Information Society

Source: The Wired Guide to Unwired Life

Pervasive interconnectivity, deep access to information, and mutual surveillance are fundamental to transhuman culture.

The Mesh

Back in the late 21st century, the expansion of wireless data networks, blazingly fast processors, incredibly cheap data storage, and augmented reality (AR) made the internet ubiquitous and ingrained in the rhythm of everyday life. Interconnectivity between devices, household systems, and public services exploded. Protocols for decentralized networking and shared traffic handling were a necessity so that each custom operating system and platform could communicate effectively. The flexibility of shared networking removed the need for centralized infrastructure; everything did it’s own bit to create, support, and maintain an omnipresent wireless network. In the case of device failure or damage, traffic was simply routed around it.

The first off-world colonies relied on lighter and cheaper mesh networks in lieu of hardwired network infrastructure. Decentralized networks provided greater opportunities for expansion, were easier to repair, and were more resilient in crisis situations. The powerful transmitters used between planets and satellites could sync local mesh environments with the broader mesh system-wide.

The system-wide congeries of data networks that make up the mesh was central in holding societies together during the Fall and crucial in providing a foundation from which to rebuild.

Online All the Time

Most transhumans alive today have never lived outside a cloud of mesh-connected devices. Even simple items like clothing, utensils, and personal belongings have mesh IDs that track their ownership, location, and status. Tools log their operations and notify their users if they need to be serviced or repaired. Food packaging provides current levels, expiration warnings, and automatically places re-orders when low. Habitats are filled with mesh-linked everyware motes that carry heat, air, pressure, radiation, and other environmental sensors. Habitat sensors also ping your mesh ID to open doors, get food, breathe air, use common fabricators, and exchange credits or reputation favors for goods and services.

People can instantaneously access transhumanity’s expansive digital archives, media, and news services to stay informed and entertained from anywhere; AR projects the feed directly over your sensorium. Everyone has access to a ready catalog of cultural references, search engines, fact-check services, and the assistance of their muses or other digital servitors. Anyone with a bit of savvy is well-informed, quick-witted, and armed with up-to-the-second data on almost anything. Those that eschew such services or fail to use them effectively are dismissed as dull, stupid, lazy, or incapable.

Your personal area network also projects your social media profile to those around you. This helps you to identify people, network, find common ground, and ping their reputation scores. If you're feeling antisocial, just drop into privacy mode to go incognito.

Lag Time

The mesh allows the far-flung reaches of transhuman society to remain in touch. The greatest limit to interconnectivity is the space between habitats. The vast distances between planets and other objects create transmission lags that make real-time interactions unbearable, though their meshes remain linked by slower file transfers and protocols. Similarly, destinations on the other side of a pandora gate may only be reached during the brief window when the gate is open. Quantum-entangled communications circumvent these limitations, happening instantaneously despite the difference, but are limited in scope and generally reserved for emergencies.

Augmented Reality

AR projects video, sound, and other sensations from your mesh inputs on top of physical reality. You can view windows in the corner of your vision, listen to music that no one around you can hear, or feel the tactile sensation of hugging someone you are video chatting with. You can even move a video to your extended “mind’s eye” so that it doesn't disrupt your vision. While this let’s you experience things on the go, AR really shines when you use it to “skin” your environment, making your surroundings and even other people look and sound according to your fleeting preferences.

AR makes it easy to immerse yourself in on-demand media wherever you go and is ideal for gaming and social networking. Most transhumans have multiple AR feeds running constantly: chat windows, news tickers, social media feeds, and wayfinding apps. You can easily toggle access to the public channels of the habitat services and businesses around you or the virtual tags embedded locally by friends. You would be wise, however, to filter out the distracting “mist” of AR advertisements, spam, and graffiti clogging the frequencies in public areas.

Virtual Reality

Virtual reality (VR) offers even more expansive and immersive experiences, with some drawbacks. The hyper-realistic illusions of VR simulspaces completely overtake your sensorium, effectively transporting you into an alternate reality. To avoid disorienting bandwidth and lag issues, reliable hardwired connections are used. You can jack in or use a neural trode net while your body remains couched in a comfortable pod provided by your office or game parlor to avoid accidentally injuring yourself. Most habitats also provide the infrastructure to experience VR from your home.

