Service Model

by Adrian Tchaikovsky

in human populations there is seldom a uniformity of knowledge. Based on existing information I estimate that forty-five percent were unaware of the situation or considered it fake, owing to the precisely curated news sources that they limited themselves to, whilst a further thirty percent were aware but did not consider it their problem and twenty percent were aware and actively cheering on the fact or profiting from shorting elements of the neighbouring economy. A final five percent seem likely to have been directly and deliberately contributing to the collapse of their neighbour, either through reasons of malice or because they believed that in the absence of that competition their own interests would prosper. Whilst low as a proportion, I estimate this final category wielded a disproportionate amount of influence.

His influence was, towards the end, primarily engaged in the destruction of every part of his polity that benefited the polity as a whole or its population in general, on the basis that he was placed to reap a proportionally minor benefit from such destruction.

In his experience to date, human habitats came in two flavours: the well-to-do who could afford both robots and waste, and the frugal who could afford neither.

what if, even as you replace everyone with robots that are cheaper and quicker and less likely to join a union or complain about working conditions, you also continue to insist that individual value is tied to production, and everyone who’s idle is a parasite scrounging off the state?