The Warcrafter

[RHJunior]

Look, if there's so little oil available that pharmaceuticals are even _vaguely_ impacted, _personal automobiles would no longer exist_. Something like 45% of US oil use is fuel for personal automobiles, and another 25% is fuel for non-personal autos. That's 70% of all US oil use. That's going to be drastically impacted far before smaller uses.

Click to shrink...

No, actually. In any urgent budgeting situation it's going to be the penny-ante stuff that goes first. See, unlike cars, trucks, and trains, dingaling wrappers aren't vital to the national economy or infrastructure.

Plus, throw in the politics and the marketplace. Consider the plastic straw furor going on right now-- America produces less than a tenth of the plastic waste and plastic marine debris of China alone, and plastic straws make up an infinitesimal portion of that... but one photo of a marine rescue worker pulling a bloody straw out of a sea turtles' nose and we have people legislating to ban plastic straws. Does less than a fraction of nothing for the environment, but that doesn't stop it. (It's sorta like peeing yourself in wet jeans: nobody notices but it gives YOU a nice warm feeling...)

Now, introduce a worldwide petroleum crisis, keep it going for roundabout twenty-odd years, add in people in gas lines fuming about "wasting scarce resources on disposable plastic crap..."

That's just ONE factor, mind. On top of the actual shortage, the loss of manufacturing and distribution capacity, and a handful of other factors you never think of when you're browsing the selection at the local pharmacy and trying to convince yourself you need 'extra large.'

Besides, it's about petroleum BYPRODUCTS, not petrol. It doesn't become a choice between condoms and cars. It becomes a choice between condoms and surgical gloves. Or condoms and IV bags. Or condoms and a dozen other vital medical resources. Or a thousand more NONmedical products made with petroleum byproducts. (Expect a mass resurgence in wax paper for wrapping food, for example.)

Or for that matter essential engine or electronics parts --lot of hoses and insulated wiring after all.

So yes, little Timmy, you CAN have a world with automobiles and overpriced condoms at the same time.

 

[Kalaong]

No, actually. In any urgent budgeting situation it's going to be the penny-ante stuff that goes first. See, unlike cars, trucks, and trains, dingaling wrappers aren't vital to the national economy or infrastructure.

Click to shrink...

Hell, that doesn't even account for the "panicking idiot" factor. Anyone else remember the real cause of the 1973 oil crisis - the inspiration for the Mad Max series because it only took ten days for the first shot to be fired? It wasn't the embargo itself - there was still plenty of oil available domestically - it was because oil companies make the reasonable assumption that the majority of people will wait for their gas tanks to be mostly empty before re-filling them. The announcement of the embargo made everyone panic, drive out and attempt to completely fill their tanks, meaning that the consumption of gasoline effectively doubled or even tripled overnight. Just the suggestion of a shortage creates a shortage, like a bank run.

Hell, we saw the exact same thing happen to freaking Twinkies when Hostess declared bankruptcy in 2013. Even saner minds assumed that they would be harder to purchase until the brand changed hands, while idiots assumed they would be gone forever. Cue twelve-packs of preservative-laced snack cakes going for hundreds of dollars on Ebay.

The instant any product decreases in supply, demand effectively increases. Given just enough decrease, it's an upward spiral until what's left is snapped up the instant it becomes available.

No product needs to actually become 100% unavailable, it just needs to get expensive enough to make people panic and then what cost a buck yesterday becomes something you can slip a cop as a bribe.

 

[RHJunior]

Hell, that doesn't even account for the "panicking idiot" factor. Anyone else remember the real cause of the 1973 oil crisis - the inspiration for the Mad Max series because it only took ten days for the first shot to be fired? It wasn't the embargo itself - there was still plenty of oil available domestically - it was because oil companies make the reasonable assumption that the majority of people will wait for their gas tanks to be mostly empty before re-filling them. The announcement of the embargo made everyone panic, drive out and attempt to completely fill their tanks, meaning that the consumption of gasoline effectively doubled or even tripled overnight. Just the suggestion of a shortage creates a shortage, like a bank run.

