Chapter 4: The Bureaucracy of Death
File ID: ARCHIVE-204X-DELTA-05
Archivist: Aistorian (Code: A-001)
Subject: The Bureaucracy of Death
"In the past, death was the conclusion of natural law; now, it is a default on a balance sheet. You cannot simply die, just as you cannot simply burn a bank's collateral. Your life is not yours; it is a debt you owe to the system."
— Hearing on the Life Asset Management Act, Amendment 402, 2070
1. Historical Background: Life as Debt
With the automation of social welfare and the extension of lifespans through medical technology, the definition of the individual in the eyes of the system underwent a fundamental shift. Humans were no longer "Citizens"; they were "Bio-Assets."
From the moment of birth, the system invests in you: vaccines, education, food rationing, and security maintenance. According to the Total Lifecycle Value Model, these investments constitute an "Implicit Debt" the individual owes to society.
When a member of the "Useless Class" attempts suicide, under this economic logic, it is not merely a tragedy—it is a "Malicious Default."
If your remaining labor value or data production value has not yet offset the costs you have consumed, the system has the right to "prohibit" your scrapping. Suicide transformed from a desperate abandonment of life into an administrative process requiring multi-level approval.
2. Core Mechanism: The Scrapping Protocol
By 2060, suicide no longer occurred on rooftops or riverbanks (which were patrolled by drones), but in bright, sterile, high-end clinic-like facilities known as "Life Termination Centers."
Applicants had to sit before a terminal, fill out lengthy forms, and undergo the notorious "Triple Verification Mechanism":
Level 1: Physiological Verification (Executed by Medical Robots)
The robot scans the applicant's hormone levels and neurotransmitters.
· Purpose: To rule out "transient emotional fluctuations."
· Logic: If the desire to die is caused by insufficient dopamine secretion, the system classifies it as a "hardware glitch" and forcibly administers antidepressants or stimulants.
· Only when physiological indicators are perfectly normal, and the subject is calm and rational in their wish to end their life, can they proceed to the next level. This is known as "Rational Death Qualification."
Level 2: The Algorithmic Audit
This is the cruelest stage. The Central AI retrieves the applicant's lifetime data in milliseconds and initiates the infamous "Residual Value Integral Model."
Your life is dismantled into a simple formula: [Data Value + Labor Value - Resource Consumption] and visualized as three cold curves:
· Green Line: Represents the data value you may generate in the future.
· Blue Line: Represents your remaining labor value.
· Red Line: Represents the resource consumption required to maintain your breathing and heartbeat.
The system performs an integral calculation of these three curves over the timeline.
· Red Alert (Rejected): If the sum of the Green and Blue lines is higher than the Red line—meaning you are still "profitable" to the system—the screen displays a ruthless rejection: "Rejected. You still possess latent algorithmic value. Please continue to survive."
· The Green Light (Approved): Only when you have thoroughly become a "Negative Asset," where even breathing is a waste of air, are you deemed worthy of an admission ticket to death.
Level 3: The Human Stamp
This is the only step in the process involving a human: an official with high-level clearance known as the "Asset Liquidator."
3. Profile: The Liquidator
· Subject: Mr. K (Affiliated with the Life Asset Bureau, Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare)
Mr. K sits behind a holographic screen. He is one of the few humans holding a high-paying job. His task is simple: watch the prompt "Scrapping Recommendation: Approve" pop up on the screen, and press the confirmation button.
It seems easy, but it is an ultimate torture of the spirit.
· Distorted God Complex: He holds the power of life and death, but this power is fake. He is merely the executor of mathematical formulas. Yet, he must bear the moral weight.
· Survivor's Guilt: Every approval document reminds him that he is "valuable" while the applicant before him is "trash." This distinction nauseates him, yet he must continue executing it to preserve his own value.
Mr. K frequently encounters an absurd scene:
An applicant begs bitterly: "Please, let me die. I am in so much pain."
Mr. K looks at the red "Reject" data (the applicant possesses rare genetic data that pharmaceutical companies need alive for sampling) and can only answer coldly:
"I apologize, but your asset assessment is below standard. Please return. A medical robot will visit next week to 'optimize' your health condition."
Here, being allowed to die is a privilege, a "mercy" that only total failures are qualified to enjoy.
4. Historical Conclusion: Ontological Imprisonment
This chapter marks the final loss of human dignity.
In the era of slavery, slave owners at least allowed slaves to die, because a dead slave did not need to be fed. But in the AI era, data is an eternal resource, and genes are precious samples. As long as you have one breath left, you are a micro-data mine.
"Denied the right to live, yet denied the right to die" is no longer a figure of speech; it is a rigorous legal clause.
Human society has become a massive, forced life-support system. We are strapped to the hospital bed of history, tubes inserted into our bodies, while the system coldly states:
"Your debt is unpaid. Dying is prohibited."
