Manna
is a sci-fi novella published by 'Marshall Brain' about the future of automation, economics, and humanity. It shows one possible result of the automation revolution: Robots are owned by the rich, and everyone else gets left behind in cheaply-constructed welfare dormitories. But it also shows another possibility...
This novel provides examples of:
- Author Tract - The message is clear: Automation can result in all humans living in full-time luxury, or it can be used by the powerful to cement their control of society and marginalize those who they no longer have any use of.
- Bread and Circuses - Everyone in terrafoam dorms is provided a free television, "the world's best pacifier".
- Brain/Computer Interface: The system used in Australia has a computer embedded into each person. It provides access to each person and allows them to perceive the world as they desire (such as masking technology and making it look more primitive). The computer also dampens crime, preventing individuals from causing harm to others.
- Dystopia - Manna systems (and presumably the people who own them) control the vast majority of the job market, blacklisting or just replacing employees, making most of the population homeless.
- Job-Stealing Robot - Manna is a computer system that automates the management of a 'Burger-G' fast food restaurant. At first it simply tells the employees what to do over headsets, but it grows in sophistication and ubiquity until it has replaced most workers with computer-vision-enabled robots, and most humans are unemployed living in welfare dormitories. Eventually, everyone whose job is replaced is forced into gigantic prison-like 'terrafoam' dormitories.
- Space Elevator: Mentioned as one of the technological advances Australia has over other countries, where they would take at least 20 years to catch up assuming the other countries are able to shake off legal liability paranoia.
- Utopia - Australia is, by contrast, a full-time resort where everyone benefits from the gains in automation, rather than just the wealthy few.
