Permitting the development of isolated distinct cultures can provide the meaning and well-being of the population, allowing the population to maintain the numbers necessary to produce the occasionally qualified person to staff the remaining high level jobs within the colonial style government.
I think this daily expense account is more realistic than a basic income to provide for the basic welfare of the unemployed in a fully automated economy. It is also helpful to illustrate how dismal this state of affairs will be. The expense account is a daily ration, and a cot in a shelter. But the shelter will have plenty of available virtual-reality head consoles.
An initial consciousness could through design, refactoring, and replication build up the universe without any further miracles beyond the initial consciousness in the first place.
Success or fame in the current environment is a lottery prize given to great and weak with equal probability. In such an environment, it makes sense to put as little effort into success as one would put into buying a lottery ticket. A weekly effort, perhaps, but one that takes only a few minutes, leaving the rest of the week free.
The modern gig lifestyle results in a hive-like devaluation of the individual, but it also contributes to the emergence of more hive-like behaviors by encouraging individuals, especially men, to maximize their efforts in a gig when they are needed and minimize their obligations when they are not relevant.
Because the governments are distinct and have distinct voting populations, I expect there to be conflicts between the two governments. Such conflicts will be similar to international conflicts but with major differences. The two governments have interspersed populations living in same geographic territories making physical conflict unlikely. For example, in extended families that young and old voters may live in the same house. Also, the two governments are not peers in conflict like nations would be. The operational government would have full control over all of the police and military. Although the government of debt obligations lacks an army, it controls access to new debts needed to finance the provisioning or deployment of forces. In the abstract, there is nothing stopping the armed operational government from conquering the obligation-servicing part of the government.
Assuming that a democracy is strongest when the demographics of the eligible voters are younger, we can redefine the eligibility for voting rights from the current eligibility to all adults to a new eligibility of all young adults. In other words, we need disenfranchise adults after they reach a certain age. This mimics what nature did for us in the 19th century. Older adults will continue to enjoy long lifespans and pension-like benefits. They will lose the opportunity to vote after a certain age.
