Corporate People
I was thinking because I am always thinking. How will we address the people who come along who are augmented or grown in an industrial process? Like I already said, I think that they will be the property of some corporate entity. If not as full-on slaves, then as indentured servants. They will have to serve some master to pay for what has been done to them. I know it sounds sad, but they will possess some form of superpower as a trade-off—some means of being employable.
This is not much different than what I am experiencing now. I study and learn new skills to make myself the equivalent of someone with the corporate-level super power to create content, master software, or generally hold down a desk. I wish my reality had the Decker flying car option of Blade Runner. Sadly the coolest form of transportation available in LA is a fat tire electric bike.
The concept of needing employment and having augmentations attached to my spine is all the stuff of our current economic system. We are making dow with a system of commerce that depends on the fear of poverty and death to keep us working at whatever hampster wheel we are currently running on. I have a feeling after a year of being at home, the introspection and realization of this situation are starting to result in some minor yet significant changes.
I was listening to NPR about a guy who has been working from home and realized he did not want to go back into the office. He wants to be able to work from anywhere. Some people have been doing this for years, but the groundswell of change is obvious in real estate. Our friends just moved to Utah from Los Angeles. The number of homes available last year was over 3000 units. This year it is below 1000, around 500 units in the whole state of Utah. There will be a lot of changes around here as people wake up to the idea of universal healthcare, basic income, subsidized housing that puts everyone in place to call home. Maybe things will change for the corporate people and us if an abundance system replaces our poverty system.