In the year 2038 the data structure used to store the date in computer systems reached it's limit and wrapped around to the epoch time of July 1 1970. Since this was so deeply written into so much computing infrastructure it was considered more economical to simply ignore the change and assume the new date was correct. It is unclear how many times this has happened.
Offices are co-working spaces for self employed sole-trading LLCs contracted to work for The Economy. Various rents and charges fluctuate so rapidly that the Pay-Cost-Parity Algorithm was created to perfectly match the cost of operating as a contracted employee with the amount paid. This means that as long as a Unitary Corporation remains in good standing, its Contracted Individual avoids being Liquidated by The Economy.
Due to current Austerity Measures, investigations into criminal activity are severely restricted and active investigations are only conducted when an individual is likely to be a threat to the state or the operation of the state. This includes threatening the welfare of The Economy. Crime is currently considered to be wide-spread with the most common crime being participation in black market trading for luxury goods such as clothing and medicine. Current analytics estimate black market participation among the population at 100%.
NFTs are collected and bundled into Crypto Portfolios and priced based on the performance of the three leading cryptocurrencies (all of which are entirely owned and controlled by The Economy). Shares of these portfolios are then traded for goods and services. Shares are commonly referred to as "Crypto".
The trade of Crypto for off-chain or non-crypto assets is considered fraud, and punishable by death. Should someone come to the attention of The State, a routine Audit will be automatically carried out and a warrant issued to investigate their Crypto Wallet for suspicious transactions. As The Economy has been entirely digitised this can be carried out instantaneously and a verdict can be issued by the Decentralised Court Service. Analytics indicate the current chance of receiving a guilty verdict is approximately 100%.
The United World Trading Block exists to manage relationships and coordinate marketplace transactions between all current member countries: United Federation of Market States, Sweden. The UWTB manages citizenship and migration for all its member states through the Digital World Citizenry Platform, a virtual enterprise that manages passports, visas and migration. The statehood and migration status of each individual is updated automatically, with the system monitoring the employment activity or travel of each person and granting or revoking visa status as required.
Due to the incredibly large numbers used to represent the amount of wealth or debt created by The Economy the decision was made to invert the numerical abstraction and have the number 1 represent whatever the amount of profit generated by the economy is. Thus, the only other option is for the economy to shrink, generating 0 profit. This results in the current fluctuation of economic output between €1 and €0 lending it's self to being expressed as a frequency. Leading Machine Integrated Economic Think Tanks believe the optimal frequency for The Economy to be 50Hz, or a subsequent higher harmonic.
Due to the build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, it was eventually removed and replaced with an alternative proprietary aerosolised vapour called Rain®. This has caused a dramatic reduction in weather phenomena and homogenised the climate across the globe to a perpetual state of "overcast". While detrimental to some of the earth's ecology, this has been hugely beneficial to The Economy and widely praised as a great innovation by the Responsible Ecological Investment Forum.
Tastes in music, film and other media are incredibly important to popular culture and its formation. Today, people's opinions and preferences are determined by The Algorithm. The Algorithm forms an optimised content profile based on the user's economic requirements and tailors their preference to ensure a conformal media attitude that doesn't harm The Economy. More specifically media is tailored to avoid encouraging the following harmful psychologies: Selflessness, ideology, self, reason and hope.