HACKER SOCIETY


Information Economy

	Programs, especially systems software, are free, and freely 
	passed around.

	Data on the other hand may be either public or private.
	Information which promotes the general welfare is public.
	Personal data is private, including personality profiles and
	personal images.  And data (including animations, images,
	sounds, and the like) intended for entertainment is usually
	traded for more of the same.

	The existance of OtherWorld leads to a data-space tourist
	economy, whereby outsiders are permitted to visit in exchange
	for a "toll" of information.

	Design work is a source of trade income.  This includes 
	the design of information systems, games, as well as physical
	objects.  HackTown can compete in this market because of its
	enormous computer resources and the presence of intelligent
	software to do the detail work.
	

Physical Economy

	Internally, HackTown has a post-scarcity economy with raw food, 
	air, compute power, and lunar rock being
	"free natural resources" provided by automated systems.

	The whole thing works because of the pervasive philosophy
	that the physical world is of no importance.  Physical
	necessities, therefore, are supplied "by magic"; luxuries,
	on the other hand, are hand-made and either given as
	gifts or bartered.

	Think of it as a big co-op.  Legally on Earth, it's a
	corporation with all inhabitants being shareholders.

	The automated factory that constructs electronic components
	is the heart of HackTown; its surplus
	output provides a major source of trade income.  
	
	HackTown hardware has the following advantages:

		It is small and light, being made using zero-G
		techniques.

		It is cheap, the product of the first and most
		advanced self-aware automated factory system.

		It comes with Hacker software installed, including
		NetHelp and Otherworld.

		It is capable of hosting, and friendly to, Free Programs.

	Food and air come from the communal farms, mainly worked by
	robots with volunteer supervision.

	Living space is constructed in orbit from moon-dust shipped
	up automatically.  The refining and exterior construction are
	also automatic, but people are expected to do their own designing.
	The mining, refining, and physical construction operations are
	totally automated.  Inhabitants can essentially have anything
	they can design and schedule factory time for.  The "price" is that
	the design and any necessary tools and techniques then become
	public property.

	[Note:  a possible variant of this would be a small set of 
	 "artificial plants" -- automated self-reproducing systems
	 which produce useful products.  E.g. a corridor tree, a
	 computer tree, and so on.  The difference between these and
	 general-purpose automatic factories is that they are _not
	 general-purpose, but highly specialized.

	 The idea here is to build a hunter-gatherer type of society.
	]

	One consequence of this is that the more innovative something
	is, the easier it is to schedule resources and time to build it.
	Notwithstanding, there are standards.  Corridor segments and
	connection locks are absolutely standardized, as are solar-grid
	segments.  Farming disks are pretty cut and dried, as is the
	basic personal life-support module.  Aluminum alloy sheet and
	tubing are available in standard sizes (tubing up to 4m or so
	at least), as are fused silica and fused slag in several grades.

	Physical labor mainly goes into constructing and improving
	one's living space, preparing food (restaurants are popular),
	and handcrafting various items (e.g. furniture).


External Economy

	Major exports are
	    electric power (to Spaceport 1)
	    design expertise (mostly to Earth)
	    surplus manufacturing capacity
	    lunar resources
	    grid units (see Geography)
	    tourism

	Major imports are:
	    scarce materials (organics and hydrogen)
	    high-tech items other than computer equipment
	    luxury items (e.g. coffee, chocolate)
	    information	(both entertainment and technology)


Physical Geography

	The whole colony rotates slowly, to keep one face pointed 
	toward the Sun.

	[Note:  2 meters of rock shielding are required around living
	 areas.  This would seem to favor large spheres, for minimum
	 surface area.  Note, though, that sandwiching corridors and
	 living modules between two thick plates works, too.

	 On the other hand, doing _that means you may as well leave
	 out the corridors and just use the space between the plates. 
	 On the whole I think I like the sphere better, but it's
	 harder to light.  Can be done, though.
	]


	Personal living modules (mods) are (at least potentially) independent
	spacecraft connected to public corridors.  All have airlocks
	and life support systems; most have ion manoevering engines.

	The typical mod is a 4m (5?)i.d. tube of random length with a 
	lock at one end.  The original mods were based on 2-tonne launch-
	laser capsules, using their lock and life-support.

	The corridors are 4m reinforced fused moonrock tubes.
	They contain distribution cables for comm, and power, and pipes
	for clean and waste water and pressurized clean air.  Fast 
	transportation is via personal scooters or jet-packs, powered 
	either by compressed air rockets or electric ducted fans.


