SPOILERS Making Money Discussion *Spoilers*

[poohcarrot]

Aren't the golems already having a revolution?

...but what happens when all the free golems have bought all the non-free golems? Golems won't need money, so why work? What will they do?

In fact, if all the golden golems cut off a little bit of gold (as in "Feet of clay") they could probably buy all the non-free golems tomorrow.

Then they'll all be hanging round at street corners in their hoodies, frightening old women.

 

[Tonyblack]

Hang on - the golems aren't made of gold, are they? I understood that the word 'golden' in the context of the writing that Spike had discovered, meant 'thousand' rather than 'gold'.

And if nobody but Moist (or someone in a golden suit) can control them, who ordered them to march to A-M? If it was the regular golems - the ones that Spike left behind, then all anyone would have to do to control the golem army would be to get a regular golem to give them orders.

It makes no sense to me.

 

[poohcarrot]

Hang on - the golems aren't made of gold, are they? I understood that the word 'golden' in the context of the writing that Spike had discovered, meant 'thousand' rather than 'gold'.

And if nobody but Moist (or someone in a golden suit) can control them, who ordered them to march to A-M? If it was the regular golems - the ones that Spike left behind, then all anyone would have to do to control the golem army would be to get a regular golem to give them orders.

It makes no sense to me.

They're not made of gold. I lied! ops

And a regular golem can think for itself, so if a regular golem could control the whole lot of 'em - telepathically - I'd call that a bit dangerous.

Smash the lot of 'em before it's too late.

And if their job is to defend the city, how long before they realise that being buried in a big hole isn't doing their job. And defend the city from what? From its own inhabitants? From the thieves and assassins and other ne'er-do-wells?

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

They don't need another police force - but if they want to do emergency services then they could be firemen too...

However -

Smash the lot of 'em before it's too late.

And deliberately crash the money markets - how could you! :twisted:

 

[raisindot]

The horse golems are indeed horse (& saddle) shaped and there are about 20 of them. That would seem to make it rather unlikely that they could be used as draft horses. They could, however, be used (as could the other golems) to move treadmills. Moist says he wants some to replace the donkeys that are at each clacks tower (first time we've heard anything about how the clacks stations are powered).

To go back to my original statement in a much earlier post--the golems are perhaps the biggest (dreadful pun) example of slapdash writing in this book. About their only use is that they give Terry a chance to do some funny scenes (such as the Cabinet and use Professor Flead).

It's quite clear that Terry hasn't thought about them, or about the real problems of finance. The original idea seems to have been to substitute paper money for the coins presently in use and to get people to turn in their coins. But by the end of the book, we have currency backed (so to speak) by the returned gold and by golems. Gold, as both Moist and Vetinari know, really has no value. The commerce of the city creates the value of it's money.

Have to disagree with some of this. Moist wants to keep six of the golem horses to use for the mail coaches, so they clearly can be used for this purpose.

The golem plot may not have been well integrated into the story (you could cut the whole thing out and the story would have worked fine on its own), but Pterry included because he wanted to continue to explore the golems theme he began in GP. Without golems, there's no need for Adora Belle, and without her, Moist doesn't really anyone he can be "honest" with.

But I do think in GP he really does take finance seriously as someone who is not a professional financier can. As Moist said in the story, the economic strength of a city is not based on how much shiny yellow stuff sits in a vault in a bank but by the ingenuity, innovation, and hard work of its citizens and their willingness to give up old ways of thinking (the Lavishes, Mr. Bent, the guilds, coins made of metal, the 'old banks') and embrace the new ideas (Harry King, Vetinari's plans to 'excavate' the old dwarf tunnels, utilizing the new 'devices' left behind in Thud!, CMOT plans' to get a new cart, the hundreds of AM citizens who are borrowing money to start new businesses) that propel a city foward.

Of course, many of these same ideas lead to inflation, unwise use of credit, speculation, derivatives, and other abstract ideas that lead to things like, oh, the collapse of the global economy in 2008). But Pterry was not exploring this particularly issue in MM. Perhaps in the next book.

And the currency at the end of the book is not guaranteed by the returned gold. This is an afterthought, since everyone has already accepted paper money and the concept of the golems as the new standard. The returned gold will only make matters worse, since it may potentially make many people revert to their old ways of thinking.

J-I-B

 

[Bouncy Castle]

Jeez. I just thought it was a rollicking good tale, with lots of LOL moments.

[slinks off to hide in damp cave]

 

[raisindot]

We never really know what's in the golden golems' "armband orders." It probably isn't "Defend the City," because Moist is able to order them to do something other than defend the city. It probably is as simple as "Only obey orders from from an Omnian Priest or someone who dressed like one."

