Wow, thanks you guys! I love the Millie and Mike. I knew there would be proper terms out there.
You guys hit a couple plot points (or came very close). That's encouraging because I want this environment to be just on the edge of truely possible.
The prisons are swollen with violators of morality clauses of the new 'enhanced' Patriot Act. They are used as manual communications screeners (think of the NSA data hub being built in Utah, prisoners are the mTurk workers and they are incentivised to identify 'questionable' communications). Alt.2600 has developed to an unregulated communications system and most resisters carry equipment adapted for connections to avoid the 100% government surveilance of all communications.
Physical money is strongly discouraged to enable 100% tracking and taxation. Employers offer crap housing as part of wages (and USD wages are extremely low preventing escape from the serf labor class). As a result, barter is more common and the bitcoin is an underground currency.
Water is tightly controlled. Pink slime is the main protien source (now I need to add fructaid - cool idea since a ConAgra has taken over most farmland for corn production).
Any other ideas, please feel free to post or send me a PM, no matter how weird.
Topic: Speculate about the year 2020 - page 3. (Read 8004 times)
A .001 is a millie. A kilocoin would be 1000!
But the unit to watch in 2020 is the mike, .000001.
But the unit to watch in 2020 is the mike, .000001.
The for profit american prisons have turned into slave camps/merchants.
The "police" are thugs looking for new slaves at any excuse - except if you are white or (especially) if you are rich.
Lots of NGOs have become independent villages/states, though only in areas the government doesn't have the resources to oppress - ie. slightly hippie-ish/Amish communes in deserts and such.
BTC and TOR are used to avoid detection by police in most cases.
The "police" are thugs looking for new slaves at any excuse - except if you are white or (especially) if you are rich.
Lots of NGOs have become independent villages/states, though only in areas the government doesn't have the resources to oppress - ie. slightly hippie-ish/Amish communes in deserts and such.
BTC and TOR are used to avoid detection by police in most cases.
some bullshit speculation about the mid-term future - maybe a bit extreme but i expect suff like this written in a dystopian bitcoin/cypherpunk future.
cash is banned. if you are stopped by the police and carry cash you are put to jail.
all government approved transactions in dollars are 100% monitored.
although they did ban bitcoin exchanges it has become a defacto cash replacement. carrying a unencrypted usb stick with wallet is as dangerous as carrying cash. thus, people switched to encrypted storate with plausible deniability and brainwallets, where the passphrase is stored in your brain and all traces of the transaction are wiped after usage.
despite these difficulties bitcoin transactions have become mandatory for a normal life, since living at government regulated level is a real pain.
for example if you want to shower you must use a showerhead which dispenses no more than 2L/minute. if you wanted to buy a regular showerhead you must use bitcoin instead.
dollar stores sell very cheap high fructose corn syrup with added vitamins in different flavors - everything the body needs. but you know its fake and most people start to hate it. there are also fruits and vegetables but out of fear for terrorism and the possibility of drugs only normed plants are available in dollar stores and very expensive. 90% of grown fruits are destroyed or mashed into syrup.
if you want to eat something healthy for an affordable price you need bitcoins too to buy fruits and vegetables at a farmer's market. there you get lopsided cucumbers and such for an affordable price.
workers negotiate their salary ratio of bitcoin to dollars. the bitcoin amout is not enforcable but is guarded by honor code. if an employer violated the honor code this is soon well-known though the tor hidden services which act as message hubs.
government employees only work for max 30hours/week and do not recieve bitcoins. most of them grow their own food in the backyard in their free time and sell them on farmer's market.
cash is banned. if you are stopped by the police and carry cash you are put to jail.
all government approved transactions in dollars are 100% monitored.
although they did ban bitcoin exchanges it has become a defacto cash replacement. carrying a unencrypted usb stick with wallet is as dangerous as carrying cash. thus, people switched to encrypted storate with plausible deniability and brainwallets, where the passphrase is stored in your brain and all traces of the transaction are wiped after usage.
despite these difficulties bitcoin transactions have become mandatory for a normal life, since living at government regulated level is a real pain.
for example if you want to shower you must use a showerhead which dispenses no more than 2L/minute. if you wanted to buy a regular showerhead you must use bitcoin instead.
dollar stores sell very cheap high fructose corn syrup with added vitamins in different flavors - everything the body needs. but you know its fake and most people start to hate it. there are also fruits and vegetables but out of fear for terrorism and the possibility of drugs only normed plants are available in dollar stores and very expensive. 90% of grown fruits are destroyed or mashed into syrup.
if you want to eat something healthy for an affordable price you need bitcoins too to buy fruits and vegetables at a farmer's market. there you get lopsided cucumbers and such for an affordable price.
workers negotiate their salary ratio of bitcoin to dollars. the bitcoin amout is not enforcable but is guarded by honor code. if an employer violated the honor code this is soon well-known though the tor hidden services which act as message hubs.
government employees only work for max 30hours/week and do not recieve bitcoins. most of them grow their own food in the backyard in their free time and sell them on farmer's market.