Hell, we saw the exact same thing happen to freaking Twinkies when Hostess declared bankruptcy in 2013. Even saner minds assumed that they would be harder to purchase until the brand changed hands, while idiots assumed they would be gone forever. Cue twelve-packs of preservative-laced snack cakes going for hundreds of dollars on Ebay.

Click to shrink...

HEHEHEHEEHH.

 

[Kalaong]

HEHEHEHEEHH.

Click to shrink...

...it gives me ALL the lols that I wasn't the only one who compared the Twinkie shortage to Mad Max.

 

[Naddakka741]

This recent discussion brings to mind something that I think might be fanon might be something Wildbow said in regards to defending Cauldrons presence in the story and why we should all cheer for them is that they were offsetting the shortages. If they were did no one notice, or if they did, did they just keep it to themselves or were all the competent people just silenced to keep Cauldron secret.

 

[Kalaong]

I just want to point out that there probably is a supply chain of condoms, diaphragms, sponges and other birth control products in this WORM!verse, it's just that by the time the "plastic shock" had passed, culture had already adjusted to the apparent unavailability with altered social norms. Hence the continued existence of prostitution, albeit closely tied to relatively wealthy criminal organizations like the gangs of Brockton Bay.

Of course, it being a criminal enterprise means quality of both prophylactics and... "providers" is pretty low, enforcing those same social norms. It's low quantity and quality so it's low demand, and low demand means it's not produced in quantity or quality. Nothing screws up products like a scarcity of sources, so the state of affairs proposed is likely to continue for some time.

 

[wkz]

If anything they probably dump what condoms and pills they make into the Simurgh quarantine zones just to keep the people trapped there from having a nightmare population explosion...

Click to shrink...

Actually no. They dump it all into all the latex and spandex all the heroes and villains are using on their uniforms
/s

But hmmm, what clothing material DO all the skintight outfits use?

A last note on the above quote: about nightmare population explosions in Simurgh quarantine zones... given all the argued shortages of plastic and such, AND there's people bombs in Simurgh quaantine zones? It's going to be prohibitive in cost and manpower (literally cost in manpower; people are going to get killed venturing into Simurgh zones) to provide birth control to those people.

There's a MUCH simpler solution thou, especially given canonical attitudes towards anyone who's Simurgh'ed: all you need is a knife... ... (*screams of horror*)

My suggestion, don't try and pull a Wildbow by trying to justify the impossible contradictions in your story, given that I didn't remember this issue it obviously doesn't prevent people from enjoying your story, but it isn't something that's possible to defend as logical or possible in the setting.

Click to shrink...

Given RH's opinion of Wildbow thus far, ouch.

Also, Wildbow has the excuse that he is using a 'local' as an unreliable narrator eyepiece. A frog in too-warm water isn't going to complain so much the water's hot, as compared to the frog (aka canon foreigner Bayleaf) who just stuck his hand in.


<a whole lotta other stuff>
If wagyu beef can be imported, then other luxury goods can be. If it can't then it can't.
And I agree with the other guy who pointed this out: you can't have it both ways.

And given the target person this is said to... well... Victoria's boyfriend Dean is a wealthy son of a Mayor. If anyone can get $30~$60 a pop condoms as a luxury product, he's the man.


Also, the base reasoning is also out of wack. IIRC, America is pretty much self-sufficient when it comes to oil. The reason why America LOVES going into the Middle East to get/control the oil there is simply because the oil from there is cheaper and easier to get.
In the Wormverse, it only means America is tapping its own reserve/fields. Certain products are more expensive no doubt about it. But they certainly aren't rare...
Especially note that kids are given smartphones. KIDS and their damaging ways, given smartphones!


And even if the above statement about oil available to America isn't true (as in there's difficulty feeding oil to America)... that cannot be said about oil byproducts.
It's in the name: Plastics and such are oil BYproducts, as in they're automatically available in set quantities when you refine crude to get diesel and petrol.

In short, unless America has a sharp downturn in its use of petrol and diesel (unlikely, given the 'no public transportation' road culture as late as the '80s), it is also unlikely that oil byproducts are going to be in short supply...
Unless companies literally throw the byproducts into dumping grounds, that is. And if there's anything companies hate, it's throwing away a perfectly sellable product. Even if it's literal garbage.

