Emperor Harkonnen

maybe they asked Brian Herbert for the CHOAM revenues? Funny how Acme from Looney Tunes is second

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

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...

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

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.

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)

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 ;)

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.

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!

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.

Here is a picture of a nice bridge

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. ;)

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.

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 :-)

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.

Yeah you are kind of missing the point, but it is still an interesting topic you are bringing up. Just short my point was that running a country like the USA, which is probably the most capitalistic(IMO this is freedom since the government has little influence) country (I am speaking of nations with more than 5 million citizens) in the world, gives the highest income. USA has the highest GDP per capita of all countries in the world, given my assumptions. This is a proof that freedom maximizes value. (Lol I sometimes find this forum so funyy, because you need to state EVERY LITTLE assumption in every post, orelse people will just start discussing the little "mistakes" in your logic, that really has no effect on the main subject, and you go off topic) But your point was pretty interesting anyway, imagine a corporation in the future taking a planet and running it as a production facility of several goods, eventually turning into a government but still running it as an organization. I wonder how that would turn out, especially if there were stockholders on other planets as well that checked that the corporation really was maximizing profits.

So why must individual freedom be stomped out or directed into loyalty? The problem here is of course if people want democracy, they will riot. But I would presume this is a larger risk in a state where people have lower standards of living. I am saying that a normal state that wants as much income as possible should allow freedom to its individuals, and care for it's individuals. The rational would be to run the state like a corporation, where only profits matter and where they are maximized, which seems to be the goal for both house atreides and harkonnen in the novel. I can't really see how it is so difficult to understand: 1: You want almost full employment, because unemployed people is a waste of resources since people are resources 2: You want every employee to produce as much as possible for as little cost as possible. (as mentioned before, this does not involve stepping on people) The reasoning behind this, is that it allows better use of the work force (by treating all medical conditions free and allowing free education) and it motivates people to create stuff that allows for the economy to work in it's best state.

I agree with Chani being more similar in the movie. Same I would say goes for Piter, much cooler in the movie. But Feyd, Guerney and the baron are more like in the books in the miniseries.

That's a pretty interesting thought. Nature acctually designed humans to do what they are doing and are being a part of nature in doing this. How is this related to humans dominating nature? Instead of dominating they are a part of nature, no matter what they do? By cutting down forests and poluting they still play their ecological role in changing the world? I know what you mean, I also just reread Dune and got into the whole universe again. Probably gonna read the rest of the books pretty soon :)

Lol! No shit sherlock

Kind of cultural development in the case with humans I agree. But are you also thinking about a biological development? And are closed systems like planets? I guess for everyone but humans they are closed, at least some humans.

Acctually most studies on this (I study management, economics and finance so I've had a couple of courses on thist), and most companies in free markets, agree that providing benefits to employees increases their productivity. Meaning that providing your employees with benefits equal to $1 would increase your revenues by more than $1. This is of course up to a certain point. Which point this is, is pretty difficult to say generally, but it certainly is not where the workers only get paid enough food to replace the calories they lost working. Taxing the hell out of your citizens, will kill all motivation to work, and they will do as little as possible. Controlling people costs money. Therefore incentives that are cheaper than controlling is the best way of making sure people work, and the best way to create excessive profits for any individual, state or company. But lol, your resoning about the robot is quite funny. Only problem is that people have free will... Well yeah, that was basically my point when starting this whole thread. That being so focused on honour, is usually not rational, so why do they do it when they are so rational in other aspects of society. They should now that it compromises profits, like you said.

Yeah I didn't specify, I meant to maximize the profits of a country, and in the Dune case a House. So my argument was basically that in order to increase their wealth, a house would be smart to allow further individual, financial freedom and to take care of their individuals. (This is based on how economics work today and is merely what I believe) Individual freedom doesn't necessarily increase the individual profits acctually, it maximizes the total profit. So you would still see a wealth difference between people. But as you say, I guess the profits of one family such as the Harkonnens, could be achieved by stepping on people. But this would depend on their motives. Wouldn't it be better for the Harkonnens to increase the total wealth of their population rather than the wealth they control? Since they control the population, they indirectly control their wealth, even though they don't have imidiate access to it. In the long run, this would be beneficial to them.

So which actors in the movies or the miniseries do you think are the closest to how you imagined the characters from the book? For my part I guess it would be a mix, but generally I prefer the actors in the miniseries. They look more how Frank Herbert described them, and personally I also thought they seemed more like this when I read the book. What about you guys?

You are wrong. If individuals or corporations with execessive monopoly power maximizes their profit, this does not maximize the profit of society as a whole. This is a market inefficiency that has to be dealt with by governments. This is because this reduces the freedom of other individuals. THis is the perfect role of the government, removing market inefficiencies. All economic theory states that a free market is what maximizes profits. This means freedom to the individual. This is also proven through the GDP per capita of various countries: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita In which of these countries have individuals and corporations the most (especially financial) freedom? The top countries! Look at the US! (some of these are tax paradises or heavily depend on oil income, so these should maybe be ignored) Good point on honor by the way, I guess there are both advantages and disadvantages to it. Difficult to measure in which cases it will be beneficial and in which not. But if you die, in many cases, your reputation(which is as you stated the main advantage to honor) is no longer necessary.