Setting Jam: Hyperbolic Trajectory

[whswhs]

I don't feel that I can take full part in this discussion—I find collective design an alien idea—but I'll talk about some of my thoughts for my recently proposed GURPS campaign, Trucking (though that was set in a further future). Specifically, I was thinking of it as a safetech future, especially with regard to biotech, so much so that they look back at 20th century pharma and are appalled.

* No use of oral contraceptives, on three grounds: they're excreted into the water and mess up fertility in many animal species, they alter mate selection preferences in humans, and they're historically associated with a fertility crash that caused massive economic disruption and evoked fears of human extinction

* Minimal use of psychopharmaceuticals, which characteristically have unpleasant side effects and which are seen as only palliative (the brain resets itself to compensate for them)

* General avoidance of medical treatments that prolong the final days or months of life when a person is disabled and in chronic pain

Taking this as a bioethical outlook produces some interesting cultural differences. I wasn't going to focus on it primarily, but I anticipated thinking of other implications over time, had I ended up running that campaign.