Oil byproduct things are simply only going to be more expensive. Not rare, or having demand outstrip supply, not unless there's hardly any vehicles on the road in the Wormverse because of oil shortages...
Given that a hybrid-electric Prius is almost literally described as "bad and wrong" because oil is available to run every other vehicle type... well...

(Does that also mean Danny is a middle income man doing well for himself, given how he can afford to drive a truck with the higher oil prices?)

 

[RHJunior]

correction: America is CURRENTLY oil-independent. It was not always. And again, you're forgetting the detrimental effect of having killer kaiju, wandering boss monsters and teams of deranged murderhobos roaming abroad.

And no, it's not a matter of either-or. It's a matter of many products you take for granted becoming scarce, difficult to obtain and/or pricey luxury items. They don't need to disappear entirely for there to be a dramatic effect on society.

And PLEASE leave the "cellphone=rich" arguments to the Boomers, 'kay? The detritus of a 21st century civilization is not proof of rampant wealth. I've got a desktop, a laptop, a tablet and a cellphone, and I currently earn BELOW the poverty line.

Communications and internet infrastructure would be on the "essentials" list, Dragon and other tinkers as well as the government would be busting their asses to keep it running-- largely for the same reason the Interstate Highway System was high-priority--- and contrary to the Appletards' dogma Smartphones CAN last longer than the next product cycle.

 

[Kalaong]

And no, it's not a matter of either-or. It's a matter of many products you take for granted becoming scarce, difficult to obtain and/or pricey luxury items. They don't need to disappear entirely for there to be a dramatic effect on society.

Click to shrink...

I had a conversation with my father about how easy it is to shake an economy like a snow globe; he was talking about how all these CBD oil distributors are popping up, and I reminded him of the wine cooler phenomenon; back in the 80s, there was a period of time where beverages with alcohol content below a certain point weren't taxed the way beer or wine was, so some brewers were simply adding a small amount of alcohol to fruit juice or whatever and having the star of Moonlighting plug them for a few minutes. That didn't last, of course, but for a few years alcohol taxation created a market where you could buy screwdrivers at supermarkets.

So while CBD has nowhere near as much bang for the buck as a dime bag of pot, current federal marijuana laws mean that you can deposit profits from CBD in a bank while marijuana growers in states where it's legal still need to stuff their mattresses with banknotes.

It doesn't take much for a market to look like something out of Monty Python.

 

[TheUnicorn]

...you, yourself, would be willing to work on a cargo ship in a world where Great Cthulhu is proven to be swimming around sinking entire island chains?

Click to shrink...

I wouldn't be willing to work on a cargo ship in RL, much less in any worse conditions.

Besides, the canon reason Brockton Bay is a slum is specifically because shipping shut down; there's a literal boat graveyard.

Click to shrink...

No, that's very much not canon.
Canon is that BB has less shipping, and a bunch of ships trapped in the bay because of some people being idiots which created the boat graveyard, however if you ignore WoG posts there's no indication as to why there is less shipping to BB, but possible reasons include a shifting to contenerized shipping (as happened in RL at about the same timeframe) or a general downturn of the economy.

Again the issue isn't that you can't plausabily have such shortages in Worm, you definitely can. The issue is that in the story we don't actually see the changes in society we would see if there were any shortages, much less the sort that would lead to birth control not being available.

Well, the Boat Graveyard was because of a riot, I think, but I also vaguely remember the riot being because of the Endbringer-derived shipping problems. Though that may be fannon.

Click to shrink...

In Worm it's never actually established why there was less shipping. There is supposed to be a WoG post about the issue being all the coastal cities Leviathan attacked.

 

[gatewaewanderer]

In Worm it's never actually established why there was less shipping. There is supposed to be a WoG post about the issue being all the coastal cities Leviathan attacked.

Click to shrink...

