A confused person, presumably a woman, appears. She seems to be twenty-something, and is wearing a tight-fitted turtleneck sweater and a skirt. Notably they don't have shoes on.

"Uh. This doesn't seem to be my living room? I'll note that I'm quite confused of what's happening here? Where are we?"

There's a glance around the living room but the new person seems to be focused mostly on the other person in the room.

"It's called Revolution! Extremely big city! Welcome... welcome." The living room is disproportionately large, with a window looking out at an adjacent skyscraper covering nearly the entire wall. There's a couch looking out the window, together with a small table and some plastic chairs in another part of the living room.

"Well. This is here. How... are you liking it?"

"Is Revolution located on Earth? Is it common for people to visit by appearing in living rooms here?"

"Oh and I'm Viola. Sorry for the intrusion and thanks for the welcome!"

"And well. Wow. That is a big window. It seems comfortable here? Oh that's a big skyscraper over there. Is the whole city built this tall?"

"Revolution isn't on Earth, no. Welcome to thomassia... alien."

"People don't appear in living rooms here! Viola. But yes, it's comfortable here. Really everything is. The whole city isn't built quite this tall, but this is what most of it looks like. It's why there's so many tourists. Or people moving here to work in finance. Actually."

She runs over to a sliding switch on the wall, with a black bead. She slides it over, and the windows of the skyscraper opposite hers turn black.

Viola's going to sit on the couch if there's no gesturing to not do that.

"Oh that's really interesting. And I guess it is true I'm an alien now."

"You can just turn the neighboring buildings windows dark? Or is this some sort of filter on this window?"

"What do you do here in Revolution? Do you work here or are you a tourist?"

"It's not their windows doing it. Basically, we have windows that are polarized one way by default. So when I polarize my window horizontally, that means that all the light from their windows gets blocked because it can't pass 2 filters of opposite polarization, but I can still see out because there's just one layer of polarization in front of me."

"And I'm here trying to find out if I should work here. I'm sort of halfway inbetween? My actual job is a hospital support worker. I'm thinking about maybe moving here, as well."

"Okay that is pretty interesting."

"Where did you work and/or live before? How does Revolution compare?"

(She'd ask more about the hospital support work but is not quite sure if that'd be polite at this point.)

"Actually do you mind entertaining my questions? I could look or take a recommendation where to go ask more questions if you'd prefer to get me out of your hair."

"Well, I lived in some midsize town named Curie or something, they're all the same. Revolution is a lot bigger, but I also slightly miss being so close to nature in my hometown. And it feels a bit too hectic, sometimes?"

"And I'm happy to answer your questions! I don't think there's anyone really more qualified. Are you hungry for anything? I won't have dinner for a while, but maybe you want something anyway?"

Viola seems actively relieved to hear that the person she's speaking to is happy to answer questions.

"Oh okay! I live, and my living room is located, in a suburb close to some smaller forest areas. I've actually never lived too far from nature. And I can imagine a city like this would could hectic. I usually prefer cities to towns due to better presence of various subcultures and hobby groups."

"I don't really need food right now, but I could take a drink of like coffee, tea, or any sort of non-alcoholic beverage."

"What does the finance industry do here? Is it like banking or investing or something else?"

"Do you like working as a hospital support worker? Have you been doing it for long?"

"Well, I'll get some tea going, then." Cynthia walks over to a microwave placed on a small counter not too far from the kitchen table, putting in a blue and green mug with a bubble pattern, before walking over to a cupboard and finding a long, thin glass tube filled with tea leaves, taking it from a rack with many other varieties of tea next to it.

"The finance industry just buys and sells elements and important compounds, mostly. Like, the pure lithium, carbon, iron, copper, and uranium markets have an unbelievable amount of liquidity and speculation behind them. And of course the plastic, steel, and everything else markets, as well. That would be called investing; we don't really need banking. Everyone has an account with your Supreme Vault perps, so you don't really need a bank for a loan or anything else."

"I love being a hospital support worker! I'll soon have done it for 2 years. But it's something I know I've wanted my whole life, so I've kinda done mini-apprenticeships for my mom much longer than that. You know, hugging patients and holding their hands and comforting them."

"Yay! Thank you."

"What's a Supreme Vault and perps? Is it a local solution to Revolution or something global? They give out loans too? A single bank solution does sound pretty interesting. I think in Earth we had some theory that said that you need a bunch to avoid complacency leading to lack of innovation."

"That sounds fulfilling and nice! I'm glad you have work you enjoy doing." Delivered with a bright smile.

"It's kind of hard for me to imagine having had a career path for my whole life. I guess in any case it would most likely change again if I have to stay here or decide to stay here."

"The Supreme Vault is basically the only company running a blockchain with asset custody, and they pay the lowest interest on any kind of investment. Perps are perpetual bonds; they're guarantees from the Supreme Vault that they'll pay money in the future for all eternity. Basic income is funded by the government buying perps from the Supreme Vault whenever anyone's born. You can just sell your perps on the bond market anytime you want a loan, so there isn't really a need for anyone else to offer their own loans."

"It sounds like banks run horizontally integrated companies, if you need a bunch to avoid complacency? It sounds kind of weird that the same company has custody of assets and finances innovation."

"I mean, it doesn't take many years or kids to realize what kind of things they enjoy doing. It sounds weird that you wouldn't have had a dream job, at least, for most of your life."

"Okay that does sound sensible. Interesting concept to have a bond with payback for all of eternity but I guess that might force the system to have a time discounting function that consistently applies?"

"Hm yeah on Earth banks do asset custody and financial innovation. Altough some of the more innovative financial companies don't do that much asset custody. And also some of the more innovative companies are doing blockchain stuff, altough much of it still somewhat lacks credibility and is also riddled by scams and market manipulation. But I can definitely see it being applied as backbone of some financial system if you have solved those problems."

Now there is a contemplative look. Some gazing to the ceiling. "Hm. I have had a bunch of dream jobs, which have in order been something like: a politician, a social studies researcher, a programmer, a corporate executive and then being a philosopher. I guess often my actual path has been shaped by realism; I have a hard time staying still (both literally e.g. sitting on lectures is hard, and figuratively e.g. I often have a new idea on what I want to do) enough for university degrees, which are necessary for the research careers. I also do not really enjoy the rigid structure of Earths Academia and scientific world. Also I have a pretty hefty preference for economic safety and we don't have basic income where I'm from. Altough we do have social support programs if one is really doing badly but it has a lot of bureucratics because you're not supposed to enjoy living on it."

"Currently I am actually trying to complete my current university degree in Computer Science that is about halfway done, but what I've been mostly doing for the last ~5 years has been programming jobs that pay decently."

"Well, I'm sure you could live fine on basic income? You'd have to sign up with proof-of-identity, though. You might be able to convince someone to finance your research as part of a Revolutionary Research Fund; that's how researchers and philosophers get paid, here. But if you can code, there are many, many opportunities for you. Not sure if any will really be needed." The lights of the microwave flash a few times; Cynthia walks over and takes out the mug, letting the tea leaves she grabbed steep inside it, as she turns to Viola.

"Oh. I'm pretty significantly positively surprised if it's possible for an uh alien to just sign up for citizenship and basic income. I guess in any case one of the first things I'd like to do, after things like mandatory paperwork, would be to read some news and some (layperson understandable) books on like: The history of society here, the local values, current state of social science, psychology, philosophy, and probably computer science as well."

"And I probably wouldn't mind coding either. In my world it just felt like it was hard to find opportunities to code where they apply to the problems of the world I considered most burning."

