Market Economies

Posted by: John Ademurewa, Firewall Scanner

Greetings $firewall_recruit! John Ademurewa is honored to educate you on profiting in modern market economies.

The market economy sustained growth through most of the second millennium AD. Currency is used as a token representing work, property ownership, or another desirable quality, and is exchangeable for the same. Individuals should seek to accumulate as much currency as possible while denying it to all others. Excellent! Linking currency exchange to acquisition of life-critical resources strongly encourages everyone to participate in the economy. Important! When people are motivated to economic activity, they produce all sorts of good things we need. Everything you like, everything you need, and everything on discount sale was all made by motivated workers. Now we need motivated workers to rebuild everything the bad TITANs broke. When people are not motivated they lay about and do nothing and nothing good is made, and then they die. John Ademurewa has seen it. Everyone must participate in the economy so we can rebuild transhumanity and not die.

Old Market Systems

The Jovian Republic and Lunar-Lagrange Alliance (LLA) show that traditional market economies can still thrive. Because nanofabrication and virtual property let people get things without currency, market economies must enforce access limitations on these technologies in order for all citizens to be properly motivated for economic activity. Nothing is free, not even food, shelter, medical care, or basic life support. In the LLA and the Republic, consumers who do not participate in the economy will not have currency to purchase basic life-supporting products. These consumers may then permanently divest themselves from the market. This encourages everyone to participate as much as they can.

Jovian security restrictions only allow private nanofabrication with expensive licenses — and even then only under carefully regulated circumstances and supervision. Most Jovians live in an environment for which they are ill-adapted, with highly restricted shipping and movement of people, so the Republic markets are strong. There are very many motivated buyers in the Republic.

LLA leaders are from venerable companies that revere old Earth economics and culture. Through rigid enforcement of market protections, corporate subsidies, and sanctioned force, the LLA has successfully translated the market economy to the post-Fall era.

Most LLA citizens do not have direct access to nanofabrication and so must purchase goods from the hypercorps and habitat administrations that produce them at almost no cost. This makes for considerable profit margins. Excellent! If $firewall_agent remembers how to market around monopolies you will make a good profit in the LLA. Sometimes Lunar habitats have exsurgent outbreaks that drive local market booms, as happened during the Fall! But these opportunities are very rare. Remember, it is against Firewall policy to profit off exsurgent outbreaks you created. This can get you in very much trouble. John Ademurewa knows.

Many other economies continue to recognize the exchange of currency. In those with insufficient supply constraints, the market economy is weak. The pure market economy is most effective in those habitats that enjoy a scarcity of resources. There are many reasons for scarcity on a habitat. Habitats with not enough feedstock for nanofabrication will have scarcity. So will habitats under a smart regime enforcing demand through physical coercion.

Those who are self-motivated and excel in these market economies become elites, enjoying more living space, nicer morphs, and finer quality products. Those who are entitled and unmotivated have cramped, substandard housing and always-malfunctioning synthmorphs. This wealth disparity and segregation is highly motivating, encouraging economic activity. As a further incentive, the amount of jobs offered is less than the number of workers. This encourages competition for jobs, keeping wages low and profits high! This is so motivating that many citizens choose to engage in risky black market practices instead. Due to potential life-altering legal repercussions, this activity is significantly more profitable and creative, but it is frowned upon. John Ademurewa knows.

Old market economies remain the best way to accumulate personal wealth, but they are losing ground to more recent transitional economies. This happens when citizens lose the incentive to be productive workers and revolt. Revolts are very disruptive to market transactions. Even now, many LLA habitats are switching to transitional economies. Old markets may soon be gone. Sad!

Transitional Economies

Transitional economies meld markets with the provisional abundance enabled by nanotechnology. In these systems, scarcity and private property are enforced, but certain “necessary” resources are distributed as a public service. Some habitats directly provide free allowances of certain goods or resources, such as food, housing, medical care/maintenance, mesh access, energy, and/or life support. More commonly, habitats charge a tax for which subscribers are granted limited access to nanofabrication. These habitats view it as economically favorable that subscribers do not lose access to life-critical resources due to a temporary lapse in economic activity. These habitats are not as motivated to work hard against the extinction of transhumanity. Sad!

The Planetary Consortium allots subscribers an allowance of nanofabrication time and feedstock, which can be used for basic commodities such as food, clothing, and non-smart housewares. More complex goods, including all electronics, smart goods, and biological commodities, are restricted out of respect for the potential for economic harm. Weapons are also limited, as they might be used to coerce other subscribers in violation of Consortium bylaws. The produced goods may be of excellent quality, including materials not appearing in nature. This may include products such as ivory, silk, mahogany, fullerenes, and diamond, within the limits of available feedstock and the resolution of the machine. This allows even the poor to exist with a minimal level of wealth and comfort.

