Chapter 2 - After the Famine
Entering a university is very challenging. There are only a handful of universities and they set very high entrance standards. Bianca has been coaching young William McNamara, a precocious school boy who wishes to become a Grad like her.
He's just submitted an assignment: to write an essay about the world today and she's reviewing it. He'll need to write very well if he wants to study at the University. These are now restricted to educating those dedicated to a life of research and scholarship or those requiring the same skills, knowledge and understanding. Graduates of a university need to master these old skills as they are the providers of basic research and acquirers of new knowledge of the kind that is not yet available in The Cloud, for example, how does the human brain actually work or the origin of the Higgs Boson and 'dark energy'.
The great bulk of the population rely instead on their Virtual Personal Assistant, hosted in The Cloud, for the knowledge that they need to function from day to day. Just as pocket calculators obviated the need to know how to multiply large numbers or to calculate angles during the late twentieth century, so a century later handheld devices such as small screens have obviated the need for most people to be able to read or write. Obviously, one does not have to be a graduate to be able to enunciate the theories of Sigmund Freud or to know about Greek mythology or any other already available knowledge. One can simply ask your VPA who will look those up for you in The Cloud and read to you in your own language, explaining any difficult concepts by reference to the Central Encyclopaedia. Not that the average person has any interest in such things.
The other areas that employ graduates are in: government policy and administration; information technology; and some creative fields such as writing. This is where William would like to excel.
Bianca is sitting in her favourite coffee shop reading William's paper.
After the Famineby William McNamara - December 2069 As the new decade approaches it is back to 'business as usual' for the developed world, indeed across the entire unified world economy. People have recovered from the loss of so many relatives in The Great Famine and the economic turmoil of the 50's. The population fell dramatically at that time with some regions being effectively depopulated. World order has been restored and a new World Common Market is proving to provide unprecedented market opportunities for the entrepreneur, despite the steady decline in the number of consumers as we head towards the target of two billion people by 2110. Many Government programmes are directed to reducing World population to sustainable levels. For example, women who fall pregnant must be able to demonstrate that at least two qualified adults have committed to adequately support the child until the age of eighteen, in order to qualify for a baby licence. The alternative is a termination at one of numerous Voluntary Euthanasia (VE) clinics or banishment. Unwanted pregnancies and unlicensed births are virtually unknown. There is no longer an underprivileged working class nor any abject poverty. Since the New Economy was established after The Great Famine, when basic personal support (food clothing and basic housing) became everyone's inheritance and right under the Modified Universal Declaration of Human Rights, there has been little need to accumulate surplus credit. Indeed, excessive credit surpluses may be confiscated under the Scrooge Protocol. Almost anything an enterprising person can imagine can be ordered from the automated factories that are known collectively as 'China Works'. Who knows why? They produce a lot more than tableware. The great mass of the people are known as 'Bogans'. Typically, Bogans are functionally illiterate and innumerate. They recognise many common words, such as team names and subway-stops, and certain common phrases but are unable or unwilling to bother with complex sentences and most can't add two six-digit numbers together. Yet they are great communicators, spending a huge part of their day just chatting on their communications device. Each has a Virtual Personal Assistant known as their VPA, resident in The Cloud, 'who' can be called to help from any Cloud connected device, for example from their pocket communicator, an MV screen or a refrigerator door. Because each VPA has a lifelike Avatar in cyberspace most regard them as another person: a servant who appears in any device and is dedicated to their needs 24/7. Their VPA reads out script in any language or style and calculates and translates for them, so they have no need of those skills. Bogans are consummate home owners and may have several 'holiday homes', in addition to their principal residence. They take great pride in their property and their values are similar to those of the old middle classes - conservative and loyal to society. When the World Anthem is played, they leap to attention. But generally, they just want to get on with enjoying their life. Almost all of them have well paid jobs in the media, sport or entertainment or religion or providing personal services like beauty therapy. They are amazingly fashion conscious and must have the latest fad - great consumers with enormous disposable income now that basic needs like food, clothing and shelter can in theory be met by less than a tenth of the basic earnings. I say in theory - because no one would want to live like that - with only two bathrooms and no year-round, self-cleaning swimming pool. Most Bogans like to have a block big enough for a large house to provide room for all their stuff and sufficient surrounding area for their assorted land, water and air vehicles. Now that two thirds of the pre-famine housing stock has been demolished in those cities that survive this is not a luxury. But bedrooms are not a priority. Family size is restricted to two children per couple unless the parents are prepared to commit to voluntary euthanasia (VE) the day their youngest child reaches adulthood. This is known as a Ten-Two Contract. Naturally, when the prime social imperative is to quickly restore world population to a sustainable number, anyone providing life-extending medicine to people with chronic diseases has committed a criminal act. There is an exemption for assisting the victims of bona-fide accidents or malicious attacks and automated emergency hospitals, supervised by a small squad of mobile technicians, address this need. Just as long-ago patients ceased to trust a human pharmacist to compound their drugs in a back room, it's many years since people trusted a human 'doctor' to interpret the findings of hospital body scanning machines and try to think of treatments; or a human 'surgeon' carryout invasive microsurgery. You might as well let some person with a soldering iron attempt to repair your hand-held communicator. And of course, modern robotic recovery-cribs care for patients 24/7 without growing inattentive or having shift changeovers. No wonder there was so much cross infection and super-bugs in those primitive hospitals with human nursing staff moving from patient to patient, acting as disease vectors. Medical experts are still employed in the administration of World and regional health but they are more likely to be a PhD than an MD. The result is that almost everyone but the most stoic will end