"I guess I would like to ask some questions about values. I'd be interested in hearing what your society usually thinks and if you happen to disagree, if you're willing to share. I'll just dump some questions, feel free to also leave any unanswered if they're uncomfortable or for any reason.:

1. I guess since you have basic income there is presumably some concept of basic rights or something that equivalently leads to it being just that people are provided some things just for existing. What is basic income calculated to cover here. Can you live in a medium cost of living area, or do you need to live somewhere cheap if living off of that? Can you afford furniture, medical needs, food, electricity and other things that would be considered basic necessities off of it?

2. Who are eligible for basic income / basic rights? Is it just humans? Do you have other sentient species or sentient artificial intelligence here?

3. What are animal rights here? Are animals farmed for food in conditions that are uh. Not nice.

4. Is there environmental regulation for industry here? Or are you going to end up with uhh. A mess. Like Earth was going to according to environmental science.

5. How is governance handled here? Do you vote for leaders or select them by some different process?

"

"Basic income isn't calculated to cover anything, actually. It's just however much we can raise through 0 deadweight-loss taxes. We have other taxes, they just don't go into basic income; it feels kind of icky in terms of principle."

"Humans are the only ones eligible for basic income. We don't actually have any kind of animal rights, but we kind of self-enforce wireheading of all of our livestock, for example. Maybe we should start having official animal rights legislation? But making new global laws like that is so much work..."

"Animals are farmed for food in nasty conditions! But as mentioned, it's near-impossible to buy non-wireheaded animal products. Unless you choose to raise animals yourself because you want to eat your pets, for some reason."

"The environmental regulation is the land value tax! Essentially, if some polity chooses to make its land a garbage dump, then anyone bringing garbage there must pay them. And you get a bunch of experts calculating how much land is needed, and how big a buffer, and zoning-via-taxation so that you don't ruin things for local residents."

"We also have, theoretically, the air pollution reductions auction, although air pollution is near-zero already so it basically doesn't exist."

"Governance is by vote, yes. Although most cities have infinitesimally small Discretionary Funds, so we barely have normal governments-spending-tax-money-through-their-budgets style governance. We use the High Consensus Vote system instead."

"That's an interesting way to do it. I guess if that works then you don't need to do 'icky' solutions. Altough if this kind of ickiness is devalued by your society I guess then it means you value economic efficiency and optimality a bunch?"

"Wireheading animals seems like a preferable solution to my Earths which was the same without. I'm unsure if it's preferably to free animals but happiness, satisfaction and utility of free animals is a question I'm in general unsure on."

"What sort of process is needed for global laws, what sort of global laws do you have right now?"

 "That sounds reasonable. How does the system handle situations where a garbage dump has a risk or a constant effect of polluting things like groundwater?"

"How did you end up with near-zero air pollution?"

"What's the High Consensus Vote system? And if it's a form of direct democracy who and how are the proposals made?"

"Yes, very much so. There's a deep beauty in efficient and optimal answers to everything."

"Yep, most of us are fine with wireheading. Although there's still something discomfiting about eating meat, not enough to not make it delicious, though."

"Well, technically speaking, there aren't global laws. But we basically consider the Basic Income Law, the 2 Principles of Criminal Law, the Solvency Freedom of Movement Law, Mutual Enforcement of Exile Law and Solidarity on the Sea Law to be global laws. So I meant getting a law as widely enforced as those, that's what I mean by a global law."

"Well, the experts in question make the land value tax that much higher to accommodate for that negative externality? I can't really be more specific."

"We stopped burning fossil fuels for energy, for anything. What's left comes from tire dust and certain industrial processes, mostly."

"High Consensus Votes are referenda for things that will lower your basic income by a certain amount. Your mayor, or someone else, often a business leader, comes with a proposal, and say the price of some service. If enough people vote yes on lowering their basic income enough that they'd be able to pay for that service, then that service becomes free, and everyone's basic incomes go down by enough to pay for that service. Understand me?"

"Hm. I'd probably say optimality is beautiful as a tool, in the same manner as an optimal tool can be beautiful. In Earth computer scientists actually often quoted one of the pioneers of the field stating 'Premature optimization is the root of all evil.'. But of course an enjoyer of optimality can always just state that premature optimization, by the definition of premature, is suboptimal."

"I guess it being slightly discomfiting but delicious is an interesting equilibria to arrive at. I always found it more than slightly discomfiting (partially due to the lack of applied solutions to animal suffering on earth), but not too delicious so I stopped eating it once it was easy enough."

"Okay that definitely is a small list of global laws. Do you have any wars? Or large multi-polity crime organizations?"

"I guess stopping burning fossil fuels solves that. Did you just decide to do it with a consensus or how did it happen? Without a policy I'd expect fossil fuel prices to get so cheap once like 95% of the usage is stopped that it'd be hard to stop everyone from using them."

"I do understand but I guess some questions open up. Are businesses allowed to profit from free basic service? Are they allowed to advertise a service aggressively before a High Consesus Vote? I guess in general do you regulate advertising in any way?"

"What you said about premature optimization was such a beautiful way of putting it, hah."

"Well, if the animals are suffering, of course it'd be discomfiting."

"We haven't had wars since our liberal revolution 200 or so years ago. It had a really awesome story, actually. And we don't have large criminal organizations, either!"

"Well, we didn't need a consensus, really. We just needed really cheap nuclear energy. And people started really disliking fossil fuels, so basically every polity had high-consensus votes to pay the extra to make use of nuclear energy instead of fossil. In addition, reusing fission byproducts in thermal generators made it so there wasn't too much of a cost difference."

"Businesses are allowed to profit! A High Consensus Vote really only means they're paid by the government for what everyone was already paying for anyway. They are allowed to advertise. We just call the mayor and tell him to boycott a company that gets too annoying in their advertising before the High Consensus Votes."

Cynthia walks over to the cup of tea, returning to put it into Viola's hand. It's a very sweet and flavorful green tea, with a faint aftertaste of lemons.

Viola sips her tea, and smiles again. "Oh, this is great tea. Thank you!"

"And alright. It seems everything has worked really well here. I kind of want to take a walk around the city to explore. Do you have any places that you'd recommend as must see?" 

"I mean, the Hinterland Parks aren't an overly-long subway ride? I think those are a great way to start. Follow me down, please."

Cynthia walks over to the elevator, before opening it to reveal it's incredibly spacious. It races down, before opening into an underground parking garage. Cynthia walks past all the vehicles, before opening a door that reveals an entrance to the subway system. She walks on ahead, finally ending up on the station, where a train arrives not even a minute later. The seats on the train are maybe 25% wider than a normal Earth train would be, with an incredibly soft and breathable mesh covering, and Cynthia and everyone is using all of the extra space for their legs. The train's acceleration is incredibly smooth and perfectly quiet.

Viola looks pretty impressed for the whole trip to the subway.

"Wait, what there's an elevator to the subway system directly from the apartments?"

"And the subway car is spacious and quiet? I really like the public transport of my home city but this is pretty next level."

"It's the power of putting everything in one place. There aren't a lot of apartments with tunnels leading into the subways, but if you're already this close, why not tunnel the rest of the way? People take their private tunnel to the subway, instead of the normal subway entrances. So there's less crowding at the normal entrances."

It takes maybe 15 or so minutes, with the train only making incredibly brief, 12 second stops, even skipping over a couple of stations, before the two of them end up at their destination. Cynthia starts heading out of the station, revealing a huge park that stretches on for miles upon miles. There are a few incredibly tall apartment buildings placed near the side of the park they're on, before revealing a vast landscape of beautiful forests, mountains, and even some of the coastline.

"I guess that makes sense. Again. How does the train know which stations to skip over?"

"This is pretty huge for a city park. And some convenient geography to have both mountains and coast available here."

Viola tries to see if there are paths, people walking, animals, or any other objects that would be noticeable among the natural looking environment.

"Do wild animals live here?"

