Fiction/World Building: Culture, Society and Technology

Alright this thread was made after a general notice that while we have many threads to cover the military bits of world building, very few seem to exist to cover the ramifications the existence of things would have on the culture. Personally I find this to be quite a bit of an oversight, and as such a thread has been made to rectify it.

Some quick pointers before we get underway.

• Most settings should be acceptable, but we will likely need to know a bit about the setting in general to talk about how something would affect the daily lives of people.
• Please be constructive and try to provide something that can actually be used "that is stupid" helps no one, at least let them know the flaws.
• Be respectful/Treat others the way you want to be treated...

To start off I had a question that prompted the making of this thread in the first place.

Transhumanism in my setting really took off with augments existing for almost every thing, and cures existing for every thing in turn, bad heart how about a robot one.

This however while good on paper, since it allowed for indefinite lifespans, had the problem of really fucking things up because..... well nearly indefinite lifespans combined with humans reproducing like rabbits.

As such, as dark as it is, I figured out the best solution would be the systems are designed to fail at a predetermined date, giving people long, and fuffilling the whole time (not affected by age at all physicly) life, but still ones with a definitive time.

One side effect being that your average person now knows approximately when they are going to die of age, and while it is accepted, I was wondering how this.... would affect the culture itself.

What kinds of things would change when some one knew when they were going to die of age?

P.S. Thanks for the thread title Nox.

Well, they'd spend the last year or two putting all their affairs in order, and giving away all their worldly possessions, so there would be fewer legal battles over inheritance, estates, etc. If anyone wanted to contest the will, they could do so face-to-face. (And get shot down as the Will-er tells them: "Nope. This is the way I want it done. If you don't think you're getting a big enough slice of the pie, too bad.")

The first thing that comes to mind, at least for me, is that serious population controls would become a practical necessity. In the absence of that, you can probably expect a massively renewed interest in colonization. If pseudo-post-Humanity didn't have a strong enough incentive to rush for expansion before, overcrowding would certainly provide it.

Another thing worth noting, as a corollary, is that a larger population will mean a bigger labor pool, so while there will be more people, the overabundance of labor will mean wages go down. So you will not only have a larger population to deal with, but it will be one that is also less capable of feeding itself. A bigger population also means more demand, so as wages go down, prices will go up.

I also figure folks would come to strongly resent the existence of an artificial limit to their maximum lifespan. If population control has failed as a solution, but colonization is a viable option- which it should be, given my estimation of this civilizations' tech level- then the death clock-style age limiter would seem like an unnecessarily draconian solution to a social problem that could be fixed by simply putting people on a space ship and sending them to live somewhere else. If life gets as hard as it sounds like it's going to, just going by the depreciating wages and inflating prices, they'd certainly be willing to leave.

A few more questions:

Is this terminator function government-mandated? What's to stop a prospective immortal from buying a new set of artificial organs, either legally or illegally, and resetting his or her death clock? Are there legal measures in place preventing private entities from creating organs that don't terminate? Because it wouldn't be that long before these would become some of the most sought-after commodities in all of pseudo-post-Human-dom.

There's a lot going on here. This should serve as a decent jumping-off point.

So in other words, boot to the head?

edited 6th Apr '16 1:34:50 PM by Gault

You're welcome.

I for one would probably fall into deep Nihilism, debauchery and depression if Your Days Are Numbered was in effect on my last days. Specially when you are an atheist you probably have no solace in the belief of an afterlife.

Essentially you could have the issues brought up in the movie In Time and Eclipse Phase.

On In Time you have the super wealthy simply buying more time or making sure they can life forever while the less fortunate are left to die. Maybe they don't even need to tell them their days are numbered and simply chance identity to escape the uproar.

In Eclipse Phase the problem is dealt with the simple fact that humanity is recovering from a cataclysm but everyone is so shaken up from it, the fertility rates dropped faster than the Orbital Kinetic kill bombs did on the Titans. Other than that everyone is effectively immortal and a lot of money and effort is spend making sure people don't die permanent deaths. One of the ways around over population and space constrains in EP is the virtual storage for the minds in virtual reality.

Knights Of Sidonia has the same issue as the elders are immortal and have the tech to make everyone also but refuse to share for reasons.

Socially you'd still have to deal with renewing of the work force and know-how, like the death of an influent scientists wouldn't be so good for the intellectual production or the death of scarce highly skilled workers wouldn't be an advantage either.

I'd expect religion to be in full force, essentially all Abrahamic religions would probably survive the Transhuman era if mortality still going strong, after all one of their main goals is to provide a reward in the afterlife and people get really afraid of dying. Imagine things like the Roman Catholic Indulgences being used again or have preachers use their religious authority to grant haven access to those who donate generous amounts of money to the church. Penitent movements would also become a thing with those near their expiration dates, people wanting to repent their sins and seek absolution for their sins before they die.

