pobox522rlyeh wrote:

I'm sure there are infomorphs that would make a good living. You have to wonder about all the people who made a living as say, dockworkers, farmers and the like though, and then ended up as an infomorph after the fall. A lot of these people simply wouldn't be able to make the crossover into the sort of technical jobs that someone could perform as an infomorph. Really, there is no guarantee that any given person will have technical skills at all, or even be computer literate.

I think it might depend on the habitat hosting the informorph populations. the poor digital plebes would get cheap servers with (comparatively) low bandwith and outdated antivirus and firewalls with more holes than a Gruyère cheese. the more talented would get transfered to better server in better habitat by farcasting, with much better bandwith, better firewalls and antivirus

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Fortunately, I suppose an infomorph psychologist could still do his job without a body.

They would be the best suited for psychosurgery got a question, a bit like Matrix? Are the Informorph always aware they're just infomorph, or could they be made to believe they're somewhere and something else? Imagine a malignent Mercurial AGI keeping millions of informorph inslaved and unaware they're inslaved, believing they live in a time and place where such things as sleeving, morphs and AGI are unknown. Since the money they're paid in doesn't actually exist, the AGI keeps all the money for him or herself, and the people couldn't afford to go anywhere outside, even if they found out the truth

If infomorph habitats really were free, then they would fill up completely very soon. It only takes one crazy in the solar system who thinks the world is better with more of him, and we would all be spammed. Obviously there exist costs, even in the rep economy: getting nice computing nodes that can run a whole ego without any lags and glitches, with high bandwidth to the rest of the mesh and no intrusive software will require making some people happy with you. There are no doubt little virtual nooks and crannies where less fortunate egos survive, struggling with buggy operating software, lags, viruses and those occasional blackouts when the habitat cooling system seizes their computing node to run a calculation. Robin Hanson has done a seriously scary and interesting paper on the economics of uploads (I have mentioned it lots of times already, but it is IMHO important both in EP and the real world) where he points out (using fairly standard economics) that if skilled people can copy themselves you get 1) lots of economic growth since there are now more people doing services, and the number will be increasing proportional to the amount of computer power (Moore's law is assumed to apply; it is enough that *some* people like to fork to get lots of forks), and 2) the average wages of the forks will approach the cost of running them. So in this scenario you get an enormous class of low-wage infomorphs that is constantly swelling, inside an economy booming. If you happen to have a rare skill you can make a lot of money but you have to be on the guard of price-dumping by your forks. I think EP is approaching this, but at a fairly moderate rate. The computational resources appear to be growing slowly due to fears of allowing Seeds to take root. In outer system rep economies the above economic logic is softened (but not abolished) so the process might take longer than in the inner system. The infugees are to a large degree this software underclass, but massive forking is not yet standard. Hypercorps are already planning for the inevitable, and Consortium politicians are considering the best way of handling an infomorph population boom. I'm actually writing up "copyrations" right now, companies composed of lots of forks of an individual working together (like Pax Familia, but legit). Imagine the lawyer firm "Me, myself and I" composed of copies of one fairly standard lawyer who uses alpha forks to do various legal tasks. Afterwards they are merged into one of the "partner forks" or just deleted (after all, this particular lawyer might be entirely OK with this). If needed he can call up a hundred copies to do work: the costs of growing up and training as a lawyer gets divided by the enormous amount of billable hours he can get. Sure, there are better lawyers around than this firm, but it is hard to beat their price.

Decivre wrote:

I'd imagine that there would likely be a policing organization for infomorph habitats that regulates forking. For instance, I should think that something like a brainwave scan could be done to an infomorph, which could then be cross-checked against other BWSs for forking. Permits would likely be necessary to purchase in order to allow such things. If the location is reputation-based, then a certain limit based on reputation would likely be implemented instead. Violators would be forcibly merged, and potentially even be put in digital isolation (locking their system out of the rest of the habitat network, as a form of jail).