"We use a phone app to buy a ticket. The train can know if there isn't anyone waiting to get on if nobody has a ticket from a particular station, so it knows to skip over that station."

"It's not really a city park. It's on the outskirts, where you don't have to think about land costs."

There are lots of paths, some of them straight, and others more curved. There's people walking around, most in gym clothes, a few boys and girls in white skirts. Further away, a group of people in SCUBA gear, standing on a pier next to lake, are walking around in their wetsuits and tanks.

There's a huge variety of animals, like birds and cats. Most intriguingly, there's something like a combination between a peacock and a turkey that can occasionally be seen among the flowers, with a beautiful plume of red, blue and yellow colors.

"Check. It's interesting to get all the way to the outskirts via subway."

(Internal monologue: Oh no what if I'll make them feel bad by not being excited about these excitingy naturey things.)

"Oh is wearing skirts not gendered here? Are the animals naturally occuring, that one with colored plumes looks really unique?"

Is the park smelling like anything? Are there any noises besides things that can be seen?

"Well, skirts aren't gendered, no. They're part of school uniforms because uniforms put comfort first. Thomassian clothing, especially formal clothing, is kind of built around the idea of vulnerability + comfort, and skirts get you both."

"Most of the animals are natural! But we had to breed the big, colorful animal you're talking about. We actually call it a decorator bird!"

The park smells like fresh grass and delicious food, including BBQ and a bakery. There is the occasional moment of birdsong, but the park is unusually quiet beyond that.

"Vulnerability seems like an interesting trait to make intentional in formal clothing. That's maybe true on Earth but only for women. And comfort is definitely not a priority for our formalwear."

"Oh that's cool!"

"It's a pretty relaxing park in any case. Could sit and walk here for a bit. And then try figuring out more things. (I'm a bit lost on how to enjoy parks in general, and especially now that I'm sort of very lost in this environment. Tips are welcome.)"

"Yeah, that'd be great! Does seeing the skirts make you want any clothes of your own? Buying clothes has gotten very cheap; maybe you have some ideas for designs?"

"On my end, I mostly use parks for socializing or working out. A lot of people like doing scuba diving with treasure hunting, but I think it's fun to just enjoy the weather with friends."

"Oh. That could be interesting. I enjoy many kind of skirts and dresses. Often in blue, black, and white but other colors can be interesting as well. A-line and otherwise fluffy skirts are nice. I like comfortable top parts, many kind of t-shirts work well but I'd be interested in what's on offer here."

"And well. That makes sense. I mostly don't work out, altough I should. Socializing in parks is nice. And enjoying weather is nice, altough I'm a bit picky about weather sometimes."

"Ooh, I'm curious to see what you end up coming up with at the tailor! Although a t-shirt sounds slightly bland, being honest."

"You should try a gacha gym if you don't work out enough! And you're right about socializing in parks, there are so many people to meet!"

"Oh you use tailors for making common clothing?"

"And I guess I probably should. I have a lot of emotional baggage regarding excercise because I've tried it a bunch of times and failed."

"I've mostly been to things like picnics with friends. Do you also like go chat up people you didn't know beforehand in parks?"

"Well, we have the tailors doing the measurements and advising you. We have automated cutting and sewing machines that fly through clothes, so it's not a particularly labor-intensive thing to make."

"Well, I think it'd help a lot if you had a buddy to help you out and motivate you when you exercise!"

"I don't chat up people much, really. But basically, if you sit on a bench and make eye contact with someone, that shows you're receptive. So it lets me encourage people to chat me up. I've had some really fantastic conversations doing this!"

"I guess that makes sense if you have automated cutting to measures. On Earth we just mass produce stock clothing and it's not uncommon for some people to not find well fitting ones."

"Plausible but uncertain. But I guess I can give it a change!"

"Hm. That's again pretty interesting. Nice to hear you've had fantastic conversations!"

Viola lets her eyes wander in the park a bit. It is actually very relaxing. And the situation will take a lot of adjusting. Also she's becoming a bit anxious about the fact that she's unable to connect to her friends or partner in any way. But the relaxing environment does help a bit. It doesn't seem like being less relaxed will solve anything better, in any case.

Eventually, a woman in a wetsuit approaches Cynthia.

"You sound like you'd be happy to hear me talk on and on! Anyway, I just dived hunting some of the new treasure chests, and hunting them down was awesomely fun! Do you want to see the video I recorded of everything?"

"Well, I'm not in the mood right now. But I'm really curious about how they were placed around!"

"They had this really pretty artificial shipwreck. I think it was so nice to see some of the props they had placed there, like they had a whole pirate captain's log placed next to the wheel. And it really felt like you were taken back in history, when people sailed in wooden ships like that."

This seems complicated weird. People are setting up artificial shipwrecks as treasure hunts? Perhaps some sort of puzzle games you do while also diving? Maybe it is the fun weird?

"Hey! I'm a visitor from far away. Do you enjoy the diving or historic immersion more? An entire captain's log as a prop does sound really cool! And a shipwreck as a prop too."

"You know, I can't decide! I feel like I like both about 50/50. And the shipwreck was made from kinda fake-looking plastic, to be clear. But it's still super-fun to do it! Do you have underwater scavenger hunts like that where you're from?"

"Well if we have I have not heard of those. I haven't done any sort of scavenger hunts."

"Huh, I guess you wouldn't have. I think that's something you should try!" The woman walks off. Lots of other people walk by, talking to both Cynthia and Viola.

"I think it's starting to be time to head home; I'm getting quite hungry." Cynthia takes the lead, and leads Viola back through the parking lot before finally ending up back in her apartment.

"I'll be ordering some food. I'm expecting you to want something, too?"

Hm. Chatting with the passerbys was surprisingly enkoyable.

"Yes absolutely. Thank you." delivered with a smile again.

"I like hot food but I'm not too picky. I'd prefer something vegetarian since I haven't yet completely figured out what to feel regarding the wireheading."

She gets wondering: what does the kitchen look like. Does it look like it's equipped / regularly used for cooking or mostly for eating ordered food.

"The obvious option for going vegetarian would be some chickpeas in spicy sauce. I'll order that, unless you have something more specific in mind. And some soy-sauce chicken for myself; I really think wireheading is OK, but I can see why you wouldn't know what to think."

The kitchen has nothing but a microwave, plates, bowls and cutlery. There are a few microwave accessories here and there, but it's obvious that they see little use.

"Sure! That sounds good."

"Do you have anything in mind you'd like to talk about before food arrives?"

"Well. since you'll presumably be living here, I'm curious about what you're thinking in terms of living arrangements? This is very possibly the most expensive city in the world, so you might maybe want to live somewhere where costs are lower. What kinds of features are you thinking about for your apartment, eventually? Like a jacuzzi or real pool?"

Whatt.

"Um. Yeah presumably if there's no way back I'll be living here. I guess the city options depend also on my job prospects, but if I'm going to be taking things slow and trying to figure out how your society ticks that will take a while in any case. So probably more effective to go somewhere cheaper to like read a bunch of books and news and the internet."

"I like big windows. Does this place have popular / economic shapes and room counts for apartments or how does that work? In any case I'd maybe like a room configuration with:

- a kitchen

- a living room (preferably with a nice view and a big window to something I like to stare at like a busy street or a body of water) 

- a study / work room (if I work remotely, but I'd prefer to have a study in any case)

- a bedroom

but if if's expensive I'd compromise about the study.

I've never really thought about having a pool. I'm more used to saunas in apartments. I'm interested in trying out having a jacuzzi. How common is that here? And having like a swimming pool would be a very luxury apartment thing in my world. Altough sometimes apartment building have shared pools.

I usually like clean looking interior bases (pretty basic / mild colours, like white, light brown, light blue, light grey), that I can add some busy to with my stuff and things like art and photos on the walls.