You'd also have people who wouldn't go so quietly, death after all is definitive and it doesn't sit well for people.

The 5 stages of death could play a huge role in people's psyche. Like you'd have people who would dump tons of cash into trying to prolong their times (bargain), simply go full Nihilist and turn violent lashing out against those with more time than them in rage because they have nothing left to lose (anger), people who would still make plans and live like nothing is happening, including acting like they will be there for things that will come after their expiration date (denial), people who would simply sulk and sit on a corner fearing and lamenting their deaths (depression) and finally people who would simply try to celebrate their ending, make amends and say goodbye to their loved ones before they die (acceptance).

Of course there would be those who don't see the overpopulation as an issue and would fight to remove their shackles because they simply think overpopulation can be solved or just really enjoy living.

Martyrdom Culture or Death Cults would also have their place, in a world where everyone has their days numbered you can certainly expect people who want their deaths to have a meaning or are so morbid with the inevitability of death they engage in actions that will make their life spans shorter in order to have some control over their deaths instead of simply shut down.

The Death Cult could have another role, like ensuring no one is trying to prolong their life span and ruthlessly hunt down anyone trying to elude death. Which would put them in conflict with some other groups who aren't that willing to just die.

Society as a whole would also have to be conditioned to see death as a good thing in order to maintain stability.

Imagine something like the Replicants from Blade Runner but with humans instead to help.

There is plenty of conflict to be explored from a setting like this.

Speaking of which Fear Factory album Genexus has two songs that fit the theme perfectly: Expiration Date and Church Of Execution.

Such good album and grate tribute to Blade Runner.

Edit: So many typos I, need to proofread some more.

edited 6th Apr '16 8:22:37 PM by AngelusNox

Yes to all of these, and getting caught with the wrong ones is a capital punishment.

The exception that does exist, and is seeked by some "Imortality Seekers" is military service, which while your active in the military your basicly allowed infinate time because combat is seen as risky enough any way. Its basicly trading your comfy secure life, for gambling with your time.

Already did acount for that funnily enough, and it IS the major pushing factor for human space colonization.

A mostly artificial workforce has already pushed a post capitalist economy but I kind of figured that discussing that would be a topic all of its own.

The problem with this is that while space colonization IS a thing, terraforming is not easy, and finding a viable planet for post-humans is hard.

Then agian this has given me something to think on, when you can replace every organ in the body do you even need to adapt the planet to humans or can you addapt humans to the planet?

This was also a consideration that while people would have a limit on the amount of time they could exist in a physical world, they could be provided with a type of virtual reality afterlife. But one thing that I thought about while thinking about that, is how much would that reduce the demands of a population? Computers still take resources and space to run. This is another good thing to think about though.

I was considering the fact that high ranking intelectuals might also get the treatment the military does, but the problem there is it brings up the resentment issue. Its a lot easier to get people to accept something when it applies to every one, not when it applies to every one but a few.

I fully agree with this, although I am wondering if other religions would evolve in the meantime, or are we mostly beyond that?

This is actualy imensly usefull, thank you. :)

edited 6th Apr '16 8:19:05 PM by Imca

Despite the risk of death as punishment I think there would be no shortage of folks willing to not only provide the service but willing to pay the high prices for it to prolong their life past the termination date. The bigger question is for those who do how do they hide it? Obviously to help make this work the government would need a record of who is going to die when. It would be awkward to be found alive when your supposed to be well and truly dead. I would imagine things like Identity theft, altering aspects of who you are, and even locations where government reach is blunted or limited would be appealing.

Civilization Beyond Earth, especially their updated Rising Tide Expansion Pack, can be seen as commentary and possibility on such topic. One chain of quest including effect of immortality drug on society. When the push came to shove, one leader (one of succesful test subject) believe they just should limit the ability to procreate (less children), while the other believes that, after 200 years or so, things will get a bit... boring, so they should just limit their immortality instead (limiting life expectancy).

And two of them is Happily Married.

On that one I do wonder how much harder it would be to hide from the government when it is an AI, one with human oversight, but the machine still holds the majority of the power.

As such, beuraccy can catch up to you pretty fast.

Crime would definitely still exist, but I imagine the need to disguise it and not hide it would be more paramount.

Not quite sure just where to put this odd little thought I had, but this thread seems appropriate enough, so here goes I guess.

Okay so, I’ve recently had a small but fairly jarring revelation as to my worldbuilding. The project is a sci-fi setting in which cyborgs and other types of transhumans fight baseline Humans, aliens and each-other to decide the future of interstellar civilization.

Transhuman pilots control their ASF-02 Shrike aircraft by detaching from everything below their ribcage and threading their spine directly into the fighter’s optical avionics computer. I’ve put some consideration in to how to describe this from the pilot’s perspective, and how they might come to understand and relate to the act of merging with their war machines on a neurological level.

