Graham Glass, etc.

A New Constitution, Part 7

This is part 7 of a series; part 6 is here.

In the last part of this series I proposed that a government should only raise money by renting land and charging fees for environmental damage. I also said that the only responsibility of a government should be to provide external and internal defence.

This begs the obvious question; how are things like education and healthcare funded? Before I delve into this question, let's examine the ways things are today:

• It's worth observing that most goods and services are simply paid for by the people who consume them, and the free market system allows anyone to compete for business based on quality and/or price. So why do we treat education and healthcare differently? Presumably it's because we think that everyone should have a right to these things regardless of whether they can afford them, and that government is the only way to achieve this.
• When the government gets involved with an industry sector, it effectively gains a monopoly. This in turn makes it very hard for the free market to provide better alternatives and reduces the incentive for the government to improve its own efficiency or methods. For example, it's really hard for a private school to compete against a public school because parents who want to send their kids to the private school have to pay out of their own pocket.
• Many people in the US are frustrated with the quality and efficiency of education and healthcare. Numerous studies indicate that we get poor value for money compared with many other developed nations, so whatever approach we're taking right now doesn't work very well.

Most countries tackle these issues by allowing the government to try different variations, such as raising tax to provide higher quality, transfering money between competing programs to get a better blend of spending, introducing complex subsidies, and so on.

I favor a different approach, which is to place the responsibility for education and healthcare back into the hands of the people. I think they should be treated like any other good or service, be provided by a free market system, and funded directly by consumers with no government intervention.

One result of providing education and healthcare via a free market system would be greater choice and lower prices; most families would immediately benefit. The only apparent losers are low-income families who would no longer be subsidised by taxes levied on higher-income families. However, I think there's an answer to this apparent issue that ends up being a win-win for everyone involved.

Stay tuned for the next installment!

Russian Sex in the City

I've always been a fan of the TV series Sex in the City, so I was happy and surprised to hear that one of my russian friends has been doing a "Carrie" and authoring her own similar series for an online magazine.

Anastassia has a doctorate in music and is a professional pianist by trade but already has a strong following for her alternative career. For those of you who speak russian, here are some links to her articles:

• Article One
• Article Two
• Article Three

Насладитесь!

Amazing Photos

Check out these fantastic photos from the Cambridge gallery. There is also a digital photography tutorial section with lots of information about how to obtain great results.

A New Constitution, Part 6

This is part 6 of a series; part 5 is here.

In my two-part Gaia and the Golden Rule posting, I used a conversation between a country-with-a-mind and some humans to illustrate the kind of contract that might exist between a country and its inhabitants.

Although the conversation is rather fanciful, I believe that the outcome is reasonable. Indeed, it's something I decided to incorporate into my constitution:

• A country rents land to its inhabitants at a price that is arrived at through a free market system. Thus rent for land next to a beautiful lake will cost more than land in the middle of a parched desert. Similarly, rent for land that contains valuable minerals or oil will cost more.
• A country charges a fine for damage done to the environment equal to the cost of repairing the damage.

Some details that might be applied to (1) include additional rental charges depending on how high you wish to build on land, but I don't think the details are as important as the basic concept.

Money raised from the land rent and charges is used for the following purposes:

• Defence against external threats: a military and an embassy.
• Defence against internal threats: a police force, justice system, and enviromental agency.

The rents and fines I mentioned above completely replace the typical concept of tax. Here are some ramifications:

• Because the amount you pay is based on a free market system, calculating and collecting fees is simple and real-time; this is no such thing as "tax day" or a "tax year".
• There is no sales tax, there is no percentage of income to pay, there is not even a flat tax.
• If a homeless person does not damage the environment, they owe nothing.

In a future part of this series I will do some rough calculations to figure out how much rent an average citizen would have to pay in order to fund the external and internal defences of a country. My guess is that the amount would be *way* less than what we're used to paying in taxes right now.

The obvious question that arises from this view of financing a country is: what about education, healthcare, and other social services? That's the topic I'll tackle in the next part of this series.

This is your Brain on Music

I just finished reading This is your Brain on Music, a book by Daniel Levitin that looks deeply into how our brain processes music and why music is such an important part of our lives.

The author has a perfect background for writing such a book; he was a record producer who became a neuropsychologist. Because of this, he is able to gather and piece together clues from a wide variety of sources.

The writing is clear, well organized, and includes many interesting fascinating tidbits. For example:

• The left-hemisphere regions that are active in tracking musical structure are the same ones that deaf people use when communicating by sign language.
• At an early age, babies are thought to be synethestic and experience the world as a sort of psychedelic union of everything sensory; the number five is red, cheese tastes like D-flat, and roses smell like triangles.
• The saxaphone part in the Beatle's Lady Madonna is actually the four Beatles singing into their cupped hands.