I like functional furniture.

I guess in general since I wouldn't moving with my old stuff this would be a change to do something interesting with furniture that would've been a waste of money before. Hm."

"Oh, oh, not swimming pool! Just a pool built into the floor of the bath. It's closer to a jacuzzi sans bubbles! It's very slightly like a sauna, actually. They're really common; all the nicer kinds of apartments have a bath with a pool you climb down into, instead of just a tub. I also like the simpler colors, myself. And all our furniture is extremely functional."

"Apartments like mine, we call them 1+1 apartments, are really the most standard size for people living by themselves, like me. Beyond that, we like to make it so everyone gets their own bedroom and en-suite bathroom, unless they're a couple, of course. We have put in a lot of effort in making housing as economical as it could possibly be, so everyone gets lots of space."

I think the biggest issue might be the study room. Or kitchen, even. Because we just use the mainroom for everything, and everyone just does food delivery. The good news is that modern plastic windows are ultra-cheap! So you can get places with essentially windows that take up the entire wall. As well as polarization filters for privacy, of course."

"If you're looking for somewhere near a body of water, there are lots of tendrils built to maximize the coastline. So there's a huge amount of beachfront property, if that's a feature you're looking for."

"Hmm that does seem sensible. Thanks for all the information."

There's a brief pause and Viola's expression becomes significantly less enthusiastic. And more sad.

"Umm. I feel pretty rude bringing this up. I wouldn't normally say any of this to somebody I met within the last day. And I have to say you have been very friendly and accomodating here. So thanks for that. But um. I'm having a lot of feelings right now. Like way more than is baseline for me." 

"I'm missing a lot of people from Earth. I normally message my loved ones a bunch of times each day. And I can't do it from here. And it's still very unclear to me if I could get back soon or ever. This place has seemed very nice but um. I have this feeling that Earth needs me. I guess it's also possible I could do something useful here or be needed but it'd take a bunch of time for that to become salient."

"I'm also feeling a bit um. Economically unsure. If I had like a bank account and a date for my next UBI payment that would be helpful. Or even like just applied for citizenship and then got the info for how long processing will take. Also I would prefer to know where I'll be sleeping. I don't want to intrude too much but if you're willing to host or help me figure out what to do with that that'd be really helpful. I'm just not feeling like I know what tomorrow or next week will look like for me right now and I have a hard time with that."

Tears are forming on Violas face.

"I'm really sorry for this. You were really accomodating and I wanted and tried really hard to be an enthusiastic guest but I guess it's not really something I can achieve with just effort with this big of an environment change. I think you're being really friendly and I'm really thankful for all this."

"You'll sleep in my bed, tonight. I have a sleeping bag; it's designed for in case I want to have guests over. What tomorrow, or next week, or hell, next month will look like, is you, sprawled out on your bed."

"You must miss everyone so bad. You need time to rest and cry and let everything out. I'll give you that."

Cynthia opens the door to her bedroom, revealing a king-sized bed in a compact room. There's a light in the ceiling, currently faint enough that it's easy on the eyes. "This will be yours. This is private space, that you'll have just to yourself."

She's definitely not... yeah no okay that makes sense. She wasn't suggesting Viola would sleep with Cynthia in her bed.

"Wow. That is a sizeable bed. Will you be comfortable enough with you sleeping bag? But thanks. This should help."

"I feel pretty awkward asking about this but can I also have a hug?"

"All the hugs you could ever want!" Cynthia opens her arms to embrace Viola.

"And yes, I'll feel great in my sleeping bag. Sometimes I try sleeping in it just for the novelty and because it sometimes makes me wake up full of energy."

It's a good hug. Viola's still looking quite tender but the tears have stopped.

"Okay that's such a mood. And I'm glad to hear that."

"I might need to go do some notetaking and feeling privately in the bedroom next. And um. Do you have anything I could play music with in the bedroom before going to sleep? Or actually if you have a way to charge my phone so I could play downloaded music that would also work, the charging port looks like this and I have these cables." (A proprietary lightning charging port, lightning-USB-C cables, and a north-european style wall plug that has two round pins are demonstrated from her backpack.)

"Well, no. I have a speaker system in the main room. And your charger absolutely won't fit into our plugs. I'll lend you my phone, if that's an acceptable solution. There's lots of music on that if you're wanting to listen to something."

"Your phone is fine by me. Thanks again. I guess I'll go do thinking and feeling now, before I'm even more lost."

Cynthia sets up her sleeping bag, lying down in it before turning on the projector that projects onto one of the main room's walls. She grabs her tablet, looking up how homes might be built in the future, projecting the articles onto the wall. She enjoys reading about ways of improving the fire safety of homes, and has fun reading articles until she finally fall asleep.

Once Viola has laid down on the bed for a few minutes notetaking starts happening. She's trying to dump the most important things from her brain into paper, the ones that if she can't go back she won't be able to re-create. So it goes something like this:

- Close people, what kind of interactions she has with them, how are they different from each other, some memories with each one. (She does a system where she goes width first and then starts filling in some details to each at a time.)

- Sort of her "Earth bucket list", things she will want to do if she can get back. Includes things like: Meeting with people who matter to her, nostalgic stuff like engaging with some of her favourite medias.

And then the second braindump can start. What's her TODO list like:

urgent:

- Ask Cynthia for help with citizenship / UBI stuff, get it sorted out

- Get a place

- Get meds sorted out

- Get a working smartphone and laptop and internet connection

(Frick I don't remember how to use some reference or phrase only I would know as an encryption key... it'll have to be plaintext since I think ROT would just call attention to it.)

- Sneakily: figure out if the local authorities want to urgently access my info / devices / whatever, figure out if I want to willingly cooperate or try to destroy some information. (Okay actually this is top prio)

medium term:

- Get charging capability for my electronics, backup all personal information to newer devices, probably manually or by programming some custom import/export file format stuff (shouldn't be that difficult)

- Figure out what to spend my time on daily (probably for first weeks just orientation, need to find social studies and history books and news to read)

- Export and then sell / make available as public domain depending on local incentives all the non-personal things on my devices, like music from downloaded spotify playlists, anime seasons, there must be some movies in there as well. Could the locals also be interested in Earth compilers and programming languages? The differences sound quite interesting to research and I could be in a good position to do that.

- Find some hobby / friend group or invidual friends to hang out and chat with

Long term

- CONSUME local media (it's not a todo I will do it anyway)

- Figure following situations: x-risks, wild animal suffering/pleasure, insect suffering/pleasure, multiplanetary expansion, population count

  - (First figure out if I could relevantly affect the situations that these concern.) Solve my wireheading stance. Solve my insect stance. Solve population ethics.

- Locals seem to appreciate fun. Check if there's things like LARP or RPG or gaming culture from Earth I could teach people about or sort of spread.

(Well. This doesn't feel done but this does feel like a decent first draft. It's probably time to let feelings happen naturally and then get some shut-eye.)

Viola feels very lonely, cries about her partner, friends, family, home and Earth, and eventually falls asleep. It's not easy sleep. There's a bunch of wakeups and she's on the verge of crying pretty often during those. But the feelings are moving. Sometimes when they are too much she tries putting on the music. It's a bit hard to actually relax completely to due to the unfamiliarity, but it sometimes helps to take the intensity off.

She wakes up in the morning, initially trying to be quiet to not wake up Cynthia, but is pretty hungry for breakfast and checks for any noise or light or other sign that Cynthia would already be awake.

The apartment has the lights turned on; Viola would see Cynthia meditating on a special pillow in the main room, if she took a peek. She opens her eyes when she sees Viola walk in.

"Hi Viola! Did you sleep well? I'm hoping you're feeling much better."

