The sin eater is not a person, but a server. Most habitats in the solar system are small, below 1,000 egos. One of the primary goals of their justice systems must be the prevention of feuds and vendettas, which can easily become devastating in small, isolated communities. On habitats using sin eaters, the first measure of justice is compensation for injuries, effectively blood money. In immortal transhuman societies, it is not easy to do someone truly permanent harm, and so some manner of repayment can usually be agreed upon.
Once appropriate compensation has been made, everyone, including, of course, the parties involved, has their memories of the incident removed and stored in the sin eater. If no one has significant memories of a crime, and if harm has been countered by compensation, than the crime might as well have not occurred, and peace is maintained. The sin eater, however, also acts as an archive, and memories can be retrieved if it becomes necessary.
Plot Hook: Notorious criminal hackers the ID crew have been rebuffed one too many times by the scum ship Eric the Red. Eric the Red makes use of a sin eater, giving the ID crew an opportunity. In a single grand hack, they plan to retrieve all stored memories from the sin eater, and simultaneously restore them to their egos, causing chaos. Helping the ID crew could net a PC g-rep, helping stop them could earn @-rep.
Showing posts with label governments. Show all posts
Showing posts with label governments. Show all posts
Friday, September 18, 2015
Sunday, May 31, 2015
151. The Gestalt Albia
Albia is a brinker habitat located in the Uranian trojans. To an ignorant observer it is uninteresting, a cluster hab run along autonomist lines. When the mutualism demanded by isolated space life is insufficient, they govern themselves as a direct democracy.
Albia is also a gestalt consciousness occasionally formed from the citizens of the station. Linking together the minds of all citizens results in their subsuming into Albia, a discrete consciousness emerging from the network of citizens in the same way the AGIs may emerge from other complex systems. While Albia is awake, the egos of citizens are totally consumed, but when Albia withdraws they awaken as if from a deep sleep.
Albia (the gestalt) appears to be thoroughly invested in the well-being of Albia (the habitat), with particular interest over the habitat's long-term strategies. The last act of each instance of Albia are its instructions on when it is next to be awakened.
Plot Hook: Albia is smart, but not beyond what is possible for a transhuman ego with a savant or hyperbright morph. Their real advantage is in access to the skills and memories of all gestalt members. Firewall suspects that this is why Albia has avoided the exsurgent virus thus far. They are therefore greatly concerned by exsurgent activity seeking to smuggle supercomputers on to Albia, and task the players with intercepting them.
Albia is also a gestalt consciousness occasionally formed from the citizens of the station. Linking together the minds of all citizens results in their subsuming into Albia, a discrete consciousness emerging from the network of citizens in the same way the AGIs may emerge from other complex systems. While Albia is awake, the egos of citizens are totally consumed, but when Albia withdraws they awaken as if from a deep sleep.
Albia (the gestalt) appears to be thoroughly invested in the well-being of Albia (the habitat), with particular interest over the habitat's long-term strategies. The last act of each instance of Albia are its instructions on when it is next to be awakened.
Plot Hook: Albia is smart, but not beyond what is possible for a transhuman ego with a savant or hyperbright morph. Their real advantage is in access to the skills and memories of all gestalt members. Firewall suspects that this is why Albia has avoided the exsurgent virus thus far. They are therefore greatly concerned by exsurgent activity seeking to smuggle supercomputers on to Albia, and task the players with intercepting them.
Tuesday, April 14, 2015
104. Democracy
Direct-democracies are a popular form of government in the Autonomist Alliance. Even those societies that are not wholly democratic often use democratic processes.
The difficulties of implementing direct democracy is greatly eased by post-singulairty technology. Many voters have their muses give their likely vote on routine matters. Some systems, allow voters to grant and rescind their votes, at will, to politicians and political parties. In others AIs embodying political philosophies or pursuing certain causes are favored. Someone might pledge their votes to the priorities of opening up trade, voting automatically on any related issue, next to a social stability oriented AI, voting in place of any pledged citizens, and have their muse handle anything that slips through the cracks.
