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"What has allowed so many Psychopathic Personalities to rise so high in corporations and government, is that they are so decisive. Unlike normal people, they are never filled with doubts, for the simple reason that they cannot care what happens next."
- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
 |
| Whuffie | ||
| A system in which one's actions, as perceived by others, directly procure the necessities of life; reputation-based currency. |
| Whuffie recaptured the true essence of money: in the old days, if you were broke but respected, you wouldn't starve; contrariwise, if you were rich and hated, no sum could buy you security and peace. By measuring the thing that money really represented — your personal capital with your friends and neighbors — you more accurately gauged your success |
| Technovelgy from Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom,
by Cory Doctorow. Published by Tor in 2003 Additional resources -
|
Here's an example of how it works:
This strikes me as a digital version of Jack Vance's analog strakh from The Moon Moth (1976) and the sentenced man from Harry Harrison's Robot Justice (1959). See also electronic cash from Heavy Weather (1994) by Bruce Sterling.
When I got down to the Contemporary's parking lot, my runabout was gone. A quick check with the handheld revealed the worst: my Whuffie was low enough that someone had just gotten inside and driven away, realizing that they could make more popular use of it than I could. With a sinking feeling, I trudged up to my room and swiped my key through the lock. It emitted a soft, unsatisfied _bzzz_ and lit up, "Please see the front desk." My room had been reassigned, too. I had the short end of the Whuffie stick. At least there was no mandatory Whuffie check on the monorail platform, but the other people on the car were none too friendly to me, and no one offered me an inch more personal space than was necessary. I had hit bottom.
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
More Ideas
and Technology by Cory Doctorow
Tech news articles related to Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
Tech news articles related to works by Cory Doctorow
Whuffie-related
news articles:
- The Whuffie Bank: Reputation-Based Currency
- China Social Credit System Like State-Run Whuffie
| 'They Erased My Memory' Says Ariana Grande |
| 'Spikeless' Brand Swizzle Stick Detects Spiked Drinks |
| Musk Proposes Sites For Martian Cities |
| Who First Thought Of A Tin Foil Hat? |
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'He found a barber shop which, he thought, would be good for an idle hour.'
'Thirty rounds of fighting is tough work. Even for machines.'
'...the excavations were already in progress, for he saw gray slopes of rubble.'
'...the walking mills of Puffy Products began to tread delicately on their centipede legs across the wheat fields of Kansas.'
'Here is a Clerk that would work incessantly, and neither eat, sleep, want payment, or grumble.'
'ZARNAK, YOU'RE TO COMMAND A SCOUTING EXPEDITION --- FIND OUT WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT!'
'These are your rudimentary seed packages... Some will combine in place to form more complicated structures.'
