Description: An organisation known as "Our Friends Electric" has recently garnered media attention after it unveiled early development plans for a "digital afterlife" where customers can upload biographical information and recordings from social media to create a digital avatar that would "live" on after the customer's death.
Validity: High scientific advancement, not banned the internet, high information technology
[option] "This... this is the holy grail of humanity we are working towards" claims Our Friends Electric spokesperson @@RANDOMNAME@@. "In a few years, we will all live on long after we are dead, or rather an avatar that shares some of the same memories and personality traits as us can. Imagine if you could continue to talk to your dear departed! Admittedly at the moment we're not quite there, but with a little more funding we can make artificial intelligences that are almost indistinguishable from the deceased person! At some point in the future, after we've sorted out some of the finer details, everyone who can afford it will be able to talk to almost perfect electronic replicas of long-dead relatives. That's not creepy at all, right?"
[effect] The nation's citizens are often berated by electronic ghosts of departed relatives for "not calling often enough"
[option] "Preposterous!" harangues high priest @@RANDOMMALENAME@@ of @@FAITH@@. "Down with this sort of thing! This is no afterlife. No matter how convincing they are able to make these electronic ghosts are not some sort of soul, they're a copy! There is only one afterlife, and that is the one that is accessed through a lifetime of prayer and religious belief. To claim otherwise is blasphemy! Outlaw this company and crack down hard on the causes of blasphemy. Technology should exist to serve a higher calling, not the hubris of man. I say we hold an inquisition into this blasphemous information technology industry to root out all evil."
[effect] Sinister hooded priests routinely arrest software developers for blasphemy
[option] "The fact is whatever Our Friends Electric claim, we simply don't have anywhere near the computing power or level of technology to run that many of these... electronic afterlives" claims software developer and noted utilitarian @@RANDOMNAME@@. "This technology is interesting, but given its limitations and the fact that it is in very early stages of development, we should be using it to benefit the whole country. It should be used to preserve the minds of the great scientists and thinkers of @@NAME@@, not those who can simply pay enough. That way our scientists can continue to help @@NAME@@ long after their death."
[effect] The nation's scientists are required to undergo regular brain scans in an attempt to preserve their intellects after death
[option]"Wait - what?" pipes up @@RANDOMNAME@@, popular philosopher and author. "Why haven't you asked us about this? What happens if someone is uploaded into an avatar at the point of death, only to make a full recovery? Who is the 'real' person? What does 'real' mean in this context? It's exactly the kind of philosophical quandary that has been discussed time and time again in universities up and down the land! Admittedly no-one ever thought that science would advance far enough for quandaries like this to actually happen but now that it has I think that the best course of action would be to establish some sort of philosophical committee to provide guidance on these instances when science starts to change and alter who we are as people."
[effect]philosophers delay the development of new technologies with interminable debates into the nature of the soul
[option] "That... that gives me an idea" muses your chief government adviser. "Now stop me if this sounds a little... insane but do these electronic avatars need to know they're dead? I mean, running the country and everything is boring thankless work that often goes wrong. What if we grab a bunch of moderately intelligent people, upload their consciousnesses and lock them in some virtual reality where they work on developing responses to the kinds of issues our government faces? We can collate the data from all of them and work out the best solutions for any problem. All we need to do is convince the electronic avatars that they're playing some sort of game or something... I'll work out all the details later"
[effect] You might only exist as an electronic ghost that thinks it is playing a government simulation game
