Protecting All Citizens / Big Brother is Watching
- Thread starter jcrocker
- Start date
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
It is the kryptonite of Souperman.
The destruction of the planet being traced to explosive diarrhea.
The destruction of the planet being traced to explosive diarrhea.
Isn't salmonella what you get when you combine a mouse of salmon with Nutella?
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
I assume that you meant "mousse", the pudding desert, rather than "mouse", the small rodent. A "small rodent of salmon" does not make it.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
Going back more to the concept of the original post, as I see it, the more intrusive and controlling the government is, the more those who are the innovators and experimenters are going to leave. In Traveller terms, you should see a slow but steady decline in Tech Level, or at the very least, a plateau of Tech Level, with no internal increase.
Cashless society and Law Level
For an intrusive and controlling government electronic funds transfer or the cashless society becomes a useful tool. The theory goes like this:
If you buy everything with electronic funds, the bank can see everything you do.
If the bank can see everything you spend your money on, it can use that information for commercial purposes (credit rating for example).
If the bank can see everything that happens in your bank accounts then the government can also see.
If the government can see a transaction it can also block it.
For example: you want to make a donation to a civil rights group? Transaction blocked.
They can track your spending.
And if they really don't like you, try buying bread: Transaction BLOCKED.
So maybe thats a good reason for the PCs to keep some cash in the ship's safe? Unless the planetary government bans cash. I can imangine the warning signs at the downport: Deposit all cash at the XT line in the safes provided.
For an intrusive and controlling government electronic funds transfer or the cashless society becomes a useful tool. The theory goes like this:
If you buy everything with electronic funds, the bank can see everything you do.
If the bank can see everything you spend your money on, it can use that information for commercial purposes (credit rating for example).
If the bank can see everything that happens in your bank accounts then the government can also see.
If the government can see a transaction it can also block it.
For example: you want to make a donation to a civil rights group? Transaction blocked.
They can track your spending.
And if they really don't like you, try buying bread: Transaction BLOCKED.
So maybe thats a good reason for the PCs to keep some cash in the ship's safe? Unless the planetary government bans cash. I can imangine the warning signs at the downport: Deposit all cash at the XT line in the safes provided.
Enoki
SOC-14 1K
What you'd see is "borrowed" (eg., stolen) technology as the substitute. That is, such a world would simply acquire their technology from elsewhere for the most part. So, they'd always be behind the curve so-to-speak. The best they could manage would be one or two TL lower than the maximum or highest available nearby.
Enoki
SOC-14 1K
I think they'd go one step further. That is they'd control the exchange rate for cash coming in from elsewhere. For big corporations and other governments they have a "special" rate that's fair and good as the government wouldn't want to anger these people.
For the small ship coming into the starport they have an official government exchange you are supposed to use to get local electronic funds, but there's a markup on the exchange rate in the government's favor not to mention a processing fee for a transaction-- and it goes up with the size of the transaction--
Now, you could take your chances and try to slip through customs with cash on you instead and go to the local equivalent of a pawn shop where they give you a much better rate if you talk to the right person and go to the backroom... But...
Worse, they only provide you with "script" if you exchange left over funds back into cash on leaving. That is, the money is worthless anywhere but on that world.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
Tends to create a black market, possibly a parallel currency that may be illegal but widely accepted, whether ShadowRun's mafia script or cryptocurrencies.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
Stolen technology might cause problems that could not be adequately seen in advance. I would assume that a very controlling government would not want to add much new technology, as that could easily cause problems. Then you have to train the people to use the stolen technology, which might require someone going off-planet, and exposed to who know what heretical ideas and concepts.
Enoki
SOC-14 1K
Yet, this is a very common pattern of dictatorships and central control governments on Earth...
As but two historical examples:
The Soviet Union reverse engineered the B-29 into the Tu 4 heavy bomber. Imagine a world wanting to get jump capable ships and simply seizing a few, or buying one or two off world to copy. I could even see a heavy handed dictatorship when confronted, saying that it was invented locally, not a copy despite the obviousness of the lie.
Another Soviet one was the British GL II antiaircraft fire control radar. The British sent some to the Soviet union via Murmansk. An internal research group had been tasked with inventing such a set. They sent people to Murmansk where they "acquired" a couple of the sets and put the rest in a warehouse under heavy guard.
They then copied the set and presented it to Stalin as their invention while at the same time sent all of the British sets back to Britain telling the British they had their own "better" set thank you very much!
The research institute and researchers got medals and awards for their efforts instead of being sent to the gulag...
I could see similar things happening in Traveller. The Imperial government sends some advanced piece of gear to world ABC. The local scientific or military types grab it before anyone knows its on the planet. They copy it and then return the Imperial government gear saying the same thing. The local dictator awards them for their great advance in technology never being aware of what transpired...
