You know, if you're going to say "the vast majority of the people in X world" try not not treat the vast majority of the world like it's the American middle-class.

The vast majority of the world in SR is, as far as I can tell, treated as even more disposable than today (which is saying something) to the point where there are global entities which could (and do) use people as skillchipped/personafixed drones doing rote work while a global organlegging network exists. There are old, new, and magical diseases still killing off people with regularity. Civil society as it exists today is a fucking myth. There are sentient creatures which feed on people, hunting on the most disposable and powerless. There are spirits which feed off people. Corporations and governments have (although apparently this has changed in RH) found it politically and economically useful to maintain a permanent underclass in even the most properous cities in the world. Human life is so disposable that bloodsports are global entertainment and there is a network called The Battle Channel that does quite well, and people can slot snuff clips as someone killing or being killed for the explicit entertainment of the end-user. Small arms and light weapons are more prolific and widely-used in Shadowrun in conflicts ranging from street gang warfare in the slums to all out wars, and terrorism is more rampant than one can possibly imagine (compared to now, the last fifteen years have been a fucking JOKE. A single act of terrorism in SR took more lives than pretty much every act since 1990, 10 times as many people were killed than on 9/11) and have involved mass casualty terrorism utilizing WMDs to the point where they are suggested as being commonplace (SOTA64. Behind the Badge). See also, the Munich VITAS attack, Crash 2.0. The environment can kill people more easily, and does so regularly to the point where the Ring of Fire caused more casualties than can ever be accurately counted. There are deadlier animals. There are toxic zones which have eaten up huge swaths of England and even wiped an entire nation off the face of the Earth while some other threats limit themselves to taking over city-sized areas like the CZ and Renraku Arcology.

Yeah. Life for the vast majority of people seems exactly the same as today.

[Edit]
Actually, life for the vast majority is the same at its base fundamental that they will likely be poor, illiterate, malnourished, and caught up in either violence or plague that will end their lives long before the average person living in the first world. In Shadowrun, there are simply more opportunities in which you can die living a nasty, brutish and short life without meaning.

The first-worlders will still have faith without direction, comfort without need, security without freedom, and just as their companions in the vast majority- life without meaning.

And a majority of people never read him. Even a majority of people in the first world did not.

And we're proud of it!

But fifteen million dollars is not money. It's a motive with a universal adaptor on it.

But at the cost of pretty much every shred of freedom, privacy, self-respect-basically one's soul. It is a faustian bargain one makes, because the alternative is simply not worth the benefits of possessing the occassional bit of free will and soul.

IRL, the benefit may be worth it to drop out or try to pursue a new path. Most of the latter in SR seem to be rare and treated as pets by those with power. But the faustian bargain isn't as costly as it seems to be in SR.

Speak for yourself. I personally am not a broken down shell of a hate filled man, and my life holds lots of meaning.

Then obviously they'll neither agree nor disagree with someone's opinions of whether they liked the books or not.

I don't think 60% constitutes a "vast" majority. It's not a term that's relly defined, but I assume it to mean at least 80%.

In general it takes me a short look on the back page or a browse through 2-3 pages to discard or buy a book. So I'd say at least some DID form an option.

Others like my cousin where dragged into film one by some Tolkien-Fanatics and left halfway through swearing never to touch anything from that author.

You don't need to read through a book to find out it's bad or good.

No, they need to find the third to be trilogy complete. Or maybe a fourth to create an anti-Tolkien pop-band.

Yes young Skywalker. Feel the pull of the Dark Side.

I don't know; I'm sure there're a few demons who'd dig internal bleeding.

Doesn't matter. Unless you're an elf, you'll keel over long before any significant Horror presence (other than the very concept of Leonard Nimoy singing <shudder>) arrives on ye olde planet Earth.

Assuming that I didn't detect you as an enemy first and kill you dead.

I would most likely be paranoid just because I could do so to an extent not possible for normal people. Physical mask, trid phantasm, spirits of man with Physical Mask sustained posing as any one of my aliases at any time. Not to mention pre-bonded anchored spells and spirits in astral scanning anyone stupid enough to shoot me.

As for being afraid of trusting people, there's always "Mind Probe."

And FanGirl, before you go all "Durr, Thought Police" on me, remember that if anything would warrant a mind probe, it's the rational fear of betrayal and death.

No, why?

Only a dead mage is a good mage. Oh, can someone borrow me a Warlock class Destroyer?

Yes, simply because it should.

Aye, the Domed city is the coolest place to live in the whole multiverse, untill you reach Lastday. When you reach Lastday you can always run.