Things TLs 7-9 would be interesting to see WITHOUT

[Nymdok]

Originally Posted by Molokh

• No Superpowers (i.e. all countries are no larger than England, Poland, France etc.).
• No centralized cellphone systems (but radio relays are fully maintained by volunteers, linux-style).
• No intellectual property, but only in the world of software.
• No internet.
• No GUIs.

On superpowers - England was a superpower in its own right a hundred or so years back. I cant imagine a world without superpowers. It seems as if there would always be a power vaccuum. World powers polarize and focus the people of the world withtheir ideologies. Its not nessesarily a bad thing.

Switchboards run by voulenteers - Seeing the untapped potential for research, psychology,sociology, criminology, political science and marketing majors line up for their opportunity to hear first hand whats on the minds of the people of the world. Its not unlike the searh bars that report your webtraffic. People accept outright that anything you broadcast is by definition NOT private and are therefor NOT bothered by it, but they are a bit more careful about what they say.

No intellectual Property - Software is developed in sourceforge style and offered freely. Sadly it is largely second rate and poorly written. What does survive is largely goverenment sponsered but, like so many goverenment projects, is over written, poorly executed, over staffed, under productive and treated with suspicion.

No Internet - The internet never develops in its current form. Instead, BBS remain the dominate digital social interaction and at seperate times during the day each BBS will shut down to upload E-Mail to a cluster of BBS creating a digital Pony Express.

No GUI's: In a law suit against Microsoft and Macintosh that claims that Graphic User interfaces discriminate against the visually impaired, all computers shipped MUST have Graphic/Audio/Tactile interfaces installed. Audio interfaces require the use of voice recognition and require that the computer be able to differentaite commands from conversattion. To facilitate this, computers only respond to commands in Khoesian 'clicking' languages of africa. Tactile interfaces use the Keller-Sullivan model of spelling into the palm using a special glove.

Nymdok