Pterry's use of golems in this book is very problemmatic. After seeing how they progressed from slavery to sentience in "Feet of Clay" and developed more complex personalities and feelings with Mr. Pump and Gladys, the golem army creates a number of ethical issues. The free golems don't like them because they remind them of what they once were--unthinking slaves with no will of their own. Adorabelle doesn't like them that much either, because their sheer mindlessness contradicts her own sentimental feelings toward the golems she helps to free and her belief that golems can find self-fulfilment through the strategic rewriting of their chem. Yet, they all can't be completely unsentient, because the whole pilgrimmage began with one lonely gold golem calling out for company in golem speak.

And I always find it rather perplexing why Vetinari believes that revealing the golden secret to the world will keep any other nation from trying to win over the golems. The point is is that there's only one living person in the world who can order the golems around, and that's Moist, because he appears to be the only living person who knows enough ancient Omnian. to get the moving. This would certainly make Moist a potential kidnapping target for any crackpot who wanted to take control of the golems.

J-I-B

 

[poohcarrot]

. The original idea seems to have been to substitute paper money for the coins presently in use and to get people to turn in their coins.

and their willingness to give up old ways of thinking (the Lavishes, Mr. Bent, the guilds, coins made of metal,

I thought he wasn't trying to get rid of all the coins, only the high denomination $1. All he's doing with this paper money is making it easier for people to carry large amounts. All the coins under $1 are going to be kept, aren't they?

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

See! Money is so bloody boring unless you've got stacks of it - even if you can argue about it!

Wasn't the metal in one of their really low denomination pieces (a groat or something and it was silver rather than gold?) worth more than the dollar piece. Anyway the point was Moist wanted to rationalise the coins so they didn't cost too much to make and phase in the paper for the higher dollar values.

Coins are useful anyway so long as it's small change - you can play tiddly winks with 'em for a start

 

[poohcarrot]

We never really know what's in the golden golems' "armband orders."
J-I-B

It's not just me who thought they were "golden".

 

[raisindot]

We never really know what's in the golden golems' "armband orders."
J-I-B

It's not just me who thought they were "golden".

I knew they weren't golden, contest-rules-breaker. I just didn't know what else to call them--golem army? Adora's golems? Moist's minions? Besides, in all fact, by 'golden' I was referring to the ancient Omnian meaning of the word as "thousands."



J-I-B

 

[Tonyblack]

There's just so much of this book that doesn't appear to make sense - and that's the reason I dislike it so much. I actually find myself getting annoyed when I read it and no other Pratchett book does that to me.

I agree that in the earlier books we have seen a sort of breaking of the bonds of slavery regarding the golems. But then, with this book, we seem to take a huge step backwards. It's as if the black slaves in the US were freed and eventually got equal rights with everyone else and then along came a new race and everyone thought it would be a good idea to bring back slavery.

The whole thing with Moist controlling the golems because of his suit seems somewhat slapdash. He couldn't have known that that would work and it doesn't make things right by getting Vetinari to say that he knew the golden suit would work either. I just don't buy that explanation.

It seems as if the golem horses and at least some of the new golems are going to be put into service and no one is mentioning paying them. Will the city golems buy them out of servitude? Somehow I don't think so. It's like the new golems have become the acceptable face of slavery. The new currency is being based on the fact that the city is now a slavocracy.

This whole book is just a mess of ideas that do not come together properly. It's a most unsatisfying read and, in my opinion, the worst book Terry has written.

Honestly, if Raising Taxes ever does get written, I'm going to seriously consider not buying it.

 

[raisindot]

Moist wanted to get rid of coins entirely, not because they cost so much but because he lives to get rid society of outmoded ideas and replace them with ideas of his own making, whether they're envelope-affixed stamps or paper money. The only coins I remember him saying he would continue to mint were commemorative coins (to keep the outsourcers employed). Did he also mention the lower denomination coins as well?

J-I-B

 

[Tonyblack]

My understanding was that they would just replace the Dollar with notes and bring in higher denominations as well. A bit like the opposite to what we did in the UK when we replaced Pound Notes with coins.

The coins might cost more to make than their face value, but they generally last longer than notes.

 

[raisindot]

Tony--

While I don't agree with you that MM is the worst DW book (we all know which ones I think are the worst and won't bring that up again), it does have an unusual number of problems.

