Shadowrun IS coming... Options

[Fix-it]

Does anyone have this impending feeling that The world of shadowrun WILL come. With or WITHOUT magic and all that stuff. Corporations are taking more and more power for themselves, it's only a matter of time before they'll think, "hey- out property should be considered extraterritorial to the US!"

I mean, with the DMCA basically taking away the freedom of information in favor of corporations... :(

[Wonazer]

Without the magic... Sounds like Cyberpunk. =)

Seriously, I have seen my share of crap around here, but only where there are no major public interests. It gets scary sometimes.

Even after the county voted NO on a new stadium, it was built anyway and the people were taxed for it. Go figure.

Another example: George Bush, 2.0

[John Campbell]

I think actual corporate extraterritoriality is highly unlikely. I'm not even sure why corporations would want it. What we'll get instead is government as a wholly-owned corporate subsidiary. Why mess around with all that extraterritoriality crap when it's so much easier to just buy the government of an existing country? We're looking at an Aztlan future, not a UCAS future...

[El_Machinae]

Yeah, well I want the cerebral boosters and the ... er ... the memory booster one.

[Wonazer]

[El_Machinae]

Well, it's kinda fair ... because if people knew that their land was REALLY needed, they'd hold onto it for really unfair amounts of money.

But the question is ... did they get one of the HUGE bids, or a "market value" for the property?

[Wonazer]

The government repossed their land and gave them market value which was LESS then the orignal bid.

[Centurion]

Uh, question, but when was America NOT like that? I mean, heck, the country was FOUNDED by capitalists pissed at government restrictions. The constitution of the United States is one of the most anti-pure-democracy (note: democracy in the classical sense, NOT the modern definition of the word) pro-private property documents ever written. The founding fathers of America feared the masses as much if not more than tyrants. This is not to say that it isn't a libertarian document at it's core, I'm just saying that those folks who think that there was a magical time in the past where gov't and capitalism weren't in bed with each other are looking through the proverbial rose-colored glasses. In fact, I would argue that corporate control superseding the interests of the masses has been far worse in the past (Robber Barons, anyone?) than it is now. Getting excited over what amounts to RIAA shooting itself in the foot with a vindicator loaded with APDS is going a little overboard.

Besides, Shadowrun is more or less cyberpunk, which at it's core is OMG FIGHT TEH EVAL CORPS featuring heroic proletariat with unusually colorful hair doing nasty things to survive while other RPGs like Paranoia are an extension of OMG TEH EVAL GOVERNMENT's thought control/censorship taken to the extreme. Depends on what you're into.

[kenji]

hell, I *still* "ph33r teh massez."
wait, or am i teh masses? it's so confusing.
:P

also, what sane government will ever cede territoriality to a parastate entity? it's just asking for trouble. besides, eminent domain means never having to say "hey, mind if we firefight through?" especially if your special forces are the types to yell "FORE!" before going blamblamblamblam.

[Centurion]

Ugh, sorry about the l33t speak phrasology, but most of the forums I came from usually featured political rants by 14 year olds complaining about the unfairness of life and using it in an ironic context has kinda gotten to be a habit...

[kenji]

not a problem, that's exactly how i ... started to use it, but be warned, it's habit forming, soon every time you're trying to be tongue-in-cheek it will come out l33t.

besides, i get the impression that the majority of the world's supply of spare time is held by american teenagers.

[Andvare]

LOL!
No, just teenagers in general.

[Wonazer]

[Kurukami]

The real turning point, though, was Santa Clara vs. Southern Pacific Railroad, back in 1886 or so. Up until that point, as far as I recall, corporations were pretty strictly monitored as to their charter and if they went beyond it, pffft!, they were disbanded. After all, America had experienced tons of trouble at the hands of the British East India Trading Company and various other British corps, and wanted to make sure that companies didn't exert quite so much influence.

All of that changed about the time of the American Civil War and the years immediately thereafter. Corps took advantage of the chaos to push their own candidates and itineraries, sending through legislation allowing them more freedom to do as they pleased. The breaking point, though, was Santa Clara vs. Southern Pacific Railroad. After that, corporations were defined as "people", with all the rights pertaining to them.

