States of Change Chapter 37: Cornhusker (Nebraska)

 

States of Change is an ongoing work of serial fiction.

The speculative story-line seeks to inspire thought on ethics, culture and our planet's future.

The year is 2076, decades after Oosa's defederalization. 

Fifty independent States have forged unique societies from 

revolutionary technology and ideology

"Celebrate Nebraska!  We have proudly maintained a vibrant  two-million person society for the past thirty years. With the latest genetic science we have leveraged corn agriculture into the sustaining core of our economy. Nebraska's wide variety of corn hybrids have been engineered to meet 100% of human nutritional needs at the highest level of quality and ethical standards. Our public domain corn varieties can also be 3-d printed into any of hundreds of traditional, comfort-foods in every ethnic cuisine. Remarkably, 90% of Nebraska's manufacturing and construction needs also come from the corn production. When you think..."

"Ok, I'll stop the adcast there for now. Given our current topic of effective promotional strategies, who can point out the good and bad aspects of this Nebraska recruitment spot. Juanita?"

"Well, from at the start the clip features a welcoming note of positivity. Any prospective Nebraskan will get a serotonin charge out of that. On the flip side, the anti-influencer extremists will say it's psychological priming. Nevertheless, the content that follows seems to have enough meat to it that most scientific skeptics will tolerate the persuasive rhetoric."

"That's a good initial take. Svetlana, what say you?" 

"Well, I find it ironic to call the core points anything akin to 'meat.' Since the State has banned animal husbandry now for more than a decade, young people will completely miss the fascist leaning implications of the claims. Anyone our age or older knows how the real story of how our liberty to farm with true innovation was taken away by the fear-mongering legislature during The Great Inflection."

"Point taken, though you might consider you're in a public university now, and no one is hampering your right to challenge ideas. Vincenzo, what do you think?"

"Well, as I'm on my last year of the science track here and it's been made quite apparent that ethical communication is a gray space. We need to be better story tellers both in our white paper summaries and in public facing infomatics. I think this cast strikes a good balance so far. The embedded references in the shownotes are solid wikilink sources, though I might have folied in some gentle breeze and flowing stream sounds to underscore Nebraska's high air and water quality."

"An astute observation. Volde, what's your take?"

"Well, um, as he, I mean, they point out. Sorry Vince. I guess there is some balance. The avoidance of using terms like processed, GMO and organic, at least so far in the cast is a warning sign for me. I'm sure the wikilinks provide more thorough information, but I'm sure this will come across as green-washed propaganda to many prospective newcomers."

"Ok, lots of worthy comments.  Your assignment for tomorrow is to compose your own two minute cast on Nebraska infrastructure with references. Use generative AI only as a final polish. Remember, you'll be presenting your work by zoom in random Nebraska townhall meeting simulations. And at the end of the month we'll conference with the Nebraska Immigration Committee to aggregate the best ideas and cautionary feedback. "