Cynthia is meditating in just a pair of shorts and a lacy bra.

"Hi Cynthia! Um. Well I woke up to cry a couple times but well. I feel a lot better now and less like a tight knot than yesterday so that's very good."

"Do you usually eat breakfast? I'd probably enjoy something. But no hurry if you want to finish your meditation? (mild questioning tone) or something."

Viola's walking around in her undershirt and underwear, since she didn't have time to bring with any shorts or other morning / home bottoms.

"Nobody should have to wake up for crying!"

"Yes, I eat breakfast, and then dinner to end the day. I don't really need to finish meditating, I'll just make it up later. You're still avoiding meat, right? I'll get us both some delicious falafel. Unless you have a better idea."

"Oh, and I don't want to be rude. But I think you'll want to get some new clothing while you're here."

"Well I kind of agree but well. I would prefer to live in a world where people don't need to lose big meaningful things to themselves to things like death. Or well, to teleporting to other worlds. But if it happens I'm glad I can cry about it. It feels significant. And feeling strong emotions might even help me remember some of the people and things I won't be able to have again, if there's no way back."

"Falafel sounds good yes! Honestly I expect it to take me weeks or much more to become comfortable with meat."

"And yeah of course. I don't even have another set right now I could use while washing these. Honestly I think your style is really pretty and I might want to take some inspiration from you."

"Being able to cry and express your emotions in privacy and safety is almost-infinitely important, absolutely."

"Sure, I'll make the order. It's supposed to keep you full all day, so it'll be a lot to eat."

"I don't think you've seen my style much? I guess I could show you some of my outfits. I didn't bring too many with me on vacation here."

"Yeah! Oh and thanks for the privacy and the phone loan, it did really help me to sort of feel comfortable feeling the things I needed to."

"Okay I might need to like store half for maybe 2 hours because I usually eat breakfast and then lunch a bit after. But it should probably work out fine."

"Sure! I guess I'm just guessing based on vibes. But I'd be very interested if you want to show a couple."

"Sure, I'm happy to help you in ways like that."

"And I'll be adding a lunchbox to the order, then, especially falafel places often let you do that."

Cynthia taps a few buttons on her phone before walking over to a closet recessed against one of the walls in the main room. It reveals many different kinds of dresses, several of them scarily sheer, together with several tops with larger or smaller cutouts and leggings of many different designs. Together with several sets of lingerie hanging off special kinds of hangers.

"I own so many different designs, it kind of comes with the job."

"Great!"

"Hm. What was your job again? A hospital support worker?"

She takes a look at the colour schemes and shapes of the dresses, tops and leggings. It seems like an impressive amount for "not too many".

"Some of the dresses seem a bit scanty. Which probably looks very good on you! But I'm usually pretty wary with that. I'd probably enjoy having some comfy tops, some with wider cutouts and some with smaller. And leggings. But I'd probably want to look for skirts too. What kind of weather and time of year is it here, actually?"

"Yeah, hospital support worker, or emotional support worker. I think emotional makes it a bit too long, so just. Hospital support worker."

"Well, here, it's basically only summer forever. It's always hot enough that you can walk around in just shorts, although it does get a bit sweaty on the hotter days."

"It sounds like you're not in the mood for dresses? I think they often make me look cute, and I think you'd look cute in them, too."

"So some kind of therapist?"

"Summer forever sounds a bit warm but I can definitely work with that for now."

"Well I'm more unsure of myself with dresses. And I don't have a good vibe of what kinds work well with my body. But if I had help from a clothes professional for finding fitting ones I might enjoy them."

"Well, I think it's too fancy to call me a therapist. I'm also sure that there's places with better weather for your tastes; I personally don't like how hot the hottest days get here."

"Maybe a tailor would give you some advice? That'd be great."

Eventually, a chime sounds. The robot has arrived outside the apartment, carrying the order: 2 huge portions of food in light metal containers, together with a plastic lunchbox. Cynthia gets some cutlery and puts the two containers of food, together with the plastic lunchbox, onto the dining table in the main room. The falafel comes in huge pieces, and is perfectly well-fried.  

"Yeah the peak hot weather is what gets me in hot places. And yeah tailor advice would be great."

"Oh this is pretty delicious. Good spices and nice crust." She starts eating and after gauging the portion size stores bit more than half in the lunchbox.

"Are you up for helping me today with getting a citizenship going or whatever paperwork is needed so I can have a bank account and stuff? And I guess I do also need clothes very immediately like you noticed."

"Yes, it won't take long, just give me time to finish the meal first."

After enjoying the meal, Cynthia calls the local police station, informing them that someone needs a new blockchain address to receive their basic income, with the whole registration of 10 fingerprints and iris scanning process needed, and yes the senescence of her previous account will happen, liability on her. The guard on the other end nods.

"You should be ready for getting your basic income, now. It arrives once a month, but you can chain overnight loans so you can basically get your first payment today. So, well. You'll have food and shelter and healthcare, no matter what. There isn't citizenship in thomassia, you can just live anywhere you want, so long as you don't have literally all your basic going to pay off fines for crimes you did."

"After being done with that, we can start moving on to buying clothes. And then... I guess you'd want to travel around with me? I have more money than I really know what to do with, so I'm happy to fly around exploring thomassia with you."

"Of course. And thanks again for the meal!"

Viola overhears enough of the call to ask: "What's a senescence?"

"Hm okay that makes sense. Do I need some device to actually use my account and to take those loans?"

"Yeah. And that does sound like a way to explore the country. Are books and like newspapers, digital or physical, cheap enough that I could take a bunch with me for that? Do you have an internet based encyclopedia here I could access with a phone or laptop for info?"

"Senescence means that an old account won't be receiving any more basic money. When someone loses the key to the old account, they ask for a replacement. And if nobody spends any money from that account, that proves that you really have lost the private key to that account, because otherwise someone would spend at least some of that money on rent or food. So, they stop paying out basic to it, and once enough years have passed, you'll get the money from your lost account back."

"And you misunderstood; the police station is ready to make your blockchain private key using fingerprints and iris scanning. Then you'll go from being ready to get basic to actually getting basic. And yes, spending any money does need you to use your phone or similar."

"Books or newspapers, if you're insisting on not using your phone or tablet, are approximately free. And there are more internet encyclopedias than we even know what to do with, really, so there's enough that you might not even feel the need to get a book."

"Oh okay. I guess that makes sense."

"And righto. I guess I'll need a device to store the private key?"

"Hm I'd probably like a book just for the physical sensation but the encylopediass sound good. Who upkeeps and hosts the internet encylopedias, random people or some associations or something else?"

"Yep, your phone can store your private key in an extremely safe way. That'll be the first thing you buy. I can advance you the money; don't worry, you'll barely notice paying it back once you get basic. Especially if you choose to get a job as well."

"I guess you could call them associations, basically every Revolutionary Research Fund runs an encyclopedia to keep track of all their research, and to advertise their research as well. So there's a huge amount of them, actually."

"Okay yeah that makes sense. I don't need exact numbers, but I'd be interested in the magnitudes of what the phone costs vs. what a meal costs vs. how much basic income is vs. how much a usual rent would be vs. how much a job pays. Like any ballpark estimate or a concrete price and concrete salary would give me something to work with."

"Why are they called Revolutionary Research Funds? But in principle that makes sense. Does somebody / something also try to gather multiple encyclopedias of information to a single one?"

"Let's see what my memory's like? The cheapest thing you mention is a meal. A phone is about 100 times the price of a meal, rent somewhere small 150 times the price of a meal, basic income 3-4 times rent, and a waiter job around 10 times rent. I think those are the most common numbers."

"They're called Revolutionary Research Funds because it helps make a nice acronym. Nobody serious puts together all the encyclopedias together, but you can just search it up if you want."

