FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

This is a work in progress. I found getting all the ideas I have researched together was easiest to do as a 'looking back' story. Comment more questions and if I can answer them I'll add them to the story (or state that I'm looking into it in the comments).

“I'm glad to take a break from liaison duties. While I could use the money, I can eat in the Solar Collective for free. So that makes up for it somewhat," they said as they picked up their sandwich and took a bite, “Oh, this is so good. This place is just a hole in the wall but has such quality ingredients. Who'd guess truffle and caviar would taste so good on a turkey sandwich?"

I nod in agreement, this being one of my favorite places to eat near the border. I've been troubleshooting with them for several months now for issues around the border They call it work and a job, but for me, it's just ensuring everything keeps the good times going. It's funny how a slight difference in perspective really changes your attitude.

“I don't get how you can afford this—for free. We used to all be one country, but I can't imagine how we'd get here, even with all our progress."

“Oh, the trick was to take it in steps. You can't just jump from Capitalism to Solar economy. It took a few attempts to get halfway measures right, but it's not hard," I put aside my ham sandwich and got a drink of juice as I prepared to dive into my favorite subject. In fact, these discussions were why I prefer to do a lot of border troubleshooting.

“First, of course, was getting everything to post-scarcity. The West Coast got a good head start on that, but even you technically have it now. All Needs have an ample supply and transportation to ensure there is always plenty for everyone. Once that 'Need' infrastructure was done, we started depending more on AI and their mechanical automation. With that, there weren't enough jobs to do. The only thing left is what we all do now: Troubleshooting. And since that isn't a constant thing, we needed Universal Basic Income."

They paused while enjoying their sandwich to say, “It is so nice and quiet here; I rarely get to have a good conversation like this. But we tried UBI, but it didn't work, at least I'm told."

I pause for a minute to make a decision, “Let's derail for a moment because I want you to consider why better solutions haven't come to your side of the border faster. It is exactly what you just off-handily mentioned: the ability to have a conversation. I see you doing the flicking motion for your augmented reality absentmindedly even as we talk, but don't you wonder how I'm getting my news?"

Their face showed an instant bit of mild annoyance but then thoughtfulness. “Not that I can get much over here, but I am curious."

“The news feed you are getting is from a 'foreigner AI' that is an imitation of the ones we have in our head. It's trying to imitate what you normally get for news but avoids overstimulating and distracting you, so it's easier for you to pay attention and have a conversation like this."

“No, the feed never distracts me with the news I don't want to know about; it knows all my preferences. ...What do you mean overstimulate?"

“Of course it does; that is how they market best to you. Have you seen a commercial here yet? Their AI information algorithm isn't too far from ours. The difference is that the information given to you is in the best interests of the health of the corporations you are willing to support. In contrast, my specific feed is solely in my best interests and for my specializations and prioritized by request for when I need it."

“You don't have a feed all the time? How do you keep up with current things?"

“You don't, and you don't need to; it isn't your troublesh… err, your job. If I am concerned, I ask my AI, who readily gives me the information I'm curious about. But how the world works beyond my microcosm doesn't matter. It's unneeded stress; with the knowledge access of the net and personal AI, we can filter it to only what we need or are interested in."

I apologize for venturing into another of my favorite areas, psychology, but I ask a question that I can already guess the answer to: “Do you know of Dunbar's Number and Social Density in psychology?"

“No, I never really had time to poke psychology."

“That is exactly it, right there; your system isn't leaving you enough time. There are at least two old theories based on animal experiments and observations about how much we can care. The latter came from the Mouse Utopia Experiment to see what giving mice a perfect environment would do to them. Our brain has a physical limitation on how much we can care, our village of people, and the opinionated matters we care most about."

“I guess that makes sense; I care most about the people I chat with daily, my family, and things like how much tax they are taking out of my pay."

I grin, not wanting to wait to return to the previous topic, but first, let this conversation play out. “Hold on, let me find a quick example. Oh, did you know McD's is bringing back the Mulan sauce next week?"

“What?!? I remember that from my childhood! It was so good. I haven't eaten at McD's in at least 5 years."

“And now you are probably thinking about when you can have a meal there once you get back and how far a local McD's is from your place."

“Err… yes."

“And not so much on the conversations we are having, right? See, this is what your feed does; it's flooding you with information based on your preferences for pseudo-importance. It's taking up that 'Care' space in your mind and shoving out that time or desire to 'poke psychology,' for instance. If I didn't mention it, you'd probably not have even thought of McD's for several more years, right?"

“I mean, I'd have seen an ad or something, most likely."

I nod. “And they do that intentionally, that sensory and sensational overload of pseudo-importance so you might not even pay attention to important things that may have mattered to you, like the details in what your side tried in Universal Basic Income."

Finally, returning to the topic, I continued, “What you tried was a flat amount. That doesn't work. The amount they gave a person in the countryside could live off for several months, while it was only enough for a week or two in the big cities. On top of that, they levied a big tax to fund it."

“Wait, how did it work without a tax? Where does the money come from?" they mentioned around their last bite, confused.