their life in a VE Clinic, popularly known as a 'Departure Lounge' when those final pains or forgetfulness degrade their life sufficiently. Then they can complete their life in dignity, surrounded by their loved ones, in ceremonies more like weddings than the old-style funerals that used to be held after a death. Of course, VE is freely available to everyone at any time and the Clinics can be found in many locations. Most have a religious affiliation and are known as 'churches' but there are secular Clinics too. All must have a licensed VE Celebrant who is to ensure that the person wishing to die is an adult and has either come to them uncoerced or because they are under a legal obligation, for example to avoid banishment or because they elected to have more than the regulation number of children. The Celebrant is licensed to administer synthetic hemlock - a delicious concoction that is fast acting and painless. The Clinics also act as collection points for the corpse recycling facilities that reprocess the flesh, blood and bone. At the peak of the disaster when half a billion people were dying a month this was a major logistical problem but these days the number is much more manageable, a little over a hundred million a year worldwide. In addition to Bogans there are two other socially distinct classes. But that's more of a cultural or life choice thing. The average Bogan has a bigger home and a lot more material stuff than the so-called upper class known as the Grads. Universities have located near their market, the cities in which Continental and Local governments are located and Grads are employed. Grads tend to gravitate here seeking people having similar tastes and interests. Bogans hate these places, not because they 'fear to tread' but because it's just so glassy and alien and colourless and there is no pulsing beat and no theme or entertainment parks or mega-shopping malls. When a Bogan might occasionally meet a Grad - who represent slightly over only one in a thousand in the total population and are very rare where Bogans 'hang out' - they can't believe how drab and unfashionable they are. Many have a sort of self-imposed uniform and wear the same drab styles of 'business' or 'leisure' clothes for months or even years on end and seem to have no interest in the weekly or daily fashion watch. Most Grads, for their part, find the rapidly changing Bogan scene highly confusing, their games pointless and their shops bewilderingly full of 'stuff' that they have no use for, that seems to exist very briefly between the retailer and the recycling collector. It all seems a waste of time to a Grad, who seldom has to think twice about what clothes to wear or how to do their hair. Virtual shopping malls in The Cloud compete with actual physical shopping malls at which customers can handle and try physical goods and, in some cases, even carry them away themselves. Shopping is now the world's greatest recreational experience. But carry-away is generally restricted to specialty food and clothing, as delivery drones will usually get cumbersome or regularly purchased goods home faster, usually after the reorder-recycle system has already disposed of the previous model. The present annual retail orgy is not limited to those areas of World culture that are centres for the recent Christian religious revival. Neo-pagans worship the ancient spirits of the European mid-winter festival too. Religion went into something of a decline during the years of The Great Famine but now the desert is blooming under the rain of economic recovery. People are once again searching for meaning, beyond their personal survival. The blooms are manifold. The Abrahamic religions remain as influential and as competitive as ever. The many factions compete to undermine each other and attempt to mobilise the faithful in their strategies. Monotheistic Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, a dozen Protestant faiths as well as the several branches of Islam and Judaism all attempt to recruit souls from each other and convert them from the many Eastern religions and gods that have seduced so many away previously. But the largest and fastest growing faith is neo-Paganism. This is a return to pre-Christian European religion that once dominated the whole of Northern Europe at the beginning of the present interglacial, as agriculture and fixed settlement replaced nomadic hunting. People are attracted to its mysticism and magic to herbs and crystals and essential oils; to chants and rituals and to forest bonfires on cold nights and to bodily pampering and naturally, to sex. Neo-Paganism has absorbed Epicurean and Bacchanalian elements. It eschews the concept of abstinence or the nobility of poverty. It embraces luxury and conspicuous consumption. So, the mid-winter festival is recruitment time for one and all. This year is the 'greatest opportunity ever' for the World's religions to offer gift certificates, once known as Christmas cards, in the competition for a greater share of the souls of all the 'men and women of the World'. |
Bianca stopped reading. William shared her distain for Bogan consumerism but Grads still needed to have clothes, preferring quality garments that last more than a few weeks. Her recent shopping trip with Margery had been anything than straight forward but Margery was right. She did need a business suit if she's to fit in with the other Grads in her Division who are mostly in the policy area. At the moment she still dresses like a student or perhaps a developer.
Yet William's observations are accurate. Bogans follow the latest trends and no Bogan would want to be see dead in an unfashionable 'Grad's Uniform'.
This started her thinking again about today's class differences.
During the first part of the twenty-first century food was so readily available in some countries that obesity became a serious social problem particularly among the lowest socio-economic classes. Similarly, basic clothing was inexpensive and readily available to all. In the higher echelons people were careful to moderate their calorie intake and to seek quality rather than quantity when it came to food and clothes. The parallel today is housing and material goods. Housing 'obesity', together with the rapid consumption of material things, runs rampant in the suburbs of our cities, encouraged of course, by government that sees ongoing economic growth, in the face of declining population, as the key to maximising happiness and thus, social stability.
Of course, everyone, including Grads, has more living space now than before the Famine. Those high-rise apartments that remain are usually the homes of Busies or Grads. Now they generally occupy a space that may once have been several apartments and have fittings and fixtures of lasting quality. But most Bogans find the space afforded by an entire floor of an apartment block far too small. And why on earth would anyone want to keep the same kitchens or bathrooms or any room for more than six months? It's unhygienic. That's why you need two plus six. A spare kitchen is essential when the other is under renovation and you need at least one working toilet per adult and a couple for guests to 'barbies' and other parties.
Because she'd wanted to explore these ideas a little further, she'd recently been on a little anthropological adventure; not into the heart of darkness; but to the most colourful place she's ever been.