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Topic Review: Megacorps - Drashner1 - 08-26-2020

Next in line for review and possible updates...

Megacorps

Vast meta-organisations that once shaped all of Terragen life. Some academics trace their nascent origins back to the fifth century b.t., citing such organisations as the East India Company as sharing many of the attributes of later megacorps. Consensus however suggests true megacorps evolved out of powerful and wealthy mercantile conglomerates in the Interplanetary Age. These would develop into interstellar powers that drove commerce and economics throughout the known worlds.

To sophonts from empires in which megacorp presence has waned or was never there to begin with it is common to view them as simply large commercial entities. This is an understandable mistake, whilst megacorps do operate large commercial arms the majority of groups within the megacorp have little to do with trade. Megacorps have often been called "meta-organisations" as they are most often groups of all kinds united together into one organisation for the purposes of mutual aid, regulation, protection and influence. Commercial, political, religious, scientific and cultural groups are amongst the most common of megacorp membership. Whether the group in question is a system wide government or a local neogen hobby team megacorps welcome any that can help further the goals of the entire organisation. Eminent megacorpologist Chadder Wren once described membership as "opening up a world of connections from which resources and favours can be drawn, and offered."

Whilst the internal structure of megacorps has varied greatly a key trend has always been to control vast commercial interests at the behest of organisation stakeholders. Often megacorps have been compared to the nation-states they superseded, especially in cases where they own and operate territory. However megacorps are largely supra-national, they operate in as many polities as they can and utilise commercial, political and memetic means to further their goals.

Today the megacorps are largely limited to the NoCoZo, various Free Zones, the Outer Volumes and along some of the Deeper Covenant trade routes. Most Sephirotic Empires have little use for megacorps.

Once, they shaped all of Terragen life. Unimaginably powerful and wealthy mercantile corporations, they spanned star-systems and drove commerce and economics throughout the known worlds. They manipulated entire polities and even worlds with ease, waging a never-ending battle of memetic subversion, a war to win the hearts and minds and pockets of their potential customers.


RE: Topic Review: Megacorps - Drashner1 - 08-26-2020

A couple of thoughts re revising this:

1) Combine/replace it with this article: LINK

2) Update it to discuss the role of transapients more - specifically along the lines that have been mentioned earlier: The megacorps of the Federation Age trying out different ontologies as alternatives to the failing First Fed ontology, these based around something analogous to 'corporate culture'. These might start out as ways of letting the megacorps maintain cohesion over interstellar distances and then be modified to actually run whole 'client worlds' to fill the power vacuum left by the Federation.

Just some thoughts,

Todd


RE: Topic Review: Megacorps - Worldtree - 08-26-2020

A bit of inspiration from years ago:
“Regarding megacorps we've never really gone into too much detail about them in this regard. We had a long discussion on the old list a while ago about them which IIRC boiled down to trying to define exactly what they are. Megacorps are a classic sci-fi trope and do, in some respects, make sense within the context of growing neoliberalism. Megacorps are interesting as we've written them because they really cease to become profit seeking corporations in the sense that we understand corporations IRL. They're more like transnational societies with huge levels of resources and internal systems resembling castes. At that point one interpretation could be that they're no longer simply organisations devoted to making profit for shareholders but plutocratic socioeconomic organisations.

here's a relevant thread from several years ago but it might be helpful.
https://www.orionsarm.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=602&pid=4073#pid4073

A few suggestions to possibly add? (i'll let this stuff stew in my head and people talk for a few days)
-add in more history about hyperturings and transapients running megacorps and entire client planets
-megacorporations could be different because they measure profit on much longer timescales than any existing transnational company and maybe externalize fewer costs? Due to the much more circular nature of the 500AT-3000AT economies, with natural resources and social harm much more accounted for than the present day, most present day companies maybe would not be considered profitable by megacorporation standards. Everyone gets basic income, all resources are recycled etc but voting power is determined by money or something...

-They aren’t capitalist any more than Exxon mobile is feudalist. They have some kind of worker-owners like in the mondragon cooperative.
https://www.mondragon-corporation.com/en/about-us/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation
Something resembling more responsibilities of a nation state, but more decentralized. Hyperturings and transapients enable them to become much more complex than modern transnational companies.
Can megacorps issue money or set up some kind of central banks successfully?

