Reader Discussion Topics Part 3/3
As I finished writing up my last batch of answers to Jane Friedman's series of questions, I realized belatedly that I'd missed something important: I hadn't actually directly addressed the question "if humanity is given safety without necessarily being forced to change, what ultimately makes genuine change possible?" Talked around it, certainly, but not actually hammered down a hard answer.
So, here's my act of restitution, to redress that prior omission. Please be a bit patient, as I want to build up the background information before I present my case. The short of it, though, is this thesis statement: the opportunity and encouragement for change in the citizens of the Pan-Galactic Republic is facilitated through the use of the Link.
Once again, I draw your attention to the social experiments done in the game Minecraft:
While I haven't watched all of these videos, I've watched a few and got some significant inspiration from them. Specifically, I got the idea for how the Link would function as a platform for education, entertainment, and social interaction within the universe of The Man from Rock Bottom. Well, that and the Matrix as presented in books like Neil Stephenson's Snow Crash, William Gibson's Sprawl Trilogy, and, of course, the Matrix films.
As a side note: a matrix is a womb, a place of origin, development, and the very earliest sort of learning. Child development studies have determined that we are not a tabula rasa, or blank slate, but come into being with a host of predetermined pieces, quirks, traits, even knowledges, though how much we still don't fully understand, nor why some should have more, some less. Similarly, we are learning the moment we sufficiently develop in the womb, but how much, again, we do not know. As a side-side note, the Minoan labrys-axe, and its derivative, the original Labyrinth of Knossos as well as all derived labyrinths, are metaphorical representations of the uterine canals, of the womb, of the potential that comes from the act of conception, development, and birth.
Image from The Labyrinth Society (linked in the preceding paragraph)
In Gibson's work, the Matrix is described as a "shared consensual hallucination," which makes for a decent enough starting definition. Snow Crash's plot revolves around how such an environment can turn lethal, while Neuromancer and its sequels starts with that as a known possibility, in both cases caused by overloading the brain with deliberate neuro-electrical stimulation. In the Matrix films, it's basically a literally true-to-life reality simulator, even to the point of causing death, potentially, if you believe in it too much, since it's tied directly into your whole body.
Within the universe of The Man from Rock Bottom, the Link is like the Matrix connection from the films, a whole-body connection, though not (as) physically invasive. It also has a variable state of reality simulation: in the book The Man from Rock Bottom, the Man describes the very real ache in his body after a "simulated" workout, and later on (spoiler warning) he receives treatment for lethal injuries, which pull him back from the very brink of death (actually he did die: his heart stopped, though his brain hadn't quite ceased functioning), via his virtual Link connection, facilitated through his Republic-made body armor, which can interact directly with all his body's natural systems (though the full extent of that body armor's influence on his systems is going to be a significant plot point in the second book, The Wasted Lands, presently in the writing as of this post).
At the same time, the Man describes how he's able to more easily distance himself while in a virtual classroom in the Link, so his social anxieties don't hit quite so hard or fast as they normally would. To put it another way, the Link system is as real as you, the user, want it to be. This can range from so real that you can actually suffer lethal injuries - typically heavily restricted, though the Republic does regard your life as your own property, so it's possible to bypass the restriction as long as you go through the appropriate training and registrations - all the way to a simple viewing or listening experience no more realistic than a podcast or social media video posting.
Also
from The Wasted Lands, in a section I've been writing and rewriting for a while now, Susan Six will visit a correctional facility, a deep space asteroid deliberately poised on the edge of a singularity's event horizon, held just barely on that edge by powerful gravitic control technology. This is necessary since the inhabitants of that asteroid facility are some of the most dangerous and subversive criminals in the Republic, and if they escaped, they would almost certainly start causing massive loss of life, limb, and liberty, just as they'd been doing before their confinement. This is not a statement I bandy around lightly: these are people who have very knowingly and very deliberately hurt other people, especially the helpless, the weak, the vulnerable (and yes, if you let your most wicked imaginings run free here, that means exactly what you think it means: when I said these were bad people, I was not exaggerating), and who will happily - eagerly! - do it again, given the chance. So, if they escape, the first systems that will fail are the ones keeping the facility from falling into the singularity in space-time, preventing them from returning to society before they're ready.