I don't have any problem with Moist understanding how to get the golden (not real gold) golems to obey him. He is a master of reading people (and thinks) and understanding how to use showmanship to get his eyes. Remember when he got the killer dogs to obey him during the postman's test in GP because he knows that they're the same kinds of dogs he grew up with in Uberwald? Then he finds out after the test is over that the dogs, although the same species, were not from Uberwald at all and therefore would never have been trained to respond to the words Moist used. He succeeded because he has an innate ability to get most living things to believe him and follow his commands.

He could infer that the golden(not real gold) golems would obey him because he knew that it took, as Professor Fleed said, the right person, saying the right word at the right time. He knew how Omnian priests dressed, and when he saw the lead golem's eyes following him he knew that he met the condition of the 'right person at the right time'--all he was missing were the right words. There's no reason why Vetinari, a study of all things historical, wouldn't have known this as well. But, presumably, Vetinari didn't know ancient Omnian and probably would never have dared to lower his dignity by wearing a golden suit. Besides, if Vetinari had done all this and failed, he would have been a laughingstock. Better to let Moist do this for him, since he knew that Moist would never use the golems for hostile purposes.

I think the discomfort most of us feel about the way these golden(NRG) golems were treated reflects our own feelings about how humans or humanoids should be treated. After all, if the entire golem army consisted solely of golem horses or golem cows or golem sheep would you have felt the same level of discomfort of having them treated as property? If you do feel this level of comfort, does this now make you feel that you'll never eat a hamburger or mutton or ride a horse or take a horse-drawn carriage ride again?

It's because most of these golems are in the shape of human beings that we feel uncomfortable, since we've been conditioned by decades of books about robots and other humanoid-type machines into thinking that if it looks human there must be some kind of humanity in there somewhere. And, since Feet of Clay, PTerry has fostered this idea by 'humanizing' the golems in Feet of Clay and subsequent books.

And then, once we all feel that all goblems have intelligence and self-awareness and are thus capable of being free and self-actualized, he subverts this whole idea by forcing Ankh-Morpork (and us) with golems that probably can't be self aware of truly sentient or self-actualized. Essentially, they are the same as real cattle or horses--maybe even less so, since they seem to have no sense of independent action (other than crying out for company, which a dog might do as well). They're beasts of burden. Moist, Vetinari, and even Adora Belle recognize this, and treat them accordingly--as tools to do work, but to be treated with care, like pack animals.

J-I-B

 

[Doughnut Jimmy]

Aren't the Golems Umnian not Omnian?

 

[poohcarrot]

I'm sure he does it on purpose.

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

I think also this book's possibly a casualty to RL darkness for Terry - would he have been writing this around the time that his father was terminally ill with cancer? Or perhaps when he wasn't in the best of undiagnosed health himself either, although I think it may have been written before he was noticing symptoms, but it was in production or just published around the time he had his suspected stroke?

For me it's just too derivative, even of his own work, despite all the excellent satire and pace so it comes over as a fob off in the end.

So what do people think about the timing of this book in relation to Terry's RL situation around the time he was writing/publishing this book? I'm beginning I think that perhaps there's a smidgeon of support for this reasoning

But the good thing is that with his way of working through all these setbacks and sorrows, especially with his voice-activated software, is that he's back on form so no need to worry about Snuff certainly, although I too don't hold out too much hope for Raising Taxes although there's no question that I'll buy it

 

[Jan Van Quirm]

Golems aren't technically living things until they're freed and even then they're very stolid and honourable - look how 'successful' Moist was at manipulating Mr Pump

The NRG Golems obeyed him because he took the advice of the filthy old goat wizard and got into his golden suit etc - he didn't 'read' them in any way because you simply can't. They do what their sealed chem tells them to do period. Once you know what that is and have their terms of address then you've cracked them.

 

[raisindot]

Golems aren't technically living things until they're freed and even then they're very stolid and honourable - look how 'successful' Moist was at manipulating Mr Pump

The NRG Golems obeyed him because he took the advice of the filthy old goat wizard and got into his golden suit etc - he didn't 'read' them in any way because you simply can't. They do what their sealed chem tells them to do period. Once you know what that is and have their terms of address then you've cracked them.

But he WAS successful at manipulating Mr. Pump. So much so that at the end of GP the golem, who admitted that he wasn't sure what emotions were, still said that he was happy to have met him and that it was a pleasure working with him.

And while Professor Flead suggested the overall solution for the gold (NRG) golems without understanding the specifics, it took Moist--the master of using appearances to get beings of all kinds to do his bidding--to figure the critical part of the solution, during the part when everyone was at the palace arguing about what to do with the golden (NRG) golem army. He confirmed that this intuition was correct when he had a moment of 'alone time' with the lead gold (NRG) golem, whose gaze followed him as he moved.

J-I-B