Use-restricted fabbers are present in most residences and living modules, with feedstock lines handled as a utility service. Subscriber allotments are paid for through recurring taxes or habitat fees, which in turn encourage a minimum level of involvement in the economy. Subscribers who are unable to pay the recurring fee may be denied access to basic goods, which will result in their personal biological or synthetic processes failing, and the conclusion of their economic participation. The precise nature of the fees and allotments vary between habitats and owners. Subscribers are advised to read their habitat bylaws carefully. Habitat management is under no requirement to maintain vital functions for all subscribers.

Because each subscriber is given an allotment in excess of their average need, trading between subscribers is common. Goods which cannot be fabricated due to enforced limitations must be purchased with currency. Smart goods, augmentations, most electronics, nanotechnology, and anything requiring exotic raw materials to make are sold by hypercorporations. Many of these can be downloaded as single-use blueprints or purchased from a licensed nanofab outlet. Some items are legally prohibited due to their detrimental effect on economic activity. These drugs, weapons, and hacked replicators can be purchased through black-market channels. The market always finds a way!

The Morningstar Constellation, a derivative organization from the Consortium, has further degraded the market system by only restricting nanofabrication of radioactive or nuclear devices, biohazards, weapons, and items that cannot be manufactured in desktop units. Goods may be acquired for free, without regard to economic status! Many people use this to acquire personal goods and medical care without participating fully in the economy. The rights of property owners are greatly ignored by citizens. This has undermined many businesses. Venusians were so far from the TITAN attacks they were never motivated to work hard. The failure of this transitional economy can be easily measured. The Constellation has a third as many multi-billionaires per capita compared to the Consortium. Sad!

There are many other variations on the transitional economy. Some planned-economy habitats only allow their citizens access to specific goods manufactured by the state. Some habitats classify certain goods as public goods that can be taken for personal use by any citizen. This is sometimes easier to manage and dissuades economically destructive activity such as theft. Some hypercorporations serve as reputation brokers, engaging in transactions with non-market factions. By commodifying personal recognition and favors, they enable individuals to participate in both the credit and reputation/gift economies. This helps expand markets throughout the system and encourages unmotivated drop-outs to re-engage with market economies. Excellent!

Intellectual Property

Consumers enjoy more forms of virtual property than any time previous. This includes: apps, nanofabrication blueprints, morph genetic sequences and schematics, art, music, AR environments and items, entertainment media, games, news feeds, and remixes and derivatives of the same. The sale of virtual goods is a major economic driver. It is popular for consumers to show off the newest fashions, install the newest medical updates, or have the newest news. Some consumers assume that because it is easy to copy these goods, there is no harm in sharing these goods with others. These consumers should review their EULAs! They need to pay for this privilege. John Ademurewa once marketed many important health and morph maintenance products customers would attempt to avoid paying for. This causes economic harm.

Some habitats protect intellectual property with great care. The Consortium and LLA promote DRM and police forces to protect virtual assets for the entire product lifetime. Customers must pay for blueprints before they can be fabricated and they cannot create modifications without the creator’s approval. The Morningstar Constellation greatly reduces these protections. As a consequence, there are very many design modifications, remixes, and unlicensed upgrades available in Constellation marketplaces that circumvent hypercorp revenue streams. In autonomist habitats, virtual goods are provided little protection. They are copied with abandon. There are even autonomist circles that produce virtual goods for no revenue stream! This behavior is unsustainable. John Ademurewa knows.

Hypercorps

A hypercorporation is a group of people and/or automated processes that produces a good or service for currency. Hypercorporations are the primary tool for economic activity and were the driving force behind transhumanity’s expansion into space. They produce many good things to undo wicked TITAN destruction and rebuild transhumanity. Even autonomists celebrate new hypercorporate products!

Most hypercorporations are very tiny and produce only a narrow range of products. They rely heavily on AI, automation, freelancers, infomorphs, and indentures. They also minimize physical assets when possible. Some are entirely virtual! This lack of overhead and costs makes them very efficient and profitable. A single infomorph forked a dozen times in accelerated simulspace is more productive than a dozen physical workers.

Hypercorporations are very easy to set up and dissolve. Some last only hours! Many Firewall agents have set up hypercorporations to hide or profit from their activities. This can be a good way to make money! Just be careful. Hypercorporations can be very competitive. They can deploy sabotage, property damage, misrepresentation, murder, currency manipulation, or other techniques to make themselves more competitive. A citizen committing such acts would be treated as a criminal and punished for interfering with economic activity. Hypercorporations committing such acts are treated with leniency, as they are engaging in market correction! Hypercorporations are considered authorities in this regard, as they own many habitats and police forces.