And is didn't end there. There are contemporary terrestrial examples of repressive regimes that offer advanced social status and incentives to locals, often ignorant of life outside their own little hell, to excel technically and scientifically. Then with a bit of a leg up they advance their own level of capability in some specific areas of technical capability.
For the purposes of a game it would be necessary to articulate whether the TL for a given system in its UWP was the highest level attained in the chosen field/s and what the rest of society was like, or whether that was the general level and what the higher one was and what it covered.
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Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
Going by the Soviet example, you have special shops full of Western goods reserved for the elite.
Going by a more current example, Alexa Is Watching You.
On the military side, weapon systems that act as deterrence from regime change attempts, when territorial expansion is no longer a viable option.
Going by a more current example, Alexa Is Watching You.
On the military side, weapon systems that act as deterrence from regime change attempts, when territorial expansion is no longer a viable option.
When I go to the bank to get cash money, I get it either from an ATM or from the Teller.
When I get it from the Teller, she no longer opens a drawer and starts counting out 20's.
Instead, she types in command in to her terminal, and then walks over to a communal cash machine that counts out the bills. She then counts it out and hands it to me.
Now, this is a singular (large) bank experience. And no doubt there in imperfect distribution out in the world.
However, it would not surprise me in the least if the bank "knows" what bills I left the door with, and then, later, when the commercial deposits arrive, and the bills counted again, that they track the other side.
In the most simple case, the bank could know I got a $20 bill and, later, it showed up in the deposit of the local grocery store. Is that enough info to say that *I* spent the $20 at the grocery store? No, but it's certainly interesting data. Add in some correlation and cooperation with the other banks, and it can provide basic cash flows.
Now, I don't know if this is happening now. But it could happen. The whole adage about kidnappers not wanting marked bills is long gone -- unless you're getting paid in quarters, all of the cash money is effectively marked today.
That's a lot of work. Or more to the point it would take a lot of manpower to track bills/notes in that manner, and as you point out the serials need to be known as they are passed to you.
Knowing of several incidences of banks passing counterfeit bills/notes via their ATMs I'd guess that not all banks pay that much attention to the cash passing through their hands, especially as its becoming a smaller and smaller part of their business.
The point about the cashless society is that its being advocated for right now by governments and banks. Perhaps that's because it makes more sense, or because its more economical (printing notes can cost $0.05), or maybe its because it makes tracking all transactions a trivial matter.
It's work to set up, but not a show-stopper.
In the example above, the maker incorporates a serial reader into the bank teller's communal cash counter/scanner, which counts out a cash withdrawal. The grocery store's daily/weekly cash deposits also get run through a counter/scanner. All that info gets sent to Ministry of Public Safety if it's aboveboard, or the Department of Public Health Special Sanitation Section if it's a secret police state.
Both times at the bank that the machine scans it, they have to count it out anyway, so there's no extra labour there. There's extra infrastructure needed, but those megacorporations have to sell big-ticket items to somebody to keep the dividends up.
Enoki
SOC-14 1K
I've always taken the UPP to be a general one for the world in question. The highest level could be several above the one in the profile, and might even be well above the profile level in specific areas.
I also think the UPP could be off significantly depending on when the IISS took their last survey as well as the accessibility of the world, particularly when dealing with non-Imperial worlds.
I'd think if the scout service couldn't get a good survey of some non-Imperial system they'd give it their best guess and leave it at that. It's a number on a form and it needs filling in, but nobody's paying close attention.
Sort of like the entry for Earth in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: "Mostly harmless."
I'd think that for societies that favor the community over the individual, these sorts of things would be happily accepted.
Needs of the many outweigh wants of the few, etc.
Abuses would be the result of corruption. Higher levels of government would be expected to curtail the abusers.
Systemic corruption becomes its own government type. ( oligarchies? feudalism? )
Needs of the many outweigh wants of the few, etc.
Abuses would be the result of corruption. Higher levels of government would be expected to curtail the abusers.
Systemic corruption becomes its own government type. ( oligarchies? feudalism? )
Yea, it's not a lot of work at all, really. It's an incremental addition to the counting and dispensing machines.
Consider another example.
The post office pretty much tracks every piece of mail. Every piece of mail is scanned, simply as part of the routing process.
It would not surprise me at all if you got a letter with anthrax in it, that the post office could not tell you from which route that letter came from, where it was picked up. I doubt they have it down to the mail box, etc. But they could probably tell you which route.
Is that actionable on its own? No. But it's data that can be used in a post mortem to gain insight for an investigation.
If you have Netflix, you should watch the show they have that was on Discovery about the Unibomber and appreciate the level of effort the FBI went through. And that was pre- a lot of stuff that we have today.