"Thanks! That does calibrate. Actually I'll just quote some common numbers from my own life if they interest you:

- Food delivery cost around 15€* per meal, budget conscious home cooking cost something between 1-5€ per meal depending on frugality and health targets

- A decent to good midrange phone costs 500€ (my phone and laptop cost significantly more because they were more expensive models my former employer paid for)

- My rent is close to 750€,

-1000€ is close to "maximum social support without a specific pension or other equivalent thing"

  - 600€ as "last line income support" (you were required to spend you savings before receiving it, and were not allowed to save much of it)

  - 400€ in rent support

- A normal waiter might earn 2000-2500€ / month

- A non-boss non-entrepreneur writes code programmer in my country would earn between 3000-7000€"

"Okay I guess that's as fine a reason as many others for naming things. Do you know what local scientists or people trying to stay on top of latest knowledge read, do they just read a ton of topic specific encyclopedias or do they have something more curated?"

*: (Euro)

"Strictly speaking, we actually have 2 zeros on the end of all price figures. So home-delivery food is, like, 300 zorkmids, or whatever. But we just use hecto-zorkmids in everyday life. Anyway!

The most interesting thing I've noticed, is the extra cost of delivery compared to home-cooking. The rest seems to... about add up to the same, relatively, really. Outside of seemingly not having basic income, is that right?"

"I don't know how scientists stay on top of things. Presumably, they use overlay journals?"

"In any case, you still need to go to the police station to start receiving basic, as well as a phone, and probably clothes. Don't worry about money; I'll front you enough for the phone to actually spend your basic, and some clothes. Tailors design phone-sized pockets, so it makes more sense to start with phones, I think."

"Yeah that's right. And the access to social support and such is highly dependant on citizenship and which country somebody's living in."

"Hm yeah that'd make sense."

"And thanks again, that order does sound sensible. Your clothes usually have pockets? In earth it is decently common for women's clothes to lack them entirely. Which is sometimes fine and sometimes sucks."

"Well, you can't really not have pockets, it's too impractical? At least sounds like it."

"Now, I'm very ready to get going and help you out. I'm kind of wanting to try a car this time, so we won't have to lug the clothes we're bringing home, and because I kind of want to see your reaction. Are you ready to get the phone, and clothes, and UBI, and see where you end up going from there?"

"Well yeah. I have a backpack whenever I'm outside which is some place to put the phone if I don't have pockets, some people use purses or small bags but I don't really prefer those. I think the reasoning for not having pockets is something like that they stretch the clothes out and make them fit less well, especially when the pockets have contents. But agree that it's not very practical."

"Sure, a car sounds interesting. I'm ready!"

"And I'm excited!" Cynthia heads down towards the parking garage beneath her building, this time heading towards a car that seems to be a hybrid between a bus and a minivan. It has 3 rows of seats, with vast amounts of legroom in both the 2 rear rows. She taps a few buttons on her phone before making her way to the car, opening the sliding doors leading to the second row of seats and inviting Viola to enter.

Viola takes a look around and then gets into the car, taking care to not hit her head (and looking impresssed if the door height is enough that not much acrobatics is necessary).

"Is this your car, a shared car for the building, or a rentable car? Pretty impressively spacious! Are you going to drive or is it automatic?"

The door height is high enough that Viola barely needs to crane her head in order to get in.

"It's partially a shared car for the building, and partially rentable. Basically, when nobody wants to rent it, anyone from the building can just get inside only paying for electricity. When someone does want it, you'll have to outbid whoever wants it. The idea is that the money from renting out the car pays for it, so it makes owning a car really cheap. Congestion taxes are really the big cost in driving, especially in a city as rich as this one. But it's early enough that I'm not too worried."

Cynthia makes her way out of the basement and rushes off towards a phone store. It only takes around 10 minutes to get there, with another 5 minutes for finding a place to park it while they're in the store. The streets are free of parked cars; they didn't build them wide enough for cars, people, and parking.

"Congestion taxes sound really sensible as well, I've never lived in a place where they were implemented. But we also have a lower population density in my home country than here, I'm pretty sure."

Is it multi-floor parking building, underground parking, or something else?

Once they get in the store Viola starts to look for spec sheets, and if none are available she'll first ask Cynthia and then a store clerk for info as needed. What are the phone options, what kind of tradeoffs are popular, what kind of battery life do the phones here have, what are the screen sizes like, and also what are the apps like. What's the mobile data speed like, what does it cost?

"Well, I feel like you're always paying the congestion tax, if you think about it."

The city uses underground parking; it seems like not stuffing cars in the basement is seen as a waste of space.

The phones don't have spec sheets obviously visible; they're just placed against a wall, with bigger phones closer to the entrance, and smaller phones further away. They're all efficiently placed on small shelves by the window to the store. Viola is free to pick one up and see how fast it is (none of the phones use any animations, they just instantly open apps or menus!)

All the screensavers of the phones have spec sheets as the phone wallpaper, but they all use the same chip, so there is very little variety. The main difference comes in the case, screen size, camera, and finally storage. It seems like the major difference is that you can get phones with huge camera modules, coming at the cost of battery life. The battery life claims to be 12-14 hours "video use", and years of "dumbphone standby" The screen sizes are large; but the phones take up nearly the whole screen, so it doesn't get uncomfortably big. The biggest phones are maybe 6.5 inches or so in terms of size. The apps are extremely utilitarian: a lot of them almost seem like train control panels, with many bright buttons, closely spaced and labelled with text.

There is no information on mobile data to be found.

Are there no advertisements in the shop in general?

"I guess. But if it's not something you pay per-vehicle then oftentimes people like public transport passengers overpay in time lost due to congestion compared to people who just use single cars. If you have road-based public transport that is."

"I really like the fact that the phones don't use animations by default for transitioning between modes / apps! That was one thing I often configured differently with my old phones. The apps seem surprisingly utilitarian design wise."

Are there gaming or other entertainment apps?

"How do you pay for connecting the phones to data, what we would call internet, here? I'm used to there being various options that have different monthly limits and maximum speeds for data access. Do you have crowdsourced video media services where I can watch things like video essays by people? This would affect how much data I need. And how much storage I will use."

Viola is now mostly looking at the 6" sized phones, with non-huge but decent camera and taking a look at what the storage options are and how much they cost.

There are indeed 0 advertisements in the shops, outside of sterile tables with specs for various phones. And there are gaming apps, either abstract rhythm games or history inspired RPGs or strategy games, it seems.

"Well, all the phones have e-sims, right? So paying for data is done through a special app. But every country has agreed to set-aside a few hecto-zorkmids each month for free data transfers to all the different e-sim modules, and the bandwidth is pretty great, so I don't think you'll need to worry about the hassle of paying for and dealing with a data plan. There is no monthly limit, only a pretty great speed, honestly. Like, 50 megabits? I think. It can get slower when it's congested, that's when the paid services are better. But congestion is incredibly rare."

"There are many services that let you watch other people's videos! But it works fine on just the free wireless plan."

A 6 inch phone with a more-than-barebones camera is quickly found. They all use ultra-light composite plastics, and they come in plastic with all kinds of textures and sensory feelings. Soft-touch plastic, brushed aluminum, glass, wood, the options go on and on! The storage options start at 32 GB and go all the way up to 256 GB. Going from 32 to 256 adds 30 or so hecto-zorkmids to the price.

That is pretty impressive. And also feels weirdly understimulating for a shopping environment, but probably Viola will adjust with time.

"Yeah okay that sounds very good! My home country has a unusually good price/data ratio for Earth countries and a reasonably good speed like 50 megabits didn't cost an expensive amount but did cost a nonzero amount there. And great to hear! I like videos."

