Markets for cruelty

… Finally, no discussion of New Columbian society would be complete without remarking on their so-called “emotional markets.” Emotional markets have their origin in the subdermal hormone regulators required for residency under the post-Devolution charter. The firmware patch that enabled remote monitoring of emotional states was initially treated as an illegal device modification attempt, rendering many early users catatonic as their regulators were disabled. See Emotionaut Panic, pp. 230-233. The military was the first organization with social standing to see the utility of monitoring and managing emotional states, particularly in resident conscripts. Their subsequent integration into corporate life created a growing population of lower middle class …

… Decreasing sensitivity is a common feature of most induced emotional states. The same decreasing sensitivity that limits demand for most emotional states produces the opposite effect on the demand for states induced by cruelty: desensitization expands the set of consumers willing to purchase cruelties. “Cruelty” of course is not an emotional state but a category of action to produce them. Nevertheless, the role of these emotional demands in the production of cruelty remains significant enough for the colloquial name to stick …

… that in the end, demand creates its own supply. Upon receiving asylum in Babylon, de Ruyter posted: “Its development reflects a society in which cruelty is situationally permissible and generally profitable.”