“You can think what we did is a tax, especially for the rich, but since the government didn't keep any of the money, it's not a tax."

“So somehow you paid the exact amount needed for everyone to get UBI? That sounds complex."

“Not really, it's easier than you'd think. Let's pretend there is area where people live and work. The government surveys the cost of living of that area yearly, including medical, and already knows when you're working via taxes. The way we did it was to make a threshold system that depended on age and disability. Take the hours worked multiplied by how needed the work was to meet people's needs and divided by what work the person could do each year of adulthood. As long as you met the threshold for your age, even if you weren't currently working, you counted as in the system. Of course, everyone was grandfathered into the threshold for their last year of age plus the work they did the year it was implemented. There are many more subtitle manipulations, such as you can't expect someone newly-adult to get the same threshold as an expert, but that is the gist."

“Wouldn't that be bad for people currently out of work?"

“Yeah, it was a little rough. You could get a waiver at the Unemployment Office for many reasons, which would get you a minimum as long as you have worked recently enough, but you need to get new work within the year. Anyhow, we have the average income of our qualified number of people and divide the by areas cost of living to get the percentage we need to fill the pool. We take that percentage, remove it from each income, then give back cost of living to each."

“Well, that sounds good, but did it work?"

“Yes, in fact, it had great side effects. If 50 of those people worked for ahem, let's call it Corner Store and weren't being paid the cost of living, the percentage would be much bigger, and every business would turn on Corner Store to keep that percentage down. The other way to keep that percent low was also to make sure what was deemed needed was as cheap as possible, so the cost of living went down… and since medical was part of that…"

“Medical got much cheaper, even without Universal Healthcare."

“Exactly, and that was a good start."

“But you don't even really have money now; how did it get to this?"

“This is just setup for the next parts. Once Needs were met and every Need was automated, it was easier to implement the next step, separating money into two types. The 'Needs' money you get from UBI and the 'Luxury' money from the rest of your paycheck since most Luxuries were still handmade and/or services. You could still get items that fell under the Needs category with Luxury money, but it was much more costly. So those that only did Luxury work had a fallback if they didn't meet the threshold. Though most everything has some level of Need, entertainment is as mentally fore-filling as food is physically."

“So why was this done? It seems like it would be an odd unproven system and if either money tanked, you'd be screwed."

“That is how a capitalist would think, right? And it was proven out, time and again, in good games that used real money purchases well. You'd have your in-game money, which you earned for playing to get you things you Need to play the game, and the paid Luxury money from real life for Luxury skins and such. The Needs money wasn't important once everyone was on the new system; its sole purpose was to remove the Needs products from the market values. And with the Luxuries now fairly monitored we could evaluate the 'worth' of each Luxury by its supply and demand."

“I'll get a strawberry shortcake. And what would that do?" they mentioned to the patient waiter before returning to the conversation.

“It lets us point resources and new businesses to fill those supply wants. When everyone could get what they realistically wanted at a decent price, Luxury money became a bit superfluous."

“But what about stuff with so many resources or can only be made in limited amounts?"

“That is where the working threshold comes back to. Now we can order who gets what first by those that pay some of their excess thresholds for Luxuries that they sign up for, going first to those with the most excessive threshold on the list."

“Isn't that just money then?"

“Kind of, except it's money that depends solely on how hard you work at stuff that brings the most value to society and nothing else. No one can 'pay' you that threshold value; it's just gone. No one can 'become rich'. Though some have tried to game the system early on, in the end, when needs are met, what is the point? With everyone having what they need and most of what they want, what would that do for you? There is no scarcity, fear, or need to take from others."

“Well, other than those outside the system."

“Sure, but we've been able to focus on our progress and defend it solely. Offense tech peaked, falling behind, and is now in a catch-up game trying to get past the latest defenses. Since no one in human history has focused on purely defensive measures beyond castles and maybe plate armor, that focus on keeping the peace and harmony has unearthed many untapped technologies. Even if the Enclave weren't focusing on still policing as much of the world as it can now and turned your attention to try to take from us, you'd never get far. And even if you did, what would you get? You aren't interested in the defense tech, the space tech, or even the tech that would help you eliminate your false scarcity if they were willing to put money into it. We know that cause we give that last to everyone freely, and yet you've shown no interest in giving the resources for us to make it for you."

“We'd just dismantle and reverse engineer it."

“Which is why we require that we install these post-scarcity techs so that once the citizens know how nice it is, they'd turn on a government that destroys it. And those states that have agreed…"

“Have slowly been changing over to the Solor Collective. Because why just have a taste of dessert when you can have dessert every day," they smirked as they finished their shortcake. “Wait… is that why you request border states have such a large amount of diverse liaisons?"

“I mean, there is a large complexity in dealing with two very different cultures across the border, so it is needed. But we are urged for the sake of progress to treat our partner liaisons from the other side with a sample of the goods; we were once capitalists too you know. Winning you over puts pressure on your government to be as equally hospitable. Destroy them with kindness."