QUOTE (CanRay @ Sep 5 2010, 12:16 AM)
Because the Corps would be able to "Cherry Pick" the best and brightest of the species and deny the rest for bureaucratic reasons.
actually, i figured it was because corps already have so many loopholes that let them abuse basic human rights and looking good while doing it that it isn't particularly meaningful to give anyone "basic human rights".
i mean, that security guard may have those basic human rights, but you think that means he isn't up to his eyeballs in debt (or worse) and is essentially trapped into unending servitude to the corporation, with the only way out being either selling himself off to some other corporation (except nobody bothers with extracting regular security guards) or managing to go live a life of squalor in some cesshole in the barrens (if he's lucky, he manages to get away *before* the corp repossesses all his cyberware).
so really, i figure in a lot of cases it went like this for the corporations that have representatives on the corporate court: just before the corporate court makes it's decision, all the AAAs officially grant the non-human sapient critters basic human rights... by offering it to them individually if and only if they sign contracts binding them to pay off their job training, housing, food, their handler's wages, any formal education or equivalent they may have received, any equipment they may have ever had installed or which they damaged in their time as essentially slaves to the corp, etc.
and shortly afterwards, the 'lucky' critter is officially a "free" citizen of the corporation... and owes the corporation so much that they'd have to spend the rest of their lives working if they want to avoid leaving their children with an inheritance consisting of nothing more than an unbearable debt load.
the AAs, though... they probably got screwed. but then again, they didn't get to be AAs by not being able to deal with what the corporate court dumps on them (a common problem i am sure when your major competition gets to decide the rules by which you compete). in all probability, they just shoved those non-human sapients into positions in subsidiaries that aren't megas, and which don't have extraterritoriality. after all, if they operate in the UCAS and the subsidiary isn't a mega, they use the laws of whatever country they happen to be in. once that's done, all they have to do is get their own paracritters to sign the same agreement. anything too small to be extraterritorial doesn't even have to worry, ultimately.
plus, even if the decision was made, it wouldn't go into effect immediately. you can bet the rest of the corporations who didn't know in advance made sure to keep it from the sapient critters and tried to get them to sign similar "in debt for the rest of your life" agreements in exchange for citizenship and "freedom"