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Shangri-La -- discussion thread.


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DomFortress



Joined: 13 Feb 2009
Posts: 751
Location: Richmond BC, Canada
PostPosted: Tue Apr 07, 2009 4:53 pm Reply with quote
Exaar wrote:
Aside from that, here's what I gleaned about the whole carbon credit system:

Every country is taxed based on how much carbon they are producing. If they produce a lot of carbon (thus adding to global warming), the tax is higher, and so they have to pay more in order to import/export goods. This is a good incentive for countries to keep their output low.
Oh goodies! At least someone would like to talk about the global environmental, industrial, political, and economical settings of this series. Well for starter the carbon tax has its real world reference based on the emission trading(aka cap and trade) limitation administrated by International Emissions Trading Association. From a pure environmental stance this is indeed a good incentive to reduce greenhouse gas, but this limitation is a double-edged sword on the global industrial, political, and economical system. And this is true in both the fictional world of Shangri-La and in our world.

For example, a lot of the 1st world nations in our world no longer possess heavy manufacturing industries, and rely solely on the IT industries, energy industries, entertainment industries, and world trades of goods and services to maintain their economies, while outsourcing the manufacturing industries to other 2nd or even 3rd world nations for their cheap labors and low custom fees. What the cap and trade limitation did was quite simply put a cap on the total energy consumptions of all 2nd and 3rd world nations. This forced them to reduce their overall living standard by diverting their energy consumptions from their daily expenses to their manufacturing industries in order to maintain their economies. But this only increases their total greenhouse gas emissions, while their environments get polluted by their manufacturing industries. This causes the 2nd and 3rd world nations to fight for natural resources among themselves, and escalated their political tension until wars breakout among these nations.
Exaar wrote:
The Carbon Credit seems to be a unit of exchange which basically cancels out a certain amount of carbon emission, insofar as the tax is concerned. Therefore, a country with a lot of carbon credits could produce more carbon without their tax going up. Its basically credit you earn (somehow, they don't explain how you GET carbon credits aside from loans from shady banks) which negates your carbon output. It probably has something to do with countries who produce very little carbon get credits so that in the future if they have to produce more they can do so without their taxes spiking.
The carbon credit in Shangri-La is basically the combination of the world trades of goods and services, national debts, and international bonds and credits system in our world.

As the 1st world nations with their capitalist societies became overdeveloped due to their manufacturing industries produced more goods and services than their markets can normally consume, their economical solution is to reduce their manufacturing cost while still being competitive, by outsourcing their production jobs to 2nd and 3rd world nations. Over time this forced the 1st world nations to rely on their IT industries, energy industries, entertainment industries, and world trades of goods and services to maintain their economies. But the extended cost of making those excess goods and services that nobody wanted back then never recovered from the market, and over time they accumulated into debts. This forced the manufacturing industries to reformed themselves and became distributors of their own goods and services, while making their overseas production plants to absorber these debts and increase production, in order to buildup their international credits by stuck piling more goods and services. At the same time in order to incite the market into buying their goods and services, the distributors partnered up with the IT industries and entertainment industries to generate information that promote these goods and services in the forms of advertisements, news, and entertainment programs. But business ventures of this scale require a lot of financial capitals, so the economical solution to that is to acquire financial aid from national funded financial institutions, aka banks and credit unions.
Exaar wrote:
As the guy was complaining, third-world countries don't have the ability to build/use technology which is cleaner, so their taxes go up a lot because they have to use more primitive technology which produces more carbon, resulting in higher taxes, which result in less money to upgrade technology, which results in more carbon output, etc. Its a vicious cycle they can't escape from, which is why his country's carbon tax was so high. The bank, then, transferred over a huge sum of carbon credits which, in effect, cancelled out the huge amount of carbon the country was producing and reduced their tax to nothing. It distressed the man that this could be done so easily since his country has been striving for years to reduce carbon output/taxes without success due to the aforementioned cycle. Now the country is tax-less, but in the pocket of this shady bank.
In order for a business venture to gain financial aid from a bank, it needs two proofs to show that it's an established and reliable business, and those are 1)a good credit history and 2)an equal amount of collateral capitals to the financial aid that the business is asking. And as long as any business venture can manage to do just that, they can request financial aids from as many banks as they can. So, when major distributors obtained financial aids from several banks at once, they transfer their debts onto those banks and subsequently, to the respective nations those banks were from. And that's how 1st world nations ended up absorbing the debts of their economies due to over-developments on excess goods and services: in the fictional world of Shangri-La it's through an imaginary system called carbon credit issued by banks, just like in the real world it's through credit loans issued by banks and credit unions.
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Exaar



