Best cases

    From Consumerium development wiki R&D Wiki

    Best cases are what we are here to achieve, and can only achieve if we overcome worst cases. So understand those first, then come back here and write what you think we can ultimately achieve. Not everyone will accept or believe in every best case as real, but if even one Consumerium:Contributor does, then it will be listed here and it should be respected. By definition, best cases qualifies as one of the strange articles, because people do not always take each other's assessment of what is realy, seriously. Best cases should be things you actually believe in, even if others think they are fantasy. Their idea of "strangeness" is interesting as it means you have some convincing to do perhaps, but it does not make you "wrong".

    Over time however our mutual cognition should converge, and those who believe overly optimistic things should be convinced to reclassify their most outrageous best cases as visions. That leaves here only what is possible realistically once we have avoided worst cases. A best case should almost always include some note of how we overcame opposition and inertia - it is obviously impractical to fantasize about what would happen if no one was out there against us. Such "march to inevitable victory" should go in visions.


    Ubiquitous Consumerium - price checking devices also include signals from Consumerium so the ecological liability and social liability (separately) are reported to all consumers, and both are printed on the actual receipt you get at the checkout. Even if you don't care about the red-to-green ratio (as close to zero as possible), the other shoppers behind you might, as they see the colour of the light above your head. Social pressure pushes all developed nation shopping in our direction. Tourists avoid "red light districts" where most shopping is irresponsible, fearing they will get sick or attacked by the obviously irresponsible people. Shops specializing in red light goods get treated roughly as bad as those selling sex goods in the last century. It's profitable but it's more or less black market and you can't brag about the money you're making to your friends, and you lose some of those friends when they find out you're doing it.


    Consumerium Credit catches on with a small elite group like Greens and Reds who use it as a status symbol that they are "out of the bank system". Since it's possible to track who actually obeys their individual buying criteria and who doesn't, there's a "hypocrisy index" for members of the Consumerium Buying Club (if you let it be published, then, you get some nice discounts) which tends to get revealed for politicians and most managers.

    It never totally replaces other electronic payment services but tends to be influential in the standards, especially privacy risk measures, that eventually make RFID acceptable, and limit cop access to user data.


    Do any of the above seem unrealistic or impossible? Do you feel like deleting or toning it down? Don't, because someone believes in it. If you the author of it no longer believe in it, move it to visions. If you believe it is possible or likely, but unfortunate or bad, add a parallel case to worst cases emphasizing these aspects, and feel free to add some mention of those issues here, but with possible resolutions (keep best and worst separate even if they are exactly the same case - remember that these labels may well be factionally defined but we need to agree on at least a few basic ones to move forward).

    (see also visions for the more extreme case of this really working)