accumulate very rapidly as generations pass, and the biggest gains/losses are likely to occur when the old generation is on the extreme end of the scale.

Generational wealth matters in the short term, but it doesn't persist very long from a historical standpoint. A very few families get lucky enough to enshrine their wealth within a stable political system, but the richest man in America right is not a Rockefeller, let alone the direct male decedent of Robert Morris. Generational poverty lasts longer to the degree that poverty is more common than wealth in the first place, but people escape it with regularity.

[BloodSquirrel]

Of the other hand, goblins are not humans and speciesism is not equal to racism, because of the difference between apparent variation and actual variation. The apparent variation, in the case of the goblins, would be their green skin, which does not appear to have any practical impact of any kind. By contrast their reduced lifespans and higher reproductive rate are actual variations that would result in a goblin society having a different structure from a human society even if all other factors were equal. OOTS has, IMO, not handled this well, alternatively conflating goblins with humans when it suits the narrative and dividing them from humans when it doesn't. It also doesn't help that the principle differences - lifespan and birth rate - are difficult to show in the timescale of the narrative. A more obvious difference, like inability to eat the same foods, would make this clear. Note that this doesn't have to be some huge variance like obligate carnivory, it could simply be something like inability to eat the same crops. Azure City had an east Asian theme, so the principal crop was probably rice. Imagine if the goblins couldn't eat rice and had to replant every field for corn instead. that would mean every time the goblins conquered an Azurite settlement that'd have to completely restructure the agriculture base.

I would point out once more that the comic handles this perfectly well for its own purposes. This debate, by in large, deviates from the thematic scope of the comic. It over-emphasizes one (highly biased) character's viewpoint and ignores the explicitly stated counter-viewpoint (That, regardless of the historic reason for the goblins' situation, fixing the problem requires present-day thinking).

As far as the comic's narrative is concerned, Redcloak's personal psychology is by far and away more important as a driving factor in the conflict than whether goblins can metabolize gluten or not. There's nothing wrong with getting into the weeds in this kind of discussion, but let's at least keep in mind that where the trail is.

[Peelee]

This is binary thinking.

I responded to a personal anecdote with a personal anecdote. If brian 333 wants to use his own life experience as evidence then I assume he would have no issue with me using mine to rebut.

Generational poverty lasts longer to the degree that poverty is more common than wealth in the first place, but people escape it with regularity.

Define "poverty" and "regularity".

[brian 333]

I read Star Wars books and played Guitar Hero while you were washing windows. I now have two cars with no car payments and two houses with no mortgage payment, because it's all paid off, because I was born into generational wealth. I am soon to have a third house.

Next time you make your mortgage payment make sure to write me a note on how generational wealth doesn't matter.

While you were doing that, I was touring the world, and Charles Payne was avoiding bullies by hiding in the Detroit Public Library.

I have been without money several times in my life, but currently own a 17 acre wood lot which I am repurposing for my retirement.

Which is more reinforcement of my point: Charles Payne started with a public education and access to a library. I started with my older brother's little red wagon. He was able to get stupid rich, and I was able to live my life by my rules.

So, enjoy your wealth. It really isn't that hard to get. You just need an education and be willing to work.

[Mechalich]

I would point out once more that the comic handles this perfectly well for its own purposes. This debate, by in large, deviates from the thematic scope of the comic. It over-emphasizes one (highly biased) character's viewpoint and ignores the explicitly stated counter-viewpoint (That, regardless of the historic reason for the goblins' situation, fixing the problem requires present-day thinking).

Actually, I think the problem is that the problem, in-universe isn't historic at all. In comic 1232, Durkon asks Thor to makes the goblins land better. The implication is that, however long it's been since the world was made the goblins are broadly still occupying the same crummy lands they started with. Now, unless the world was created very recently, this implies an extraordinary level geographic stasis. Which...actually could be possible, given fantasy rules and all, but it goes against the only evidence we possess, that of extremely high kingdom turnover on the Western Continent.

The other problem is that 'bad lands' is not actually a difficult problem in the context of 3.5 D&D, especially if the gods are capable of collectively recognizing it as an injustice or even just wanting to make the situation for the goblins better as a means of bribing the Dark One. Especially not right this moment with all sorts of important clerics gathered at the Godsmoot. The pantheons just send a message: "the clergy of every deity are responsible for n castings of Miracle for the express purpose of improving the productivity of lands currently controlled by goblinoid species within the next week."