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Message: <blockquote data-quote="paradox42" data-source="post: 3591484" data-attributes="member: 29746">I will. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> Have doubts about yourself if you must (or like), but my own personality is deeply embedded with the ideal that change must be embraced rather than feared (part of my Chaotic alignment in D&D terms I suppose). Some aspects of such a world may be uncomfortable to me, but given that many aspects of this world are uncomfortable to me (particularly the influence that certain religions are gaining over governments in various parts of the world including mine), that's hardly a surprise.Good suggestions. The surveillance technology is indeed a problem for any secret conspiracy, but take into account the fact that any such conspiracy must infiltrate the highest levels of society (particularly governments) to be at all successful, and I think the problem becomes more manageable. Sure, there will be people who stumble onto something they shouldn't and need to be "taken out" in some manner (actual assassination is relatively pointless in a TS universe since both body and mind can be rebuilt, but how about a "memory reprofiling?"), but you know what? That's the sort of thing that provides grist for the mill of a game. The people who find out things they shouldn't, and decide to try finding out more, are called "investigators" and become the PCs of the setting. Viruses and other malware being crafted for wiping out data the conspiracy doesn't want spread are an easy way to explain why this data never seems to get very far. If the point of the setting is that the Old Ones are waking up, who's to say they haven't crafted superhuman AIs to help them achieve their goals, and those AIs aren't capable of watching the entire planetary/systemwide network for breaches of confidentiality?Since there are people who try to do that in our own world, you are undoubtedly correct. But here's a notion: there will be backlashes against this sort of thing, and for all the agencies trying to turn gays into straights, I'd say there will be other agencies turning straights into gays. I know that's one of the first things I'd do. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> for tat, and all of that. Such a response becomes especially appropriate if you target the people who are running the agency that started the whole escalation in the first place.For many people, this will indeed be uncomfortable. For others, it will simply be another aspect of the fact that In This Day, All Things Are Possible. People who are less inclined to attach importance to details, who don't take themselves or much of anything else seriously, will tend to dominate after enough time. Selection pressures (which do still operate in TS, even if in ways that would seem insane or unrecognizable to most people of our era) would ensure that other personality traits tend to die out.I think what this sort of technology really does, more than anything else, is cause memes to undergo natural selection the way genes have on our world for so many hundreds of millions of years. Those memes which stick with people and allow them to stay comfortable and happy in this ultimate of Brave New Worlds (and yes, both sides/connotations of that phrase are intended here) will tend to predominate, and those which don't- will be gradually eradicated.</blockquote>

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