Joined: 19 Apr 2006
Posts: 279
Location: Delaware
PostPosted: Tue Apr 07, 2009 5:07 pm Reply with quote
Well, right. But in Shangri-La the point is to off-set carbon production, rather than to cancel monetary debts. Although the two are clearly related and no doubt the system in Shangri-La is based on/metaphorical for the real life system you just described.
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DomFortress



Joined: 13 Feb 2009
Posts: 751
Location: Richmond BC, Canada
PostPosted: Tue Apr 07, 2009 5:56 pm Reply with quote
Exaar wrote:
Well, right. But in Shangri-La the point is to off-set carbon production, rather than to cancel monetary debts. Although the two are clearly related and no doubt the system in Shangri-La is based on/metaphorical for the real life system you just described.
In Shangri-La, a large sum of carbon credits was offered to that 3rd world nation without a credit check by the bank, then the carbon tax of that nation was electronically redistributed among the rest of the banks financial associates and other nations. This will only further jeopardize the global carbon credit system by absorbing too much national debts without an actual method of resolving it via financial means. I believe the 3D CG that's flashing red was an indicator of the carbon credit AI program's early warning system, it's sensing its doom via total collapse of the global carbon credit system.
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Mushi-Man



Joined: 17 Nov 2008
Posts: 1537
Location: KCMO
PostPosted: Tue Apr 07, 2009 10:22 pm Reply with quote
Well i finally watched episode one of Shangri-La. I have to say that I'm not sold on it yet. For one it hasn't completely caught me yet. And two, you can't trust gonzo until after the first couple of episodes.

Also, it seems like one big easy about carbon tax and emissions made into a story line so far. So environment message heavy you'd expect Al Gore to jump out of no where. I don't have to big of a problem with it, but it's getting a bit tiring. "Oh, another anime that's teaching us about environmental issues". There are more issues out there guys. Why not do something about them?

My last comlaint is that all the main characters were introduced in a almost roll call style. They could have spread it out a little more.

But All that aside I'll be keeping up with the series to see how it goes. I think the characters are interesting enough and the plot seems ok. Just hope it doesn't go the way of Trinity Blood. It would be yet another anime destroyed the the Gonzo effect.
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Ausdoerrt



Joined: 27 Oct 2008
Posts: 481
PostPosted: Tue Apr 07, 2009 10:37 pm Reply with quote
Trinity Blood was good, until it hit the main Kain vs Abel arc. If this anime will be at least the quality of Trinity Blood, it won't be bad at all. Won't be great by any means, but Gonzo is not the same it used to be anyway.
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Mushi-Man



Joined: 17 Nov 2008
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Location: KCMO
PostPosted: Tue Apr 07, 2009 10:57 pm Reply with quote
In my opinion Trinity Blood is the poster child of the Gonzo effect. i thought the first episode was really cool, and then it shot down hill. I'm hoping this doesn't happen with Shangri-La. It's seems to have a good base, so if it just keeps going at this level then it'll be a good series. i don't see it blowing me away anytime soon, but i think that it could be entertaining.
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Ausdoerrt



Joined: 27 Oct 2008
Posts: 481
PostPosted: Tue Apr 07, 2009 11:19 pm Reply with quote
I only really liked TB for the decently done political commentary in the side-stories. That is to say, I loved the world, but not the story.

