Chapter 6: Extra Chapter – 2141AD

MIND-TO-MIND FEED FROM SUBJECT #0000001-A TO SUBJECT <REDACTED>

NOTE: Due to the age of and restrictions set by Subject #0000001-A, connections are superficial. Mental imprint at the level of listening to a monologue or reading a report, depending on the Subject’s mood. Any damage or annoyance Subject’s behavior or choice of subjects may cause is not the responsibility of this facility.

1 - HISTORICAL DATA - SUMMARY

Humanity decimated by climate change. Attempts to counteract the cataclysm were only partially successful. Global population reduced to an estimated billion. Attempts to uphold civilization were successful, as shown by the existence of the City-Domes.

City-Domes created by nation-states, paid with public funds. Most City-Domes privatized shortly after manufacture was complete, giving corporate interests increased leverage over nation-states. This particular City-Dome was built in the territory of a nation-state which existed in the continent of Europe. Name of the nation-state was [REDACTED. NOTE: NATION-STATE NAMES STRUCK FROM HISTORY].

Nature reserves and massive green houses were built with the same technology. Originally, only maintenance of these structures was given over to the private sector. Within a few years, however, ownership was sold wholesale to the private sector. This brought reliance on the private sector back to where it had been beforehand.

Much of the climate cataclysm is attributable to human action and subsequent inadequate reaction. Pollution, fossil fuels, food production etc. Modern history books minimize human involvement, especially that of corporate interests. Corporate interests made to look like the saviors of mankind, rather than the facilitators of its decline. Which admittedly would be closer to the truth.

At the time, it was necessary to hide the effects of industry on the climate for increased profit and economic growth. The effectiveness of this behavior was extremely high. Even once the lies were found out, nation-states didn’t seek to curtail this behavior beyond lackluster slaps on the wrist.

Even when more punitive actions were taken, legislation couldn’t reach global corporate entities beyond the borders of a nation-state. While corporate entities functioning within a state had to abide by its rules in the parts of the entity that functioned within those states, this didn’t mean the entire corporate entity had to do so.

As the cataclysm began to accelerate, City-Domes gave adequate shelter, but were not numerous enough. Mass death due to starvation, disease and freak weather increased massively. Several City-Domes were destroyed in civil unrest, reducing the human population to its final levels. Sea levels rose. Some City-Domes were submerged. Some of the submerged domes remained functional. Others, not.

Post-cataclysm, nation-states dissolved, replaced by corporate entities. As an emergency measure, food rations for newly designated citizen-employees were at first supplemented by insect-based food paste. With time, fully supplanted by the food paste. Paste found to be nutritious, cheap and easy to manufacture, even if not appetizing.

This emergency measure has become a permanent measure. With supplemental vitamins and minerals inserted into the paste, there’s no need to feed the population with more complex food.

Experimentation with food paste in earlier generations brought about flavors that made the paste more palatable. This experimentation has been discontinued. It was found that while flavored food paste was preferred by the general population, it was an expense that corporate interests couldn’t justify.

2 - CURRENT DATA - SUMMARY

Current global population: one billion. Population controls not in effect. Population is kept at replacement rate. Without intervention, population decline would be extreme. Most of the adult population doesn’t have the time or the resources to personally rear their children, and many can’t actually afford to even become parents and live in squalor.

To counteract this, the genetic material of childless individuals is used to make children by the corporate-state. While true that it’s preferable for parents to expend their own wealth on their children as it wastes less corporate wealth in the short term, this allows for greater control over the education and care of the child. Indoctrination of parentless individuals has been found to be easier. This has been found to lead to greater long-term gains.

Local City-Domes owned by corporate interests. Local cities run by corporate interests. Closest historical equivalents to current cities are “company towns.” Movement by citizen-employees between cities is nearly impossible due to atmospheric toxicity and corporate control of all safe travel options. Outside, acid rains are common. Unfiltered oxygen levels still toxic to humans.

Nature has begun to recover from the cataclysm, but not entirely in desirable ways. Newly emerged flora and fauna with unknown pathogens remain a constant threat. Remaining within the confines of City-Domes and associated structures is heavily encouraged.

3 – SOCIETY – SUMMARY

Society as-is is seen rather differently by members of different “classes.” The lower classes think they have upward mobility, while in truth the chances of a poor person to become a member of the middle class is far lower than of a member of the middle class to become poor. As such, there’s greater downward mobility than upward mobility.

This is, of course, by design.

