Human society on Earth in the year of 2174

The ecology of my culture is a hostile, resource-exhausted environment that doesn’t allow for living outside without any form of protection. Poisonous clouds are constantly in the sky, covering the sun, and the air is too polluted to breath without a filtering device. The culture is a fully developed futuristic civilization.

The food is synthetic, imitations of foods that were once naturally available. Food is genetically engineered and artificially manufactured to meet minimum nutritional requirements. It is no longer a source of recreational activities or a cultural staple; it is strictly functional and highly efficient.

                

One of the most dominant trades in the civilization is a food synthesizer. These highly trained chemists are the backbone of the species’ survival, as they have the required knowledge to develop and maintain the technology required to produce food. Food can no longer be mass-produced without human interference, as the machines became unreliable and tended to poison it in the past.

The opposite trade to food synthesizers are the depopulators. These professionals are basically assassins that are hired by the government to limit the expansion of the population, due to the limited nature of natural, and even artificial resources.

These depopulators are ensured allotment by the government in return for their services, and are not allowed by law to gather food or currency beyond their immediate need. 

A complementary trade to the food synthesizers are food distributors. These people are in connection with the food synthesizers to obtain and sell these artificially made foods. Since food portions are limited, distributors are usually very wealthy, as they are the link between the consumer and the manufacturer of the most critical resource on the planet.

The ideology of the government is cornucopian, the shortage of food does not seem like an unnatural result of the exhaustion of natural resources. The judicial system has defined many rules against population control crimes. An example of a crime in this society is overbreeding - bringing a child into the world beyond the allowed limits: usually one offspring per nuclear family.

People take part in the workforce from the age of 4-5 until they are no longer able to function, sometimes until they die. This is true for most classes that aren’t connected to the government, as those higher classes live off of the taxes and illegally obtained funds that they take from the lower classes.

The common view among the majority of the population is a non-religious one. It doesn’t place value in supernatural beings or deities, and its ritual practices are limited to consuming virtual-reality based forms of entertainment, often as small to medium groups who plug in and meet in fictional world to escape the harsh reality.

A family structure is two parents and one child. Artificial insemination has been illegalized, and frozen eggs and semen banks were destroyed in efforts to contain the population explosion. The institution of marriage has been disbanded, as couples that wish to go through the efforts of legally bringing a child into the world do it out of belief in love and continuation of the species, and do not place any value in confessing their love to a deity or any other people in their social group.

Since siblings are no longer legally allowed to exist, being a sibling, a younger child to the same family, is considered a crime punishable by death. Legal sexual engagement is an affair controlled and monitored by the police and government, and people have to pay heavy taxes to remain fertile until they find a partner to bring a child to the world with. Gender in the traditional sense does not exist anymore, and one’s gender is defined by them, and may vary over the years. This poses difficulties for couples with the same set of reproduction systems, as they are not able to bring children to the world. Adoption is still legal in some counties, and it is usually so expensive that it is pre-arranged. Surrogacy is illegal and punishable by death of the baby and parent. Still, some couples wish to bring babies through a mutual friend, in which case the child is left with their biological parent until old enough to be considered up for adoption without raising suspicion of surrogacy.

Body decoration - tattoos, are often a sign of identifying with a certain group of VR subcultures. Clothing is standard and government issued, there is no sense of individuality expect for accessories and tattoos, which also contain a form of identification. 

Traditional holidays, or remains of them, are only celebrated in VR subcultures, and are practiced secretly according to passed-down traditions rather than documented forms of celebration.