The Age After Wealth

 

Background:

Social Institutions evolve in response to new technology. The automobile spawned — among other things —traffic lights and laws governing driving behavior. Radio gave rise to laws regulating the electromagnetic spectrum. All in the pursuit of coordinated action for the “common good”.  But the rapid evolution of technology has outpaced the ability of Social Institutions to evolve accordingly.  Moreover, laws and Social institutions are crafted on various economic ideas, on economic models. Both Socialism and Capitalism are pathways that do not appear to be creating Social Institutions which are helping us achieve the greatest common good. This is a story about daily life in a Society that could potentially evolve from economic ideas based on Individualism.

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Thinking about what to order for breakfast, Maxwell (Max to his friends) eye-scrolled the on-line delivery menu projected on his wall [1].  Just as he was about to choose, he was interrupted. Judging by the vibration of his Smart Watch, he knew it was a GruunT — a Government urgent undeletable Text. He was required to read it before making his decision. He carefully hand-gestured to move the message to his Smart glasses where he read this:

 

" Maxwell, you are receiving this friendly text because the New Collective Constitution guarantees the right of all individuals to make fully informed choices which will likely impact the individual or Society. 

Your neural monitor shows you are about to select breakfast #5. This event has required us to provide you with information regarding the potential consequences of that decision should you choose to proceed.

You have not reached your exercise or healthy food goals for this health period. Further, based on your medical and genetic records, it is estimated that consumption of breakfast #5 will result in a 0.3% increase in your risk of developing type 2 diabetes. In the past 12 months Diabetes resulted in 6.45 million deaths and caused health care expenditures to reach 970 billion e-dollars [2]. 

While the decision is yours, if you do consume breakfast #5 your freedom health care account (FHCA) will be reduced by 0.017%. 

If at any time the funds in you FHCA account are insufficient to pay for medical care and services, then care will not be available to you. Your health program includes cremation services as a no-cost non-cancellable benefit to you. 

Please use silent voice reply to indicate if you found this information helpful or not.”

 

Not wishing to change his social standing by having credits deducted from his GCA (“Good Citizen’s Account”), he immediately thought “yes”, and the message faded from his Smart Glasses and his neuro-activity tags were updated.

He returned his focus to the on-line menu projected on his wall.  He ordered breakfast #2.  He requested the delivery drone arrive in 30 minutes at around 6:30 a.m. The return confirmation message stated despite heavy air traffic his breakfast had a 96% chance of arriving within 10 minutes of his requested time. He was surprised. The vertical farming complex [3] was located less than 5 kilometers from his apartment. Food usually arrived in less than 15 minutes.

While waiting for his breakfast to arrive, Nana his robotic maid and sexual surrogate came out of the bedroom.  She sensed he was slightly unhappy.  She assumed it was regret; most likely due to his not ordering breakfast #5.  She kidded him about his snoring last night; how it kept her awake. They laughed and continued talking. He relaxed.  Talking with her was therapeutic. She was always curious and a great listener.

He felt comforted by telling her stories told to him by his great grandfather. Stories of the days when individuals owned either a home or an apartment and everyone had a kitchen where they could cook their own meals.  “How primitive!”, she said, and he agreed. He went on:

Those were the days before the “Great Economic Leveling” and the “Population Stabilization Accords”.

He told her about the Unified World Legislature (UWL) and how the members gathered the courage to pass the Great leveling laws necessary to eliminate poverty and income disparity, as well as to provide affordable healthcare, housing, and food for all the world’s citizens. The old laws were based on inadequate economic models.  Those models were wrong, occasionally useful but more often deadly.  The new economic models [4] supported laws based upon a few key principles:

1.  The human desire to accumulate wealth is a curable social disease. The highest level of Human aspiration is to do good for Society and the responsibility of Government is to encourage and recognize this aspiration. Recognition is the reward.

2.  The planet and all its resources are to be divided into shares and each human over the age of 5 owns one-earth share (and only one share).  The United World Government is the custodian of all earth shares. Each shareholder receives from the Government an annual dividend.  The dividend amount depends upon how well world targets are met. Targets are set by popular vote of the world shareholders.

3.  No individual or entity shall receive income from passive sources. Wealth or possessions of any kind shall not pass between generations but shall be transferred to the State.

4.  Previous rights to private property of any form, are transferred to the State without further compensation to the previous rights holder.

5.  There is a single rate of pay for all work, of any type. 

He continued and told Nana that about the same time as the Economic Leveling laws were passed, the UWL, passed the Population Stabilization Accords. Essentially this law was based on a single principle: Only those individuals with a Good Citizen’s Account score greater than 10,000 were eligible for the reproduction lottery. Reproduction without a license was a crime against Society that carried severe penalties.

Of course, she already knew this history and much more — far more than even he knew.  Nevertheless, she expressed surprise and delight at hearing him tell his stories. 

He told her that all social media narratives reported that — despite some small anti-progressive pockets of resistance — progress toward those goals reached 70% just last year. He trusted and believed they would reach 100% soon; narratives are reality. If not narratives how else would we know the world beyond our immediate senses? Thankfully, the government curated all social, literary, and scientific narratives; setting and enforcing standards much like those in the food and health industries, to ensure no harmful products or ingredients (or memes) entered the system.