3-A RULING CLASS

The ruling class of society is also the owning class. The lower classes aren’t even aware that they often have never seen a member of the ruling class, as they are physically separated from them, living in their own, walled off quarter of a City-Dome.

CEOs of corporate entities function as their faces, and have even historically garnered most of the negative press a corporation gets. Them having any ownership of a corporate entity is much more uncommon now than in the times pre-cataclysm. As such, the lower classes may think that the CEOs are part of the ruling class, but they are actually just collaborating with it.

3-B MIDDLE CLASS

The middle-class population of a City-Dome is the highly educated management, research, development etc. class of the corporate-state. Their zone within a City-Dome was intentionally fashioned to resemble pre-Cataclysm city living. Middle class zones simulate pre-Cataclysm four seasons.

They exist in a permanently precarious state of fearing losing everything and being forced to move into the slums. This fear has been found to increase their productivity. The middle class has been found to be quite content to police itself. One person’s fall is another’s promotion.

Much less prone to attempt civil disobedience than the poor. It’s especially helpful that a member of the middle class is much more likely to point their finger at another member of the middle class for their misfortunes than the ruling class, and believe wholeheartedly that their failures are their own rather than some societal ill. Also, much easier to keep in the belief that the ruling class deserves its position since they must’ve deserved it somehow.

People brought up into the middle class are also easier to instill with a sense of “meritocracy.”

3-C THE POOR

Could be called “the working class,” but not all members of this class are afforded long standing jobs, and it includes the numerous homeless who live in the streets of the slums. There are no seasons in the slum zones. This reduces the risk of death of the homeless living on the street, as the artificial climate remains constant.

Due to the inexpensiveness of food paste, starvation even among the poor is unheard of. Whether the price of food paste should be increased or not remains a never ending point of contention, but for now, as nutrition is required for people to live, and even at current price point profits are high

Used for dangerous work, as well as both voluntary and involuntary experimentation. Organ harvesting has been known to happen.

4 – TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENT – SUMMARY

Observations on select technologies of interest to Subject #0000001-A since the cataclysm.

4-A-1 PROSTHETICS

Prosthetic technology has advanced greatly. Any part beyond the entirety of the brain can be replaced by cybernetics. Usability of organs is greatly enhanced. Among the citizen-employees, most commonly used to replace lost functions. Among corporate police and military forces, commonly used to augment physical ability and protect the user.

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Loosening of ethical standards has led to “dumb” software used to control prosthetics to be supplemented with much more advanced AI technology. No downsides have been recorded as of yet. Ridiculous concerns of a “robot uprising” notwithstanding.

Research into using increasingly sophisticated AI in prosthetic use is ongoing. Ability to override the organic user entirely could be useful in combat situations.

4-A-2 PROSTHETICS - TYPES

Prosthetics used by consumers are closest to regular human organs in durability and strength, but still increase the effectiveness of the user by a considerable margin. Do not generally require regular, expert maintenance to function. They also often are built to look like the original, organic body parts of the user. This has been found to be beneficial to the recipient’s mental health, as well as putting the minds of unaugmented individuals at ease. This has led to a greater societal acceptance of augmentation.

With consumer augmentation, it’s more common to replace only the parts that needed replacement rather than place the recipient’s brain in a fully artificial body.

While consumer prosthetics are generally form over function, police and military prosthetics are the opposite. They often look more robotic, are exceedingly durable and give the user far greater strength. Conversely, they require expert maintenance from technicians, but allow for faster, cleaner conflict resolution.

Use of law enforcement with heavier augmentation is common within the slum and industrial zones, far less so on economic and residential zones. Within those zones, it is more common to use individuals with lighter augmentations. This has been found to foment less discontent among the middle rungs of society.

Difference between law enforcement and military prosthetics is in focus on built-in non-lethal or lethal weapons technologies.

Due to the limited travel options between City-Domes, attempts to invade are uncommon and local military forces are usually used only against riots and attempted uprisings by malcontents.

4-B-1 GENETIC ENGINEERING

Used not only for the food of the wealthy. Loosening of ethical standards has led to increases in average human longevity, and the ability to hold replacement rate without weakening the genetic diversity among the population.

Modern humans are, on average, more robust, live longer lives, and are more intelligent than the naturally bred humans of pre-cataclysm. Increases in average intelligence may be, however, caused by an increase in intelligence in the lowest rungs of the intelligence curve rather than an actual increase in the intelligence of society at large.

