Trust vs. Surveillance Cultures

What’s the price of higher productivity if mistrust grows?

Year 2120, Month 6, Day 10 — Mars Colony, Goddard Station — I was busy debugging a tricky error in a deep space telemetry optimization module when I got a ping from PAPA. The Performance Assessment & Productivity Algorithm has been in place since forever, to the point you almost forget about it. Until it pops up from the holovisor unexpectedly.

“Hello Lawrence,” PAPA sounds like one of those old Earth Mid-America male accents.

“Yes?” I wearily reply. Why does PAPA’s tone…