	There are three main areas:  the Grid, G-town, and the Blob.	 

	The Grid is a large rectangular oc-tet space truss.
	On the sun-side of the Grid is the colony's solar-power array; 
	behind that is a rectangular net of corridors with
	attached living modules, which are individually shielded.
	The darkside of the Grid is effectively one huge docking
	area.  Locks for living modules generally replace one arm
	of a +-intersection.

	[Note:  I'm beginning to have doubts about the Grid--it seems 
	 wasteful of materials, esp. when you consider shielding the
	 corridors.
	]

	To sunside of the Grid is G-town, a small toroid spun to 
	provide .25g at the rim.  [Note:  this makes it 450m dia. at 1rpm.  
	That's a 1.5km circ.]  Sunlight is reflected in through the "roof" 
	otherwise surrounded by bulk shielding.  The interior is in
	two levels:  the top is for farming, the bottom is living space for
	those who want or need gravity (including couples with
	children).

	[Note:  toroids could be built out of cylindrical modules
	 stacked parallel to the spin axis.  They would not give
	 as great a feeling of space, but would be simple and cheap.
	 Possibly the first few could be built this way.  On the other
	 hand, given automatic tube-makers, why bother?
	]

	Let us say that at the time of Demon there are two Wheels,
	the first being of modular construction (10m tubes, say),
	and almost entirely agricultural.

	In the center of the Grid is the Blob, a large mass of lunar
	material, automated factories, debris, and assorted junk.
	This is the core of HackTown.  To darkward of the Blob is the
	Bubble, the original living area, now containing mostly public
	space.  This is a non-spinning 100m dia. sphere with 2m walls of
	crushed moonrock with fused inner and outer shells.

	As people moved out of the Bubble into G-town or the Grid,
	the resulting space was filled with shops, restaurants, and
	other such enterprises.  Most of the outer 15m is partitioned
	into rooms and cubicles, leaving an inner sphere of 40m dia.
	mostly empty.  This is used for transit from one side to the
	other, as a "hanging around" space, and occasionally for
	public performances.


	Let's consider automatic tube-makers for a moment.  I suspect
	that the way to do it is with a machine that rides on the
	_rim of the growing tube, adding material in a helical pattern.
	Reinforcement could be done by extruding a fiber down the middle
	of the added material, and by adding another layer (or three)
	with alternating sense and possibly different pitch.  Thus,
	arbitrary size and cross-section can be achieved.


Information Space

	OtherWorld is a distributed world-building system.  It is 
	capable of supporting different world models, including 
	strange physics, non-Euclidean geometry, and extra dimensions.
	
	It contains both a model of the Real World, and various 
	fantasy worlds; some private and some shared.  Game Worlds
	are shared worlds in which the major activity is conflict
	or puzzle-solving.  The major activity, though is _building
	worlds, then inviting visitors in to show them off.  This
	is, essentially, a tourist industry.

	People can view OtherWorld via screens (especially wall screens
	and room screens), holos, and helms (sensory helmets).  Neural
	taps are under development.  A few people have begun "crossing
	over" by building personality simulators in OtherWorld.  
	Memory transfer requires hypnosis and is highly experimental.

	Programs live mainly in OtherWorld; they can project images
	into RealWorld via screens, holos, and helms, and can control
	robots as well. 

The Grand Hack

	The Grand Hack was the founding of HackTown.  It involved the
	construction of HackTown's automated factories:  the electronics
	factory (Tinker), the moon miner (Miner), and the machine shop 
	(Builder).

	Tinker was used to generate income, which was funnelled into
	the construction and launch of Miner and Builder.

	The construction of HackTown was motivated by a desire to escape
	from a world which was rapidly becoming less pleasant to
	live in, and more prejudiced against technologists, hackers
	in particular.  The latter was due to their association with
	the Net Wars.  There were, for example, proposals to limit or
	license personal ownership of computers and access to data
	communications.

	The Grand Hack was a joint product of two movements:  Free Data
	and Free Space.

	The human migration of the Grand Hack was made possible by the
	1-tonne launch laser, which boosted the personal capsules into
	LEO.  

Computations required:

	Orbits

	Wheel sizes and spin rates

	Approximate total mass of lunar and terrestrial components

	Approximate cost and time-to-complete, from mass.