A Diamond Age, and a Copper Era

So I finally managed to snag myself a copy of The Diamond Age, over the weekend. Quite a fascinating book with rich characters. The world is well developed and interesting, both technologically and culturally. However it does leave me with a few questions.

Not about the current world, but the events leading up to it. I suppose if I read Snow Crash I'd understand a bit better. I'm trying to understand how the phyles came about; how did people start becoming so divided culturally, so much so that each cultural group acted as its own political entity.

Also, how did people come to accept the popularity of the nano machines? Today, it seems people are a little fearful of the invasive technology this suggests. The enhanced surveillance, hidden weapons (skull guns), and even torture devices (Mr. PhyrePhox).

It must be a very fearful society, knowing that the person next to you could be armed with a tiny firearm implanted in their head, or they could hack into your own body, and embed advertisements into your vision. My main question is how do people deal with this? How are they compliant and what led to the overall acceptance.

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In New Eden, one sometimes finds returning to the beginning to be as fascination adventure as moving on into the upper echelons of player-alliance warfare. I decided to join a small corporation that had ambitions of moving into low-security space in order to set up a small station there.

However, I was dismayed to discover that as a pilot with my particular set of abilities, I had little place here. This was an industrial corporation, (Product Number 3 they call themselves) which considered "high combat" to be fighting the local NPCs. They made little effort to protect themselves against player attack, or war declarations, and merely hoped diplomacy would avert any tensions.

The system we scoped out for the station is a 0.4 security system, the highest security possible to still be called "low-sec", and therefore without CONCORD consequences. This particular system is surrounded by high-sec systems, making it a de-facto island of its type. It was no great adventure travelling here; a mere novelty. Almost as safe as true high-security. There was no risk or application, and I soon found myself despairing in the lack of activity I've found myself.

Escorting mining operations seems to be the most intense mission I've undertaken since starting with this corporation (despite being the most experienced combat personelle on their roster). This task, in high-security space which the corporation refuses to leave, simply involves me hovering around the miners in my Cerberus, and intimidating away anyone who might steal ore from the floating canisters we use as a go-between for the miners and hauling ships.

The closest I've come to actually firing was when a mining barge hovered over one of our "jet-cans" (jettison canister. We jettison material into space in a large container, and then add into the container so we don't fill up the host ship's cargo hold). He lingered for a while as if he was trying to remove some of our minerals, so I locked with my targetting computer, and approached warp-drive scramble range.

He, of course, thought better of his decisions and moved on.