It all depends on what forking is regarded as. Is it like reproduction, divorce (both forks get half the possessions), online work or something else? Different societies will reach very different positions. To make matters messier, beta forks are pretty good workers too and are supposedly OK in even more polities. I think the main limit in the inner system is citizenship: forking of citizens means that one of them needs to get a new citizenship ID, and the government can hence intervene and delay/regulate depending on views. Most likely the regulations tend to keep the official forking rate under control, although what that rate is will be dependent on ideology and economy. As you said, in the outer system reputation matters. It might be easy to create new forks, but if you don't have a high reputation they are regarded as software spam. Forking is a also serious cause of reputation inflation. A high-rep individual who forks will have "created" a lot of extra rep. This might not be a serious *direct* problem since reputation is not directly transferable like credits. But the two forks can in principle go off and independently get two high-rep services independently and the merge back, now the lucky recipient of twice as much as they would otherwise had been able to get. This suggests that new economy societies might want to keep this kind of shenanigans down. As I see EP, the fun is just starting. Forking and merging are *massively* destabilizing technologies, and there are lots of munchkin NPCs out there discovering any loophole in their local legal or economical system right now. In a few years time the EPverse will look utterly alien due to things like this. 9 out of 10 Planetary Consortium citizens will be copies of Mr Lee, the widely forked workaholic lawyer from Singapore...

Arenamontanus wrote:

It all depends on what forking is regarded as. Is it like reproduction, divorce (both forks get half the possessions), online work or something else? Different societies will reach very different positions. To make matters messier, beta forks are pretty good workers too and are supposedly OK in even more polities. I think the main limit in the inner system is citizenship: forking of citizens means that one of them needs to get a new citizenship ID, and the government can hence intervene and delay/regulate depending on views. Most likely the regulations tend to keep the official forking rate under control, although what that rate is will be dependent on ideology and economy. As you said, in the outer system reputation matters. It might be easy to create new forks, but if you don't have a high reputation they are regarded as software spam. Forking is a also serious cause of reputation inflation. A high-rep individual who forks will have "created" a lot of extra rep. This might not be a serious *direct* problem since reputation is not directly transferable like credits. But the two forks can in principle go off and independently get two high-rep services independently and the merge back, now the lucky recipient of twice as much as they would otherwise had been able to get. This suggests that new economy societies might want to keep this kind of shenanigans down. As I see EP, the fun is just starting. Forking and merging are *massively* destabilizing technologies, and there are lots of munchkin NPCs out there discovering any loophole in their local legal or economical system right now. In a few years time the EPverse will look utterly alien due to things like this. 9 out of 10 Planetary Consortium citizens will be copies of Mr Lee, the widely forked workaholic lawyer from Singapore...

Forking technology is a bit of a double-edged sword. Since forks can diverge gradually more and more from the original ego, this can be to the original ego's detriment. Two ego copies doing the same work in the same region may become business rivals, and either is potentially capable of identity theft if they so choose. For that matter, there are other issues, like if two forks fall in love with the same person and refuse to merge or share (very possible, since forks will almost definitely have similar tastes). That said, forking is likely to be best used for the purpose of allowing someone to be in many places at the same time. I'd imagine that the majority of people (or even AGIs and uplifts) would not like the idea of other copies of themselves running around. It might be an interesting experiment, but doubts and suspicions will crop up. However, if an expectation of merging is present, then forking fulfills a role similar to nanofabrication. Much like how nanofabrication creates a material post-scarcity scenario, forking creates a time post-scarcity scenario in which people can literally create as much time as they desire to do the things they need to do.

Arenamontanus wrote:

Ah, fork jealousy sounds like a great plot idea! Fork 1 and 2 loves their wife, but can't help hating each other for it. Mr Lee's surviving grandson at first thought it was fun to get so much attention from grandfather x 10, but now find the thousands of copies of his grandfather somewhat troubling...

Actually, one of my games had something similar happen, but not so much jealousy as stalking. A narcissist created a beta fork of himself who left for a long time, and then returned to stalk the original ego because it was madly in love with him (it couldn't love itself because it only considered itself to be part of a beautiful whole). It resulted in a very amusing side-mission for my players to keep him safe from... himself....

Arenamontanus wrote:

Well expressed. In a sense it is also a skill post-scarcity scenario: imagine being able to hire/become a thousand people working on a project (such as developing a piece of software) for a very low cost.

I still consider that to be part and parcel to time post-scarcity: training an employee takes time and money (which is, by extension, also translatable into time), and training a thousand employees is far more time-consuming than training one employee and copying him a thousand times.