Plot Hook: One of the political AIs of an Autonomist Alliance society has begun broadening its interest from embodying secular-transhumanism and begun making grander and grander promises to voters, speaking obscurely of "our benefactors". Firewall believes the AI is the early signs of TITAN infestation, and tasks the players with investigating.
The difficulties of implementing direct democracy is greatly eased by post-singulairty technology. Many voters have their muses give their likely vote on routine matters. Some systems, allow voters to grant and rescind their votes, at will, to politicians and political parties. In others AIs embodying political philosophies or pursuing certain causes are favored. Someone might pledge their votes to the priorities of opening up trade, voting automatically on any related issue, next to a social stability oriented AI, voting in place of any pledged citizens, and have their muse handle anything that slips through the cracks.
Plot Hook: One of the political AIs of an Autonomist Alliance society has begun broadening its interest from embodying secular-transhumanism and begun making grander and grander promises to voters, speaking obscurely of "our benefactors". Firewall believes the AI is the early signs of TITAN infestation, and tasks the players with investigating.
Saturday, March 7, 2015
66. Smart Constitutions
Power corrupts, but an AI need not be human enough to be corruptible. The increasing precision of formal legal language has met the improving fuzzy logic capabilities of sub-sentient AI. Many groups are now experimenting with autonomous legal systems.
Writing a smart constitution requires a somewhat different approach than a traditional document: they have trouble with generalities and abstract appeals to justice. Even the smartest constitution tends to err towards literal interpretations, and will favor what was actually written over what may have been intended. They are an effective supplement to a government, but it is risky to have them themselves govern.
A smart constitution is at its best when working within a formal, written framework. They therefore have served best in extropian influenced habitats, where formal contracts are the foundations of legal systems. Otherwise, they are most often used as hedges against power consolidation in autonomist habitats, carefully defining what can and cannot be done with formal power.
Notes
Inspired by Anders Sandberg's smart contracts.
Writing a smart constitution requires a somewhat different approach than a traditional document: they have trouble with generalities and abstract appeals to justice. Even the smartest constitution tends to err towards literal interpretations, and will favor what was actually written over what may have been intended. They are an effective supplement to a government, but it is risky to have them themselves govern.
A smart constitution is at its best when working within a formal, written framework. They therefore have served best in extropian influenced habitats, where formal contracts are the foundations of legal systems. Otherwise, they are most often used as hedges against power consolidation in autonomist habitats, carefully defining what can and cannot be done with formal power.
Notes
Inspired by Anders Sandberg's smart contracts.
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
49. Consensus Societies of Extropia
On Extropia there is no central authority. The organization with the strongest claim, Extropy Now, exists to provide a haven for libertarians and anarcho-capitalists, and therefore avoids exercising any of its power. Large and complex markets have arisen, providing legal systems, security, arbitration and adjudication as paid services. Even with the advice of muses, expert systems and AIs, however, the potential interactions between these services can be inconvenient and unpredictable.
Like attracts like for both comfort and convenience. The interactions of competing legal systems, security contractors and private magistrates can become a headache for all involved. It is easiest to interact with those who share your expectations, and with whom you share a common adjudicator. Extropians are steadily conglomerating into sub-societies of shared legal systems, security arrangements and acceptance of arbitration: consensus societies.
The largest and most prominent examples of consensus societies are the Caliphate and the Commons. The Caliphate is ostensibly Extropian and autonomist friendly and the Caliph has deliberately downplayed formal authority: they use the open source legal system OpenSharia, and maintain no military or police system, being instead safeguarded by volunteer militia.
The Commons is populated primarily by refugees from commonwealth nations. They have created a legal system based primarily on the traditions of English common law, adjudicated by a hierarchy of elected judges, and enforced by volunteer police.
