I was discussing this with my wife, and we agreed (well, I agreed) that the dominant philosophy outside of infomorph refuges and extremely stable habitats such as Mars and Luna would be that of Social Consensus. Contrasted with the modern philosophy of say the American Dream - personal achievement and financial security - Social Consensus would be focused on the wellbeing and happiness of the entire group. We see this among the Autonomists, Anarchists (more appropriately called Socio-Anarchists), Titanians and Scummers, and less so among the Martian Independents and some corporates. The reasoning for this is simple. Every habitat is a (mostly) closed system, with limited resources. It is, all told, extremely fragile. A failure in the CO2 scrubbers, in the hull integrity, in water recycling, in power, in navigation, can lead to everyone's demise. Because you have a small, closed social system, in a 'post-scarcity' economy, and a closed resource system that requires cooperation for survival, you now have the psychological, economic and social pressures for true socialism. "The People" is the sum total of the inhabitants, and can be measured, tracked and managed. Any act of selfishness ties up resources from being available to all people, and can be clearly shown to be contrary to the interest of each other individual in the habitat. Ergo, the most successful habitats and social structures will be those which focus most heavily on success of the habitat social unit, while the habitats most likely to suffer catastrophic failure will be those most focused on individual empowerment. This should apply to all habitats which feel like they are surviving on the knife's edge, and/or with a limited population (technological advancement have likely increased the number of people that an individual can consider 'neighbors', from around 200 likely up to the thousand range). As the population goes beyond 1,000, there's less of a feeling of neighborliness with the rest of the community. As the habitat becomes more resilient to damage, there's less of a feeling of necessity of personal sacrifice. What would be the results of this shift in philosophies? In Schismatrix, we're shown a new form of philosophical nationalism. This is not proper nationalism, because it's not allegiance to an abstract idea of Nation, like what the Jovians follow. It may be, as Schismatrix describes, an allegiance to a (possibly hardwired) mental paradigm. In EP we do know it's an allegiance to a real group of people, where each individual is known as a neighbor, friend, confidant or family-member. Regardless, these loyalties are extremely durable. We also shown of a fear of weapons - weapons destroyed the Earth, and destroy habitats. Spacers will consider weapons truly taboo objects (although perhaps less-so than we see in Lindsay's reaction, due to cortical stacks making death a temporary inconvenience). Weapons are also a sign of personal empowerment, oftentimes at the cost of public good. Popularity of single-person sports or single sports stars may decline compared to sports teams. Research. work and art teams would be more effective and more popular. We may also find that some things we find morally reprehensible now, such as rape or murder, may be condoned in certain social groups, and the fact that they are condoned by the majority are enough to make them right. An autonomist community may be more at risk of engaging in institutionalized crimes, such as forced modifications, non-consensual marriages, murder or eugenics than other communities, simply because the embedded philosophy is, 'support the group decision' and 'for the group benefit'. The big question is, how does this impact Firewall Teams? A character from Extropia or Mars is likely to maintain the mindset we're used to - protect myself first, then worry about everyone else. It's what they're raised with. But a character from say Titan may consider things differently. What does the team need to stay alive? What is the team consensus on this problem? What are we all adding to the team? Of course, an individual Autonomist may be more sensitive to excessive individualism, or political comments, compared with someone from a different background. They may be less likely to take personal initiative, but quicker to take on personal sacrifice. So, any comments on this line of thought? Does it seem sensible?