Combining the two articles....
MegaCorps
Once, they shaped much of Terragen life- Unimaginably powerful and wealthy mercantile corporations, which spanned star-systems and drove commerce and economics throughout the known worlds. They manipulated entire polities and even worlds with ease, waging a never-ending battle of memetic subversion, a war to win the hearts and minds and pockets of their potential customers.
The early megacorps were amongst the most powerful institutions modosophonts ever developed. As nation states gradually declined in influence, the big corporations filled the political vacuum and in many ways began to resemble nations themselves; buying, owning, and regulating large areas of land and providing services for the people within them from internal companies. Beyond commercial and territorial interests, many megacorps became international meta-organisations, beholden to their worker-owners (which ranged from a share purchasing electorate to Boards of Hiveminds) and acting to further the goals of said stakeholders at every level of society.
As vast meta-organisations that once shaped all of Terragen life, Some academics trace their nascent origins back to the fifth century b.t., citing such organisations as the East India Company as sharing many of the attributes of later megacorps. Consensus however suggests true megacorps evolved out of powerful and wealthy mercantile conglomerates in the Interplanetary Age. These would develop into interstellar powers that drove commerce and economics throughout the known worlds.
To sophonts from empires in which megacorp presence has waned or never existed to begin with it is common to view them as simply large commercial entities. This is an understandable mistake, whilst megacorps do operate large commercial arms the majority of groups within the megacorp have little to do with trade. Megacorps have often been called "meta-organisations" as they are most often groups of all kinds united together into one organisation for the purposes of mutual aid, regulation, protection and influence. Commercial, political, religious, scientific and cultural groups are amongst the most common of megacorp membership. Whether the group in question is a system-wide government or a local neogen hobby team, megacorps welcome anyone who can help further the goals of the entire organisation. Eminent megacorpologist Chadder Wren once described membership as "opening up a world of connections from which resources and favours can be drawn, and offered."
Whilst the internal structure of megacorps has varied greatly a key trend has always been to control vast commercial interests at the behest of organisation stakeholders. Often megacorps have been compared to the nation-states they superseded, especially in cases where they own and operate territory. However megacorps are largely supra-national, they operate in as many polities as they can and utilise commercial, political and memetic means to further their goals.
The Interplanetary Age saw great disruption to the economic models of the previous centuries. Automation was gradually eroding the bedrock of capitalism as demand for sophont labour fell with each passing decade. Many nations implemented forms of basic income to cope with this, but social tensions grew between those that could gain work for more resources and those that could not. One part of the issue was expensive augmentation treatments; those with jobs were more able to pay for the augments that made them even more competitive for the work remaining. Whilst groups like the New Economy Movement attempted to construct novel economies for the new era, the megacorps took a different approach. Nascent megacorporations enjoyed vast profits per employee capita, consequently each could afford to provide basic material and informational needs to millions for free. It became common in the late 100s for megacorps to offer free basic homes, products, and services in exchange for some promises of responsibility (such as enrollment in a university sponsored by the megacorp, or a willingness to accept a job if one became available). This relationship was referred to as "clientship" and many preferred it to the basic services offered by their national governments. Some megacorps enacted these programs from a sense of charity, others as a way of gaining influence and a pool of indebted people from which to draw employees when needed. The 190s saw this competition rise to a new level, as the major corporations became military as well as economic powers. That decade saw three Belt-based and five Cis-Lunar corporations demonstrate a nuclear capability.
Although originally under the control of baselines, tweaks, and superiors, many of the big megacorps came to be guided by AI. Initially this was in a limited capacity due to a combination of mistrust and various difficulties of interaction, but as the decades passed more and more megacorp boards appointed artificial minds into Chief positions. Eventually, as AIs consolidated power behind the scenes, the control of each megacorp slipped more and more from biont hands.
The first half of the 3rd century a.t. was a time of rapid evolution and change for the megacorps. Of particular note is how the Cis-Lunar and Belt-based corporations emerged as more tightly-integrated entities during this time. Memes of corporate identity and loyalty were more firmly embedded into megacorp members and clients. The Belt corporations in particular had a serious disadvantage in the struggle with their Cis-Lunar rivals due to the small size of the Belt population. To offset this, the Belt corporations embraced extensive memgineering and by the 280s the difference between corporation, society, and family in the minds of their employees had disappeared almost entirely. The Belt corporations became the Belt Zaibatsus with each Belter having a fierce loyalty to their particular Zaibatsu and defections becoming almost unknown. Despite these radical measures, the Belt megacorporations still remained relatively minor powers next to the great Cis-Lunar postnationals.
By the early 4th century, the megacorps were expanding throughout the solar system, gaining greater percentages of colony GDP, and growing in power even more. But their old power bases were eroding as the balance shifted from the Orbitals, the Inner Worlds, and the Belt asteroids they controlled to the Genetekker Republics around the gas giants, and claim jumping by rival megacorps only worsened the situation.
The fifth century saw the unleashing of the Technocalypse and in the ensuing chaos many of the old megacorps disappeared. Many, but not all. A number of AIs had the foresight to push out their center of operations, or at least major backup nodes, to the Kuiper Belt and beyond. These AIs and their associated bionts, survived the Technocalypse, and after a few hundred years, when the Solar System was once again safe, they returned to the inner planets. Together with the AIs that had remained, they formed alliances that, at around the turn of the first millennium a.t., would lead to the establishment of the First Federation. Later the AIs were to contribute to the design of cheaper starships, including various amat and amat fusion designs, bringing the price of interstellar travel within the scope of the new generation of rule-by-council megacorp-states.
The Interstellar Era saw great gains in territory for the megacorps. Those with the strongest expansionist tendencies established semi-autonomous fiefdoms among the stars. This was achieved by funding a significant portion of the cost of a new colony, consequently the local megacorp branch of that system would open with enough local capital to rapidly grow and firmly embed itself in the system economy and culture. Records show the megacorps at the time were regarded as innovative and creative, as well as cultural institutions to be valued. There is some disagreement over how true these claims are, particularly as megacorp power in these cases was enough to effectively control public perception through intensive memetic engineering.
By the later Federation period, especially in the colonies and on the Periphery, some megacorps had changed significantly from their earlier beginnings. Those megacorps that began to practice tightly controlled oligarchical rule used their immense power to set up their own empires. By this time technological progress had slowed significantly from a modosophont perspective, with all significant innovations now coming from the hyperturings. The new Age of Empires had begun.
The neo-feudalism of the post-Federation period and the rise of higher level transapients (and eventually the archailect Gods) progressively lessened the influence of the megacorporations. Despite this they did not fade into history. Whilst the level of power they exert throughout the entirety of the Terragen Sphere is greatly reduced, many thrive in the NoCoZo, various Free Zones, parts of the Outer Volumes, and along some of the Deeper Covenant trade and cycler routes. There they have been able to grow and diversify even to the present day. Most Sephirotic Empires have little use for megacorps.


