Daily Life in the NoCoZo

What would daily life be like for a near-baseline in the the NoCoZo?

What are the job openings?

Relativist starship crew, experience producer (wonder/surprise/ignorance artists especially sought after), forensic eschatologist handyman, provolve assistant, gardener, game player, weak eigenspace hunter, immune system designer, reviewer, tour guide, localist and hedonic engineer.

Styles of clothes?

Hmm, depends a lot on where you are. Right now the fashion on Merrion proper is loose clothing that drifts elegantly in the low gravity, sometimes equipped with aerostats for maximum drift style. Very light, very smart materials are popular. Think veils and scarves, often scintillating quotes, symbols or images representing the style of the owner. However, that is just for the "locals". On Merrion everything is stylish if it is exotic, expensive or new. Omoloko K made a sensation last tenday with er sentient symbiont pile/team, and Lakretian vecs have taken to utilitarian metal skins as part of their new "back to the source code" ideology, which was very well received by most viewers.

Meanwhile on Mutual Satisfaction, the "uniform" of the Bazaar project and its proponents have become patchwork clothing, sewn together of as many materials and styles as possible. Some joke that it is really Emple-Dokceticist clothing.

Education?

Depends a bit on how changed you are. I would say the main forms of training consists of 1) direct neural downloading/implantation, 2) experience scenarios either virtually or in the real world, 3) traditional education (i.e. structured searching for knowledge). Downloading is rare among near-baselines, and generally regarded as a choice that makes you too standard (and hence less interesting on the market). Experience scenarios (think virtual and real roleplaying games, some running several years) are likely the most common - you get to learn by doing, often with much AI help. By current standards an average baseline has a serious university education, likely close to a double PhD. It probably takes them around 20 years of education to reach it, although variation is great.

Most NoCoZo people fund their studies by demonstrating interest, talents or ambition to various edubanking firms that buy shares in future income. Most people take turns working, taking sabbaticals and getting more education.

Average age for marriage?

Varies tremendously. The lowest is probably among the Hyndasha, who mature very quickly and use parental memory downloading - they marry at around 6 years. And some clades and cultures have abolished it altogether. On the other hand, among the average baselines the first marriage-equivalent usually happens around 30-50, usually lasting a few decades.

Numbers of kids per household?

Relatively few; most households have just one kid.

(this is a kind of extrapolation from current trends; to a baseline, the NoCoZo acts as a very very affluent information society)

Life expectancy?

If you have a typical baseline genome and no access to nanomedicine, around 400. With nanomedicine and anti-aging treatments it increases to 1000-2000 - although at that point issues of how much you are going to change over life become more important than tech in determine your lifespan. The most common cause of deanimation is simply that people elect to stop living (by irreversibly dying or cryonic freezing) rather than go on and become posthuman.

Currency (if any)?

In the NoCoZo there are millions of private currencies, usually based on corporations or individuals. Most are convertible using economic software, making everybody experience prices in their own preferred currency. The official NoCoZo credit, backed by the Board, is little used but a popular reference point. The Dormbot Help Token (DHT), Terraforming Bonds, the Metasoft Credit, Nemelco Scrip and Retakidai are also popular.

Taxes?

In the NoCoZo, usually none to extremely small. In Tier III societies they are non-existent and downright illegal, in Tier II societies usually a very small percentage. Some Tier I societies (like the Olumbi region before the coup) actually reached almost 20%, which by NoCoZo standards is Stalinesque.

(the Negentropists just laugh when they hear it, they think it is cool to pay taxes. At least that is what Aimhem says).

The draft?

None, except for some polities in the outer regions. In some systems "mental taxation" are used to contribute computing cycles to planetary intelligences, but it is regarded as barbaric by the rest of the NoCoZo.

Entertainment?

Roleplaying (virtual & real, brief or permanent), theatre, 2D and 3D "television", multimedia and hypermedia, direct experience, dining, perfect art, fire dancing, mathematical pornography, autoclerics, hunting games (on animals or others, deadly or non-lethal), storytelling, brain expansion, drugs, erototech, food from the entire galaxy, locomiristics, temporary insanity, motivation rewiring, gambling, gravity sports, team and society sports, strategy games, nanowargaming, telepresence, experiency, gossip, shopping, music and metamusic, xenon swimming and solar sailing, to name just a few of the most popular...