Come to that, Human beings aren't necessarily rational, and Worm takes that a whole new level even before you take into account Parahumans themselves. What I'm getting at is, there don't have to be any confirmed cases of Leviathan attacking ships at sea for people to be afraid he will and stop relying on ships.

Also possible are Parahuman Pirates. Because of course there'd be those. Those Parahuman Warlords mentioned in canon (mostly remembering Africa, but I think there were countries with them,) might see that as easy money. So plenty of possible reasons for shipping to stop happening.

 

[RHJunior]

Come to that, Human beings aren't necessarily rational, and Worm takes that a whole new level even before you take into account Parahumans themselves. What I'm getting at is, there don't have to be any confirmed cases of Leviathan attacking ships at sea for people to be afraid he will and stop relying on ships.

Also possible are Parahuman Pirates. Because of course there'd be those. Those Parahuman Warlords mentioned in canon (mostly remembering Africa, but I think there were countries with them,) might see that as easy money. So plenty of possible reasons for shipping to stop happening.

Click to shrink...

Simply destroying coastal cities would be enough. Even if he never touched a ship at sea, taking out the harbors of the world would bring shipping to a staggering halt. To say nothing of the collateral damage... A coastal city gets fragged-- so does every single ship in the harbors. ONE Tsunami would do that, and Leviathan regularly uses SEVERAL in each attack.... countless other cities on the East Coast would be damaged when he attacked Brockton Bay. And when Kyushu sank, and Newfoundland? Coastal devastation everywhere.

 

[Kalaong]

To say nothing of the collateral damage... A coastal city gets fragged-- so does every single ship in the harbors.

Click to shrink...

More evidence most people are barely at the "put paper in pump get gas out" level of economic education; each and every one of those hundred-kilotonnage cargo ships that are scrapped in said frag harbors is an $70-million-plus INVESTMENT with an expected productive lifespan of around thirty years. They have destinations planned months if not years in advance, adapting to whatever conditions they encounter. Every time one is lost at sea it's a ridiculous blow to the owner; losing two or three in a row would utterly bankrupt even the largest shipping concerns, similar to how cheetahs have to catch prey at least every other sprint or they just drop dead. Losing every ship in a harbor would hammer the entire industry. And this has happened to multiple harbors.

After the third or even second Leviathan attack, most international shippers would just take their ball and go home.

 

[TheUnicorn]

Come to that, Human beings aren't necessarily rational, and Worm takes that a whole new level even before you take into account Parahumans themselves. What I'm getting at is, there don't have to be any confirmed cases of Leviathan attacking ships at sea for people to be afraid he will and stop relying on ships.

Click to shrink...

Very true. There are plenty of reasons why shipping could go down or for there to be shortages even with shipping volume remaining the same.

 

[RHJunior]

More evidence most people are barely at the "put paper in pump get gas out" level of economic education; each and every one of those hundred-kilotonnage cargo ships that are scrapped in said frag harbors is an $70-million-plus INVESTMENT with an expected productive lifespan of around thirty years. They have destinations planned months if not years in advance, adapting to whatever conditions they encounter. Every time one is lost at sea it's a ridiculous blow to the owner; losing two or three in a row would utterly bankrupt even the largest shipping concerns, similar to how cheetahs have to catch prey at least every other sprint or they just drop dead. Losing every ship in a harbor would hammer the entire industry. And this has happened to multiple harbors.

After the third or even second Leviathan attack, most international shippers would just take their ball and go home.

Click to shrink...

It all just underlines the point: in original canon, despite the obvious evidence that shipping and manufacturing worldwide has been utterly FRAGGED and the countless knock-on effects that would result, we see little sign of the effects in Taylor's world... but then again few if any writers are versed in what those economic effects would be or, if they are, rarely do they think beyond the first iteration. It's sort of the inverse of the "Reed Richards is useless" trope.

 

[wkz]

correction: America is CURRENTLY oil-independent. It was not always. And again, you're forgetting the detrimental effect of having killer kaiju, wandering boss monsters and teams of deranged murderhobos roaming abroad.

Click to shrink...