Plot Hook: Extropy Now, owners of Extropia, have become concerned with consensus societies, fearing that they will grow into states. They are looking for discrete social engineers, memeticists and hackers to non-violently undermine and collapse the Caliphate and the Commons.
Like attracts like for both comfort and convenience. The interactions of competing legal systems, security contractors and private magistrates can become a headache for all involved. It is easiest to interact with those who share your expectations, and with whom you share a common adjudicator. Extropians are steadily conglomerating into sub-societies of shared legal systems, security arrangements and acceptance of arbitration: consensus societies.
The largest and most prominent examples of consensus societies are the Caliphate and the Commons. The Caliphate is ostensibly Extropian and autonomist friendly and the Caliph has deliberately downplayed formal authority: they use the open source legal system OpenSharia, and maintain no military or police system, being instead safeguarded by volunteer militia.
The Commons is populated primarily by refugees from commonwealth nations. They have created a legal system based primarily on the traditions of English common law, adjudicated by a hierarchy of elected judges, and enforced by volunteer police.
Plot Hook: Extropy Now, owners of Extropia, have become concerned with consensus societies, fearing that they will grow into states. They are looking for discrete social engineers, memeticists and hackers to non-violently undermine and collapse the Caliphate and the Commons.
Saturday, January 3, 2015
3. All-Thing
Virtually every conceivable type of government or non-government can be found in the Autonomist Alliance. Some succeed, many fail, but the grand parade of social theories, experiments and designs always continues. The information and communication technologies of transhumanity make many new forms possible, and many old forms can be improved.
The citizens of the small Bernal sphere named Leer Fluss are governed by the All-Thing.
The All-Thing is a reincarnation of the things of Germanic tradition, a meeting of every citizen to decide all matters of law and policy. It is overseen by Lawspeaker, a purpose built AI with no interests except to ensure smooth procedure and cite relevant precedence. It is always in session.
In order for the All-Thing to always be in session, every citizen provides an alpha-fork of themselves as a representative. The regular forking and merging makes cyberbrains a requirement; forking with biological brains simply takes too long. Citizens merge with their representatives and then re-fork after every decision, ensuring that the forks represent their citizens accurately, and that the citizens have full memory of deliberations and decisions and are kept up-to-date.
As Leer Fluss has slowly grown, the All-Thing has become more and more cumbersome. The simulspace meeting-hall can simply be expanded, but regular procedure has become slow. Some have proposed the creation of smaller Things, each with jurisdiction over its members, with the All-Thing reserved for habitat-wide issues only. Anarchist-leaning citizens, however, object to the creation of a federal hierarchy, and threaten to leave if this is implemented. Some, with gleeful irony, have noted in return that an exodus of anarchists would in fact alleviate the population problems necessitating the new structure. It seems conflict is in Leer Fluss' future.
The citizens of the small Bernal sphere named Leer Fluss are governed by the All-Thing.
The All-Thing is a reincarnation of the things of Germanic tradition, a meeting of every citizen to decide all matters of law and policy. It is overseen by Lawspeaker, a purpose built AI with no interests except to ensure smooth procedure and cite relevant precedence. It is always in session.
In order for the All-Thing to always be in session, every citizen provides an alpha-fork of themselves as a representative. The regular forking and merging makes cyberbrains a requirement; forking with biological brains simply takes too long. Citizens merge with their representatives and then re-fork after every decision, ensuring that the forks represent their citizens accurately, and that the citizens have full memory of deliberations and decisions and are kept up-to-date.
As Leer Fluss has slowly grown, the All-Thing has become more and more cumbersome. The simulspace meeting-hall can simply be expanded, but regular procedure has become slow. Some have proposed the creation of smaller Things, each with jurisdiction over its members, with the All-Thing reserved for habitat-wide issues only. Anarchist-leaning citizens, however, object to the creation of a federal hierarchy, and threaten to leave if this is implemented. Some, with gleeful irony, have noted in return that an exodus of anarchists would in fact alleviate the population problems necessitating the new structure. It seems conflict is in Leer Fluss' future.
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