 What is true about the world these characters live in?
My Lady Greensleeves By FREDERIK POHL Illustrated by GAUGHAN [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction February 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. He was a captain of guards in Estates-General Correctional Institution—better known to its inmates as the Jug—and if he hadn't been able to detect the scent of trouble brewing a cell-block away, he would never have survived to reach his captaincy. And, what was more important, why she couldn't adjust herself to it, now that she was in. It said in the Civil Service Guide to Prison Administration : "Detainees will be permitted to speak in their own behalf in disciplinary proceedings." And O'Leary was a man who lived by the book. That old witch Mathias never told me I was supposed to mop up. And then, ten minutes later, she called the guards and told them I refused to mop." Cap'n, you know what's funny about this? If anything, she had had a better environment than O'Leary himself, and look what she had made of it. The direction of evolution is toward specialization and Man is no exception, but with the difference that his is the one species that creates its own environment in which to specialize. From the moment that clans formed, specialization began—the hunters using the weapons made by the flint-chippers, the food cooked in clay pots made by the ceramists, over fire made by the shaman who guarded the sacred flame. From the born mechanic and the man with the gift of gab, society evolved to the point of smaller contact and less communication between the specializations, until now they could understand each other on only the most basic physical necessities—and not even always then. But this was desirable, for the more specialists, the higher the degree of civilization. The ultimate should be the complete segregation of each specialization—social and genetic measures to make them breed true, because the unspecialized man is an uncivilized man, or at any rate he does not advance civilization. And letting the specializations mix would produce genetic undesirables: clerk-laborer or Professional-GI misfits, for example, being only half specialized, would be good at no specialization. And the basis of this specialization society was: "The aptitude groups are the true races of mankind." Putting it into law was only the legal enforcement of a demonstrable fact.
 People are segregated by career, and not allowed to mingle with other groups or switch jobs.
 They all live under the impression they can only perform one job for their whole life.  People are segregated by career, and it's incredibly difficult for them to meet other groups and switch jobs.  People are segregated by career, and not allowed to mingle with other groups or switch jobs.  People have evolved to only be capable of one "specialization" through their lives.