Nana knew more about all of this, including the precise numbers representing progress as well as the locations of the pockets of resistance. She said nothing. His asking her would trigger her ethical processing logic — she would be forced to decide if he would be helped or harmed if she gave him more complete and accurate facts. Her reply might alter his beliefs or depress him. Fortunately, he was content to talk and he didn’t ask her any questions.

He went on to say the Great Economic Leveling laws applied to the low-, middle- and upper-income classes.  These were merged into a single class — the common class. Exempt from the leveling were politicians and the super-wealthy — the benefactor class. Thankfully, the New Collective Constitution guaranteed mobility between the classes (via a lottery system for politicians) [5]. Regardless of their abilities or classification, the Constitution also protected the rights of Numans — that is, embodied bipedal, reasoning, robotic agents with two metacarpi.

The pulsing vibration of his Smart Watch indicated the food delivery drone was about to arrive on his terrace.  The sliding doors to the terrace opened automatically. The drone placed the breakfast container on his utility table. Nana gently grasped the breakfast container. Using her soft sensitive fingers, she nimbly opened it, removed its contents then returned the container to the drone, which promptly exited by the terrace doors which then automatically closed. She saw the toast and immediately buttered it, then decoratively placed each breakfast item on the table.

He was happy to have Nana in his life. Both Nana and Rox were provided to him by the State at no cost for a period of 15 years. They were among his best friends.  In many ways’ better friends than most of the individuals in his various social identity groups [6].

Rox was also a class 5 Numan who served as an apprentice. Every worker had the option of working for life or to train a Numan apprentice who eventually would perform the worker’s job. The worker would then receive 90% of his former salary, with the remaining 10% deposited into a government fund for Numan repairs or replacements.

There was risk associated with either option.  “Working for life” held the risk that the work performed would be needed for the lifetime of the worker; that is, the job itself would not become extinct. If it did, there would be no income. Expenses would need to be paid from mandatory savings.

The option of “training a Numan apprentice” held the risk of liability for damage to Society or to another individual but only if the damage was an avoidable result of action or inaction on the part of the Numan apprentice. To determine if a result was avoidable or unavoidable, the Board of Numan Affairs typically would run 100 quantum simulations of the event. If most cases indicated the result was avoidable, damages would be assessed against the trainer of the Numan — unless it could be clearly demonstrated the Numan had a pre-training algorithmic genetic defect.  

Rox entered the breakfast area.  “Ready to go to work, boss?” he joked.

 ******** To be continued ********* 

 

#	Notes, Inspiration, and Mischief
1	https://www.next-mind.com/  “Once you’re linked in, using your mind to control your digital environment is surprisingly easy.”   Makin, Joseph G., David A. Moses, and Edward F. Chang. “Machine Translation of Cortical Activity to Text with an Encoder–Decoder Framework.” Nature Neuroscience 23, no. 4 (April 2020): 575–82. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-020-0608-8   Zhang, X., L. Yao, Xianzhi Wang, Jessica Monaghan, and D. McAlpine. “A Survey on Deep Learning Based Brain Computer Interface: Recent Advances and New Frontiers.” 2019. https://arxiv.org/abs/1905.04149   Roy, Sujit, A. Chowdhury, Karl McCreadie, and G. Prasad. “Deep Learning Based Inter-Subject Continuous Decoding of Motor Imagery for Practical Brain-Computer Interfaces.” Frontiers in Neuroscience, 2020. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2020.00918.   Neurons, Twenty Billion. “How We Construct a Virtual Being’s Brain with Deep Learning.” Medium, August 8, 2019. https://towardsdatascience.com/how-we-construct-a-virtual-beings-brain-with-deep-learning-8f8e5eafe3a9.   Nam, Chang S., ed. Neuro-ergonomics: Principles and Practice. Cognitive Science and Technology. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34784-0.
2	For current estimates see: “International Diabetes Federation - Facts & Figures.” https://www.idf.org/aboutdiabetes/what-is-diabetes/facts-figures.html
3	Benke, Kurt, and Bruce Tomkins. “Future Food-Production Systems: Vertical Farming and Controlled-Environment Agriculture.” Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy 13, no. 1 (January 1, 2017): 13–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/15487733.2017.1394054.
4	Peters, Ole. “The Ergodicity Problem in Economics.” Nature Physics 15, no. 12 (December 2019): 1216–21. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-019-0732-0. “Arthur, W Brian. “Inductive Reasoning and Bounded Rationality (The El Farol Problem),” https://www.econ.tuwien.ac.at/lva/compeco.se/artikel/intro_inductive_reasoning_and_bounded_rationality_sfi_el_Farol.pdf Arthur, W. B. “Complexity and the Economy.” Science 284, no. 5411 (April 2, 1999): 107–9. http://www.uvm.edu/pdodds/files/papers/others/1999/arthur1999a.pdf
5	All political offices are selected by lottery held every 2 years. Lottery winners may decline service without penalty.
6	Reicher, Stephen, S. Haslam, Russell Spears, and Katherine Reynolds. “A Social Mind: The Context of John Turner’s Work and Its Influence.” European Review of Social Psychology 23 www.researchgate.net/publication/272123861_A_social_mind_The_context_of_John_Turner's_work_and_its_Influence.
7	China’s Artificial Intelligence Surveillance State Goes Global - The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/09/china-ai-surveillance/614197/
8	Image Source Credit: newcastlebeach.org