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Official development blog for the PARANOIA roleplaying game. No description is available at your security clearance. The Computer is your friend.

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

The Futures of Money 

In "The Futures of Money" on Forbes.com, the financial speculations (haha!) by science fiction writer and futurist Bruce Sterling will ring familiar to fans who recall PARANOIA's licensed credits and cash hackers:
Instead of "socially responsible investment," we might be confronted with money that refuses to let itself be spent. Electronic funds might double check themselves against a blacklist before they move from one chip to another. Touch a terrorist bank account, and you might find yourself with not just a refusal of funds but also with instant taps on your phone and e-mail.

Instead of secret bank accounts, entire secret banks: offshore data havens tucked into satellites or old dead oil rigs or blast-proofed caves outside Kandahar. Black electronic money is encrypted data that does not let itself be recognized as money. Like jewels sewn into a coat lining, a self-perpetuating spool of ones and zeros refuses to admit that it is wealth.

Sterling's Wired.com blog, Beyond the Beyond, makes excellent daily reading.
Posted by: Allen Varney / 7:53 PM

Comments:
I'm one of those few people who insists on cash if at all possible. I may wind up as one of those people who can dodge the secret police without even thinking about it because I don't go in for all these crazy gadgets.
# posted by Blogger John Doe : February 15, 2006 11:43 PM
 
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