[Sheala]

I always felt lack of info, what are people who are not runners, criminals, or corp sec doing for living. I understand thnere are lots of wageslaves, who do the same things like "middle class" of our times, only with more emphasis on AR assisted work.
But, what is the analog of lower class doing now? They can't be on welfare, because there is no welfare to speak of. Lots of physical work is replaced by drones (Or isn't it?). And all of them can't be criminals. I need some help to create backroung for PC and NPC who did not start as corp citizens or gangers, in our world they would be more or less qualified workers :-)

[John Schmidt]

Huge distinction between lower class and SINless. The poor slot working three jobs and just scraping by, that would be considered an economic lower class. SINless, fall through the cracks, they may live in abandoned buildings as squatters and spend their days dumpster diving for the bare essentials.

[CanRay]

The movement from Factory workers to Drones has reversed after the Technomancer Scare of 2070, which brought back a major demand for (meta)human labor.

That said, there is a large underclass of unemployed who do jobs "Off The Books" for crap pay and none of the government-mandated benefits.

[Wayfinder]

The skilled labor force that we have now still exists in 2072. Only now they are the skillwire workforce. Why spend all the time and effort to train a worker to be a plumber, electrician, or carpenter? When you can jam a few wires into a person and they can be all of them and more.

[CanRay]

The skilled labor force that we have now still exists in 2072. Only now they are the skillwire workforce. Why spend all the time and effort to train a worker to be a plumber, electrician, or carpenter? When you can jam a few wires into a person and they can be all of them and more.

That works for the trades.  R&D still requires traditional learning techniques.

Community Colleges and Trade Schools, however, are dying left, right, and center.

[baronspam]

I think the advantage of the skillwire workforce isn't that is cheap, but the fact that it is flexible.  The skill wires are actually fairly expensive, as are the programs, but once in the system that worker can do almost any job needed.   This week you are assembling electronics, next week you are fixing transmissions, the week after that the chem division needs an extra shift so you get a couple of 'softs uploaded and you are processing industrial solvents.  It's not that its cheaper than traditional training (you can do a whole lot of training for the cost of the wires and software) its that you can change your workforce overnight to fit your business needs.  Skillwire factory jobs probably put you in a low lifestyle.

There are still lots of customer service jobs needed as well.  Someone has to clean and stock the stuffer shack, someone has to help you around the store in the mall, someone works at the dry cleaners, etc. etc.  Again, these jobs are pretty much low lifestyle.  If you work somewhere where you actually do a bit of selling and can make some bonus/commission you might be licking at the bottom of middle lifestyle.  Successful salespeople for big ticket items could make a middle lifestyle as well.

[CanRay]

Tech Support as well, can't be done from a script, so people will be needed for that, and skillwires won't help in that.

Also, skillwires will add in security of a site.  One minute, you're dealing with a group of factory workers on a GMC Car Line.

The next?  They all suddenly have the skills of trained riflemen.  Shouldn't have slotted off an Ares Subsidiary, eh?

[Crash_00]

Add to all this that having a human employee to interactive with makes customers happier and more likely to spend time talking (and have other things catch their eye to buy) and there is plenty of reasons to have min-wage employees. Drones can do the job as well, but do you pay several grand for the drone and then pay upkeep to keep it running and repair it when joe shmo has a bad day and kicks/crushes/vandalizes it, or do you pay some punk who couldn't hack it in college peanuts to do the same thing.

Outside of CorpSec and Gangs, there is still the military, college, trade school, min. wage jobs at Stuffer Shack/Joes Muffler Shop/Slow Man Welding, ect.

[CanRay]

On the down side, said punk doesn't have the work ethic of a drone, takes fifteen minute lunch hours and a five minute smoke break every two days, not to mention stuff that "Walks out the back door.", while the drone just happily works 24/7 and doesn't filch a thing (Unless hacked.).

Drones are also less likely to show up to work drunk/stoned/chipped.

BUT, drones don't BUY anything.  That's all money that just gets filtered around internally.  An employee base means customers.  Customers means stimulated business, which means profit.  The Corporations are Plutocracies now (Well, AA- and above are), and take the long-term view of things, not just "Making it through the quarter by any means necessary to get my bonus and leave to another company" that seems to be the business plan of today...  If you screw up your department to get ahead and transferred over, that screw-up is going to follow you.

...