It's probably going to be soft-touch plastic or brushed aluminium. "The material selection is nice, I'll be fine with something I'm used to like this plastic or aluminium one here. Do you have cases and/or screen protectors available, or are the phones durable enough without one? I'm clumsy enough that I drop my phone on my floor maybe once a month or so, and previously it has made sense for me to use those."

And Viola likes to have certain access to her music library and some entertainment in case of like. Being suddenly somewhere without internet access, so even with everything she has heard about Thomassia now she'll probably opt for the 256gb just to be safe.

"Is 30 hecto-zorkmids around 10 meals if one meal was 300 zorkmids so 3 hecto-zorkmids? I prefer to have more storage over having less, so I'll probably opt for the 256 gb model."

"No, we don't do cases. The ballistics-grade plastic is very tough, and you can just switch it if you need to. But phones actually come with an extra screen protector layer built in, to try protecting the screen in case you drop it and hit the glass. You can buy a replacement contract for the case and screen if you wish; I guess it'd give you piece of mind."

"30 hecto-zorkmids is indeed around 10 meals, yes. And basically everyone picks the 256 gig-models anyway; we're thinking about just having 256 gig models, and making the 32-gig models a custom option. But there's really no good answer."

What does the replacement contract seem to cost. It doesn't seem necessary but if it's cheapish Viola might buy it for peace of mind, like predicted.

"Okay yeah that makes sense. Then I guess I'm mostly done, once I check the replacement contract price."

A case and screen replacement contract is 50 hecto-zorkmids, with high copays in the beginning and shrinking copays later on; in fact, after 10 years, the copay falls to zero and you can just mail your phone to get a case and screen replacement. But presumably, you'd upgrade by then.

"Yeah, I'll be ready to pay for you. I think it's really awesome how our phones can do everything here."

"Yeah! I'll take this 6" one, with a decent camera and the 256GB storage, and soft-touch plastic, and skip the replacement contract for now. Thanks!"

"Oh and about phones doing everything, do you routinely also connect your phones to bigger displays or play video through projectors, or do you use computers or internal software on the bigger displays / projectors for that?"

"We also use phones with projectors, and wireless keyboards, yes. Most people only own phones or maybe a tablet, and use it for everything. It's really only gamers and programmers and video editors that use more high-end computers."

Cynthia walks over to the shop clerk, placing her phone on a spiral placed on the counter. She's ready to pay for Viola's purchase.

Viola takes the phone-to-buy over to the counter.

"Will I also get assigned a phone number or whatever identifier is used to make calls here automatically? This is actually my first phone."

After the purchase is done Viola will get ready to walk out of the store with Cynthia, and also ready to start setting up the phone, but perhaps only do that once they get to the car again.

"Yes, the e-SIM chip comes comes with a number for you to use by default. You are allowed to change it if you want a vanity-SIM, but basically nobody does that."

When Viola tries setting up the phone, she sees that it just leads into a terminal instead of having anything like a launcher or anything else.

What's the virtual keyboard like? If it's pretty usual Viola will just try a bunch of commands until she gets some help text (presuming there are no instructions first):

<tab>

help<enter>

/help

list

/list

Nothing happens. Cynthia notices Viola tapping away and starts explaining how things work.

"All thomassian operating systems are extremely barebones, they're basically just a command prompt and a program that lets you download something else. You have to write dl basic to download the app store, and start adding on all the programs you'll be using from there."

She walks off to her car, taking it the few hundred meters to a street with a row of tailors of all kinds, including several underwear tailors. Cynthia parks her car in the parking lot under the stores and their skyscraper, before making her way to a fairly ordinary-looking salon displaying all kinds of skirts, dresses and leggings in the display windows.

"Oh I guess that makes sense as well. Are there different app launchers / "desktops" then as well?"

"Oh this looks nice!"

What are the prices like in the clothes store? Is a clerk / tailor visible?

"Yeah, we usually get them from an app store. There's an ocean of options, with Type 1 and Type 2 designs."

The prices in the store are higher than the very cheapest brands from Earth, but not by much, maybe 50-100% more. There is a tailor, wearing an absolutely amazing dark blue dress, who walks out to greet Cynthia as she starts entering the store.

"I'm Iris, nice to meet you! What can I do for you today?" She smiles and looks at Viola.

"What do Type 1 and Type 2 designs mean?"

"Oh wow your dress looks gorgeous! Um. Some things happened and I basically need a new wardrobe. Or start of one, at least. So I'll need something like a couple of tops, leggings, maybe a pair of jeans, another skirt, maybe a dress if you have something that'd fit me well? Maybe something black or dark blue, medium length. Oh and shorts and a t-shirt or something to hang out at my home with."

"Type 1 designs are designs where all the features are up front and all the buttons are labeled. Type 2 designs sacrifice discoverability for long-term productivity, basically needing more practice to use but being more efficient when master, with things like modal buttons, for example."

The woman waits for Cynthia to finish before speaking with Viola. "That's a lot of different outfits! But you have enough underwear, at least. So, you've asked me for a lot at once. I'll show you some of my designs on my phone, and hear your thoughts." She rapidly taps on her phone before opening a gallery app, showing her modeling an incredible variety of outfits.

"And my dresses always fit, darling."

Since the store is suitably stocked and there is a tailor available, most everything is found after enough browsing. It does take some time.

After the shopping Viola has a new black skirt, a new blue one with a cool pattern, a few new leggings with various cuts, some tops, a deep blue dress that's pretty fluffy, and some new underwear (a pair of bras and some boxers and boyshorts). The clothes are adjusted as necessary.

"These looks like enogh for now! The quality of these is excellent."

"Oh and are you fine fronting these as well Cynthia? I guess it had to go this way due to the order."

"Happily, yes. Now it's just the police station."

The police station is actual in the direction of Cynthia's home; Cynthia leaves her car outside on the street for a moment, before finding parking.

"Just walk on ahead and tell them that you need a new basic account, and that you somehow managed to screw up and forget the address to you last one. Yes, that would mean that the money in it would be reclaimed by the government, but what's done is done. They ask for all 10 prints and an iris scan when setting up a new account, but it goes by very quick. Then we get home, and go on from there."

"Righto! Thanks again."

Viola walks to the station and finds the first customer-servicing looking person there, or looks for a clear sign and then engages conversation (expecting there to be minimal amount, eg 0, queues):

"Hi, I have lost most of my things and as such can't access my account. Can I have a new one?"

There's a friendly-looking woman waiting inside the lobby of the police station. The lobby has amazingly nice ceiling, and pretty, well-padded chairs.

"Absolutely! So, the way that a recovery account works is that you surrender all claims to your previous account, and we make the hash of your biometric data universally knowable. This, of course, means that we will know it, if you try making another account. Then we'll seize all funds from your previous, to make it impossible for you to have 2 streams of basic income, and as a fee for providing you a new account. Now, please follow me to the scanner."

She walks off, revealing a small machine in the office behind her. It has a sensor for both Viola's eyes and all of her fingers. It only takes half a minute to register all her biometric data.

"We've giving you your first payment already, to your new blockchain address. Please tap your phone against the NFC transmitter to add your private key to your phone's secure element storage; we offer physical private keys, in case you fear forgetting yours, but we recommend keeping your private key in a password-protected file in the cloud to keep it safe. Have a nice day!"

"That seems reasonable."

"Yeah I'll keep that in mind, thank you! Have a nice day as well!"

She walks outside back to where Cynthia parked.

"That was really easy. Do you have a money-moving app you'd recommend? Or is there a standard one?"

"Well, the default blockchain app is perfectly fine? I'll get it on the app store." Cynthia looks at Viola's phone, explaining how to find and download the simple blockchain app that she's using for paying for things.

