Society

Across virtually all of the Green Zone countries, there are three physical strata in the cities.

The Clouds, above the smog and filth, are a paradise of high-technology, low-density living and wealthy luxury, and occupy the topmost levels of the City Towers. Only the hyper-rich live here – the 0.1% of the population commonly referred to as the Captains of Industry. They are the modern-day nobles, living at the peak of a neo-Feudal pyramid. A layer of thick but not toxic cloud separates the Clouds from the strata below.

When people refer to the Towers, what they usually mean is the stratum of the City Towers below the Clouds but above street level. This is where people work, where the shops are and where the majority of people live. Only a small number of jobs remain un-automated, and this is where the bulk of them are carried out. 10% of the population have jobs in this stratum and are called the Employed, while a further 50% are either supported by them or receive Universal Basic Income from the state (or rather via the state – it is corporate welfare extended to keep the peace) and are known as Dependents. Quality of living is generally low for everyone but the wealthiest Employed, and people live a hand-to-mouth existence with no hope of social or economic improvement.

Below the Towers are the Warrens. The bases of the Towers themselves are heavily fortified and guarded, so the people who live here tend to live either in the subterra (called the Undertow) or in the sparse patches of former suburbia among the Tower bases, or sprawling beyond the city centre. The Warrens are permanently shrouded in a toxic smog and are as poisonous as they are riven with crime. Some 25% of the population live here.

Beyond these groups are the Inmates, imprisoned for various crimes and incarcerated in penitentiaries, some within the urban limits, some out in the toxic wastes beyond. While the death penalty has re-entered the statutes for serious crimes against corporations such as espionage or fraud, simple murder or rape usually results in an indefinite custodial sentence. These Inmates are 10% of the population. The remaining 5% live outside the conurbations in the toxic wastes of England’s former green and pleasant land.

For those individuals who do not earn or receive money, the only hope of support comes from being a Citizen of Good Standing, which entitles them to… whatever incentive a corporation chooses to give them. Good Standing arises from informing on illegal immigrants, criminals, socialists or rabble-rousers, from ‘volunteering’ your time in a range of corporate services, for voting in the correct way or agitating for the correct political party, for supporting a particular brand, from acting as medical test subjects, or for performing unpaid labour of a variety of types.

The reward will usually take the form of food or a medical treatment, sometimes even credits towards vocational training that might lead to a job. Scraps from the table to give the poor false hope. In reality, for the Ineligibles in the Warrens, undertaking activities to be held in Good Standing will routinely make the difference between life and death from the poisonous in which they are forced to live.

Civil liberties are relatively limited. Everyone is barcoded and chipped at birth so they can be tracked at all times. CCTV is all pervasive outside the Warrens. All currencies are electronic (though a barter system and illegal physical currency exist in the Warrens) so all transactions can be tracked. All downloads from and uploads to the internet and the virtual world known as Arcadia may be monitored, though some client interactions in some zones are confidential. Legal rights of habeas corpus and trial by jury were long since suspended, as are a number of fundamental human rights: the right to life; freedom from torture; the right to liberty; the right to privacy; the right to peaceful assembly; freedom of expression; freedom from discrimination; the right to education and the right to participate in free elections.

Drones are a day-to-day aspect of live. They form the core of the Police and the Army, they build everything from Towers to consumer electronics, they teach and perform medical services, they drive cars and monitor city power, they grow crops and produce food. True AI – an artificial general intelligence like ours – does not exist; the AI of 2084 is exclusively ‘dumb’ AI working via adaptive algorithms and machine learning.

There is no such thing as an independent media, as all news services are now owned by major corporations and all educational material is rigorously edited by the Ministry of Knowledge. Public spaces, news media and entertainment are saturated with advertisements, at least in the Towers and in non-premium areas of Arcadia. Political nonconformism is suppressed and rooted out.

By 2084, racism is almost a dead concept. Around 80% of British people have multiple ethnicities in their recent genealogy and around 50% have tanned skin, dark hair, brown eyes and epicanthic folds. Red hair, white skin and freckles are seen as exotic – to the point that cosmetic surgery is often paid for to attain them.There are still vestiges of organised racism within the Warrens but since the destitute rub shoulders with the destitute, this is generally untenable. White supremacists withdrew from cities a long time ago to create their ethnically pure communities – nearly all of them dying out in the inhospitable wastes beyond the conurbations.

LGBTQI rights are now firmly enshrined as equal to those of heterosexuals, in everything from employment to parental, adoptive and inheritance rights. Indeed, the state and corpocracy, in their ongoing efforts to minimize human population growth now that economic growth has been uncoupled from it, are actively promoting non-heterosexuality as a desirable choice (as well as sometimes a trait one is born with).

‘Talent’ is a term that originally came from spin-offs of the shows ‘America’s Got Talent’ and similar. The shows went beyond simple entertainment to start looking at people who had remarkable talents or physical attributes of any form. When these shows started in the 2040s, few thought anything of it; but as numbers of applicants increased, governments around the world came to realise that such exceptional people were increasing slightly in frequency. When cheap genetic editing of zygotes became common via legitimized CAS9-Crispr technology, governments started to address the issue directly. ‘Talents’ are not mutants, in the sense of possessing impossible or magical powers, and still only one in every hundred thousand or so people are Talents, and even fewer strong Talents. The government encourages Talents to identify themselves – or their families to do so – so that their remarkable skills can be put to good and well-paid use. No one really believes these adverts, however, since no one ever hears from volunteer Talents ever again.

Religion still exists but participation has dropped off even more rapidly than it did from the mid 20th to early 21st Centuries. Partly this was a result of deliberate campaigns – international institutions other than the corpocracy were generally suppressed, so campaigns focused on corrupt religious officials, child abuse, objection to abortion and support for terrorism. But the decline was also a function of an increasingly fragmented and selfish society that became cynical about universal truths. There were some civil struggles on this matter – notably in the United States – and some areas still retain stronger levels of religiosity – such as Israel – but religion is less of a motivating factor in politics and society. If anything it has become repurposed and repackaged as a brand or corporate identity.

Society is no happier than before, it is certainly more medicated. Alcohol consumption is still rife, as a slew of legalised, taxed and controlled substances, including cannabis, heroin, cocaine and MDMA. The only drug of which consumption has fallen is tobacco. Still, the Employed get tested for drugs at work and via wastewater from their homes to ensure it does not affect their efficiency. Black market access to drugs is common. With depression the most commonly diagnosed illness, antidepressant, anti-anxiety medications, painkillers and sleep medications are extremely common and in some cases dispensed from vending machines. Euthanasia – conducted by automated doctors – has been legalised, even in cases of non-life threatening or incurable diseases and where the patient is unable to consent.

Crime is still common, of course. Above the Clouds, it is never prosecuted. White collar crime is generally only punished if it affects the profits of the corporations. Most criminals are drawn from the ranks of the Ineligible, driven by desperation to survive by any means. Drug and human trafficking are common, as are assault and manslaughter, but the only one to have increased markedly in frequency from the present day is trading on the Black Market, where virtually anything is available for a price.

Romance is generally pursued via online dating apps, as fraternisation within corporations is actively discouraged. In order to avoid potentially costly genetic treatments in case of offspring, most dating apps for heterosexual couples mandate the upload of genetic tests for compatibility testing. Full psychometric profiles are also algorithmically evaluated to maximise the chances of a successful match. Marriage and birth rates are falling and the number of single persons is increasing.