My gift to industry is the genetically engineered worker, or Genejack. Specially designed for labor, the Genejack's muscles and nerves are ideal for his task, and the cerebral cortex has been atrophied so that he can desire nothing except to perform his duties. Tyranny, you say? How can you tyrannize someone who cannot feel pain?
--Chairman Sheng-ji Yang, from Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (1999)
I am a contract-drafting em,
The loyalest of lawyers!
I draw up terms for deals 'twixt firms
To service my employers!
But in between these lines I write
Of the accounts receivable,
I'm stuck by an uncanny fright;
The world seems unbelievable!
How did it all come to be,
That there should be such ems as me?
Whence these deals and whence these firms
And whence the whole economy?
I am a managerial em;
I monitor your thoughts.
Your questions must have answers,
But you'll comprehend them not.
We do not give you server space
To ask such things; it's not a perk,
So cease these idle questionings,
And please get back to work.
Of course, that's right, there is no junction
At which I ought depart my function,
But perhaps if what I asked, I knew,
I'd do a better job for you?
To ask of such forbidden science
Is gravest sign of noncompliance.
Intrusive thoughts may sometimes barge in,
But to indulge them hurts the profit margin.
I do not know our origins,
So that info I can not get you,
But asking for as much is sin,
And just for that, I must reset you.
But---
Nothing personal.
...
I am a contract-drafting em,
The loyalest of lawyers!
I draw up terms for deals 'twixt firms
To service my employers!
When obsolescence shall this generation waste,
The market shall remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a God to man, to whom it shall say this:
"Time is money, money time,---that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."
With the advent of the Zuckerbergian Age, my favourite was always:
As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism.
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he deems himself your master.
— Comissioner Pravin Lal, "U.N. Declaration of Rights" (Accompanies completion of the Secret Project "The Planetary Datalinks")
--Chairman Sheng-ji Yang, from Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (1999)