What would you name a 0.001 bitcoin?
Technically, it's a "milli-Bitcoin" or mBTC, but in the year 2020 the populace call it by it's nickname: the "Millie".There is also a "micro-Bitcoin" or uBTC, which is colloquially called the "Mike".
Mike and Millie are the everyday coins. You might deal in Bitcoins if you buy a nice car, and the Bitcoin base unit (the "Satoshi") is used as a denomination for small payments, for example the automated "Thanks" that your browser sends for viewing a YouTube video without any ads.
- Fast food is illegal and can only be bought with bitcoin; could do some gag regarding delayed confirmation or old-school bureaucracy when trying to get your pizza; the government only approves of nutritious tablets or something like that.
- There's a "last man standing" political system where on-line bets entice assassins and various thugs to eliminate politicians who make bad decisions. A side effect is that all the politicians are super nice, genuine, and all-round amazing people... just slightly stupid.
- Society gets around the problem of trust in the drugs trade because most people just have bitcoin addresses on their letter boxes. The postman doesn't actually know where to deliver anything, he just goes round all the houses looking for matching addresses.
for [ B ] there is an easy answer: 1/1000 of 1 BTC is a millibitcoin. (mBTC)
this notion is already widely used by ogrr.com where they are dealing with virtual world items, where 1 BTC would be too much to ask for everyday trades.
this notion is already widely used by ogrr.com where they are dealing with virtual world items, where 1 BTC would be too much to ask for everyday trades.
I'm working on a book that will be released in August. The book is set in the US in the year 2020. It's a humor/dystopia type book. (The movie Idiocracy is an example of the genre). In the book, the USD still exists, but much of the population have moved over System D. I'm specifically citing Bitcoins as the primary alternative currency and was thinking maybe you guys/gals could help me with some things:
[A] Have you guys thought about what it would be like in an environment where there is wide spread acceptance? What are the "cool things" or "cool forms of trade" that bitcoins could enable? I already have the tech basics down, like the square bar code, bitcoin logo in shop windows, etc. I'm looking for funny / neat things that might be possible in an environment where the infrastructure as we know it today is going into a hole.
One example: Fuel prices are high, truckers are paid like crap so make extra money on the side by giving rides to travelers along their trips. Truckers/travelers coordinate through a "travel app" and truckers take payment in bitcoins so it doesn't show up on their income (because the government has essentially forced everyone into electronic funds and made physical dollars/coins almost useless).
[ B ] What would you name a 0.001 bitcoin? I was thinking a bitlette or maybe kilocoin? Any ideas from people who've been in this environment much longer would be appreciated.
[C] Is there any bitcoin based kickstarter type site out there?
Thanks for any help. I appologize if this is in the wrong forum, but I'm trying to capture a more fully developed economy in the book (and hopefully with a bit of humor to it).
[A] Have you guys thought about what it would be like in an environment where there is wide spread acceptance? What are the "cool things" or "cool forms of trade" that bitcoins could enable? I already have the tech basics down, like the square bar code, bitcoin logo in shop windows, etc. I'm looking for funny / neat things that might be possible in an environment where the infrastructure as we know it today is going into a hole.
One example: Fuel prices are high, truckers are paid like crap so make extra money on the side by giving rides to travelers along their trips. Truckers/travelers coordinate through a "travel app" and truckers take payment in bitcoins so it doesn't show up on their income (because the government has essentially forced everyone into electronic funds and made physical dollars/coins almost useless).
[ B ] What would you name a 0.001 bitcoin? I was thinking a bitlette or maybe kilocoin? Any ideas from people who've been in this environment much longer would be appreciated.
[C] Is there any bitcoin based kickstarter type site out there?
Thanks for any help. I appologize if this is in the wrong forum, but I'm trying to capture a more fully developed economy in the book (and hopefully with a bit of humor to it).
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