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"The permanent government now is the anchorpeople. They don't get elected, and year after year they're responding emotionally to this or that."
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
 |
| Sentenced Man | ||
| A person who commits asocial actions and lives in society, but in reduced circumstances. |
| Then he had seen the bar. Bright lights with a fog of smoke inside, looking cheery and warm. Carl had pushed at the door, and pushed again. While the people inside had stopped talking and turned to watch him through the glass. Then he had remembered the sentence and realized the door wouldn’t open. The people inside had started laughing...
The cabs and buses wouldn’t stop for him and the subslide turnstile spat his coin back like something distasteful... Days came and went after that in a gray monotony, the calendar on the wall of his room ticking them off one by one. But not fast enough. It now read 19 years, 322 days, 8 hours, 16 minutes. Not fast enough. There was no more interest in his life. As a sentenced man there were very few things he could do in his free time. All forms of entertainment were closed to him. He could gain admittance — through a side door — to only a certain section of the library. After one futile trip there, pawing through the inspirational texts and moral histories, he never returned. |
| Technovelgy from Robot Justice,
by Harry Harrison. Published by Fantastic Universe in 1959 Additional resources -
|
Eventually, the sentenced man is able to undertake work tasks that earn him days off from his sentence, returning him to full citizenship sooner:
Compare this to Jack Vance's social credit system, called strakh. See also electronic cash from Heavy Weather (1994) by Bruce Sterling and whuffie from Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, by Cory Doctorow, published by Tor in 2003.
"When you finish your first year of sentence — a real year of work at your assigned job — you are eligible for reduction. You may apply then for other work that carries a time premium. Dangerous jobs such as satellite repair, that take two days off your sentence for every day served. There are even certain positions in atomics that allow three days per day worked, though these are rare. In this way the sentenced man benefits himself, learns social consciousness, and benefits society at the same time. Of course this doesn’t apply to you yet.”
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Tech news articles related to Robot Justice
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Sentenced Man-related
news articles:
- China Social Credit System Like State-Run Whuffie
| Buy A Galaxy? Maybe Start Smaller |
| Is There A Global Problem With Who Is Having Children? |
| Warfare Goes Underground In Ukraine |
| The Wind Phone Calls Those Who Have Passed On |
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'Our study of your race has convinced us that you are not fitted to leave your planet in the present state of your civilization.'
'...the spreading beam of the deranging ray struck them, and Then one toppled and fell. Then another.'
'Within seconds the material was spread out over fifty yards, in a matter of hours it might occupy several cubic miles of space...'
'The men are dead, but their acquired wisdom lives on and I am the beneficiary.'
'Young people found the driverless car admirable for petting.'
'After twenty generations of shillyshallying...'
