California 2084, a novel by Robert R. Odle: Recent Episodes
Robert R. Odle
The year is 2084. The States are bankrupt. They invade Texas, their neighbor to the south. Can Jane, a flawed genius, and her AI companion, Lisa, tip the balance in favor of Texas. China, the only superpower, watches from the sideline for now.
Jane is getting ready for a date with Henry. Both work at the Equivalence Office, but he is at another department and is at a lower level. Lisa, her AI, assists with preparation for her date.
By 2084, most of the goods and services needed by society are produced by AI (artificial intelligence) and robots. Human labor, both physical and mental, are no longer really needed. The question arises in all societies, how will the goods and services be distributed if one’s efforts in producing them are no longer needed or even relevant. This issue is so contentious that it leads to the United States splitting into three countries with different solutions to this fundamental challenge of human value.
California with Oregon, Washington State, and Hawaii breaks off as an independent country in 2044. Their two political parties, the Conservative Democrats and the Progressive Party set out to create a new country based on state-assisted equality for all, a very socialist approach. Socialism funded by a tax on production, essentially a value added tax on AI and Robots.
Texas breaks off as an independent country in 2050. They develop a new libertarian model of government to deal with the new reality. They aggressively expand and become a world leader in renewable energy while aggressively partnering with Central America via high speed rail. To absorb excess labor, they create Youth Services which requires everyone to serve their country for several years before entering the labor force. Youth Services assists with education, caring for the aging population, building homes for the homeless, etc. Youth Services is financed by an increasingly aggressive carbon tax and partnering with Central American companies to raise their standard of living and thus providing Texas with an expanding market for their renewable energy and high speed rail technology.
The remaining United States, now known as just the States, keeps their capitalist model of production creating a rich elite that enjoy the fruits of AI and robot labor and an impoverished underclass that struggles for survival. The States continues to try to control the rest of the world through the use of a sophisticated military that increasingly absorbs a higher percentage of the nation’s GDP as they struggle to keep up with the much larger and richer China and the emerging Indian economy.
The Chinese economy is now four times larger than the States and is able to comfortably spend twice as much as the States on its military. They control trade from Europe, the Middle East, and across much of Asia with their Belt and Road Initiative started in 2016.
AI and enormous computing power enables the surveillance of much of human activity in this new world. China began surveillance of their population in 2016 in initiating their Social Credit System. The United States initially installed video cameras on all its streets beginning in the 2020’s. They gradually expanded surveillance to all public buildings, apartments, etc. in the cities within a few decades. As the impoverished were pushed outside the cities which were fenced fortresses, rural America became the un-monitored badlands. However, the States, with military spy satellites that were eventually used to monitor its enemies, could monitor anyone, anywhere limited only by their resources to focus on one person on a planet with eleven billion people. California with its socialist agenda went even further with monitoring people even in their homes, but compromised in giving people private areas and an allotment of private time. The Texans with their libertarian viewpoint resisted monitoring, but by 2084, all transactions involving money were monitored. Mexico purposely lagged Texas in implementing the monitoring of all financial transactions despite treaties to do so.
Texas and California have their own currencies but their currencies still track closely to the States.