An informative link:

http://lists.mutualaid.org/pipermail/mgj-d...ber/001613.html

With those who have commented previously on the U.S. society moving towards Aztlan... well, I tentatively agree. Clearly the analogy falls apart when one looks at, oh, blood sacrifices and the like. However, corporations exerting significant influence over a willing pawn of their own choosing, and voting which is entirely computerized with no paper trail are both things that were mentioned in the Aztlan sourcebook. The fact that the machines which control such voting are manufactured by an ardent Republican supporter who refuses to make his code open-source for examination simply adds an additional level of tension.

[spotlite]

oooh, this is gonna make me unpopular, I can tell....

Look, I don't wanna side with George 'Dubya Dubya Three' Bush Jnr here, but I wouldn't open that source up for analysis either, even if I was on the level - you open your VOTING source code for examination? You'd never use it again, just to be sure. THAT's the problem with e-voting - not that you aren't allowed to see the code, but that the govmint can't risk releasing it for fear of tampering, which of course leads to mistrust in the populace which results in tighter secrecy which makes the mistrust worse, which... well, you get the idea.

Its expensive, and eco-unsound, but paper voting is much safer, if the vote papers were copy protected like monetary bills are.

But what on earth makes you think we aren't living in an effective Aztlan-like, or UCAS-like system now?

Oil companies have already bought, in entirety and perpetuity, lands in Africa and Central America, which they can do what they like on until it affects neighbours, because no-one now owns that land except the corp in question (I beleive Shell is the main perpetrator here). They routinely shoot dead locals who trespass, or even who oppose them outside the boundaries (since these facilities tend to be in isolated areas they can get away with a lot, never mind the fact they only really fence off the bits they're using. But they still own the surrounding land and can still do what they like there). PLEASE NOTE - I'm not saying the corps in question are murdering scumbags out to cow the local population here, ok? I'm just saying that they have a shoot-trespassers policy and that no-one asks too many questions. In many cases the trespassers are armed and up to no good at all. I have heard stories of people protesting going missing, but they are unverified. What I'm saying is, please don't sue me, Shell! I'm not accusing you of anything.

Honest, I'm not just paranoid (but then I would say that, wouldn't I?), the info is there to look for. Sure, they haven't done it in any developed countries that I know of except maybe the good old us of a in Alaska (and I'm not certain about that at all), but it really is likely only a matter of time, unless there are some severe social upheavals in the next 50 years or so.

The SIN is so close to a reality the only thing lacking is a credstick as well.

And hey, I'm not saying its all that bad a thing. I'm just saying there really isn't all that much difference between now and 2060 except tech and extraterratoriality. But then, that's probably what makes SR so utterly cool.

[Kurukami]

I'm not trying to suggest that said code should be distributed to anyone who wants it -- that is an invitation to be hacked. What I'm saying is that this company (Diebold, as I recall) won't even provide its code to independent voting authorities so that they can error-check the code for potential bugs, trojans, and nasties that might twist an election one way or another.

http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=82...673&cid=7247776

[Siege]

Diebold is the company doing the digital voting in Georgia -- I had a temp job during the first phase implementation last year.

-Siege

[Spookymonster]

[nezumi]

As an employee of The Man, I feel compelled to speak out of my butt on this...

It seems to me, looking over the history of the U.S., there have been 2 major trends.
1) Ethics have been going up. We've been fighting for the rights of the individual more and more, eliminating slavery, equal rights for blacks and hispanics, socialist welfare programs and now we're working on equality for 'alternative lifestyles'. The speed and depth of these changes is unprecedented, and I see no reason to suspect that our personal liberties are going to disappear in the face of the globolization of corporations. The *ONLY* exception I consistently see to this rule is in regards to 'matters of national security', and I hope that more sheeple will show the guts to say 'I value my personal freedom more than I value absolute safety'. Where 'national security' will take us is another question, however. I think it would be a lot of fun if someone rewrote the SR universe around the premise that the government, not corporations, grows too strong and tromps on people.

2) Regulation of major corporations is going up. Extraterritoriality was actually a way of life a hundred years ago (read up about all of our rich industrialists and their planned neighborhoods). The government has been trying hard to avoid situations in which corporations sell human rights to the highest bidder. This includes stopping monopolies and not allowing corporations to have any real legal control over their employees' social lives.