King Shere wrote:

Yes I can see several situations where forks become bitter enemies, quarreling, competing and undercutting each other. Especially divergent forks. As well as philosophical views & psychological motivations for such enemity. [b]Evil hates Evil[/b] A person that struggles to constrain himself from certain behaviors. This person would get angry when others isn't restraining the same, or fail in doing it. Often due to internal self-hate or a dislike (or aspiration) of certain aspects of him/her/it-self. Like the psychological projection deference mechanism, but the despised behavior isn't projected into innocent others - its identified in other "guilty". Such a individual wouldn't get along well with its fork copies. "If I follow the law (though I hate it & sometimes fail in following it), then at least I expect that others be severely punished when they break it." "Evil knows evil" "I despise my own weaknesses and that same weaknesses in others" "I dont trust myself, so I wouldn't trust a copy of me" "I expect some of my copies to rat the rest of us out, thats why I should be the one to rat them out."

I think the more integral reason for it is to defend one's sense of unique identity... or what I would call the "Highlander syndrome". People in our time do a lot to try and stand out from the crowd, and show that they themselves are their own person. People tend not to like being imitated, or to feel like just another member of the crowd. Anything that threatens their feeling of being their own person can be perceived as a threat. In this sense, forks are the greatest threat to such people's sense of identity, being perfect copies and living evidence of a person's non-uniqueness. Such a presence can very well stir up angry, even perhaps murderous desires in a person who simply wants to prove that they are a special snowflake once again.

pobox522rlyeh wrote:

If you assume that infomorphs have to work for a living, then that means they aren't living out their fondest dreams anymore.

Some people love working & commit suicide even when retired. Its possible to work & be happy, But yes, My existence is not my fondest dream. I still enjoy work.

pobox522rlyeh wrote:

It should be made very clear up front, that creating spikes of any sort isn't free and can't be done at will. I don't have a problem with the idea of spikes in general, I just have a problem with the idea that they can be made at will, and without consequence. If you start bringing up storage costs and so on, then you begin to assign a price.

I would rather "hinder" players on the computing power needed (or used), than storage. Data storage starts to become irrelevant in our time, but processors aren't.

pobox522rlyeh wrote:

If you can't see how assuming everybody pays rent makes things darker, you just aren't trying. The requirement to make money is what makes the masses desperate. Take that away, and there is no reason for anybody to do anything, and a heck of a lot less drama in the story.

There was a time of human society when money wasn't invented. 'Plenty of drama in that time, despite that. Quite allot of drama exists in "rich settings" where money has no limits. In EP only 40% of human population lives in the "new economy" of post scarcity" (ep page 62-64) where member citizenship are granted most non scarce resources. As I read that chapter I was wondering if the citizenship had to be "maintained", For example: people loosing citizenship -due to their skillset became obsolete, layoffs & thus no longer considered a "strategic" asset. (With good insurance such fate could be avoided or lessened.) This would make the masses desperate, they need to keep their "value" or contribute in some form or they will be discarded, like yesterdays garbage. Perhaps thats why some dislike the infogee refugees, they fear refugees outclassing them. ------------ edit to respond Arenamontanus, & prevent me double posting.

Arenamontanus wrote:

My guess is that the fully developed uploading method will package egos pretty tightly. Most of an ego is after all just a big connectivity matrix.

Arenamontanus wrote:

I believe a level 5 would automatically be a level 6. Asyncs might beg to disagree

Well I would sort of agree with that too, Level 6 would be in level 5. I also think that Egos could be packed more "tightly" Acquiring level 6 with a Level 5 approach would be catching the fish with a bucket (along with its water), rather than just the fish. And weighing the buckets caught contents.

Self-sufficiency, collective autonomy, Autarky - should exist in EP, as they do exist today. Sustainable living & Self-sufficiency should be especially abundant in space, where waiting for help could be a long long wait.

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Who needs to be paid for this to continue to exist?

Probably no one, if done correctly. But a "evil" GM would send a "selfproclaimed" landlord with weapons, contracts & "laws" to back its preposterous claims of "tax" & protection-fees. Such encounters ranging from pirates, legitamate corporations, to military. "We have seized this rock (& your server) for the state of Expropriation Corp. We have liberated you. Welcome, to your new life as clankers." :) "Or can you pay your overdue tax?" Lagrange points in space are probably sought after. Industry dislike "squatters" & can expropriate areas. Jovian Junta perhaps charges for certain Jupiter orbits.

pobox522rlyeh wrote:

Since your assuming that the technology is godlike enough to be self-sustaining without labor, that the solar panels don't need to be replaced (beyond something nanobots can deal with), and that nobody will come along and steal anything while everybody is asleep, it can be free. I don't believe it personally, but if you work all day and all night, yes you can kill economics in your imaginary world. I guess I'm the only guy who thinks that having a viable economy actually makes the game better, or makes for a better story. On one level I find some of the ideas by transhumanism interesting, but on the other I think it leads to a strange game, and a lot of people who are essentially killing the drama of the story. The funny thing is, they never explain why they want to. You run your game, I'll run mine. You know, this is a few years after the fall. It isn't supposed to be pretty.