The reason this segment is supposed to be important, however, is because the place really is "correctional": it's entirely designed around a localized Link system so that the residents are able to enjoy education, entertainment, and even social interaction, though only with other inmates or with their facility supervisors and counselors and a few carefully vetted outside individuals. Most specifically, however, the Link environment is designed to deliberately put them into learning situations, to run them through educational games meant to allow them to explore themselves, their motivations, their flaws. At the same time, during their counseling sessions, sometimes taking place during these Link games, they also receive empathic treatment, helping them to come out of themselves, to better understand exactly what they did to others, to truly feel empathy for others, sometimes for the very first time.
The Republic regards the lives of even these most awful of people as their personal property. This is why taking your own life, after you have been given appropriate opportunities for counseling and discussion so that the decision can be an informed one, is considered an inalienable right.
Exposed to the full magnitude of what they've done, and then to fully understand it sufficiently to feel honest guilt - the pain that can lead to the healing of bad habits - over two-thirds of such inmates choose to end their lives rather than face the horror of changing. Considering how painful such a full-life change is going to be - just think how hard it is for you to change, to drop an old bad habit or start a new good one, magnify it the nth degree, and you get a good idea! - this is considered a mercy. But if one of these inmates can get past that first shock, then most of them do indeed become better people, even being released in time to become honestly productive citizens (though, of course, with careful supervision, often something they will voluntarily seek out, not really trusting themselves completely after their prior experiences and failings).
That's on the extreme end, but it's also indicative of how the Link works for the average Republic citizen. They'll go around, constructing their own worlds, or taking part in those constructed by others, just like the Minecraft scenarios presented above, or like many online chat communities, like those that can be found on platforms like Discord, Teams, and so forth. Then they'll live in those worlds, try out the style of life there, explore and expand and do their best as a part of a community that feels almost real...right up until the system breaks.
Which it always does, of course: something will go wrong, some individual or group of individuals will act as flies in the societal ointment (we've all likely encountered "trolls" by this point in time, online or in the real world, or "griefers" as they're called in Minecraft, people who just want to watch all the worlds burn and laugh as they dance on the ashes), there will be a counter-clash, a pushback, or perhaps an attempt to take the virtual world in a different direction, and then something goes too far, and it all comes tumbling down.
No effort is made from the outside to intervene and prevent these inevitable collapses, though there are constant mentions of the availability of counseling and educational and vocational services, just on the side so they don't get in the direct way, but also can't be completely ignored. That is because, during or after these events of virtual world-shattering consequences, the people involved are given another wakeup call, another chance to seek for something more, another opportunity for growth out of the ruins of the latest collapse.
Image from TVTropes
In the real world, such collapses can lead to some serious ruinations of life, limb, and property, but these are kept to a minimum in virtual worlds, meaning that the damage is mostly to the emotions of the people involved. And after the latest round of distress has taken place, there will be the services of the educators of the Republic, waiting quietly on the sidelines for anyone who might want to try something new and (hopefully) better in the infinite and infinitely expanding universe. This is a big part of why there's a whole Ministry of Education: it's considered that absolutely essential to keeping the Republic going.
(But I'll cover more on the Ministries in a future post.)
Oh! And a final note, on the education of children: until you hit about 25 for humans, or the equivalent in other species, you're not legally considered an adult by Republic standards. Thanks to the centuries-long lifespan of the average Republic citizen, this isn't as big a deal as it would be in our world. It does mean that such persons count as a special case, since they're in a highly vulnerable and impressionable developmental state that requires special treatment and consideration.
Image from this LinkedIn article
This is why, though such persons still have extensive rights, they have much greater protections, which includes having their right to life (including taking their own) carefully controlled, and requiring them to engage in educational pursuits until they reach at least the Apprentice stage in two or three potential future careers. Enough to get them started on the path toward making informed decisions when they enter legal adulthood and full citizenship.
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