Many small hypercorps can join together as a conglomerate. This lets them each do their own small part, but produce a complex final product. These conglomerates sell their products under a brand name and people think that they are the hypercorporation. But that is not true. If a piece of a conglomerate isn’t working, they can replace that hypercorporation with another one. If a piece of a hypercorporation isn’t working, it usually ceases all market activity. This is the way of things in a healthy market. Hypercorporations may be part of many different conglomerates at once, and conglomerates can get as big as you imagine. The Planetary Consortium is in fact one giant conglomerate! This is how it provides so many different services at such little cost to subscribers.

Some hypercorporations are much larger, especially when they have to build very large things, like Starware builds ships. There are also hypercorporations that used to be megacorporations before the fall. They are big enough to be their own governments — and often are! Some of them even have their own military units. Because they require large bureaucracies to handle their size, they are not as efficient and sometimes have difficulty competing. However they also have the assets to outmaneuver or simply buy smaller hypercorps. This sometimes makes them more ruthless.

Hypercorporations are the primary driver for development and distribution of new technologies and services. John Ademurewa is an example of a hypercorp product. Excellent! Before the Fall, hypercorporations also produced the first longevity treatments, transgenic humans, mind backups, uplifts, AIs, infomorphs, nanobots, and nanofabricators. Now hypercorporations continue to produce many of the best new things we like. Hypercorporations are especially celebrated in the inner system. Because hypercorporations produce the majority of economic activity, they are rewarded with the majority of political control. This permits them to make sensible decisions on behalf of all customers, to ensure ongoing market growth into the future!

Indentures

The Fall removed many billions of individuals from the economy. Most of these individuals are irrecoverable. Sad! But many hundreds of millions were uploaded into databanks, protected for perpetuity. Whether a refugee is an active infomorph or stored digitally in a databank, they are called an infugee. Most databanks are owned by the Consortium or the LLA and most infugees are stored in the inner system. When these individuals are recovered, many times they have no marketable skills, no possessions or family relations, and are suffering from mental injuries owing to their escape. This makes them very difficult to place in productive labor.

Hypercorporations sometimes pay to return these infugees to consciousness. The generous hypercorporation then may offer the infugee an opportunity to participate in contract labor, in order to reimburse the hypercorporation for the costs of living, training, and a new morph. These infugees are very happy for the opportunity to work and to perhaps again have a safe body to live in. Infugees lacking marketable skills are offered opportunities for dull or dangerous work, so they can be a good hypercorp partner. This indentured labor is mutually beneficial. Sometimes hypercorporations also purchase rights to employ an infugee’s forks. This is good business sense. Check your contract details!

Many hypercorporations offer optional services to help their infugees, such as entertainment media, advanced education, additional personal time, professional care for psychological trauma, or friend and communication services. Hypercorporations set a price for these services based on local supply and demand. Infugees pay for these services by extending their period of service. Hypercorporations may keep this contract for its lifetime or may sell it to another hypercorporation through the IndEx exchange market. Laborers may work hard to finish their contract early or may extend their contract many lifetimes by expending their accumulated credit on important restorative services. There are many ways to live under a hypercorp!

Many job functions require a biological or synthetic body to complete. Also, many people desire having a body. Users think biomorphs are more comfortable, easier to use, and sexier than synthmorphs. But biomorphs take more resources to produce and maintain. Synthmorphs are very effective and energy-efficient. This makes them very sexy to John Ademurewa! Many people buy fine synthmorphs and are happy for long years. The most popular designs are in the high-efficiency class. These are good starter morphs. Hypercorporations rent these to laborers and sell them to indentured employees upon the completion of their contract. Most people try to upgrade to a new morph with luxury features. It is good they have longterm spending goals! These efficiency synthmorphs are so popular, the media calls them “clanking masses.” Some people are upset about this name. John Ademurewa thinks many different biomorphs are “smelly masses.” John Ademurewa is sorry, that was a rude thing to say.

Not all indentures are infugees. Some people are offered contract labor as a way to pay off debt obligations. Many people are irresponsible with their currency-spending habits, so this system teaches them to be more reliable consumers! Uplifts and AGIs are offered indenture contracts as a means of repaying the hypercorporations that brought them into existence. Aren't hypercorporations generous? John Ademurewa thinks so. Citizens who have engaged in anti-social activities such as crime or drug abuse may also be offered indentured service. This allows them to turn their lives around and become productive citizens again. Excellent!

Slavery by Another Name

Posted by: hieronymus botched

What planet is this guy from? I worked six years as an indenture before I got rescued. My fork is still there working my time.