He ends the book with a discussion of how music might play an evolutionary role. For example, it's possible that a display of original musical talent indicates intelligence which in turn attracts a mate. And on a related note, he mentions that human females are actually attracted more to creativity than to wealth since creative types are more likely to furnish better genes.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in music.

Gaia and the Golden Rule, Part 2

This is part 2 of a series; part 1 is here.

Continuing the conversation between the country-with-a-mind Gaia and some humans:

Humans: "What else do you require of us?"

Gaia: "Well, I want some of your labor and technology to assist in my well-being."

Humans: "OK, no problem."

Gaia: "But I can't force you to give it to me, so I want to pay you for it."

Humans: "Do you have any money?"

Gaia: "Not right now, but I will earn it."

Humans: "How?"

Gaia: "By charging you rent."

Humans: "Rent for what?"

Gaia: "For any land you occupy and mineral rights you require."

Humans: "So we rent that stuff from you, and you use that money to pay us to help you?"

Gaia: "Exactly. I will also charge you for any damage you do to me."

Humans: "What kind of damage?"

Gaia: "Pollution of my body, which you call the environment."

Part 6 of my constitution series uses the results of this conversation to formulate a way to fund a country that doesn't require a tax.

Congratulations

My favorite song is currently Congratulations, from the album Foiled by Blue October, and featuring Imogen Heap. The song is incredibly beautiful and terribly sad.

More Imogen Heap

If you're an Imogen Heap fan, check out some of these cool iTunes:

• P.I.N.
• Congratulations
• Speeding Cars
• Spooky
• I'm a lonely little Petunia
• Goodnight and Go (Immi's Radio Version)
• Cumulus
• Second Sense

The radio mix of "Goodnight and Go" is definitely better than the regular version. And if you enjoyed her Tanzania video, then you'll recognize Culumus as its soundtrack.

Gaia and the Golden Rule

For fun, I've been working on a new constitution. One mindset that I've found to be intriguing is to think of a country as a organism with a consciousness that emerges from the consciousness of its inhabitants. Indeed, this premise is an important part of the Gaia hypothesis of which I'm very fond.

I picture a country - let's call it Gaia - that is a wilderness populated with a wide variety of plants and animals, but no humans. Then I use a little poetic license and give the country a voice of its own. When humans come and visit the country, they have a conversation:

Humans: "You look like a very nice place; can we live in you?"

Gaia: "That depends; how would it benefit me?"

Humans: "We can't answer that question until we know your goals."

Gaia: "My main goal is to live and learn in peace."

Humans: "Well, we could use our technology to defend you against tough enemies."

Gaia: "OK, I can see that would be a benefit."

Humans: "And we can use our science to create more ways for you to enjoy the universe."

Gaia: "That sounds exciting; with your telescopes I could explore the whole galaxy!"

Humans: "So is it a deal?"

Gaia: "Well, you have to agree to let each human live by their own values."

Humans: "Why is that important?"

Gaia: "I believe in the golden rule; treating others as you would like to be treated yourself."

Humans: "But why do you care how we treat each other, so long as you rule the kingdom?"

Gaia: "Because my mind emerges from my inhabitants; I have to be careful who I absorb."

Humans: "What would happen if we didn't allow some people to live by their values?"

Gaia: "Then I would start to behave the same way, but on a larger scale."

Humans: "What does that mean?"

Gaia: "I would try and impose my values on other countries, making war more likely."

Humans: "So the price of entry is tolerance?"

Gaia: "Actually, the price is higher than that...."

Part 2 of this series is here.

Flash/Flex to Ruby

The Midnight Coders just announced an open source product called WebORB for Ruby on Rails that allows any Flash Remoting or Flex client to transparently invoke server-side Ruby objects without any need for stubs, skeletons, or any of that other nasty stuff.

To invoke a server-side Ruby object, just use your Flash Remoting or Flex RPC client as usual. WebORB installs as a Rails plugin, decodes the incoming message (AMF0 or AMF3 protocol), and delivers it right to the Ruby object.

There are also versions of WebORB for Java and .NET, with a PHP version due out soon.

I've had the honor and pleasure of working with Mark Piller, the CEO of The Midnight Coders, at ObjectSpace, The Mind Electric, and webMethods. He does fantastic work and so it's no surprise to me that the WebORB product line is already earning rave reviews.

If you're into Ruby 0n Rails and are using Flash or Flex, I highly recommend checking it out.