America has been self-sufficient since the early twenty first century. Aka by 2000 it is nearly all the way there.
Sure, Scion appeared in the 80s and the Endbringers half-to-a-full decade afterwards, but if anything it would have spurred America self-sufficiency forward. Since, you know, the first Endbringer Behemoth wrecked the middle east oilfields in his first appearance?

Plus, if murderhobos and Endbringers caused so much damage in the first place that America can throw oil self-sufficiency out of the window aka they can't keep their multiple, MULTIPLE oil refineries intact ? Well, you can also kiss Agriculture goodbye if that's the case, since its an industry that requires even more space and setup to work properly, yet is more vulnerable to attack simply because they're out in the boonies and away from all the Hero teams. So is medical advances, engineering advances, and any place of higher learning, since, yanno, campuses gets attacked (by Bakuda in canon no less). Hell, paper mills are impossible if anything the size of an oil refinery can't remain intact. Their source, logging, will get murderhoboed all the time. No satellites either; not only isn't there rocket assembly facilities, you can't keep satellite dishes intact. Which also means there is NO world market, world trading and world news, since every piece of information has to physically cross oceans to get there. And so many, many other things...

Is this the world you're writing in RH?

And PLEASE leave the "cellphone=rich" arguments to the Boomers, 'kay? The detritus of a 21st century civilization is not proof of rampant wealth. I've got a desktop, a laptop, a tablet and a cellphone, and I currently earn BELOW the poverty line.

Click to shrink...

Cellphone=rich only works as an argument... ... if just a few sentences before, we agreed that "luxury goods = more expensive and rare because world shipping is kaput."

Aka it's an Earth Bet-only argument.
Choose a cake and eat it. You can't have both.

Simply destroying coastal cities would be enough. Even if he never touched a ship at sea, taking out the harbors of the world would bring shipping to a staggering halt. To say nothing of the collateral damage... A coastal city gets fragged-- so does every single ship in the harbors.

Click to shrink...

This, I agree. I've always hated those who argue that a sea monster CAN'T POSSIBLY stop world shipping by sinking a single/few harbors...

More evidence most people are barely at the "put paper in pump get gas out" level of economic education; each and every one of those hundred-kilotonnage cargo ships that are scrapped in said frag harbors is an $70-million-plus INVESTMENT with an expected productive lifespan of around thirty years. They have destinations planned months if not years in advance, adapting to whatever conditions they encounter. Every time one is lost at sea it's a ridiculous blow to the owner; losing two or three in a row would utterly bankrupt even the largest shipping concerns, similar to how cheetahs have to catch prey at least every other sprint or they just drop dead. Losing every ship in a harbor would hammer the entire industry. And this has happened to multiple harbors.

Click to shrink...

It's not "put paper in pump get gas out" level of economic education that we're (or at least, I'm) arguing.

It's the fact that Humans are resourceful creatures who can and will find alternatives when a single source completely gets wrecked.
(Then again, we have the perfect counter-example in the Heberts. Danny Hebert is canonically a union member, and those had been traditionally opposing all sorts of things over the years, but especially protesting losing ANY jobs. Leviathan really hit Danny hard in canon by removing the entire reason to need Dockworkers in any Docks)

 

[RHJunior]

WKZ, you keep overlooking the fact that 1)it isn't just overseas cargo shipping that's going to get kicked in the nuts 2)Those in charge are going to be too busy trying to duct tape together the remains of the old systems to build entire new ones from scratch.

Building new infrastructure networks is what you do when you're relatively prosperous, and relatively at peace... Not when your country is in crisis.

And I'd just like to note this increasingly tiresome "discussion" came about because certain people here implied I was STUPID for saying in my story that a world torn up by mad scientists, monsters, and murderhobos would experience lots of shortages of certain luxuries...

 

[wkz]

Building new infrastructure networks is what you do when you're relatively prosperous, and relatively at peace... Not when your country is in crisis.

Click to shrink...

Like I said in the big block up there: there's a hellava lot of other things missing in Earth Bet if that's the case.
Hell, Danny must draw a hell of a substantial salary, since Earth Bet's America is so oil starved and he still drives his truck... and I don't see them eating dinner by candlelight...


