QUOTE (Cthulhudreams @ Oct 26 2009, 08:37 AM)

...not sure what the difference is.
If this is actually true, you have my sympathy.
QUOTE (Cthulhudreams @ Oct 26 2009, 08:37 AM)

Okay, large scale argiculture is really difficult in the 6th world, because if you try and herd some cattle, you'll eventually have calves that breath fire and/or turn people to stone, which is an issue for you the farmer.Which is why everything is made from soy.
Where are you getting this information? Firstly, that livestock consistently mutate at a rate high enough to be an issue of concern, and secondly that this is the reason for making most inexpensive food from soy?
QUOTE (Cthulhudreams @ Oct 26 2009, 08:37 AM)

So most people exist eating vat food, which is actually pretty cheap.
Absolutely. But you said the SINless could not work, and could not obtain money. How are they paying for [even inexpensive] vat food?
QUOTE (Cthulhudreams @ Oct 26 2009, 08:37 AM)

You can scrape by on very low incomes. The barrens are Mogadishu. The cops don't go there... ever, and you can buy guns, cocaine and prostitutes on the street off the local gangers. Ther eis also lots of small manufacturing business, food stands, all sorts of stuff slum style because Renraku cannot operate out here...
Again, according to you, without a SIN, you can't have a job. How do the SINless get the small manufacturing jobs you're discussing? Without a SIN, how does one buy the food to sell in the stand?
QUOTE (Cthulhudreams @ Oct 26 2009, 08:37 AM)

...the local gangers cut their teeth throwing flaming trash cans through Renraku's shopfronts in the A zones.
So the local gangers must have SINs to be able to enter the A zones in your setting; how do they not simply get arrested when they come into the A zones and start throwing flaming trash cans about?
QUOTE (Cthulhudreams @ Oct 26 2009, 08:37 AM)

However, the narcotics trade is HUGE. Like.. MASSIVE. It's 1930's china in size. It's bigger than the total earnings of the US government. It cannot operate in the corporate concessions and the A zones because the police are all over it like a rash (you can literally get 10 importing cocaine convictions for walking down the street in the concessions), so people from here take their money with them and go over the boarder to buy it.
So in essence, your underground economy is fueled entirely by the drug trade, and while you can't sell in A zones - because the police would be all over you - you can go to the Barrens, buy it, and bring it back, without any police problems? How do people buy and use narcotics without being tracked and arrested, particularly given the number of them that are peeing in corporate toilets? And don't other employers test for narcotics use, as they do today?