Remember that roleplaying is a hard juggle between game design, storytelling, and providing a simulated world and setting. While unfeasible economics may seem to be a bad call for game design purposes, in this case it can be integral to providing a conceivable post-scarcity setting. Such things are part of genre and philosophy, and this game was designed to get people thinking about such transhuman concepts. That's the problem with it all; some things that make good game mechanics make bad storytelling elements and simulated world aspects, some things that make good storytelling elements make bad game mechanics and simulated world aspects, and some things that make good simulated world aspects make bad game mechanics and storytelling elements. It's like a nasty balancing act that you can't necessarily win. Besides, this isn't as pretty as scenario as you seem to think it is. When I was studying psychology, I remember observing a patient who was a former drug abuser and chronic victim of depression. She literally drugged herself into a coma, that she only woke up from by sheer luck months later. After waking up, she had more severe bouts of depression, and desired to be put back into her coma, where she felt she was most happy. In that sense, such a scenario would be similar; a group of people consider the real life to be so depressing, so bleak, that they shut themselves into a fabricated dream world and refuse to face the reality around them. How is that a "pretty" scenario? To that end, I can see plenty of story concepts: [list][*]One of the citizens of this dreamworld is tired of it and wants to leave, but the rest of the inhabitants refuse because their leaving risks changing their happy lives. [*]It is discovered that someone of great importance to Firewall (a former proxy, a scientist with knowledge of an important breakthrough technology in the fight to reclaim Earth, a man with the access codes to the Planetary Consortium's main station) lives in the infomorph habitat, and they must be extracted to utilize their talents. Unfortunately, they don't wish to comply, and would rather stay out of the real world's affairs. The sentinels have to convince them that they can't run away from the problems of the system. [*]Exsurgent outbreak threatens the habitat, and sentinels must get them out of harm's way despite their lack of desire to leave or even fight.[/list] Don't write something off because it seems bad for gameplay or poor for storyline [i]at first glance[/i].

Extrasolar Angel wrote:

You still need resources to repair damage to the structure-even with nanobots the material can't be sustained forever. You need protection-what's keeping somebody from kidnapping your infomorphs for their own dark reason or exploitation. Plus this seems very risky-you can die, and you will need some external pods to perform larger repairs and so on.

We aren't talking about sustaining it forever... nothing can be sustained forever. Eventually the sun will die, and they will be screwed, but 4 billion years is a long time to enjoy heaven. That said, the resources could be acquired with some ingenuity. If the habitat is at a Lagrange point, it is likely that there will be neighboring trojans, which could be utilized for any needed resources. Moreover, damaged components could be deconstructed and reconstructed as functional components, with little need for extra material. A single space-capable synthmorph on the habitat could be used to travel about to gather what little materials they may need from neighboring trojans, while maintaining its charge on the same solar panels that power the habitat itself. As for claiming that it's infeasible to run such a system because malicious people might threaten them and they have no means of protecting themselves, that's not necessarily true. AI-guided beam weapon turrets could be used to protect such a habitat, as could, synthmorphs which are recharged by the habitat's solar cells. All without need for the inhabitants to do any continued effort after the creation of their little world. They may still very well be at risk, but so are people who live in a world where they do work to sustain themselves within an economy... it doesn't invalidate their existence, does it?

King Shere wrote:

Probably no one, if done correctly. But a "evil" GM would send a "selfproclaimed" landlord with weapons, contracts & "laws" to back its preposterous claims of "tax" & protection-fees. Such encounters ranging from pirates, legitamate corporations, to military. "We have seized this rock (& your server) for the state of Expropriation Corp. We have liberated you. Welcome, to your new life as clankers." :) "Or can you pay your overdue tax?" Lagrange points in space are probably sought after. Industry dislike "squatters" & can expropriate areas. Jovian Junta perhaps charges for certain Jupiter orbits.