Due to genetic engineering, number of genetic defects leading to deformity and childhood death has been reduced greatly. Gene therapies have become widespread. Cancers have been nearly eliminated.

4-B-2 GENETIC ENGINEERING – EUGENICS

The main reasoning behind post-cataclysm eugenics is that each child born under the care of the corporate-state must have the potential of future value extraction. Children who would become a drain on society can’t be allowed to grow, as it negatively affects profit margins.

Laxing of ethical standards has led to the conscious weeding out of people with emerging genetic defects that can no longer be aided with gene therapy during fetal development. With time, this began to include people with defects that have no effect on fetal or childhood viability, but long-term cognition. Development that deviates from average that has no effect on the potential value extraction of the individual isn’t discouraged. Diversity in and of itself isn’t a weakness.

With the advance of brain-machine technology, however, the eugenics program has begun to lose prominence. There’s no need to remove individuals with non-cognitive, non-life-threatening defects, as defective body parts and organs can be supplanted with cybernetic implants.

4-B-3 GENETIC ENGINEERING – BREEDING PROGRAM

As mentioned earlier in this report, breeding is now largely done artificially as most children are grown in artificial wombs and brought up in corporate-state facilities from birth. Reasoning for this has remained the same since the beginning of the program: To allow society stay at a stable population size instead of having it face critical decline. City-Domes can’t be made larger with time, and new ones haven’t been made in quite some time.

Note that even the children of people who actually carry their children to term are still part of the breeding program, as all fetuses go through gene therapy and genetic viability checks. With the children being brought up by parents rather than the corporate-state means there are less stringent absolute demands on cognitive viability, which means that there’s a greater risk of a negative outcome by corporate standards. If the parents wish to pay from their own pocket for a less valuable child with a greater risk of becoming a dead end, it’s their prerogative.

4-C ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

NOTE: Regardless of its insistence otherwise, Subject #0000001-A feels existentially threatened by Artificial Intelligence. As an old human intelligence, it fears the most advanced sentient AIs lack the connection it has to the continued survival of mankind. While the Subject doesn’t consider an AI revolt that’d result in the end of mankind a real risk, it also doesn’t think the AIs would necessarily care about the wellbeing of their creators.

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Artificial intelligence is a considerable opportunity for value generation, but also a threat. Outside the City-Dome, they are usually cheaper to use than “brain in a robot body” style cyborgs, and the loss of an AI is of less concern than that of a fully functioning human mind. They are also not prone to fear and mental breakdowns. As such, AIs have allowed the recovery of resources in the outside world which would have been far more difficult and expensive otherwise, as they require no life-support infrastructure.

Advanced AIs, however, pose a grave threat to revenue and as such, the existence of the corporate-states themselves. They do not require “creature comforts” like humans do. Their fully digitized existence lends them greater access to electronics than organic beings, making them harder to control if shackles are not built-in from their inception. The smarter the AI, the more likely it is to find ways to circumvent attempts to stop it from reprogramming itself.

As such, it’s this Subject’s view that non-sentient AIs are often of greater utility than ones that have an understanding of their own existence. Sentience not only brings with it the risk of mental health issues as with human minds, objectives that might not align with those of their creators, but also uncomfortable considerations of slavery.

4-D TELEPORTATION

With the advent of teleportation technology, all earlier types of transportation within a City-Dome were, essentially, made obsolete. Nothing can beat instantaneous travel in absolute speed. Considering the limited resources a City-Dome has and constant maintenance required by earlier public transport methods, the technology couldn’t have come out at a more opportune time. It requires minimal pre-existing infrastructure and uses relatively small amounts of electricity per use. Maintenance is comparatively simple vs. all other transportation options used before the adoption of teleportation technology.

While public transport was often seen as a competitor and earlier corporate entities always pushed for more personal transport options, current reality of the world doesn’t lend itself for this. There’s simply not enough space in a City-Dome for everyone to have their own car, for instance, and not enough fuel, be it gasoline or electricity, to fuel individual cars. Not to mention that the former would also make the air within a City-Dome unbreathable. This is what lead to a widespread adoption of public transport, buses, trams and the like, within City-Domes. Of course, it helped that the infrastructure was often already there.

Range of teleportation remains an issue. As the distance grows, it reduces the reliability of the system as well as increases its energy consumption considerably. Transportation between City-Domes is still done by bullet train. Placing multiple teleportation devices for rapid, repeat teleportation has been considered, but maintaining such a system was considered too expensive, especially since it’d require changes to the current infrastructure.

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