Jump to content

Emperor Harkonnen

Fedaykin
  • Posts

    2,402
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Reputation

0 Neutral

Profile Information

  • Location
    Norway
  1. maybe they asked Brian Herbert for the CHOAM revenues? Funny how Acme from Looney Tunes is second
  2. THought I'd share this if you haven't seen it. http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelnoer/2011/03/11/the-25-largest-fictional-companies/ CHOAM tops the list with $1,7 trillion in revenues
  3. I guess they were not considered "Empires" in the same sense as the Roman or Alexander the Great. Maybe due to size and influence? I am not sure how large the largest islamic country was though, might have been bigger than Alexander's Empire for all I know? And due to the dominance of the West currently, and if it continued, you might think that the people/Empires thought of as the greatest in the west were the ones remembered? For my part I know none great islamic leaders, but know several Roman Emperors and British Monarchs and I have of course heard of Alexander the Great. But in terms of religion it seems to me also that Islam to a higher extent than Christianity survived. Maybe related to secularisation of western worlds currently? Seems plausible to me...
  4. I would think that import and export are less than between countries today, due to high transportation prices. I guess planets were more self sufficient than countries are today. Less "globalization". What kind of stuff do you guys think they imported/exported between planets? Probably some luxury goods (I guess they refered to Harkonnen ale and caladonian wine in the books if I remember right) Also technology and biological stuff from Tleilax. I
  5. How often do you think the Guild would visit a planet? Would they have fitted schedules or just come whenever there was someone needing transportation.
  6. I agree. I guess their shortcomings in other areas, would be because most resources were used to survive. So they were spending their resources on fighting before what is considered "more civilized" by the imperium. In all societies there are limited resources, and one has to choose what to focus on. Like you said driven to survive, the Fremen had to focus on fighting, because of the constant threat of houses mining spice on Arrakis. But when not motivated by survival, maybe the cultural focus is toward self realization? (I'm thinking Maslow's pyramide)
  7. Lord Johnsonius Yeah, the question was why they are not used. I understand your argument, but I disagree. I don't think a corporation poses a threat to the government/noble family. Erasomnius: GDP produced per hour worked is a good measure of productivity. As you can see the most productive societies are those of Western and Northern Europe as well as the USA. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_hour_worked China is acctually thought to have a higher borrowing rate as well, it is thought to be concealed in the municipalies and difficult to estimate. They are far from more productive than the western world, and predictions say that they probably never will be in the next 100 years. Most capital in the world is owned by the OECD countries, and the return on this capital, even if invested in China, goes back to the countries that own the capital. But if you only count the east coast of China, they are probably closer to western productivity. But you raise a good point, it is hard to say for such a society as Dune what would work ;)
  8. Yeah you would think that much of the population had loyalty to atreides since they (according to the Encyclopedia) had ruled Caladan since year 8000 something. I guess he brought the whole army with him to Arrakis, and that the rest of the population were civilians who didn't care that much for the Duke. Difficult to say since we know little about the life on Caladan.
  9. Page 188(just searched for culture) (military order is what I meant) Jessica nodded, conserving her strength, sensing the terrible fatigue she held at bay by force of will . . . and, she admitted it: by the force of elation. Her mind focused on the value of this troop, seeing what was revealed here about the Fremen culture. All of them, she thought, an entire culture trained to military order. What a priceless thing is here for an outcast Duke!
  10. OMG do you have to take everything so litterary? It might have been culture devoted to fighting or something, I don't remember the exact word. That's why I didn't search myself. You are just going to have to take my word for it. I'm not gonna spend time finding it, because it is pretty obvious that fighting/war is an aspect in their culture that pretty much is included in many aspects of their society. Such as leadership is taken by killing the leader etc.. (like the harkonnens ;) ) Sorry, I can't think of and write down every possible little thing you might try to find, just to prove me wrong. I'm simply trying to put down a view I though was interesting about dune. And now I guess you're going to try to get this discussion over to "war is not the same as fighting blablabla", so please don't.
  11. Here is a picture of a nice bridge
  12. Acctually it is explicitly said in Dune that their culture is based on war. (I'm not gonna spend 60 minutes trying to find the exact page where it is mentioned, somewhere after they met the Fremens) Yeah I guess there are not that many factions entirely devoted to their specialization. I would say Tleilaxu to some extent. Maybe the Ginaz swordmasters? Fremen degraded in MD and CoD similar to people when machines started thinking for them before the butlerian jihad. I think this was a major point about the Dune books, what happens when one is no longer shaped by the environment one was previously part of. ;)
  13. I allready wrote as an assumption that I consider individual freedom a nation with less government intervention(capitalism). If you are questioning this assumption that is fair, but should it be wrong my argument doesn't hold, this is why I wrote it as an assumption. If you don't believe that capitalism is freedom, of course you won't agree to this. Natural resources: Has almost nothing to do with economic development, as you obvisoulsy know. (with the exception of oil, and other resources in large quantities with high margins) African countries is one example here. Infrastructure: of course this matters, but most countries in Europe have equal or better infrastructure. Trade: A biproduct of global capitalism and freedom Anyway the US is not my only example, the Nordic countries does extremely well also. In these countries there is freedom for corporations, but also free education and medical care. Which further increases the freedom of individuals. (this is because capitalism has a flaw in medical treatment and education) For the second part of your reply: (i don't know how to get more quotes) You are right to question whether these theories applies to a scenario one does not know that much about. And of course I could be wrong, I am simply basing my opinion on the current situation which is probably the best estimate one can make. And in the current situation a worker gives the most output if he is happy. Quantities doesn't replace quality.
  14. I have been thinking alot about cultures lately, and I was thinking about the Fremen culture. Their's is entirely based on war/fighting, almost every aspect is focused on this, which obviously is what makes them so good at it. Specialization in other words. Is anything mentioned why it turned out like this? Do you think this makes their culture lack other aspects? And would this apply to almost all other aspects of society as well, I mean focusing so much on one thing that you get supremely good at it within a population. Practise hardly can't get you further than the best in your own population. But if everyone in one population focuses on one aspect, devoting all their time to it, they will get better than the best in other populations doing the same. And this is pretty interesting about Dune, because it seems that this is exactly what they have done. Every population has it's own niche and specialization. Except for most of the houses. (Tleilaxu, Ix and Richese of course has their own. Is tleilaxu a house by the way?) Today this would be the case for corporations only (yes again, I am comparing Dune to economics), but also to countries to some extent. But the thing is that it does not influence the whole culture, they are still keeping their other aspects. Could this be something we will see outside of purely economics as well? Just a thought :-)
  15. Nope that's not it, because House Harkonnen had several planets under their rule. Besides that sounds like a ridiculous rule; a house have to have at least one close family ruling each planet. I think it is because of military strenght(which is needed to rule several planets, and since the emperor wouldn't want the atreides to forfeit their duties at Arrakis, and their(atreides's) army was only large enough to really control one planet) in combination with the Emperor of course wanting to get rid of the entire house. But Leto didn't know this, so to him the first reason was probably likely.
×
×
  • Create New...