That's an equally valid argument against outer system reputation economies. By that logic, autonomist governments can't exist, because landlords will come and tax people who don't have money. :D

Arenamontanus wrote:

Nobody. But it is also a very limited world, a bit like living on a nice self-sufficient tropical island. You will not be interacting economically with the rest of transhumanity, which means that you will not get the latest inventions, artistic creations, insights or news. Sure, you can get whatever is put in the public domain, but it is going to be behind - and many of the things you might really wish for in that external world will be unobtainable. People underestimate the power of being part of an economy. Sure, it is possible to survive on one's own under some circumstances, but having division of labour, economies of scale, comparative advantage and the creativity of millions have a big effect. Brinkers opt out, but the price they pay is that they get left behind - their security is going to be woefully obsolete, their cornucopia machines slow and inefficient, their blueprints and meme-pools shallow and limited. They are safe only as long as nobody decides to attack them, their scientists will usually discover things long after everybody else knows it. I would say living for free comes at a great cost.

To be fair, there are plenty of people who lives such lives and still must work for a living. Groups like the amish have many people who never travel beyond the reaches of their village, and even many city-people never leave their own city... even on occasion their neighborhood, should it be sufficiently large. In that sense, these virtual people could very well be less constrained than you or I, if they produce a simulated world that's big enough. To that end, a programmable virtual world could supply them with whatever their hearts desire. Even realistically unattainable things can be achieved in a world that is only virtual in existence. As for technological breakthroughs, not much will be needed by this habitat. More efficient solar cells, better processors, more effective defensive laser turrets, more efficient nanobots and maybe new maintenance AI. Other technologies are completely useless to them. Even so, if these people are living a fully sustained internal reality with no knowledge of the outside world, then the latest technological breakthrough is useless to them. Hell, even if they had external communication with reality, it may be a non-issue to them. "Dude, the Planetary Consortium just released a new plasma engine that goes double the speed of any other plasma core out there." "What is that? 0.1g of acceleration? I pilot the Starship Enterprise when I'm bored. I break the speed of light a few hundred times over. Too bad you can't do that in your world, meat sack!" I agree that living free comes at a great cost, but living at a price comes with a great cost as well. Everyone pays in their own way, whether it's by working their entire lives or forever living with no effect on reality trapped in a computer-generated dream world of your own making.

Extrasolar Angel wrote:

Quote:

AI-guided beam weapon turrets could be used to protect such a habitat, as could, synthmorphs which are recharged by the habitat's solar cells.

Without contact with outside world they would be outdated in both software an hardware by say-4-5 years?

[/quote] [b]First of all, Security through "rarity" & obscurity[/b]. Something which becomes less known, also becomes less vulnerable. Outdated technology is often forgotten & obscure. [b]Second, outdated can get the job done too[/b]. . Dont underestimate the effectiveness of bows, crossbows or Greek fire.

Psyfer wrote:

[i]In the thread (weapons & customizations[/i]) Oh, and for those wondering about the value of chemical-energy weapons in the 22nd century, remember the two things weapon buyers look for: a) Will it kill the other guy? b) Is it cheap? A lot of very promising weapon systems have been abandoned because the existing platforms fulfilled these above requirements, For example, the Cheyenne and Comanche helicopter gunships and the various planned replacements for the M-16. Sure, lasers and plasma cannon may be potent, but if the old-fashoned slug-thrower can still do the job, it will still be there, and probably at a much more cost-effective price then it's higher-tech counterparts.

Arenamontanus wrote:

In a sense it is also a skill post-scarcity scenario: imagine being able to hire/become a thousand people working on a project (such as developing a piece of software) for a very low cost.

*looks at the work wiki and sighs* "No sleep 'till Brooklyn," as the Beastie Boys once said. On the flip side, it is also possible that certain hypercorps will require that employees fork themselves repeatedly so that they can complete software development projects in a much shorter period of time. Perhaps one will begin working on true unityware to create hiveminds of the same person. Where that goes would be up to the GM.

nick012000 wrote:

I didn't know you worked for the Dark Side of AI research, Arenamontanus. :p

I am the resident evil scientist of our institute. Somebody has to come up with doomsday weapons or try to figure out how to disrupt humanity-saving efforts. :-)