"So, the thing that's slightly confusing and interesting, is that you pay for everything on eternal installments, right? So like, you lower your basic by some amount, and that lets you sort of take out free loans, to buy stuff. Let me just show you." Cynthia instructs Viola to pay a small amount to Cynthia's account, to pay back the advance. And the bill ends up being a very small number, leaving the number in the app nearly unchanged.

"The price of clothes and other durable items is meant to be the amount you'll have to pay to be able to maintain and replace it forever. We try to turn everything into a monthly amount you pay, kind of like rent, to let you have that thing forever. It's meant to smooth out consumption and let people start businesses easily without worrying about money for loans and not suddenly find themselves without enough money and other helpful things like that. In a way, you don't have a basic income. You have a huge pot of basic wealth, and the basic income is actually just the interest off that basic wealth. If you understand it."

"Thanks!"

"Oh! That seems really useful. I'm not sure I understand it, but is it basically: If I had a 100 unit income stream per year, and the lenders used a discounting function of 10% per year (the real number would probably depend on your inflation and parameters like societal stability?) and gave loans with "fair" interest, then I would have around a 1000 units of wealth? Due to me being able to pay off 100, 90, 81 converging worth of discount adjusted money with just my basic income?"

"Who provides the liquidity / loans(?) to turn that monthly amount to liquid money?"

"Yes, exactly. When you signed up for basic income, you were given a bunch of perpetual bonds. And you can sell them back, via the time-value-auctions for those perpetual bonds, at any time The auction buyers are the source of the liquidity. They always give fair interest, basically by definition."

Cynthia opens the door to the second row of seats, motioning for Viola to make her way in, before beginning the drive back to her apartment.

"That was the most urgent things taken care of. I guess you'd want to start seeing what the rest of thomassia is like? You shouldn't have to worry about money too much; you have quite a huge amount of liquidity from your basic income, and I have plenty of money, myself. You'd eventually need to find work if you spent down enough of your basic, of course."

"Yeah exploring at least a few locations seems sensible. I probably want to find a like decently comfortable location to live at for maybe a few weeks or a couple of months, and then I might re-consider based on what sort of plan I make for living in Thomassia."

"Are there many e-book apps or formats or is there some standard one I can get for that? And news also. Web pages are also fine by me if that's how that's usually handled."

"There's really only one ebook-format, although you have several choices of apps. I don't really know what web pages refer to, though. You can get news in journal form, or in briefing form. I think that you'd want journal-form news? What kind of news are you after?"

"I'd like news on what's happening in society: scientific advancements, political initiatives or protessts or disagreements, conflicts, people being unhappy or happy about the general state of things. What's the difference between journal and briefing form?"

"Briefing form is all the news on a given day, on a given subject, written to be comprehensive and tell you everything that's happening in some area. Journal form is published less often, and tries to limit itself to the more important news of the last month or maybe year or so."

"I think that the Future of Living Institute's monthly news journal would be most relevant to you. It has tons of articles from people who are happy about things, especially their new homes and cities and how they're designed."

The trip back to the parking lot under Cynthia's current apartment doesn't take long at all.

"Okay that makes sense."

"There's no journals for people being unhappy about things? Where do people complain about things, or do they just not complain? I'd really value seeing a balance of negative and positive experiences."

"Oh that was pretty fast. Thanks for the car ride!"

"There kind of is a journal dedicated to finding things that are going poorly and imagining things that can be even better? And a lot of, like, mayors write books about what they'd consider their dream towns and what life's like there and how we should change things that aren't like their ideal cities?"

Cynthia makes her way into the spacious elevator. Everywhere in thomassia seems slightly strange in how much space gets devoted to things, but at least it's better than the alternative.

"Well that's probably better than nothing. But there's no like journal or publishing of things that a minority of people think are going poorly but the majority don't and as such they won't be getting changed any time soon? Or thing that would be nice to have but cost too much money? Do you have space travel or space colonies?"

"Are there books by people who never found a nice city or place to live in? Or people who just are in general unhappy? Or discussions and/or essays by people who want some types of medical care but it doesn't exist yet? Oh and actually what is the state of executive dysfunction and trans healthcare here?"

It still seems really unfamiliar to Viola to dedicate this much space to everything. But it sure is useful when you're also carrying shopping bags.

"Sorry if I'm coming off as rude... I'm just so used to things either being really bad or at best sort of mediocre or possible to do good for yourself with a bunch of effort. And I'm also expecting a bunch of challenges and I don't know, mind controlling secret police to suddenly appear from behind some wall because that's the sort of "person gets sent to another world" story I've read a lot of..."

"I do appreciate how smoothly everything seems to work and be executed in Thomassia. I'm just worried how I'll manage to fit in."

"There are fictional novels about both of those things, if you're curious. But the flexibility of basic income means people usually getting something that they're mostly happy about, even if it's less than ideal. Things that are nice and cost too much money, space travel and space colonies... lots of people like writing novels and articles about those. But, well. Someday they'll be rich enough that they don't have to stick to thinking about them."

"I don't know about any books from people who never found a nice city to live in it or are just sad, like, in general? They must exist, though. And people wanting medical care that doesn't exist yet, that's sort of, also part of the complaining-to-make-things better books? In terms of executive dysfunction: people do what they can and live off basic income. There are lots of enthusiastic volunteers who help them put their lives together, so they can usually handle things fine. And trans healthcare is actually pretty fantastic, just because there are lots of charities to help anyone transitioning."

"What's making you worried, you think? Is there something that's given you a bad impression or something?"

"Hm yeah I want to sample the fiction too. And yeah I guess? You don't do like society- or city level space programs?"

"I guess I might eventually want to chat with somebody like that but it's not really a hurry. I'm just really used to media having a lot of bad, sad, or otherwise negative stuff, and I probably won't mind not having that in the long run but it does feel a bit surprising for now. And yeah I guess that would be a complaining-to-make-things-better book, right. I don't have super bad executive dysfunction, it mostly lowers my productive hours per day and my ability to take care of my home and cleaning and stuff while also working a full-time job. But I'll probably be interested in checking how my executive function rates here. I'm also interested in checking out if there's medicine for helping with that stuff, Earth had some but most of them made me lose sleep and get stomach problem so I couldn't use them very frequently. But I guess if I had like some help with chores and stuff I might not even need meds."

"And transition support sounds like a really good thing to have! At this point I also expect that people being bigoted about someone (such as me) being trans isn't too common?"

"No there's not much that gives me bad impressions here. I mean some things do seem like y'all here value different things, but it's still much better than what we have on Earth. But well. I guess part of it is just that because things just seem to work out and work well and people seem nice I sort of feel like I don't know what to expect, because I'm not used to this. It sort of feels like I'm being constantly surprised by Thomassia. Which, in any case, is probably an understandable reaction for a time for being in a new world."

"Oh and also you're being really nice and helpful which I appreciate a ton but also I do kind of feel like I'm being a burden. I usually do when receiving help."

"No, we don't do space programs. We had the idea of communication satellites, but normal towers and just improved too fast. And we don't see much point to going further. Some guys are proposing taking photos of some nearby planets, because it'd be such a freaky thing to see. But there are lots of other priorities, you know?"

"I'm sure that there'd be a medicine for that, too. We do tons of challenge trials and things so, like, the briefing news for new drug development is absolutely huge, there are so many promising options. And you can just outsource everything to the janitor if it'd help! Quite a lot of people outsource their chores, and it sounds like it'd really help you."

"People aren't remotely bigoted against trans people, no. And the police take such bigotry very, very seriously, so you are totally safe here."

"You're not a burden as long as you keep being fascinating to meet and get to know like this, trust me."

"Now, I was thinking of watching a new reenactment series I was really into. Do you want to join me, or do you have other things you'd rather be doing?"