For Shangri-La, I'll apply the "wait and see" approach.
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Luna Loving



Joined: 22 Dec 2008
Posts: 76
Location: Norwich, United Kingdom
PostPosted: Fri Apr 10, 2009 6:56 am Reply with quote
I just watched the first episode this morning. This anime really interests me, the plot is original, and also very relevant- I' m surprised nobody has come up with an idea similar to this before. The negative utopia idea kind of reminds of 1984.
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DomFortress



Joined: 13 Feb 2009
Posts: 751
Location: Richmond BC, Canada
PostPosted: Fri Apr 10, 2009 10:59 am Reply with quote
Luna Loving wrote:
I just watched the first episode this morning. This anime really interests me, the plot is original, and also very relevant- I' m surprised nobody has come up with an idea similar to this before. The negative utopia idea kind of reminds of 1984.
The Shangri-La anime adaptation was based on a Japanese si-fi novel of the same name, it's not therefore original but an animated TV advertisement for the upcoming reprint of the 2005 original intellectual property known as Shangri-La si-fi novel, licensed by Kadokawa Shoten, which is a subsidiary of NAMCO Bandai Holdings.
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sociopathic



Joined: 10 Apr 2009
Posts: 4
Location: the future
PostPosted: Fri Apr 10, 2009 11:52 am Reply with quote
I saw episode one yesterday... for what i can get out of the first ep without having read the novel its interesting to say the least
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Luna Loving



Joined: 22 Dec 2008
Posts: 76
Location: Norwich, United Kingdom
PostPosted: Fri Apr 10, 2009 12:48 pm Reply with quote
DomFortress wrote:
Luna Loving wrote:
I just watched the first episode this morning. This anime really interests me, the plot is original, and also very relevant- I' m surprised nobody has come up with an idea similar to this before. The negative utopia idea kind of reminds of 1984.
The Shangri-La anime adaptation was based on a Japanese si-fi novel of the same name, it's not therefore original but an animated TV advertisement for the upcoming reprint of the 2005 original intellectual property known as Shangri-La si-fi novel, licensed by Kadokawa Shoten, which is a subsidiary of NAMCO Bandai Holdings.


I meant that the idea of environmentalism gone overboard being original, not necessarily the anime. I guess I should have been more clear about that.
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DomFortress



Joined: 13 Feb 2009
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Location: Richmond BC, Canada
PostPosted: Fri Apr 10, 2009 12:51 pm Reply with quote
Luna Loving wrote:
DomFortress wrote:
Luna Loving wrote:
I just watched the first episode this morning. This anime really interests me, the plot is original, and also very relevant- I' m surprised nobody has come up with an idea similar to this before. The negative utopia idea kind of reminds of 1984.
The Shangri-La anime adaptation was based on a Japanese si-fi novel of the same name, it's not therefore original but an animated TV advertisement for the upcoming reprint of the 2005 original intellectual property known as Shangri-La si-fi novel, licensed by Kadokawa Shoten, which is a subsidiary of NAMCO Bandai Holdings.


I meant that the idea of environmentalism gone overboard being original, not necessarily the anime. I guess I should have been more clear about that.
That's not an idea of science fiction, but an interpretation based on real world reference.
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Luna Loving



Joined: 22 Dec 2008
Posts: 76
Location: Norwich, United Kingdom
PostPosted: Fri Apr 10, 2009 12:57 pm Reply with quote
DomFortress wrote:
That's not an idea of science fiction, but an interpretation based on real world reference.


Point taken, but it still surprises me that its never been explored before as far as I know.
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DomFortress



Joined: 13 Feb 2009
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Location: Richmond BC, Canada
PostPosted: Fri Apr 10, 2009 1:14 pm Reply with quote
Luna Loving wrote:
DomFortress wrote:
That's not an idea of science fiction, but an interpretation based on real world reference.


Point taken, but it still surprises me that its never been explored before as far as I know.
Our individual understandings of the world extent only so far as our own individual knowledge. And the wisest mind has something yet to learn.
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RPGamer246



Joined: 22 Sep 2006
Posts: 107
PostPosted: Fri Apr 10, 2009 3:59 pm Reply with quote
it was an interesting first episode and left you with alot of questions as to what exactly is happening while the whole story still needs to unfold. im curious as to what are the spoiler[meaning of those daggers] and is it just me or does kunikos boomerang change size?
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