Some Backstory

Although I don't have a fixed date yet for the story, it is definitely set in the future. Below are some notes I ginned up of what the world is like in the story I’m about to write.

• Space tourism, asteroid-mining, and planetary gas-mining abound. (Our protagonist was a Senior Vice President at Atlas Asteroid Mining Company, responsible for a $100 million mining operation, before being forced into early retirement.)
  
  
• Other inhabited planets have been discovered, have already been integrated into Earth’s commerce through trade and other agreements, and one can travel to these worlds with reasonable speed. For example, it is maybe an 8-week voyage from the outer Solar System to the Sirius or Vega systems.
  
  
• Here at home, it is a totally wireless environment, and people are basically moving through an invisible ocean of high and low frequency waves and information transfer. Everybody and everything is “plugged in” to the massive info-plex of sentient beings and computers. The sun still shines and the world is quite beautiful. Not to mention, virtual entertainment has such extraordinary realism now that people don't even need to leave town to go jet-skiing in Tahoe, for example. Geographic place has very little meaning anymore. So vacation is less a matter of going somewhere and more a matter of unplugging for a while.
  
  
• Information – and its nonstop exchange – are so fundamental to daily life that the slow and clumsy physical body itself is a bit of an anachronism, because the body and its mechanical vehicles simply can’t keep up with the speed of information flow and message-exchange that’s going on at the speed of light all the time. However, our bodies have not been left behind. Most people are cyborgs now, with computers and artificial implements a common part of the human body. The information that people’s bodies are constantly sending and receiving create a sort of invisible but extended and always-on bubble around them.
  
  When you walk into a store, for example, the clerk is already alerted to your arrival, addresses you by name, and already has an idea of what you’re there for and how your tastes run, not to mention your credit-worthiness for instant, on-site credit extensions. (Cash and physical money no longer exist; it's all quantum particles flipped between computers. In fact, people don't even earn money anymore; what they earn is credit, which in this commerce-centric environment is an extremely efficient measure of an individual's contributions to the system so far, as well as her expected rate of return (or contributions to the system) in the future. Put together, they determine how much this person's time and creativity is worth, and therefore how much to charge her for the goods and services she needs to make those contributions. What's scary about this setup is that wealth is completely virtual --- you can build it but you can't own it ---- but we'll save that heady discussion for another time.)
  
  People can contact each other without even knowing addresses or phone numbers. Each person’s internal computer, which is really a microscopic computer network of nanites inserted into the bloodstream at birth, stores both a natural and artificial log of virtually all the sensory input and expressions that the human body experiences. So one can review in full audio-visual and text forms every direct, passing or even peripheral encounter with the outside world. If there's someone you want to contact from such an encounter (e.g., the famed "Lady in the Red Dress" from that old classic, The Matrix), you can “hail” them via the global network without knowing where or even who they are, which is sort of like instant-messaging people, but from your brain to theirs. (The global network mediates the communication, so that people aren't contacted by strangers (or friends) that they don't want to talk to.)
  
  You can also talk to other people without a phone, television, or other kind of external instrument. Here's how it works: Sensors in your body (part of the nanite network) capture in real-time the changes in your vocal cords, facial expressions and body language. Those changes are animated in a stored computer model of yourself and the complete audio-visual signal is streamed to the other person. Ocular implants allow a virtual heads-up display (HUD) in the recipient's vision to perceive the visual signal, and a networked aural implant provides the audio. So two people can see and talk to each other without any physical contact or external mechanical equipment. Meanwhile, when you’re in such a virtual conversation, or just whenever you don’t want to be disturbed, your body’s computer sends out a “busy signal” to all passersby (and incoming messages as well) to let them know that you’re talking to somebody (and not to yourself, which would be weird), or that you’re just generally “off-line” at the moment.
  
  
• Earth is finally a one-government world. However, the government is a shadow of its former self when it existed in its early national or transnational forms. It is now primarily a social services organization – tending to the tasks unprofitable for the corporations to supply – and its primary role is to keep things running smoothly and efficiently with a minimum of disruption. It provides the utilities, public education, local law enforcement, rescue services, and so forth, but it receives all its funding from the mega-corporate economic councils, which rule the world and pass on most of these costs to the populace in the form of a "social subsidy tax". (Same old government tax, just paid to a different entity, although everyone knows the corps are skimming some off the top for themselves.)
  It might be worth noting here that having your employer cover some or all of this “social subsidy” for you is considered an employment benefit and it can be very competitive. Almost all of those in the upper 10% of the socio-economic ladder (e.g., senior executives and above) pay absolutely nothing for governmental services. They argue that this is fair because 96% of government services are for those who can’t financially care for themselves; the argument goes that these upper-crust folks cannot be considered freeloaders since they do not even use the government’s services. Of course, this debate is a fierce one among social scientists, economic theorists, and corporate directors, not to mention the people, so we’ll have to suffice ourselves for now with this biased explanation.
  
  The Government does have a military for keeping the peace around the world, but it is more of a law-enforcement enterprise than a military one (since there are no longer any “external” enemies, only internal dissidents), and as part of the corporate-funded World Government, the military is completely funded and controlled by the corporate economic councils. The Government’s only functional purpose is to keep the peace so that people are safe and commerce can function efficiently. (How national governments came to be united into one global government and subservient to the will of the corporations is a matter of enduring and fascinating debate among historians, but many of them agree that a pivotal early moment was the bailout by the global financial sector of the U.S. Social Security collapse (and consequent economic crises around the world) in and after the year 2053.)
  
  
• Entertainment is completely interactive now. Gone are the days of audiences passively viewing movies, TV, plays or concerts. Today, not only do audiences actively participate in their entertainment as consumers, they are the producers of it as well. For example, what used to be a $30 million Hollywood feature film that took a crew of 200 people and a year or more to complete has now become a desktop hobby for the masses. Sophisticated computers can create just about any effect you imagine, and you license “talent time” from actors, performers and film score writers, which is to say that you pay the studios a fee to use their animated computer models or other intellectual property in your production; in addition the studio usually collects a percentage of all the downstream income you might generate from your production through your marketing, merchandising, and other sales efforts. Of course, there are still entertainment professionals who make high-quality entertainment for a living, but desktop entertainment is accessible to virtually anyone nowadays to make extra money, spice up parties, or just enjoy the satisfaction of creating fun and memorable entertainment for friends and family (Birthday parties for 5-year olds have never been so exciting!). Hollywood studios don’t make movies anymore. Hell, they're not even in Hollywood. They're "entertainment studios" now, they're all over the world, and they're in the business of creating and marketing high-revenue personalities, selling and leasing entertainment-creation software and hardware components, creating unique and engaging content for use in licensees' productions, and managing the income streams from these licensees.