History Fridge / InTime

*** Or it's ''capitalist Taiwan'' (though that doesn't make it exclusive certainly)--the situation you described, particularly the limited fields of work available to the population (and limited sources of income), and where deliberate price shifts can and usually do happen faster than any sort of mathematical tendency towards "correction" is a common phenomenon throughout the historic developing world. Among said nations, those recovering from war (or post-colonial states, which are often one in the same) were plagued by shortages of food and consumer good options for decades (in Taiwan's case, well in to the 1980s): being a free-market state doesn't mean twenty coffee shops spring up overnight, being a ''rich'' free-market state does. You wouldn't find unlimited jobs, or unlimited grocer options, in postwar Taiwan (or modern day Haiti), as the massive corporate conglomerations of the 1970s through 1990s didn't get that way by competing with each other to sell coffee at the best price. Unless you're going to claim they're actually communist states, which is a [[JustForPun hard sell]].

** An option (6) that preserves any good parts of the system without the cruelty: In the movie, minimum wage apparently comes out to slightly over 1 year of time per year of labor. This is massively deflated, so minimum wage is something like 20 days per year of labor (which now buys you the amount of goods that previously cost a year). People stop aging at 25 and have three years on their clock- but the clock doesn't start until age 75 (maintaining the current life expectancy of a 25 year old at 78 years). After becoming an adult, you get access to a small fraction of your time each year. Under this system most people, even in the "one percent", know they can't afford to live forever. It's less like drowning and more like an approaching planet-killing asteroid- there's not much you can do, so you can choose not to fight it. People can save to live a few extra years but given how expensive a year is, they typically spend it on themselves or their loved ones instead- and being born with 55-ish years of minimum wage income provides social mobility via UBI. The super-rich, and anyone so unusually valuable that their time is provided by donation or the government, can still live forever.

** An option #6 that preserves any good parts of the system without the cruelty: In the movie, minimum wage apparently comes out to slightly over 1 year of time per year of labor. This is massively deflated, so minimum wage is something like 20 days per year of labor (which now buys you the amount of goods that previously cost a year). People stop aging at 25 and have three years on their clock- but the clock doesn't start until age 75 (maintaining the current life expectancy of a 25 year old at 78 years). After becoming an adult, you get access to a small fraction of your time each year. Under this system most people, even in the "one percent", know they can't afford to live forever. It's less like drowning and more like an approaching planet-killing asteroid- there's not much you can do, so you can choose not to fight it. People can save to live a few extra years but given how expensive a year is, they typically spend it on themselves or their loved ones instead- and being born with 55-ish years of minimum wage income provides social mobility via UBI. The super-rich, and anyone so unusually valuable that their time is provided by donation or the government, can still live forever.
** Option #7: similar to 6, but time is no longer the currency. People can trade time for money and vice versa. However the exchange rate goes up sharply at set ages. Living to 50 costs pennies, and living to 75 isn't a major expense for the vast majority. The top 10% can live to 100 if they really push it, and billionaires can live to 200 if they're willing to sell their companies. (Numbers hand-wavey). The key feature is that people can live longer, and are motivated to earn more to live longer, but at the end of the day everyone reaches their limit. The boundaries are sharp so people have motivation to decide when that is. It's still an unfair system, but not infinitely unfair.

** Option #7: similar to 6, but time is no longer the currency. People can still exchange time for money. However the exchange rate goes up sharply over time. Living to 50 costs pennies, and living to 75 isn't a major expense for the vast majority. The top 10% can live to 100 if they really push it, and billionaires can live to 200 if they're willing to sell their companies. (Numbers are hand-wavey). The key feature is that people can live longer, and is motivated to earn more to live longer, but at the end of the day everyone reaches their limit. It's still an unfair system, but not infinitely unfair.

** Another option that preserves the system without the cruelty: People stop aging at 25, but your personal clock has three years. After becoming an adult, you get access to a small fraction of this each year- but the clock doesn't start until age 75 (maintaining the current life expectancy of a 25 year old at 78 years). In the movie, minimum wage apparently comes out to slightly over 1 year of time per year of labor. This is massively deflated, so minimum wage is something like 20 days per year of labor (and 20 days now buys you the amount of goods that previously cost a year). Most people, even in the "one percent", know they can't afford to live forever. It's less like drowning and more like an approaching planet-killing asteroid- there's not much you can do, so you can choose not to fight it. People can save to live a few extra years but given the expense they typically prefer to spend it on themselves or their loved ones- and being born with 54 years of minimum wage income provides social mobility via UBI. The super-rich, and anyone so unusually valuable that their time is provided by donation or the government, can live forever.

