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Just a little rant on theory I was coming up with (gonna be using a situation like this for some fiction, so I'm brainstorming "out loud" here). Please feel free to comment on it.
The problem faced by an ever-growing population and an ever-sadistic economy is where to put everything. Workplaces cannot provide enough jobs, though they need workers, because they cannot afford the new facilities and the overhead involved in doing so. Likewise, though a constantly growing consumer base is out there, stores become over-crowded to the point where standing in line with groceries for 40 minutes becomes something so acceptable it is scheduled into time concerns for shopping. Similarly, youth are affected as larger class sizes are the result of too many kids going into fewer schools, themselves facing budget problems from inability to house all students during school hours.
The obvious solution to the problem lies not within space, but time.
The world as we know it, in this modern day, operates mostly on one eight-hour cycle. Even on weekends, when customer and employee free time is more quantative, stores tend to only adjust their adherrence to the eight-hour cycle by only a few hours, if at all. Only a handful of places have broken out of the single-cycle day, and remain open for business at all hours. As long as they have customers walking in for business, they do well. Otherwise, the continuance of operations at a single cycle in the day means nothing else can ever be achieved.
But, what of those problems mentioned in the first paragraph? What if things became like a powder keg, to the point where society no longer had to think in terms of one eight-hour day, but in multiples. What if the need for more output by facilities, more jobs from citizens, and more education from students meant places that typically operated under one cycle were finally forced to expand to two, or three?
This is quite a real outcome. Colleges, and some continuation high schools, offer night classes, seeing the need to offer courses at night rather than the typical day. What if it were all like this, across the board?
Arrival at such an outcome would only take pressure from the masses. Of course, it might not be their will, but a necessity facilitated by their needs. One could imagine abusive bosses requiring workers to work three shifts for jobs that would normally have one. It is easy to imagine a school district so strapped for funding, that it decided to force students to attend night or early-morning classes in order to save money rather than build new classrooms.
A shift to two cycles would invariably lead to a shift to three cycles. Three eight-hour cycles, for all aspects of society. Much like a gas station clerk, knowing day, evening and swing shifts.
However, what would become of a society in which this happens? If all aspects were touched, then it would not become unusual to see somebody walking their dog or taking a jog at three in the morning "to get some excercise in before work." Night would no longer be the time of crime, as alert citizens would be up at all hours, streets and businesses active with at least one-third of the population at all times. Businesses and government offices, whether greedy or desperate, would find considerable savings in using one facility to house three sets of workers, or students.
There would no longer be a "noon rush" but rather, three of them. The pre-work "morning commute" of each shift would overlap the after-work "evening commute" of the previous shift, causing for the same traffic congestion we see today, only it would happen three times a day rather than two, and it would only involve 2/3 of the workers on the roads, not the full amount.
Adaptation would be difficult, but in a growing society, it makes the most sense to solve things temporally rather than spatially. Especially considering some jobs do not require working in the day time. In fact, many jobs don't require the sun being up. The sunlight cycle might be reserved for the wealthy, forcing the middle- and lower-classes to work in the morning or night shifts. The exception to this would be field workers, whose jobs require them to work in the sunlight. Besides a few in the "servant class" the daylight would almost certainly become dominated by the wealthy and priviledged.
Class structure might become more definable by the time a person works. Names might arise, depending on the cycle one falls within. Night workers, who would obsiously be lower on the scale than the daylight workers, might suffer the slur, "Luney" based off the word "luna" for moon.
...gonna end it right now because its all just brainstorming on theory. Not getting to a point at the moment. Perhaps in a later post.
The problem faced by an ever-growing population and an ever-sadistic economy is where to put everything. Workplaces cannot provide enough jobs, though they need workers, because they cannot afford the new facilities and the overhead involved in doing so. Likewise, though a constantly growing consumer base is out there, stores become over-crowded to the point where standing in line with groceries for 40 minutes becomes something so acceptable it is scheduled into time concerns for shopping. Similarly, youth are affected as larger class sizes are the result of too many kids going into fewer schools, themselves facing budget problems from inability to house all students during school hours.
The obvious solution to the problem lies not within space, but time.
The world as we know it, in this modern day, operates mostly on one eight-hour cycle. Even on weekends, when customer and employee free time is more quantative, stores tend to only adjust their adherrence to the eight-hour cycle by only a few hours, if at all. Only a handful of places have broken out of the single-cycle day, and remain open for business at all hours. As long as they have customers walking in for business, they do well. Otherwise, the continuance of operations at a single cycle in the day means nothing else can ever be achieved.
But, what of those problems mentioned in the first paragraph? What if things became like a powder keg, to the point where society no longer had to think in terms of one eight-hour day, but in multiples. What if the need for more output by facilities, more jobs from citizens, and more education from students meant places that typically operated under one cycle were finally forced to expand to two, or three?
This is quite a real outcome. Colleges, and some continuation high schools, offer night classes, seeing the need to offer courses at night rather than the typical day. What if it were all like this, across the board?
Arrival at such an outcome would only take pressure from the masses. Of course, it might not be their will, but a necessity facilitated by their needs. One could imagine abusive bosses requiring workers to work three shifts for jobs that would normally have one. It is easy to imagine a school district so strapped for funding, that it decided to force students to attend night or early-morning classes in order to save money rather than build new classrooms.
A shift to two cycles would invariably lead to a shift to three cycles. Three eight-hour cycles, for all aspects of society. Much like a gas station clerk, knowing day, evening and swing shifts.
However, what would become of a society in which this happens? If all aspects were touched, then it would not become unusual to see somebody walking their dog or taking a jog at three in the morning "to get some excercise in before work." Night would no longer be the time of crime, as alert citizens would be up at all hours, streets and businesses active with at least one-third of the population at all times. Businesses and government offices, whether greedy or desperate, would find considerable savings in using one facility to house three sets of workers, or students.
There would no longer be a "noon rush" but rather, three of them. The pre-work "morning commute" of each shift would overlap the after-work "evening commute" of the previous shift, causing for the same traffic congestion we see today, only it would happen three times a day rather than two, and it would only involve 2/3 of the workers on the roads, not the full amount.
Adaptation would be difficult, but in a growing society, it makes the most sense to solve things temporally rather than spatially. Especially considering some jobs do not require working in the day time. In fact, many jobs don't require the sun being up. The sunlight cycle might be reserved for the wealthy, forcing the middle- and lower-classes to work in the morning or night shifts. The exception to this would be field workers, whose jobs require them to work in the sunlight. Besides a few in the "servant class" the daylight would almost certainly become dominated by the wealthy and priviledged.
Class structure might become more definable by the time a person works. Names might arise, depending on the cycle one falls within. Night workers, who would obsiously be lower on the scale than the daylight workers, might suffer the slur, "Luney" based off the word "luna" for moon.
...gonna end it right now because its all just brainstorming on theory. Not getting to a point at the moment. Perhaps in a later post.
