Disneyland with the Death Penalty (1993)
archive.wired.com
archive.wired.com
I would be in support of that being tried in the U.S, especially for senior level positions. It would probably save money in the long run.
[0] As per article, it is a law which mandated annual increases in productivity of 3-4%. So essentially this is officially sustained technology race.
Even someone worth millions can't personally pay out their own election campaign or just may not want to waste their personal funds.
>I would be in support of that being tried in the U.S, especially for senior level positions
Roughly 50% of Congress are millionaires with a median of about $3m. In other words, they're all fairly well off as-is.
In other words, the fact that the foundations of the political process depend heavily on money is what spoils the whole thing. Nothing will get fixed as long as that remains true.
Get money out of politics.
The only way to do that now is with a constitutional amendment. The Wolf PAC is working hard to get one passed and has actually succeeded in several states.
http://www.wolf-pac.com/effects_of_corporate_lobbying_take_a...
Plus, it depends if you define speech as "giving money to someone"
Would you ban:
An ad that promotes preserving a specific forest while there is a referendum about increasing environmental spending.
An ad that says the schools are falling apart and understaffed while an education millage is being voted on.
An ad that says you shouldn't be forced to buy healthcare while a candidate/party's platform is strongly tied to that policy.
Later generations will look at it and will go "how was that even possible?"
If I didn't hear this so often in real life, I'd think it was a bad line in a cheesy dystopian movie.
Basically, as long as there is no physical limit to the number of voices that can be heard (as with broadcast television), and the barriers to entry are reasonably low (unlike with cable television, and possibly internet in the near future), then absolute freedom of speech works very well. Otherwise, all you're left with is propaganda under cover of freedom of speech, and it fucking sucks.
How exactly do you propose to achieve that, though?
The problem is that political positions bestow power. People with money want that power, and I don't see how you can prevent them from using their money, directly or indirectly, to attain it.
Like a corporate tax return, during a campaign you can write off a lot of seemingly personal expenses as campaign expenses.
Also, re-election IS personal gain.
You've missed a big part of the favor system if you aren't looking at where people who lose campaigns end up working and how well they are paid -- even after they've written off any future campaigns for public office.
It's a bigger stakes game here in the USA.
More disturbingly, despite that high pay there are regular reports of corruption in the highest ranks, only a few of which even see the light. Here's one particularly unedifying saga that only made the news because the head honcho of a government-linked charity, paid $600k/year plus stupidly generous expenses (fleet of 8 cars etc), was foolish enough to sue a state-owned newspaper.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Kidney_Foundation_Sin...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index#20...
I'm just taking exception to the rather glib claim that high salaries eliminate corruption at higher levels, because quite clearly they do not, even in Singapore. But this is not the kind of thing that affects perceptions in day-to-day life, while the Malaysian cop asking for an on-the-spot fine or the Indonesian immigration dude finding a "mistake" in your visa does.
Note we're still talking about relatively small groups even so: single digit percentages at most is all I've seen for US population cohorts of various selection criteria. The positive takeaway is that in the US at least, while leadership overrepresents these traits, you are more likely to simply meet well-intentioned and honest leaders (or well-intentioned but ineffective) leaders than those who exhibit the aforementioned traits.
What paying government leaders more CAN pave the way clear for however, is for far less "privacy" of their daily lives, and far stricter anti-corruption regulations. Something along the lines of a bodycam streaming straight to a replicated digital vault, accompanied by rules like unexplained gaps in the stream are grounds for instant, unappeal-able, permanent dismissal with revocation of all retirement benefits, with the ability to let third parties also vault the encrypted streams if desired. If they're paid so much out in the open, then it will probably be easy to sell the voting public on keeping such "digital tabs" on the leadership. Still wouldn't prevent the corruption, but I'd be happy to root it out before it rots out the infrastructure from underneath us.
This suggestion often makes heads explodes, but some countries do something similar already.
