Biological Labor

The economic collapse came suddenly, swiftly and violently. Within a week of the virus arriving on the North American continent through most major airports the economic engine of the United States evaporated. Workers stayed home. Millions fell to the virus and millions more were left combing through the wreckage of a nation. 

Before the pandemic humans used machines. After the pandemic machines used humans. 

Many of the jobs lost during the downturn never returned. Humans were too vulnerable, too weak and too susceptible to the next more powerful and frequent pandemics. Automation and artificial intelligence were instrumental in reviving the economy. And when you compared humans to new technology, the humans had become obsolete. 

The economic devastation left by the Corona pandemic was only reversed years later when human capital was converted to machine capital. 

In the cybermodern era of infinite connectivity, but before the technological singularity, humans were obviously better suited to being mined. A single human body at rest is able to generate 100 watts of power through excess body heat every few minutes. 

Prodo Vests could be purchased on credit from Senseweb with webcoin, their own cryptocurrency. Simple ‘trodes woven into the fabric of the vest converted excess body heat into electricity that was used to mine more webcoin. Senseminers and the company Senseweb split the mined stake equally in half and doing so made it possible for millions of unemployed Americans to supplement the monthly dividend of freedomcoins issued by the United States government.

In the cybermodern era labor was cheap, Gamma-Hydroxybutyrate was also cheap but liberty was expensive. 

-taken from a history of cybermodernism