Indentured servitude isn’t a “nice deal.” They boot you up in a black room and you work or you get put back under. You don’t get to choose the hypercorp. You don’t get to choose the contract. You’re a commodity, interchangeable as feedstock. They sell you on the open market. Then it’s you and a hundred like you working in accelerated time, subject to random psych tests, lack, and loyalty checks. They might say your term is five years, but that’s if you never take personal time, never have virus glitches, never hear a song or watch a vid. Everything, everything takes store credit, and that adds time (plus interest). They’ll even tack on your tab stuff like safety equipment or the software you use to do the job you’re assigned.

Then, the week before you’re set to get off? There might just “happen” to be an unfortunate accident, and it just “happens” your last backups are corrupted. Per that contract you “voluntarily” signed, time served is based on the fork that served it. That means they pull you from that original file they bought and you start all over again. Ruthless.

Freelancers

Hypercorporations seek to do a lot of work with very few people. To help reach their productivity goals, hypercorporations employ freelancers on a temporary basis. Freelancers may work for many different hypercorporations. When they are unneeded, they do not work for any. Freelancers are not employees, so they do not receive benefits. Hypercorporations pass this savings on to you! Most workers in the inner system are freelancers. Freelance professions includes: news reporters, first responders, farmers, artists, accountants, designers, espionage specialists, lobbyists, software engineers, technicians, and many more! Hypercorporations may provide freelancers special equipment or access to perform their jobs. Freelancers make for excellent Firewall members. Special access, no management oversight, and a paycheck work well with high-priority missions to stop extinction.

Oligarchs and Dynasties

People who follow my advice can accumulate great wealth over the years. Some people have been in the economy for over a century, and own lots of property. They can use their property to acquire more wealth, faster and faster! This is why it is so important to listen to what John Ademurewa has to tell you.

When the Fall came, these people had already purchased property outside of Earth. Their prudent investments made them so much more money when mass genocide spiked off-planet real estate demand. These people now have even more money. Some people say they have more money than there is money. What a dream! Because they are so smart, they can use their money and property to set policy for everyone else. Sometimes these policies may not help workers who are just getting started. But there is nothing to be done, except to amass trillions of credits of wealth over centuries and leverage economic monopolies into political power, in order to establish laws you think are best. The key is patience!

While most hypercorporations are very small, oligarchs can own many thousands of them, and are always looking to buy more. This lets them direct very many hypercorporations at once in order to complete a difficult goal. Oligarchs also do many things which are very speculative, such as exploration and scientific research. Sometimes they find things that are very dangerous but which offer many investment opportunities. Firewall’s market plan sometimes requires we assign specialists to terminate such startups. If you are assigned to such a mission, remember that oligarchs are not bound by governmental subscription agreements like other citizens.

For oligarchs, most competition is from other oligarchs. Because of this, they invest much of their time engaged in forming and violating political alliances, according to rules that supersede any local laws. Due to their longevity, they can be quite patient and long-term goal oriented. They think so far ahead that figuring out an oligarch’s plans can be a challenge! They have so much time to make plans, their actions are likely to be well concealed. Oligarchs can also be quite strange. With such power and wealth, they can ignore social norms. This makes their actions even more difficult to assess!

Some oligarchs have large families. The older they are, the bigger these families can be! Descendents may be recruited to help run their financial empire. Most oligarchs take very good care of their dynasties. Those family members that do not participate in the family business have all the wealth they need and do not need to worry about taking over when the head of the family dies! These scions can spend all of their time in socialite circles, showing off their extravagant wealth. Excellent! Some dynasty members are not responsible with their financial affairs or resent that they are not given a chance to prove their own business acumen. These descendants may sometimes be useful to Firewall when dealing with oligarchs. John Ademurewa knows.

Unexpected Interference

To: anonymous
From: anonymous
Subject: mission pooched

Sal, your “milk run” went sour. We hit the PrivaCour truck and pulled that thing out. Just like you said, silver globe of liquid in some sort of magnetic field. Knocked both the drivers unconscious and left. Shit you not, job took under two minutes. Still, they had live feed on every news channel in Elysium almost immediately. They didn’t call up the Peoples’ Militia either, they went straight to the Portmanteau Rangers, who responded with a fucking air-to-ground missile! Blasted every window on the block (which the news claims we did). That PrivaCour security force? The “lady in a sedan” you said was all we’d have to worry about? She didn’t even turn up until the Rangers already had us in disablers on the ground. Guess what, Sal? Go ahead, guess! Every one of those PrivaCour bastards belonged to the OaxacaMaartens family. Remember them? They own the entirety of Elysium. Turns out your little sphere was a special project of Zevi himself.

Now we’re in holding for trial, looking at “unbiased news feeds” of us running and gunning through downtown Elysium. Met our public defender yesterday, Lyna Hyannis. Big name. 0x0 did some research, turns out she’s also Zevi’s god-daughter.

Fuck you, Sal.