48 Hours a Day

Chapter 1043: The Future of Mankind (Part Two)

Outside the waiting room was a huge station square.

The tunnel that the three of them saw on the hillside led to this place. E-Goat also saw an endless stream of lorries at that time, but when they walked in, they saw that what came out of those lorries weren’t goods but teams upon teams of people.

Qiu Ming continued to talk about the previous topic.

“In the beginning, memory encoding technology was applied to ordinary people. Some rich people or top middle-class families hoped that their children could win at the starting line. Therefore, when their children were very young, they secretly used memory encoders to compile many skills for them, some even giving them the character and qualities of leaders.

“As expected, the children whose memories were re-encoded immediately stood out among their peers, far surpassing them. When they grew up, whether it was starting from scratch or taking over the family business, they would quickly soar, defeating one competitor after another and completing the crazy accumulation of wealth.

“It’s like the golden finger that has opened up life,” Qiu Ming sighed.

“Along with their success, the upper class has also set off a memory coding craze. More and more people decided to let their sons and daughters accept the memory coding, even if it wasn’t to let them become winners in life. At least, they didn’t want to lose at the starting line.

“At the same time, the middle and high-end skill talent market has finally become saturated due to the continuous influx of new humans. The demand for this part of talent from various companies and enterprises is becoming lesser. Thus, big groups like Shengtang’s Morgan have finally adjusted the direction of cultivating new humans, from the technical backbone to the production of hard-working blue-collar workers who don’t complain at all.”

E-Goat’s eyes widened when it heard this. “Wait, what about those ordinary people?”

“That’s a good question. Just as you guessed, as the major corporations changed the direction of cultivating new humans, companies began to hire a large number of new blue-collar workers in the labor market to replace the lazy and inefficient ordinary workers. More and more people lost their jobs and lived on welfare. Many families broke down because of this. Although some lucky people were not immediately fired, they knew that if this continued, they would lose their jobs sooner or later.

“By relying on primitive learning methods and carrying all kinds of flaws in their personalities, they failed to compete with the new humans for jobs. What’s even more tragic is that they know that when their children grow up, there is a high chance that they will repeat their mistakes. At the same time, they are not the only ones who have this kind of trouble. The next generation of new humans who are doing well now will also face the same trouble.

“And there is only one way to solve this problem.”Qiu Ming paused, “That is to accept the memory code and do what those rich people have already done to their children. “It doesn’t matter who the first ordinary person to accept the memory code is. In short, in order to survive, to support their families, and to avoid being maggots of society, more and more ordinary people choose to walk this path and accept the memory code, just like the once popular craze for external beauty.”

“If beauty can change a person’s flaws in appearance, then the memory code can change a person’s flaws in the soul. Laziness, selfishness, arrogance... these can all be fixed. But more precisely, it can even be fine-tuned according to your occupation. The workers in the assembly line can become more tolerant of boredom, and management of a company can become more charismatic.

“In the beginning, their strategy did work. As long as they were willing to make up their minds and add a sum of money, ordinary people could use memory coding to become more powerful than the Homo-evolutis. But soon, the Homo-evolutis also realized the challenges they were facing, and they too began to spend money to recode their memories, giving them a more perfect personality and a stronger ability to work.

“Things started to get crazier and crazier. Everyone was like an app update, constantly updating themselves through the memory encoder. The competition was endless, and the conglomerates were aware of this. At this point, the population growth rate had already returned to normal. No, it should be said that not only did it return to normal, but it far exceeded the planned growth rate. However, due to the prevalent culture of reducing labor costs, the conglomerates never stopped their artificial reproduction plans.

“In order to settle the remaining explosive population, the major groups have also begun to look into space. New Shanghai 0297 was built under such a background. You can consider the vast majority of the residents here employees of the Shengtang Morgan conglomerate. After applying for a job in this new city, they perform memory rewrites according to various companies’ requirements before they work. You don’t have to feel sorry for them losing their original memories, because the vast majority have already experienced dozens of memory rewrites. They have long forgotten what their original memories are.

“The rewriting of their memories before starting a job is actually for their own good. It can help them integrate better into their new job and life. Whether it’s a clone or an ordinary person, they actually only have one common identity here, which is the means of production, the most perfect means of production.

“Of course, considering that the products produced must be sold, they will also play the role of the consumer at the same time. Whether it’s the division of the five layers of space or the continuous rolling advertisements, they are all to stimulate their consumption. Only when consumption and production are constantly increasing, can society prosper.”

When E-Goat heard this, he felt as if he had fallen into an ice cellar. He could even hear his teeth grinding. “But what’s the point of all this? What did we gain from this process, other than becoming less and less like ourselves?”

“Good question.” Qiu Ming snapped his fingers, “But who asked the wheel of history to move forward forever? Perhaps we should’ve made another choice. Back when the artificial reproduction project had just begun, humans would choose to close Pandora’s box and strangle everything at the source. Unfortunately, there were no ifs in this world. Once productivity began to develop, those who fell behind would inevitably be eliminated.

“This isn’t something an individual can stop. You can’t, I can’t, and not even Shengtang Morgan’s board of directors. This is because Shengtang Morgan has many equally powerful competitors. As far as I know, certain people on the board of directors have even experienced over a hundred memory recodes.

“I’m actually very envious of you. After your memories are rewritten, you can live in this city without any doubt and believe what you want to believe. But for the people in other departments of the company, we don’t even know what to believe,” Qiu Ming said, “It’s like... if what I’m telling you now is the truth, or is there another version of the truth? I don’t know. I spent a long time stopping myself from thinking about this problem. I sincerely hope that you won’t experience the troubles I’ve endured.”