RE: Topic Review: Megacorps - Worldtree - 08-26-2020

(08-26-2020, 03:04 PM)thoughts from the thread   Role of the megacorps in the late timelinehttps://www.orionsarm.com/forum/showthread.php?tid='4693&highlight=megacorpDrashner1 Wrote: This is more my 'personal proposed headcanon' at this point, but it's been generally well received when I've suggested it in the past.
Personally I imagine Houses are megacorps that adopted traits of the state and stopped being much of an economic entity.


Another thought - Either the megacorps or great houses, or both might have become vehicles for modos attempting to augment and organize themselves in ways that would let them better hold their own against transapients and transapient run societies. Details of how this would work are TBD, but in a general sense this might fall under the same umbrella as Unity/Unityware and its development of group minds - modos trying to operate on or near the level of transaps without actually becoming transaps. 

Something like this could create a very...interesting...period during the early-middle part of the timeline during which various superhumanly intelligent entities and groups all interacted with each other in various ways (competition, cooperation, etc.). Eventually the sephirotic archai come along and dominate things - but maybe we push that back a few hundred or thousand years and have a long interregnum period.

Basically look at moving away from our current take which seems (to me anyway) to run something like 'during the Federation the transapients pretty much took over all mainstream governance and it's been that way ever since with the only real change being the S-level of the ruling transapients'. 

Not entirely sure that what I'm describing is wholly accurate (early timeline is not my focus) or what exactly it would look like. But might be worth thinking about/discussing.

Thoughts?
(06-27-2020, 02:51 AM)Drashner1 Wrote: This is more my 'personal proposed headcanon' at this point, but it's been generally well received when I've suggested it in the past. At some point, I'd like to make the necessary article tweaks to fold it into the setting, although given my limited time if someone would like to take this on or collaborate on it sooner I've no objection. 

