Eduardo Ficaria
Troubadour
I'm working on a hard scifi cyberpunk story, but I'm having some trouble visualizing it. It's set around one hundred years into our future, and I don't want it to be perceived as another Blade Runner/Neuromancer copycat, although it will have (probably unavoidable) resemblances in certain aspects. I think my problem comes from me not figuring out properly the society I want set it into, so please give me your thoughts about a future neofeudal society. Below I'll list some ideas I'm considering for my setting.
Assume in my setting all kind of technological progress (from what we have now onwards) like highly advanced nanotech, 3D printing almost on any scale and of almost any material, space settlements, space mining, androids and so on. On the ecological side, the global warming has been going on mostly unabated, which has translated over the years to great disasters, massive population displacement and social strife. On the social stratification side, I imagine a social piramid as follows: plebs making a huge base at the bottom, a quite thin level made up of what we would call now middle-class (plebs chosen/elevated to work on some jobs like in science or tech), an even thinner privileged level and then the tiny pinnacle of the ultraprivileged at the top.
I left out many other details to avoid making this first explanation too long, but sure there are a lot of them around the neofeudalism (or neomedievalism) concept. I'll try to remember to mention such aspects if the debate seems to leads us towards any of them.
- In a feudal society, there was a need for serfs to tend to the land and to fight in wars. But in an age in which mostly every job or menial task has been automated, where's the need for serfs?
- One possibility is that common people as a whole could be unofficially treated as a melting pot of sorts from which governments, corporations and NGOs cherry-pick the most talented individuals they identify fitting for certain jobs.
- I also imagine that it would be unavoidable for governments to pay for social peace with a basic universal income.
- If the common people is only given a basic income, just enough to keep on living and not much else, how corporations can make any profit?
- Could be that they profit mainly from the data they extract from monitoring people using their services, so like today but much more intensive and data-extractive.
- I imagine a world in which nation-states are mostly no more, except for very strong ones (China, USA), and most of them have surrendered their authority to bigger transnationals organizations like the European Union or the African Union, to withstand better the economical and ecological challenges of their time. But this also has implications for their citizens.
- People could be more inclined to be vassals to corporations rather than being loyal to diffuse public authorities, since corporations are much more present in their lives through services and products.
- I'm also assuming in this settings that governments have delegated or, rather, surrendered, some of their traditional obligations to corporations and NGOs mainly due to (huge) debt issues.
- Nowadays the rich and, specially, the ultrarich keep themselves far from the rest of society. But in a truly futuristic neofeudal society, does this still make sense?
- I see this very possible, since the future neolords will have access to all kind of information about their domains without needing to ever go there in person at all.
- But since their authority can be felt, in a way, as remote as they physically are, people could tend to switch their loyalty to another neolord more easily, a bit like changing from one social network to another.
- A curious phenomena that would probably happen is that there will be a noticeable stratification (and even gentifrication!) among the privileged ones too, like in a feudal society had differences among the nobility and their level of wealth.
- There are no blood or divine rights attached to wealth in the future, so I imagine the social relationships more fluid among the members of the privileged castes. Still, one can assume that any privileged family will protect their wealth and privileges no matter what, making them behave that reminds of nobility.
- Would it make sense in my setting that some lesser privileged family could swear liege or even fealty to a another more powerful one? In the shape of a corporative contract or something alike I mean. Of course, this could also happen between corporations. Also, bear in mind this wouldn't be like striking some sort of commercial deal, it liege or fealty are more involved notions with strong social repercusions.
- A very good real example of this stratification/gentifrication phenomenon among the rich happening nowadays can be found in this The Guardian article.
Assume in my setting all kind of technological progress (from what we have now onwards) like highly advanced nanotech, 3D printing almost on any scale and of almost any material, space settlements, space mining, androids and so on. On the ecological side, the global warming has been going on mostly unabated, which has translated over the years to great disasters, massive population displacement and social strife. On the social stratification side, I imagine a social piramid as follows: plebs making a huge base at the bottom, a quite thin level made up of what we would call now middle-class (plebs chosen/elevated to work on some jobs like in science or tech), an even thinner privileged level and then the tiny pinnacle of the ultraprivileged at the top.
I left out many other details to avoid making this first explanation too long, but sure there are a lot of them around the neofeudalism (or neomedievalism) concept. I'll try to remember to mention such aspects if the debate seems to leads us towards any of them.