For instance, natural senses would be almost entirely supplanted by flight data fed to them through their spinal link. Azimuth, positioning, altitude, wind, barometric pressure- all of these are things a pilot gains a measure of innate awareness of that far surpasses a typical Human’s sensory ability. They would likewise experience a degree of proprioception regarding parts of the aircraft like ailerons and elevons, with control following a similar heuristic. The act of bending an arm becomes analogous to altering the shape of the fighter’s semi-rigid nanomuscle composite variable-geometry wings, that sort of thing.

Shrikes also have a spinal-mounted free-electron laser that is used as LIDAR for intelligence gathering, an EM dazzler, a target designator for orbital strikes, a means of high-density data transfer and, occasionally, as a weapon at infrared frequencies in atmosphere and ultraviolet frequencies in space. Presently, I have this visualizing for the pilot as superman-esque eye beams, or perhaps- if I’m being less serious- I’m-a-firin’-mah-lazor style BWAAAGH from the mouth.

Where I’m going with this is that, the longer a pilot spends in their fighter, the more their sense of self would move out of their physical body- which is already barely recognizable compared to its natural pre-augmented state- and into the systems of the aircraft. As they become more familiar with the experience of flying while linked in so intimate a manner, the pilot becomes increasingly possessed of the sense that their warbird is a part of- or even most of- their true body.

That’s when it struck me. I had just, without the slightest hint of irony and without being aware of it, created an idea for a type of character who- completely seriously and entirely within the context of the setting- literally actually sexually identifies as a trans-atmospheric air-and-space-superiority fighter.

Funny how these things work out, huh? I guess Monsoon was right. Memes truly are the DNA of the soul.

edited 11th Apr '16 2:09:28 PM by Gault

How come the governments (I assume) are willing to force people to die for their population problem, but not forcibly sterilize everyone? If the reach and control of the transhumanism elements are widespread enough that everyone is knowingly equipped with built-to-fail parts, couldn't you just severely restrict the reproductive capabilities of the individuals in question instead of killing them?

Yeah, telling someone you made them unable to have kids might suck - but so is telling them that their kidneys are programmed to turn off in exactly 29.7 years.

Was the first thing I considered actualy, but then what do you do when you NEED more population and your citizens are all sterile.

Population control is a problematic issue and moral minefield on top of that. Do you curtail reproductive rights or let people breed freely regardless of population pressure consequences. You could end up with the mess the Chinese policies left including people simply not following it or finding ways around it.

Well if you need more people, you simply let some have kids. Sterilization doesn't mean you just straight up microwave someone's reproductive organs, there are plenty of methods of sterilization that are reversible - even today vasectomies and tying tubes" can be reversed in many cases - and I imagine in a sci-fi setting there would be an even wider array of techniques for doing so.

I imagine that population control via forced sterilization is far less of a minefield than population control via forcing people to die.

edited 11th Apr '16 8:07:38 PM by nman

To be fair, it's not exactly forced them to die, it's more like cutting out your pension or something like that. Wealthy people will always find a way to weasel out, just like what today wealthy people do.

That's aside, I still tend to think that in most situation, this thing will sort out themselves; either people who get bored with immortality choose to dying in their preferable manner, or immortal people simply choose to not having children, like how things happened in Japan and Europe right now. Having children can be quite a chore (while most say it is rewarding,each to their own), especially to people who, basically, likes their independence too much.

Nman: You would be very surprised just how contentious forced sterilization is never mind the social demons that drags up to the surface.

edited 12th Apr '16 9:59:25 PM by TuefelHundenIV

The exact same could be said about forcibly killing people.

I think sterilization makes more sense than killing folks.

However, rich countries tend to forgo lots of kids. This doesn't seem to be a case of poor relative to the elites either. More like once people are reliably able to feed and shelter themselves reproduction falls to replaement rate or less.

If there are going to to be rabbit like breeders, they are likely to be poor and thus mortal to begin with. This seems like a natural path to sterlization.

"You can live forever powerless poor people. All you need to do is give us your ovaries."

edited 13th Apr '16 4:01:20 PM by garridob

Bad idea. For some, having children is the one joy they have in life. For others, it's a means of building a support network for themselves.

Replacing reproduction with longevity would also lead to social stagnation as people get stuck in their ways and refuse to adapt.

Neither approach is all that fun. With one approach as suggested earlier they are not talking a short life span but one that has opportunity to be fulfilling and appreciable in length. Humans already can't live forever it isn't a huge leap to still not be at living forever to begin with. Removing the ability to have children on the other hand for the entirety of your life removes something all humans can do outside of injury or medical issues. There is also the fact that the ability to reproduce comes alongside continuing mental and physical development and your reproductive organs play key roles in that. Cutting them out is not that simple. Simply not letting you live forever is far more simple and already fits something humanity as collective whole is already used to. Confronting our own mortality has been an intrinsic part of humanity since the beginning alongside having a family should you choose to living forever has not. One of these is a lot easier to do without given it has never been a key part of being human to begin with.