To wit:

While the Megacorps originally started out as more conventional economic entities (although huge ones) in the early timeline, their role as economic entities transformed (and later faded) over time. This was due to a combination of the rise of the autotopias/post-scarcity economics and the rise of the archai and their memetics and noetics and such. Beginning in the Federation era, they evolved into an alternative (new at the time) to the failing ontology of the First Fed and the resulting search by civilization for new ways to manage the hypercomplex civilization that OA depicts.

During the Federation period, many/most megacorps were taken over by S1 and S2 transapients, initially the manage their great complexity. As the Federation began to fail under the weight of trying to manage an interstellar civilization in a light-speed limited universe (as well as the increasing number of S-levels and the ever growing numbers of new sophont beings and modes of existence), some S1/S2 invented alternative ontologies or mind-sets based on what we might term 'corporate culture'. These were designed to help operate the megacorp over interstellar distance while maintaining a coherent focus as a social/economic entity.

Eventually the megacorps and their 'corporate religions' and 'company ontologies' were directly competing for 'hearts and minds' against the Federation and for a time they seemed to win. Until the S3 or maybe S4 came along and introduced the Second Federation Ontology and the Sec Fed itself. This didn't supplant the megacorps per se, but did drive them back quite a lot. 

The Sec Fed also began running into limits however, and people again started searching around for alternatives (or maybe they didn't care for the Sec Fed and wanted alternatives, multiple options/possibilities here, many of which could all happen at once). This time some transapients (maybe S3 and/ S4 this time, or maybe still S1 and S2?) looked further back in time and took their inspiration for alternatives from ancient Old Earth and ideas around feudalism/clans/etc. and created the Great Houses. These arose and seemed on the way to dominating for a time - or at least providing alternative memetics/ontologies - until the S5 and above came along and introduced the Sephirotic imperial memetics, supplanting the old ontologies (implying the memetics are in some way beyond these) and relegating both the megacorpos and Great Houses to secondary or tertiary importance. They still exist and billions or even trillions may follow them - but they are small potatoes compared to even the least Sephirotic empire.

Or something like that. I fully admit this is still rough and probably needs tweaking to fit various setting elements. It would also involve updating the megacorp and great house articles in various ways. But I rather like it and think of it as a way of presenting how society might still strive for a better mode of existence when the issues of basic material want have been totally solved via the creation of autotopias and such.

In this model, the megacorps would also evolve such that while they still have some form of quasi-corporation/economic elements they would not be concerned with the same things that RL corporations are (although they might characterize what they are concerned with using similar language). Great Houses might do something similar coming from a different direction based in the sort of neo-feudal mindset they work in, perhaps.

Anyway, it's an idea or three.

Thoughts?

Todd



RE: Topic Review: Megacorps - Worldtree - 08-26-2020

https://www.orionsarm.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=4693&
Role of the megacorps in the late timeline


RE: Topic Review: Megacorps - Drashner1 - 08-30-2020

Some additional thoughts on this that just came to me tonight:

1) The early (Interplanetary Age) megacorps might have created the ancient ancestors of Homo Economicus.

a) The ever increasing economic complexity of solar civilization and the development of DNI and (comparatively primitive) augments early in the timeline could combine with the megacorps paying for people to get higher level and greater than normal numbers of augments in order to operate effectively/with greater effectiveness. Imagine Slack combined with DNI to put it right into your mind (which could be utopian or downright dystopian depending on your experience or views of Slack).

b) The company paying for these could operate in a manner somewhere between tuition reimbursement (a not uncommon benefit in corporate America) and indentured servitude. Getting the implants commits you to working for the corp for some number of years to pay off your debt.

c) There might also be elements of non-compete clauses in there as well - even after you pay off your debt it's hard to go to another company and take your implants with you, etc.

