The socio-economic consequences of the scale difference in Zootopia

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madd0ct0r
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Re: The socio-economic consequences of the scale difference in Zootopia

Post by madd0ct0r »

You'd either burn it, use it farming for non-elephant species to reduce virus cross over or farm insect protein off it THEN burn it it or use as soil mulch. as inefficient vegetarians elephants will not concentrate heavy metals the way humans do (the main reason we don't farm much with it)

The burning would probably be done in a mixed fuel power station.
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Re: The socio-economic consequences of the scale difference in Zootopia

Post by madd0ct0r »

The point about voting and relative lifespans is a good one. You'd definitely have to work to avoid populist species voting blocks. Voting age and retirement age would be species specific. Definition of lethal force... how would that work?
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Q99
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Re: The socio-economic consequences of the scale difference in Zootopia

Post by Q99 »

Elheru Aran wrote: It wouldn't be too hard for them to have a municipal equivalent of the cedar-shavings tray underneath their houses, I suppose, that a larger species could simply pull out and dump into a trash can or some such.
Heck, their waste tends to be small and dry. They could do it pretty easy.
It does make one wonder where the infrastructure for such a undertaking comes from. There must be a ridiculously large public works program. Imagine what it would take to deal with the shit from a town of elephants.
The infrastructure of the place is definitely impressive on all levels, especially in the mixed areas.
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Re: The socio-economic consequences of the scale difference in Zootopia

Post by biostem »

What I find odd is that they wouldn't simply build more uniform structures, and simply convert a floor, (or in the case of very small animals), a single room, to a multi-unit dwelling. Having all those smaller townhouse-style structures, apparently un-anchored to the ground, is a recipe for disaster - and you wouldn't need some rampaging fox to knock them all down, either.

Given that the interior shot appeared like a conventional living room, I can only assume that the rest of the home is similar, (except for the water bottle). I realize they wouldn't show it in the movie, but I can't imagine that the animals would just relieve themselves on the ground, (maybe they use chamber pots).
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Re: The socio-economic consequences of the scale difference in Zootopia

Post by Q99 »

biostem wrote:What I find odd is that they wouldn't simply build more uniform structures, and simply convert a floor, (or in the case of very small animals), a single room, to a multi-unit dwelling. Having all those smaller townhouse-style structures, apparently un-anchored to the ground, is a recipe for disaster - and you wouldn't need some rampaging fox to knock them all down, either.
Keep in mind that they're probably very cheap, this way they don't have to be around big-types (it would be more comfortable to know there are aren't where you *don't* have to worry about being stepped on), and... if they fell over, they'd be shaken up but I'm pretty sure no-one would die! Scale, and all.
Given that the interior shot appeared like a conventional living room, I can only assume that the rest of the home is similar, (except for the water bottle). I realize they wouldn't show it in the movie, but I can't imagine that the animals would just relieve themselves on the ground, (maybe they use chamber pots).
Oh, certainly specific rooms for it. They are *civilized*, after all.
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Re: The socio-economic consequences of the scale difference in Zootopia

Post by Q99 »

One more thing about their economics: They can afford to climate-control large sectors of city.
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Re: The socio-economic consequences of the scale difference in Zootopia

Post by Elheru Aran »

Q99 wrote:One more thing about their economics: They can afford to climate-control large sectors of city.
(Not having seen the movie) Like... what... it's under a dome? Or they put up big fans at one side? What? That's interesting...
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Re: The socio-economic consequences of the scale difference in Zootopia

Post by Dass.Kapital »

"One more thing about their economics: They can afford to climate-control large sectors of city."

"(Not having seen the movie) Like... what... it's under a dome? Or they put up big fans at one side? What? That's interesting..."
Spoiler
Between each 'Zone' are HUGE walls (maybe some one can figure out how high?) that... On one side are blowing hot, dry air to from a virtual desert environment and then, on the other, is blowing chilled/refrigerated air and snow to form a polar environment.

It's seen as our Heroin takes her train trip into the city.
In all a very good movie. Loved the voice acting. :)
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Re: The socio-economic consequences of the scale difference in Zootopia

Post by Q99 »

Here's a wide shot of the city.

On the right, you can see desert with sand dunes, the desert side of the climate-wall, and then snow-covered mountains. There's also a rainforest zone on the left.

An interesting note is their skyscrapers are more varied than ours in construction (I'm pretty sure we could make the more curved horn-shaped ones, but haven't done so)... and I'm not sure, but some of those biggest ones might be taller than ours, but are up there at least. So their macro-engineering, on the whole, seems on a higher level.
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Re: The socio-economic consequences of the scale difference in Zootopia

Post by Adam Reynolds »

Having now seen the movie, I have a few comments. Though more generally, I will say that it is a rather clever buddy cop movie with strong noir elements.

The issue of voting blocks decidedly exists. The lion mayor picked a sheep as his assistant major because she would help him win with the sheep vote(which was also an amusing pun). A major political issue is the fact that prey animals outnumber predators 10-1 and yet are threatened by them.

It also points out the scale problem directly. One of the main characters initially makes a living as a con man buying elephant scale popsicles, melting them down, refreezing them in the arctic zone, and reselling them to lemmings. He even sells the popsicle sticks as construction material. Arbitrage of that sort is probably somewhat rampant.

One final question is that of why sloths dominate the DMV? Are there certain professions dominated by a single species like that? That seems rather odd, especially for such a slow species. Though it would make some sense that certain species would be better adapted for some jobs than others.