You can use VR to access an astounding array of versatile virtual worlds for both serious work and entertainment purposes. Virtual offices allow co-workers to work directly together while physically separated by vast distances. VR game, dating, and nightlife experiences are popular given that their simulspaces can rewrite the laws of physics and fulfill any fantasy you desire. Virtual spaces can also be set to run at faster-than-realtime speeds, meaning virtual hours pass in actual minutes. Dilated virtual vacations are a popular escape for many transhumans, allowing weeks of experienced time for an evening’s time on the server. On the opposite side, deep-space ship crews use VR to pass months of travel more quickly.

The importance of VR for non-embodied transhumans cannot be overstated. Infugees who died during the Fall but haven’t yet resleeved can live, work, and play in VR. For some, this is a helpful re-introduction to society. For others, it’s a means to participate rather than waiting dormant in a cold-storage ego bank. Some infomorphs that can afford to resleeve voluntarily choose to live in VR full-time. After all, the worlds they inhabit can be as realistic or fanciful as their imaginations allow, so they exist in almost every form you can imagine. The largest simulspace environments host hundreds of thousands of egos and rival all but the largest physical population centers in the system. Many AGIs prefer to live as infomorphs, choosing the virtual over the real.

Experience Playback (XP)

Experience playback (XP) technology is available to everyone with mesh inserts. It fully records all of your sensory input and emotions. Anyone running XP via their mesh inserts is fully immersed in the recording, just like VR, and also feels the emotional impact of the recorder. Almost everyone uses XP to record a lifelog of their daily affairs — or at least the interesting parts — which they can peruse or search later or share with friends. XPorn was, of course, a driver of the technology’s early adoption. XP has since graduated into a major media platform, from scripted XP “movies” to celebrity X-casters transmitting real-time feeds of their activities to thousands of fans. Many workers are required to record XP and provide access to their employers for on-the-job “oversight” or for insurance purposes, to protect against legal claims.

Vigilance

The omnipresent nature of the mesh makes people suspicious that those in positions of authority — security forces, politicians, habitat admins, and the like — use it to spy on people or for self-serving ends. This is and isn't true. Surveillance of one form or another is constant. In many habitats it is a necessity to manage environmental controls based on the exact presence and activity of individuals in a given area at a given time, so heat, moisture, atmosphere, and biological sensors are omnipresent. Motes with audio/visual capablities are ubiquitous in public areas and a vital component to security and policing. Security services scan these feeds with biometric recognition apps, analyzing faces, gaits, key words, and general kinesics, and archive the data. The network connectivity of your personal devices, gear, and mods creates a trail of positional data logged by every mote they mesh with. Commercial services use sensor feeds and data from both public and licensed private networks to track and profile people for marketing and other purposes.

Surveillance, however, is no longer just the province of the elites; it has been democratized. The same interconnectivity and public/private sensor nets used to track everyday people can be used to monitor authorities. Sousveillance — literally “watching from below” — is a necessary safeguard against abuse and oppression. Everyone has the capability to instantly capture video and share the media widely. It is easier than ever before to expose authorities engaged in crime, corruption, acts of brutality, or sex scandals. Though many elites remain shielded by their privilege, others have seen the end of their careers or even prosecution. Those in power must tread carefully. To prove their integrity, many have adopted new standards of transparency to the public eye. Others, however, rely on social media “influencers” and spin-control teams to protect their images.

This new paradigm of coveillance (sur- and sousveillance combined) means that people are now far more informed of what their neighbors, co-workers, employees, bosses, and local authorities are up to. Children are remotely monitored. Crimes are easier to detect, solve, and prosecute. Everyone keeps an eye on everyone. The concept of privacy in public areas has largely been abandoned. The debate rages, however, whether this builds community support and trust or whether it encourages a culture of privacy invasion and snitching. Critics also point out that surveillance tech continues to be used primarily to monitor and police poor and marginalized communities, whereas the wealthy and privileged have weaponized it for their own protection.