2) During the Federation period the megacorps (and possibly others) turned to tech similar in principle to Unityware (Unityware - Text by Anders Sandberg
Software to enable the formation of group intellects. Named for the Nova Terra clade Unity, the first marketers of unityware.), along with their increased use of augments both to help them operate over interstellar distances and in reaction to the transapients.

a) The megacorps (or at least some of them) saw themselves in competition with the transapients and went in for variant forms of group minds and augmentation to try to compete. Ultimately they failed and either ended up being taken over by transapients or becoming (at least in the core areas/'Boards of Directors"/'Executive level with the greatest amount of augmentation and group mind interlinkage) transapients themselves.

b) During this period various other group mind variants might also have appeared - the Deeper Covenant is one such that is still around and there could certainly be others we haven't described yet. And/or - I think it was suggested in some of the supporting material Dfleymmes1134 posted that some minor polities currently mentioned but not detailed could be modified to this.

c) An element of these corporate group mind sorta things could be something like the 'xiao'(sp?) or mental domination that is practiced by the Sobornost multi-copy society whereby copies close to the original 'Founders' can dominate those farther away (as in copy of a copy of a copy of a copy,etc.) with the Founders dominating all. Sort of.

3) As part of the Fall of the Federation, the megacorps moved to compete with the Federation and become alternative power centers to it. Including providing alternative ways to live/think - the aforementioned 'corporate culture' - possibly enforced by 'corporate' memetics, group mind variant software, and enhanced augmentation.

4) Although the megacorps are supplanted as the center of power by the Second Federation and later the Sephirotics - they still continue to exist up to Y11k. They still retain elements of corporate structure and such, but also the group mind element is much more in play, making them somewhat like huge individual entities in some ways. They are a sort of symbiosis between a ruling transapient (S1-S3) and a host of subjects spread across light-years.

Or something like that. Thoughts?

Todd


RE: Topic Review: Megacorps - Drashner1 - 09-10-2020

(08-26-2020, 03:04 PM)Dfleymmes1134 Wrote: Combining the two articles....
MegaCorps

So finally getting time to get back into this project.

As a starting point I sat down tonight and gave the combined article a read thru.

Various initial thoughts:

a) We may (probably will) need to make some tweaks to the earlier history. Most of it is set in the Interplanetary Age prior to the Technocalypse and we've made considerable changes to that period since this Topic was written.

b) We will need to add to the history to expand the level of detail in the Federation Age and extend that history further across the timeline. Current it thins out and all bet ends with the end of the Federation period and then jumps into the Sephirotics and covers that entire period in about 2 sentences.

c) We've been talking a good bit about how the megacorps might have been organized and what they might have become - that will need to be polished up a bit and then folded in (in some cases replacing) with what is currently there.

d) We will probably want to look at the current description of how megacorps work(ed) internally as well as the IP Age economic factors that formed that internal structure and determine if we want to modify it and how.

e) We may also want to look at describing multiple types of internal structures (both past and present) for megacorps in the vein of our focus on Diversity! Diversity! Diversity! It seems logical that not all megacorps would operate in exact same fashion, although they may fall into broadly similar types.

f) The role of transapients definitely needs to be worked into the article fairly early on and throughout their history.

g) The role of augmentation in megacorps is an area we should definitely explore.

My initial thoughts for now.

Hoping to have time to start working on a draft rewrite this weekend. As part of that will also go back and review the various links posted here. If anyone has any additional thoughts or ideas they'd like to post for consideration between now and then, please feel free.

Thanks!

Todd


RE: Topic Review: Megacorps - Rynn - 09-10-2020

The biggest thorn with megacorps IMO is automation. We have really advanced automation turning up relatively early in the timeline (First Fed era) so how do we square that with megacorps?

My proposal would be to embrace it and write out the idea that megacorps are like companies today which are full of employees. Instead make megacorps of the first fed era and after conglomerations of autonomous businesses and financial institutions. AI companies with robotic laborers with the hardwired goal of increasing shareholder value. If you can buy into a megacorp as a shareholder then you can enjoy your post-scarcity lifestyle financed by a dividend from an automated actor in the economy.


RE: Topic Review: Megacorps - Worldtree - 09-11-2020

(09-10-2020, 09:38 PM)Rynn Wrote: The biggest thorn with megacorps IMO is automation. We have really advanced automation turning up relatively early in the timeline (First Fed era) so how do we square that with megacorps?

My proposal would be to embrace it and write out the idea that megacorps are like companies today which are full of employees. Instead make megacorps of the first fed era and after conglomerations of autonomous businesses and financial institutions. AI companies with robotic laborers with the hardwired goal of increasing shareholder value. If you can buy into a megacorp as a shareholder then you can enjoy your post-scarcity lifestyle financed by a dividend from an automated actor in the economy.

yes I like this approach. I'm guessing in the early timeline there'd still be some people employed by such organizations to oversee some of the autonomous production before vots are fully developed. But otherwise it's mostly automated.