But yeah, I'll drop it. This is a fictional world after all. Not all the gears need to mesh, just the 'proper' ones relevant to and can drive the story forward.

 

[Kalaong]

It all just underlines the point: in original canon, despite the obvious evidence that shipping and manufacturing worldwide has been utterly FRAGGED and the countless knock-on effects that would result, we see little sign of it in Taylor's world... but then again few if any writers are versed in what those economic effects would be or, if they are, rarely do they think beyond the first iteration. It's sort of the inverse of the "Reed Richards is useless" trope.

Click to shrink...

I want to plug my single favorite Youtube clip of all time;


Rule One of economics; everything affects everything else. Even the rumor of something affects everything else. One thing that sticks in my head?
----
Fertilizer prices depended on energy prices, which meant that energy prices controlled how much the poor would eat.

Pournelle, Jerry. Exiles to Glory . Spectrum Literary Agency, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
----
You point out that public awareness of the Endbringers means that everyone has a go-bag.
Threats like the Slaughterhouse Nine and the Ash Beast wandering around with impunity implies that rural areas are inhabited solely by the determined and the demented, but there's no mention of how abandoning rural areas should screw with food production and mineral extraction.
Hell, I've repeatedly brought up that the very concept of Trigger Events implies that society should have developed an intense taboo towards any and all violent trauma; someone engaging in wanton cruelty towards other human beings is effectively attempting to make nitroglycerin in their bathtubs or even cultivating botulinus toxin. Yet Sophia Hess and her posse were permitted to abuse Taylor with impunity simply because she was a Ward.

 

[RHJunior]

Hell, I've repeatedly brought up that the very concept of Trigger Events implies that society should have developed an intense taboo towards any and all violent trauma; someone engaging in wanton cruelty towards other human beings is effectively attempting to make nitroglycerin in their bathtubs or even cultivating botulinus toxin. Yet Sophia Hess and her posse were permitted to abuse Taylor with impunity simply because she was a Ward.

Click to shrink...

To be fair, it's indicated that a great deal of effort has been expended trying to cover up or at least obfuscate what actually CAUSES Triggers.... basically to prevent people doing something profoundly stupid like torturing people en-masse to try and cause Trigger events. If I recall in canon the knowledge is so muddled that even Taylor commits the faux pas of asking the other Wards about "how they got their powers."

 

[Kalaong]

To be fair, it's indicated that a great deal of effort has been expended trying to cover up or at least obfuscate what actually CAUSES Triggers.... basically to prevent people doing something profoundly stupid like torturing people en-masse to try and cause Trigger events. If I recall in canon the knowledge is so muddled that even Taylor commits the faux pas of asking the other Wards about "how they got their powers."

Click to shrink...

Also Cauldron wants as many triggers as possible, so they probably have a hand in keeping the whole "worst day of your life = superpowers" thing on the down-low.

 

[wkz]

To be fair, it's indicated that a great deal of effort has been expended trying to cover up or at least obfuscate what actually CAUSES Triggers.... basically to prevent people doing something profoundly stupid like torturing people en-masse to try and cause Trigger events. If I recall in canon the knowledge is so muddled that even Taylor commits the faux pas of asking the other Wards about "how they got their powers."

Click to shrink...

This is canon fact, seconded.

Also Cauldron wants as many triggers as possible, so they probably have a hand in keeping the whole "worst day of your life = superpowers" thing on the down-low.

Click to shrink...

This is not an Earth Bet fact thou, otherwise Cauldron would have Contessa out there in the wild torturing everyone under the sky (it is WoG fact that Contessa can cause triggers. She only don't know what powers the person will trigger with) since their entire strategy is to find the "magic bullet" that will end Scion, while building up the army which will support the magic bullet.

 

[jwizard39]

This was not at all what I expected, and surprisingly good! ...Until chapter 14. Adding a bunch more Warcraft powerset characters, particularly when they were Greg and Sparky of all people, pretty much ruined the whole fic... especially after it was heavily implied that there definitely wouldn't be any more after Taylor's trigger and the faux-shard fix.

Click to shrink...