** Another option: People stop aging at 25, but the clock has three years and doesn't start until age 75 (maintaining the current life expectancy of a 25 year old at 78 years). In the movie, minimum wage comes out to slightly over 1 year of time per year of labor. This is massively deflated, so minimum wage is something like 1/20 years per year of labor. Most people, even in the middle class, know they can't afford to live forever- it's more like knowing that your time is coming than like drowning. People can save to live a few extra years but given the expense they typically prefer to spend it on themselves or their loved ones. The super-rich, and anyone so unusually valuable that their time is provided by the government or donation, can live forever.

*** If time is only made when someone reaches age 25, the average age of people who make it to 25 must be about 26. The average age of the whole society must be about 13. But we don't see huge numbers of kids, so unless there's a massive school system or something hidden away, or a massive demographic shift going on, the average age must be over 26. So more likely the same people who can raise prices across the slums can "mint" time to maintain the population.

** If time is only made when someone reaches age 25, the average age of people who make it to 25 must be about 26. The average age of the whole society must be about 13. But we don't see huge numbers of kids, so unless there's a massive school system or something with proportional amounts of adults hidden away, or a massive demographic shift going on, the average age must be over 26. So more likely the same people who can raise prices across the slums can "mint" time to maintain the population.

* Time is made by each person getting a year when they turn 25, [[FridgeLogic so each year is worth one human life]]. Hamilton had a capsule containing [[UpToEleven a million years]]. How did he get all of that time?

* Since people have the chance at living forever with the current technology, it makes sense that no "newer" technologies, other than those concerning the life extension, would be developed. After all, since now you could possibly live forever, what more do you need. (This is also probably why the rich guy kills himself.) As Bruce Willis said in ''Film/DeathBecomesHer'', "and then what?" This reminds this troper of ''Series/TheTwilightZone'' episode "A Nice Place to Visit," where the crook's "Heaven" turns out to be "the other place" because he just gets whatever he wants, whenever he wants it. What kind of life is it to always have to watch out for accidents and assassinations? Pretty lousy.

** Ennui-induced suicide also suggests that TV Tropes [[Main/JustForFun/TVTropesWillRuinYourLife doesn't exist]] in this universe. [[note]] Or Main/RuleThirtyFour.[[/note]]

** Ennui-induced suicide also suggests that TV Tropes [[Main/TVTropesWillRuinYourLife doesn't exist]] in this universe. [[note]] Or Main/RuleThirtyFour.[[/note]]

!FridgeLogic

*** Even after Will and Sylvia have reached Dayton, the Time Keeper fail to know where they are, and only find out when Will phone them. This is ridiculous, after it is established that they can track the movement of "time" when they notice Will moving from Dayton to New Greenwich. This is also what made it possible for Will and Sylvia to [[spoiler:travel back to New Greenwich and kidnap Weis]]. Apparently the surveillance technology used to track the movement of time is some sort of forgotten superpower.

*** The poor may not have access to storage secure enough to make it worth it. Also, the devices themselves may be expensive, explaining why only the rich, businesses, government, and criminal organizations use them regularly. And of course, [[spoiler: you saw how well not keeping much time on you worked out for Raymond]].

!FridgeHorror

!FridgeBrilliance:

*** Actually they are given 25 years to age naturally, you wouldn't want a world of people who look like children. The clock's activation seems to be what also activates the anti-aging gene splicing, based on the girl's dialog about when her clock started: "I looked in the mirror, as I guess everyone does. This is what I'll look like forever."

* How common is suicide in this culture? Surely many of the poor eventually lose interest in running on this endless treadmill, especially given how probable it seems that a person gets to watch his family and friends die on it. Even among the rich, the ennui-based suicide, like the rich fellow at the beginning, is probably fairly common as people simply run out of new experiences and get bored. Suicide may end virtually all wealthy lives after a few centuries. Imagine all the lower-class lives sacrificed so that a few elite can live, say, three centuries instead of one, before willfully throwing away the life purchased at such massive human cost.

*** Interstellar travel might not be an available solution. Either it's impossible for some reason unknown today, or the in-universe technology is not yet sufficient.

** The potential immortality from the clock system has made the only people with the resources to accomplish such a task too risk-averse to attempt it. Space travel is very dangerous (there's a greater than 1% chance of dying on a routine flight into low-earth orbit), and even Apollo XIII was far enough out that if they weren't able to solve their problems themselves (with only instructions from NASA, rather than a rescue team), the crew would have died in space. A one-way trip to a distant planet in which any number of things we haven't even thought of could go wrong? No risk-averse immortal is going to even consider that.