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Social Criminals

Criminals
Image from Steve Bowers

Generic term for those members of modosophont society who are unable to find a place for themselves in the civilized galaxy.

Social criminals are the drop-outs, the deviants, the dissidents. They come from every clade and race and sector of society. They may rebel from principle, from pathology, from memetic conditioning by a rival polity, from psychotronic nanodevices, or any other number of reasons. And their rebellion is often allowed, in some polities is even encouraged, as long as it doesn't get out of hand. These social criminals, recalcitrants and unassimilables, furnish work for other nearbaselines who crave a meaningful employment, and tabloid-type virchtainment for the masses.

In a society that has long become boring and predictable, where all needs and wants are met by dedicated mechosystems and angelnets the crazies, criminals and paranoiacs provide the zest, the risk, the mystery that makes things interesting. Virching, morphing, and psychonauting are all very impressive for a while, but there's nothing like a whiff of fear, the scent of real blood, like the spectacles nobody did better than the Romans, the Aztecs, or the Geminga. Ironically, the popular interactive called "Galaxy's Most Wanted" is a double entendre. Societies don't necessarily get, as some might say, the criminals they deserve, but rather they get the criminals they want.

 
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Appears in Topics
PovertySociobiologySubversives
 
Development Notes
Text by M. Alan Kazlev, based on an original by Bob Black
Initially published on 31 December 2001.

 
 
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