Where did you read that? No, seriously, in what chapter was it implied? Even if it was, it was alluded to the fact that there weren't going to be any more like Bayleaf and Taylor, not that there wasn't going to be any more Warcrafted.

And you are the second person I have read that posted that the story was 'ruined' by giving Greg powers. Granted, that was a different fic, but the point remains. Greg proved his mettle by doing the one thing that no one else outside of Adrian was willing to do; stand up for Taylor. Yes, he can be a massive tool. so is Armsmaster. The point is is that he doesn't deserve people treating him like shit simply because he's creepy.

I may not like certain characters; hell, I've pretty much avoided watching seasons 5-9 of FiM because of Communist Glimmer and the Friendship Trouble Alert (AKA the Cutie Map), but it doesn't change my overall enjoyment of all things Pony. On the other hand, I can't get behind Worm at all. It's almost as bad as Cupcakes

Almost.

 

[TheUnicorn]

And I'd just like to note this increasingly tiresome "discussion" came about because certain people here implied I was STUPID for saying in my story that a world torn up by mad scientists, monsters, and murderhobos would experience lots of shortages of certain luxuries...

Click to shrink...

Nobody claimed that.
If you want a world where certain luxuries are very rare, that's fine, you can work that into your story.
If you want world where middle class children have smartphones, and there's no indication of any major shortages you can have that.

What you can't is have the economic situation be so bad that condoms aren't available to the upper middle class, but everything else shows normal availability of luxuries. Not at least unless you want to ignore the economic realities entirely, which in this sort of story is actually a valid argument.

 

[Kalaong]

Nobody claimed that.
If you want a world where certain luxuries are very rare, that's fine, you can work that into your story.
If you want world where middle class children have smartphones, and there's no indication of any major shortages you can have that.

What you can't is have the economic situation be so bad that condoms aren't available to the upper middle class, but everything else shows normal availability of luxuries. Not at least unless you want to ignore the economic realities entirely, which in this sort of story is actually a valid argument.

Click to shrink...

He actually put a hell of a lot of thought into this. To note;

Old airliners were being scrapped and recycled, old military vehicle graveyards were being salvaged; landfills were being excavated to dig up all those "useless and outdated" electronics and recycle them for rare earths.

But certain other luxuries associated with petroleum distillates had started disappearing: particularly, Rubber, latex and plastics.

Rubber, as it came from the tropical rubber tree plant, was now much more expensive.

Click to shrink...

It's one thing to salvage wasted minerals. It's another thing entirely to find alternate sources of organic compounds. Especially since our existing infrastructure is designed to process specific organics into other specific organics. Latex from dandelions is no substitute for latex from rubber trees; the entire reason rubber trees are such a good source of latex is that you don't have to kill the tree when you harvest the latex.

...of course, Panacea might shoot this in the foot; a lot of real life biotech research goes into persuading plants and animals to produce valuable organic compounds. She's already produced an orange tree that grows meat!

She reached over and plucked what looked like an orange off a climbing vine. She set it on the shelf next to her elbow, pulled a knife out of her work belt and cut it in half.
Bayleaf didn't need anyone to identify the scent that hit his nostrils and his mouth watered. "Is that steak??" he said in disbelief.

Amy nodded. She peeled the rind off a slice and flipped it over; a perfect inch thick cut of what looked like grade A beef, blood raw. "Tender as filet mignon, too." She looked up at him. "Grill you up a slice?" she said with a knowing smile.

To his embarrassment the wolfman realized he was licking his chops. "Ahem. I'll hold off for now." Chuckling, the healer threw the sliced Steak Orange into the minifridge she had set out in the greenhouse.

Click to shrink...

And as for the "rare earths for smartphones but not electric cars" element? My dad's 2012 Prius hybrid just threw a shoe; a 20-grand car that can no longer break 60 MPH because the single most expensive component - the sixteen hundred dollar lithium-ion battery - failed. The average lithium-ion smartphone battery costs three bucks. And it's actually one of the least expensive components of a $200-250 device. If lithium went up a digit in price, that just means the phone costs $230-280 instead. While that seven-year-old hybrid now costs thirty-five grand.