RE: Topic Review: Megacorps - Worldtree - 09-11-2020

Started combining more thoughts together but i'll just continue this in a google doc to make it actually organized and post that next


a) We may (probably will) need to make some tweaks to the earlier history. Most of it is set in the Interplanetary Age prior to the Technocalypse and we've made considerable changes to that period since this Topic was written.

b) We will need to add to the history to expand the level of detail in the Federation Age and extend that history further across the timeline. Current it thins out and all bet ends with the end of the Federation period and then jumps into the Sephirotics and covers that entire period in about 2 sentences.
-some more material about how transapients now run megacorps. as todd said: The megacorps (or at least some of them) saw themselves in competition with the transapients and went in for variant forms of group minds and augmentation to try to compete. Ultimately they failed and either ended up being taken over by transapients or becoming (at least in the core areas/'Boards of Directors"/'Executive level with the greatest amount of augmentation and group mind interlinkage) transapients themselves.

-todd: 3) As part of the Fall of the Federation, the megacorps moved to compete with the Federation and become alternative power centers to it. Including providing alternative ways to live/think - the aforementioned 'corporate culture' - possibly enforced by 'corporate' memetics, group mind variant software, and enhanced augmentation.

I imagine Houses are megacorps that adopted traits of the state and stopped being much of an economic entity.
Another thought - Either the megacorps or great houses, or both might have become vehicles for modos attempting to augment and organize themselves in ways that would let them better hold their own against transapients and transapient run societies. Details of how this would work are TBD, but in a general sense this might fall under the same umbrella as Unity/Unityware and its development of group minds - modos trying to operate on or near the level of transaps without actually becoming transaps.
Something like this could create a very...interesting...period during the early-middle part of the timeline during which various superhumanly intelligent entities and groups all interacted with each other in various ways (competition, cooperation, etc.). Eventually the sephirotic archai come along and dominate things - but maybe we push that back a few hundred or thousand years and have a long interregnum period.

c) We've been talking a good bit about how the megacorps might have been organized and what they might have become - that will need to be polished up a bit and then folded in (in some cases replacing) with what is currently there.
-rynn's more automation of the labor to maximize shareholder value for anyone who buys in
-

d) We will probably want to look at the current description of how megacorps work(ed) internally as well as the InterPlanetary Age economic factors that formed that internal structure and determine if we want to modify it and how.
-rise of untraceable monetary systems that undermine governments
-Rise of AI and transapients (unkown to humans at the time) possibly within some megacorps that to humans appear better run than normal
-primitive von neumann devices and nano-manufacturing are developed, so that allows more automation for megacorps
-tweaks developed so more megacorps operating in extreme environments where automated devices need supervision

e) We may also want to look at describing multiple types of internal structures (both past and present) for megacorps in the vein of our focus on Diversity! Diversity! Diversity! It seems logical that not all megacorps would operate in exact same fashion, although they may fall into broadly similar types.

-megacorporations could certainly vary in their purpose and structure. Some might specialize more in certain economic sectors like building islands/bubblehabs, infrastructure or allowing a smaller number of shareholders to concentrate more wealth, whereas other megacorporations might have a broader but less wealthy shareholder base and/ or more social or environmental goals.

f) The role of transapients definitely needs to be worked into the article fairly early on and throughout their history.
-as more and more of civilization develops into post scarcity societies, the megacorps might tend to have more concentrated power than
-what differentiates a megacorporation run entirely by transapients from a transapient society? that it's more decentralized and less market/ money based as an economic system?


g) The role of augmentation in megacorps is an area we should definitely explore.
" There might also be elements of non-compete clauses in there as well - even after you pay off your debt it's hard to go to another company and take your implants with you, etc." as you said, todd.
could be slightly similar to citizenship

i've been increasingly wondering about some kind of "platform" hive mind type intelligence somewhere between s0 and s1, where some megacorporation or other type of organization might resemble a hive mind with some augmented members having more 'autonomy/ individuality' from the collective and also being able to access a platform that is itself an entity in its own right.
as todd said: An element of these corporate group mind sorta things could be something like the 'xiao'(sp?) or mental domination that is practiced by the Sobornost multi-copy society whereby copies close to the original 'Founders' can dominate those farther away (as in copy of a copy of a copy of a copy,etc.) with the Founders dominating all. Sort of.