If congress had 10k members, bribing enough to get something passed would get quite expensive. (6320 would be the current min size of the US House of Representatives by the original method in the Constitution of at least 1 per 50k)
"Gibson was a visionary in that he saw clear through the hype to the disturbing underbelly. It turns out our government doesn’t have the secret to prosperity, and progress and they are clearing failing in technological innovation and creativity. But others still believe in the hype and if the PAP’s model for pseudo democracy takes off then new democracies everywhere are in danger."
It's my understanding that none of those kampungs exist in Singapore any longer, and I've often wondered where all of the people were sent.
In those pre ceramic supermagnet days those were probably alnico magnets (aluminum, nickel, cobalt) and although you get $4/lb for scrap nickel you'll only get $1/lb or so for alnico magnets from a scrap metal dealer, today.
Where you'd get your feedstock from is a complete mystery as the scam of "recycling" by shipping used electronic to the 3rd world is pretty modern. If you could get an infinite supply of gear (rejects returned to manufacturer?), I don't think it would be a challenge to rip apart speakers of that time and generate a roughly minimum wage income.
Nickel is really quite valuable. Prices always vary but a tenth the cost of equal weight of silver is semi-stable-ish. Figure maybe a hundred times what you'll get for scrap steel. Or maybe two or three times what you'll get for copper. If there's precious metals, and semi-precious metals, I'd say nickel is just one step below the semi-precious, like wanna-be precious metal.
That page says rent is $13 per month for each of 28 homes, and the entire thing had a purchase offer of $33 million which was rejected. Interesting place, for this an other reasons.
Singapore did a lot of things wrong, but part of the reason it is so (unnervingly) clean and prosperous and ordered is because the government has made an effort (not completely successful, and again perhaps with not all the right methods) to provide the denizens of the country with places to live and ways to make a decent living.
Many old people are still in the work force because they don't have the option to retire and keep on surviving: http://therealsingapore.com/content/why-are-frail-elderly-st...
Driving around Singapore you see trucks carrying loads of migrant workers everywhere you go. When you first arrive its heartbreaking to see, but of course one gets "used" to it over time.
I suppose Singapore > Qatar.
In the case of Qatar the disparity is clearly due to oil. For Singapore I think the answer is simply better economic management.
http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass.html
It's about the laying of an undersea fibre optic cable.
I thought it was by Bruce Sterling but apparently not. About a guy who went to (Dubai?) to reprogram some "ancient" assembly-line robots, and had trouble because access to the "net" was highly controlled, and he needed to get documentation. He hacked into a payphone, only to find that there was a lively "underground" scene on the net, and some of the royalty he had encountered was active on it.
Surely someone can remember the name/author..
http://www.e-reading.link/chapter.php/71789/6/Sterling_-_Cry...
I wonder how relevant all that stuff is today.
Find a copy of Neuromancer if you can & enjoy!
The earliest and strongest claim is that emoticon use varies like accents or dialects. He claims that the nose is associated with more conventionality or adult interests regardless of age, but doesn't disclose the strength of the association. Based on the call out of the nose in the subheading, I suspect it's primarily mentioned to make the article more interesting.
Relevant portion of article:
Schnoebelen has found that use of emoticons varies by geography, age, gender, and social class—just like dialects or regional accents. Friend groups fall into the habit of using certain emoticons, just as they develop their own slang. “You start using new emoticons, just like you start using different words, when you move outside your usual social circles,” said Schnoebelen. He discovered a divide, for instance, between people who include a hyphen to represent a nose in smiley faces— :-) — and people who use the shorter version without the hyphen. “The nose is associated with conventionality,” said Schnoebelen. People using a nose also tend to “spell words out completely. They use fewer abbreviations.” Twitter notoriously obscures demographic data, but according to Schnoebelen, “People who use no noses tend to be tweeting more about Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber. They have younger interests, younger concerns, whether or not they’re younger.”
Well, that is definitely me. I refuse to abbreviate my words or my emoticons. :-)
$0.02
(an imperfect alternative as some parse it as a failed :( )
Now you can turn this off locally but people receiving them will still think you are childish : )