Is the government influenced by industry? Yes, of course! It always has been. Is industry becoming a giant who will crush our personal freedoms? No, I don't think it especially likely...

[Kurukami]

On the other hand, though, the government seems to allow most CEOs and high-level execs who are clearly guilty of wrongdoing to evade jail time with minor fines and the scapegoating of lower-level execs. For example, Ken Lay's still walking around, despite his clear malfeasance on the part of Enron Corp.

Not to mention the whole price-gouging-of-California-by-greedy-energy-companies thing, which the feds have conveniently failed to properly investigate. It's a sad day for the Republic when the welfare of people tied to the country by blood and years of tradition (that is, the population of a state of the union) are made subservient to the will of snake-oil companies who happen to donate to the political funding of said country's current leader. :S

[Siege]

[easytohate]

The interests of national security unfortunately affect every major corperation and industry. So in the sense of the government growing out of control the two really go hand in hand.
Corps and Governments exist to serve the orginazation first, and in our brave new world the two all too often go hand in hand. Governments get powerful because of corps, corps develop the technology and sell the products which cycle the economy and produce GNP which is the measure of most nations in the modern world (at least through our eyes as a consumer based society).
As the sense of community drops away and the nation becomes larger and more connected, as bigger and bigger corps grow to meet more of our needs, the brave new world will slowly fade away.

A recent DOD higher up stated "A well stocked 7 eleven would make 30 Iraqi businesses in bankrupt"

Made me think about how there used to be mom and pop video stores in every town. Now what do you see Blockbuster and Hollywood, we used to have markets and department stores. Now we have Ultra Wal Mart a place where a standard consumer can find anything they need.
Wal Mart is one of the most powerful corps in the world. They have the most consumers, they have more people giving them more money every day, if Wal Mart stores stop carrying a line of products the resulting loss of revenue for the producing corp could be enough to put them out of business. Every day CEO's jump through hoops in order to appease Wal mart. Even brand name powerhouses like Disney, Universal and Levi's jump through hoops. Wal Mart controls the largest shipping and logistics fleet in the US. So it's not just the retail companies but the shipping companies.
And the more power a corp like Wal Mart gets the more power they will have. I'm not saying that Wal Mart is evil... I'm just saying that it would be real easy to make the jump, as the world gets smaller and corps get larger from the world of today to the world of 2060...

Now back to my point... National security... How many times in the last 5 years as the government paid a corp just so that corp would continue to provide a service to the public... it happens all the time. the most recent large case would be the Airline industry. It is now considered a national interest to protect the Airline industry... and the power industry... and the oil industry... and the Miltech industry... pharmatech and biotech. The government already gives money to all of these groups... just so that they can continue to exist at the edge of the field.
Because the problems of a large industry are problems for a nation.
Tell me that a national emergancy wouldn't be called if Mastercard suddenly said "Nope we aren't going to play nice anymore" sure the other corps would get more business for a short time... but all it would take would be two or three of them to drop out of the race and the American world would stop.

What would happen if in the world of Shadowrun... the major credstick certifying agency for seatle just stopped doing transactions for a company, stopped processing payments for one business and only processed them for the competition?

I don't even know if I am making sense anymore. It's been a long day at the office.

[Buzzed]

If the democrats had it their way, the government would have complete control. We would be taxed for using a toilet, taxed for sending an email, & taxed for chopping down a dead tree in a forest. Then we would be fined for improper usage of the toilet, fined for typing something insulting in the email, and fined for chopping down a dead tree in a forest.

It is better to let the trees fuel fires to burn down houses rather then using the trees to build houses. :please:

[Kanada Ten]

[kenji]

spotlite: opening source will reveal *existing* vulnerabilities. without source, systems can still be tested and abused. you're arguing for security through obscurity, which only works for systems with few enough users to not merit analytical attacks. voting, i'd posit, has sufficent interest to generate said attacks, which, if you kept everything hush hush (dominant industry disclosure practice: stony silence. better for stock price.) would never get disclosed.

but then, designing an information-flow system, ephemeral or physical, how different is it? there's just so many more glorious ways to completely hose up a wholly ephemeral system.