SR4 World view, Upgrading my SGM and needing comments Options

[Serbitar]

EDIT: Updating my SGP not SGM. New forum software but still cant edit title . . .

\chapter{Fucked up World}

Some people might call me an anarchist. But I call myself a realist and I know the world is fucked up. It's completely fubar. Somehow sometime ago something went wrong. I don't know when and where, but I know that it \textit{went} wrong. When you go downton and look into the faces of people you see it. Or better, you see what is missing. As ironic as it sounds, its the System. You have to understand it to survive in it. I am a survivor. I am a wolf.

\section{What is the Capital of UCAS?}
In the 20th century, education went like this: You red a book, memorized the important parts and made connections to other books. Sometimes you asked a teacher. Many people claim it was the other way: Teachers told you things you memorized and sometimes you red a book. But that is irrelevant. What \textit{is} relevant is the fact that you memorized data. To get a academic degree you had to learn a vast amount of data and be able to process them, sort them, and work with them. This has changed.

Nobody has to learn basic facts anymore. You can look them up in about 2 seconds in your favourite matrix data repository up to any detail you like. Its ridiculous to think that people had to learn the names of cities or presidents. Today, data mining is much more important. Every bit of data is somewhere out there. They hard part is to find it and to not find the trillions of similar looking facts you are not searching for. That's why most of the schooling today is about search algorithms, data mining, and data webbing.

But it does not stop here. Today we have agents that can do the data mining for you. So what you learn is how to orchestrate agents. You learn how to translate the job given to you into commands for software. You learn to be a node in the system. You learn to be a processor without knowledge, without ideas, without responsibility. You learn how to be controlled efficiently, without bothering. You learn to be a sheep.

\section{Knowledge is power}
As basic knowledge gets better and better organized in public data archives and is more and more accessible due to AR, the value of knowledge changes. Knowledge is worth nothing and knowledge is worth everything. The easily accessible right at hand data and knowledge of this data is worth nothing. The specialized hard to get known only by few data is worth everything.

To a large fraction of the population a long and complete education is no longer necessary, as most jobs require only knowledge that is instantly available or can easily be provided by knowledge software. Nobody needs to learn biology if you can just slot a chip. Nobody needs to learn languages. All you have to provide is the processing power of your brain. Only the ability to process information is needed, a field where agents do not (yet) shine.

As consequence, there are three general groups of employees: There are uneducated people that perform heavy labor and manual work, using skillsofts, and, competing with extremely cheap drones and machines. Then we have rudimentary educated low-class employees, that rely on public knowledge and knowsoft to get their job done, a pool of processors that can work on any job given to them. And finally there are well educated high-class employees, that provide valuable special knowledge and professionalism. They are the top mangers, the rulers, the puppetmasters.

\section{Are you working?}
Though a large fraction of the heavy labor and manual work is done by drones and machines, a certain amount of those drones is still operated by humans. This provides flexibility and what the corps call ``optimal performance''. Thanks to wireless technology these drones can be controlled from virtually anywhere.

Also most of the information processing, design and secretary work can be done from home. Joe Normal 2070 does not have to go to work, as he can potentially work from everywhere he wants via AR. AR meetings are as real as personal meetings and almost all other aspects of the daily working routine can be simulated via AR.

Unfortunately, that is very bad for Joe Normal. He is virtually 24/7 at work. There is no excuse of not being available and if something has to be done, Joe will do it. If he does not there are plenty of other people waiting for his job.

\section{Biodrones}
Recently I found a piece of data on Shadowland about Biodrones. Rumor goes they are biological drones that can be rigged. This is far from true. Biodrones have already arrived at the mass market. More than 50\% of the the population in developed countries relies on Knowsoft and Skillsoft for their work. They never had to learn a thing, can be switched from engineer to policeman, from consultant to salesman in seconds and do what they are told. They are the real Biodrones. We are sourrounded by sheep who are not thinking for themselves, not knowing for themselves, and not moving for themselves. That is why the world is so fucked up.


Does the view described above collide with your SR4 view? What are your views of the social world in SR4.

[Ryu]

Keeping your headers for convenience. You might want to put the question on top, it is a rather long read before the question is asked.

\chapter{Fucked up World}
Cold, cold world is more like it. It may be me, trained to become a wheel in the corporate machinery, but it does not feel wrong per se. To put it in another way, what is wrong then is already wrong now. If you live in a cold world, compassion has to be enforced by law.

\section{What is the Capital of UCAS?}
The key change will stem from knowledge softs, but mining pure data still requires you to learn, or at least work with people who have learned. Teaching will focus on synergistic learning instead of analytical prowess. You need to have the big picture to understand the very specific solutions the matrix provides. In the face of knowsofts and skillsofts, education is no longer a capital to 90% of the populace. Dump 20k¥ and 12k¥ per active skill or go to university for five years? Your financial advisor soft will book you out of U-Sea. Real capital is in basic attributes, and if you get education, it is to prove basic attributes (a valid perspective on education even in todays economic theory).

\section{Knowledge is power}
Knowledge about the application of knowledge is power. It is all there, but can you use it. See Competitor information systems. Until you found the right combination of methods and inputs, the market may long be gone, the chance missed.

About your classes of people: I´ve heard an estimate putting 40% of the german populace as unfit for employment in 2020´s industrial environment, even if they tried their best (from a Professor that has worked for a robot firm before coming back to university). You really should assume that taxation laws force physical labour into existence. It is very believable that we will see that day in RL.

\section{Are you working?}
Drone controllers are important. A secretaries main function is serving coffee and socialising. Face it, most accounting/filing jobs can be programmed with the level of awareness an agent has. Development of agent-controlled manufacturing has begun years ago. The machine that gets fresh orders for its operator is todays tech, one of the easiest steps of the process. The devil is in coordinating several machines towards optimised productivity. No employment by law = no physical workforce by 2070.

\section{Biodrones}
Don´t like. Not in my game, even if I have to edit them out one day.

[Kagetenshi]

You know, I like your style. If the boards don't parse LaTeX, we should just use it until the admins \textbf{make} it.

~$\infty$

Edit: Ryu, you missed a backslash on the chapter tag.

[Ryu]

Rectified.

[Sponge]

This thread's clearly in need of a stupid newbie question:

"What's an SGP (or SGM for that matter)?"

DS

[Ryu]

Serbitars Guide to the Matrix. Or something close to that.

[Serbitar]

SGP = Systems Guide to Paranoia (see my Sig)

[Redjack]

Did you see my PM about how to fix the title?