And for some, living is the one joy they have in life. I'm not saying it doesn't suck, but when considering a population as a whole it seems like the less suck-y option.

We're talking about achieving technical immortality with cyber-brains and robo-spleens, I wouldn't think for a second that the ability to perform a nano-vasectomy is some arcane magical procedure. I don't know why you'd assume it would affect development. It's not like they'd just go around shooting people in the crotch with a shotgun or something. With how much technology I would assume the average person has embedded in them, it would likely just be a matter of setting setting a few values in the programming.

And frankly, simply telling people they can't have kids seems a lot more stable as far as politics goes, when compared to the government dictating whether someone needs to die to not just a preventable thing, but an actual kill switch built into them. Making something akin to those mythical death panels from the '08 election a real thing would be political suicide in any setting.

edited 14th Apr '16 10:02:48 PM by nman

Oh, that's easy: mandatory comas.

Require anyone getting the full transhumanism procedure to go into a coma, to remove them from the gene pool temporarily. In that state, they use minimal resources and can even be shipped off to other planets with no loss of quality of life (assuming a full terraforming happened elsewhere).

Or, something about the transhumanism procedure kills a person's ability to sleep - and they must then pay to be able to sleep properly. And if you don't sleep, you go insane. And if you go insane, you can be hunted/culled. Extrapolate 'Culture, Society and Technology' changes from that. Problem solved, continue writing that story.

...Honestly, what's with the really complicated solutions here? We are, as a species, constantly limited by biological functions and requirements - why not make use of them, explore them, instead of creating a fictional species that has more in common with an atomic clock than flesh-and-blood beings? But nope, it's always "this part about us is inconvenient - let's ignore it and move on!"

(Okay, fine: dreams are then highly prized as something truly creative beyond what entertainment the living world can provide. This leads to "sleep clubs" and forced comas, and eventually a desire to go back to a "simpler way" where anyone could dream every night without assistance. I imagine it would be something like longing for a place or time in your life, back when things were better.)

Wait, who provides the treatment, government or private company? Because if it's private company, then limiting them is rather simple; based on the whim of the owner/ board director. Limiting factor can be good ol' munny, certain specification, etc. If it is government who provides them, then like I said, limited pension is one option.

It is the goverment yes, and also I still dont get the whole "forcing people to die" thing, its more preventing living for eternity, because like others have said, that is not something we as people do any way.

It's based on the premise of your first post. You mention that the technology to have an indefinite lifespan is possible - and then make it clear that said technology is plentiful and inexpensive enough that it creates such a serious risk of overpopulation that they have to be built with what is, effectively, a kill switch. It doesn't matter that people today can't live forever, because unless I am confused the title of this thread indicates a fiction setting, and your particular question indicates a sci-fi setting. What matters is that people in that setting can.

In that context, I absolutely consider it forcing someone to die. To make my point absolutely clear, we do not have a "cure" for many diseases in 2016, but if in 2050 we have a cheap and readily-available pill that can cure things such as AIDS, cancer, or Alzheimer's, and the only reason someone isn't given said cure is because the government decides "Oh, we have too many people so we can't risk overpopulating", then I would consider that as forcing someone to die.

Politically it would still be far easier to accept your mortal with a long life span then no children ever across your life span. Again having a limited life span that we have no say in is not new for humans. Yes we can use this because are talking humans not aliens or animals. Humans are used to having to die and not having a choice in that in the first place and it would be far simpler to condition an entire race that knows it is already mortal that they will someday die. Especially if you can almost guarantee good health and notably improved life spans with a long time frame. The bulk of human fear regarding death is surrounded by its uncertainty. Removing most of uncertainty would go a long way in helping alleviating the worst fear of death. Finding a way to make it as painless as possible or even a possible choice in how you end would be another benefit. Then there is of course religion which is as old as human knowledge of mortality. You don't have to fear biology such as wonky genetics, diseases, or similar factors killing you at 30 when your potential life span would normally be notably longer.

Snipping tubes and saying you can't have children ever across that extensive life span is completely different. One we have for as long as we have existed never really had a choice in the fact we will die where as the vast majority of humans have always had the option to have a family or not. Immortality is the outlier not the other way around.

You could offer longer time or possibly even immortality in exchange for say working on developing new worlds, exploring the depths of space, or something similar. It would provide an outlet for those who want to live well past the expiration date to live longer and provide volunteers for those kinds of projects. Same for say being in the military for a long time period. Instead of 4 year stints you could have troops that possibly serve much much longer.