Or that could just be wishful thinking on my part.

[baronspam]

A couple more thoughts :drones vs skillworkers.  Drones are probably great for anything that doesn't require any thinking- repetitive motion assembly, warehouse picking, waxing the floor, that kind of thing.  Skillwires are a way to essentially make a "smart drone" in a metahuman body, however.  A skill wire worker brings their logic and reason to the issue (or their agility, or whatever).  They can take the skill from the wires and apply it creatively and to an extent solve problems with it.  I think a skill wire worker with a good logic score would be better at fixing an engine than a drone would be.  They wouldn't be as good as a true master mechanic, but they could be pretty good at it.  There are probably skill wire workers that fix/manage/oversee drones.

The other thing I see is that skill wire workers would probably often be contractors/temps.  Anything with a security issue would be of course done with corporate citizens, but a facility that is just cranking out consumer goods would probably use lots of temp skillwire help to fill in their labor needs.

[Lacynth40]

The cost of implanting skillwires is mentioned in the books, as those skill wires are often "repossessed" in one form or another at the "termination" of employment. And no, they wouldn't have everyone switch out simple manufacturing skillwires for firearms skillwires. That's just asking for your manufacturing lines to get shot up, and many, many employee bodies to clean up. Would also make for PR nightmares.

Would cost way too much to outfit menial laborers with firearms skillwires, and guns, just to have to pry hundreds of stray rounds out of your plastic mold extruders, and scrub the blood off of the floors. Easier just to spray stealth RFID tags, have the employees duck and cover, and go after the intruders when there are fewer soft cover targets in the way of the action. At least from a cost-risk analysis point of view.

[Mystic]

I would also look at how the wireless world is effecting society today. People are becoming more connected, but yet more isolated. Just look at things like how facebook, twitter, etc has exploded versus how much people "get out", anymore. Amp that up with simsence and the like and it's a wonder why anyone leaves home, other than business.

OK, that's a bit extreme, even for SR, but there is a degree of social disconnect going on as more and more people are becoming "wired". Now, take where your entire LIFE is basically routed through your PAN and you can see the next stage of this as the PAN becomes one of the end all, be all things in your life. You thought people who obsessed over their social networking sites can be bad....

How we communicate with each other will determine what kind of society we will become.

[darcdante]

There's no Star Trek-like replicator, right? I dunno for sure, but I assume Waffle House still exists in the year 2070. If not, then I'm gonna be sad at my retirement. <3 Waffle House

Of course, waitresses may have been replaced by drones, but I figure you could still have coffee shops that draw in a particular clientele by having actual people (human, ork, elf, whatever) as waiters/waitresses. You could bring race into it by having them only hire once race, or reject a particular race of customers (Read the sign! :No Droids Allowed: We don't like your kind in here!). I figure restaurants and bars are where a lot of the lower class works. Mechanics also gotta hire people; or can computers fix all vehicles?

Maybe school teachers? lol

[Lacynth40]

I would also look at how the wireless world is effecting society today. People are becoming more connected, but yet more isolated. Just look at things like how facebook, twitter, etc has exploded versus how much people "get out", anymore. Amp that up with simsence and the like and it's a wonder why anyone leaves home, other than business.

OK, that's a bit extreme, even for SR, but there is a degree of social disconnect going on as more and more people are becoming "wired". Now, take where your entire LIFE is basically routed through your PAN and you can see the next stage of this as the PAN becomes one of the end all, be all things in your life. You thought people who obsessed over their social networking sites can be bad....

How we communicate with each other will determine what kind of society we will become.

Om a similar note, notice in Unwired about the discussion of an iconographic language. Yes, it will be easier to communicate to people of all languages, but it won't be something you can write out. Gonna have to be typed. And it won't be spoken, either. So, communications will improve over a text-style basis, but you will need a computer between the two, and I can see spoken word language becoming rapidly obsolete at that point.

[Crash_00]

I could definitely see the lower class being more than grumpy about drones stealing their jobs, especially after hearing people around here gripe about illegals taking all the jobs. Of course, unlike the jobs here, the drones would be taking jobs that the lower class want to do. (Here most of the illegals are doing jobs that the average person will go on welfare before taking: Roofing, Welding Train Cars, Picking Rice, ect.)

You also can't forget the age old standards that require a human touch: Escorts, Strippers, Artists, Musicians, Trid Directors, ect.