On the issue of climate control, it is amusing that the arctic region and desert as next door. Probably because the waste heat from the refrigeration systems can them be pumped into the desert, lessening the overall energy costs.
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Re: The socio-economic consequences of the scale difference in Zootopia

Post by Q99 »

Adam Reynolds wrote: One final question is that of why sloths dominate the DMV? Are there certain professions dominated by a single species like that? That seems rather odd, especially for such a slow species. Though it would make some sense that certain species would be better adapted for some jobs than others.
The Lemming Brothers bank was all lemmings.

For the DMV, I suppose it's a job viewed as not requiring speed, and they're a species that doesn't mind doing tedius stuff all day... because it's faster to them.
On the issue of climate control, it is amusing that the arctic region and desert as next door. Probably because the waste heat from the refrigeration systems can them be pumped into the desert, lessening the overall energy costs.
Exactly how it works.
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Re: The socio-economic consequences of the scale difference in Zootopia

Post by Adam Reynolds »

Q99 wrote: The Lemming Brothers bank was all lemmings.

For the DMV, I suppose it's a job viewed as not requiring speed, and they're a species that doesn't mind doing tedius stuff all day... because it's faster to them.
True, though I suppose that is justified by size.

The DMV explanation is also an interesting one. I wonder if there is a species that is especially bad at things like office work?
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Re: The socio-economic consequences of the scale difference in Zootopia

Post by biostem »

It also points out the scale problem directly. One of the main characters initially makes a living as a con man buying elephant scale popsicles, melting them down, refreezing them in the arctic zone, and reselling them to lemmings. He even sells the popsicle sticks as construction material. Arbitrage of that sort is probably somewhat rampant.
Why would that be a "con"? There are entire industries that deal with taking large or bulk materials and essentially just resizing and repackaging them...

One final question is that of why sloths dominate the DMV? Are there certain professions dominated by a single species like that? That seems rather odd, especially for such a slow species. Though it would make some sense that certain species would be better adapted for some jobs than others.
It could be due to any number of reasons - perhaps the head of the DMV is a sloth, or maybe it's a jab at government jobs, (not needing to be efficient and all that), or maybe the sloths are just really attentive to detail and have a very low error rate with regards to their paperwork/forms/enforcing procedures.

It would be interesting to see how the sloths would react if they were in immediate danger - I suppose they intentionally avoid anything that their slow lifestyles might put them at risk for...
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Re: The socio-economic consequences of the scale difference in Zootopia

Post by Q99 »

biostem wrote: Why would that be a "con"? There are entire industries that deal with taking large or bulk materials and essentially just resizing and repackaging them...
He conned someone into buying the popsicle, for one ^^ Also, the people buying the sticks as construction material didn't know they were used popsicles, just reddish wood (red from the popsicle coloring).

Also doing it by hand, small-time, instead of a factory or such. Dunno if it'd actually meet all the codes (though he did have enough licenses so he could legally sell stuff and do commerce across district lines).

It could be due to any number of reasons - perhaps the head of the DMV is a sloth, or maybe it's a jab at government jobs, (not needing to be efficient and all that), or maybe the sloths are just really attentive to detail and have a very low error rate with regards to their paperwork/forms/enforcing procedures.
Flash doesn't actually seem to be bad at his job, just slow, after all.

Hm, and they did seem to have all counters staffed, and the lines weren't *that* long. So maybe hiring 20 sloths is done instead of a smaller number of faster animals or something.
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Re: The socio-economic consequences of the scale difference in Zootopia

Post by biostem »

Flash doesn't actually seem to be bad at his job, just slow, after all.

Hm, and they did seem to have all counters staffed, and the lines weren't *that* long. So maybe hiring 20 sloths is done instead of a smaller number of faster animals or something.
Perhaps 20 sloths are able to handle the same number of customers per unit time, as 10 faster animals, but produce significantly fewer mistakes, (thus saving money in the long run).
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Re: The socio-economic consequences of the scale difference in Zootopia

Post by Q99 »

biostem wrote: Perhaps 20 sloths are able to handle the same number of customers per unit time, as 10 faster animals, but produce significantly fewer mistakes, (thus saving money in the long run).
Yep.

Or maybe the lines for getting the job are long enough faster animals give up on trying. Survival of the slowest ^^
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Re: The socio-economic consequences of the scale difference in Zootopia

Post by biostem »

Q99 wrote:
biostem wrote: Perhaps 20 sloths are able to handle the same number of customers per unit time, as 10 faster animals, but produce significantly fewer mistakes, (thus saving money in the long run).
Yep.

Or maybe the lines for getting the job are long enough faster animals give up on trying. Survival of the slowest ^^

I would also imagine that, while sloths may be frustrating for faster animals to deal with, they'd result in a more pleasant experience for other mid to slow animals - imagine some grandma trying to renew her driver's license, while some, well, badger, freaks out at her need to be hand-held through the process. A sloth would just be pleased as punch to guide her through step by meticulous step.
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Re: The socio-economic consequences of the scale difference in Zootopia

Post by JamesStaley »

I saw the film a few weeks ago, so going on my memory here, but wasn't there a scene at a train station where you have a car for "large/regular"-sized animals, but there were small doors built into it where you had mice businessmen getting out and going to work along with everybody else? Talk about a dangerous "Morning Commute"!

I work for the City of Del City (suburb of Oklahoma City) in the Waterline Maintenance Dept, so I can address the sewage problem. You simply are going to NEED more treatment facilites. Yes, it's going to be expensive, but ABSOLUTELY necessary if you are going to treat the MILLIONS of gallons of water that a city the size of Zootopia is going to need every day. Del City, Oklahoma has about 22 thousand residents in 8 square miles and we have two water treatment plants. Zootopia is a large Metropolitan city with millions? of residents, so I would "guesstimate" a minimum of 5 plants producing 10-50 million gallons of water a day. That is "raw" sewage coming in, getting treated (a two-three day process) and going back out into the system or being put in storage tanks for later use.
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