NationStates Jolt Archive

The Sharina Technocracy

National Data:

Government Type: Technocracy.
Formal Name: The Sharina Technocracy.
Informal Name: Sharina.
Citizens: Sharinans.
Capital: San Francisco.
Head of State: Grand Technocrat Mina Veristek.
Official Language: Sharinan / English.
Official Religion: Atheism.
Population (2007 est): 418,249,534.

Politic Data:

Regions: 7.

Antarctica, Canada, Caribbean, Greater New England, Latin America, Mid-West, and West Coast.

States: 63.

Antarctica, Bahamas, Belize, Caribica*, Cayman Islands, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Greenland, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Turks and Caicos Islands, Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, Wyoming, Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Northwesteria, Nova Scotia, Nunavut, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, Saskatchewan, and Yukon.

* = Caribica includes all the islands in the Caribbean within the Lesser Antilles island chain such as the British Virgin Islands, United States Virgin Islands, the Leeward Islands, and so forth.

Regional Capitals:

West Coast = San Francisco.
Latin America = Mexico City.
Canada = Quebec.
Carribbean = Havana.
Mid-West = Chicago.
Greater New England = Boston.

Government:

Sharina utilizes a blend of Technocratic ideals with democratic ideals to create a governmental system that blends the best of both government modes.

Sharina grants freedom to its own people. The Sharinan people are guanatreed basic human rights, civil liberties, and do anything they may desire. The degree of freedom resembles the extensive freedoms enjoyed by the people of the former United States of America, Canada, Britain, and other major democratic powers. The only situations such freedoms may be infringed upon is when national-threatening situations such as plagues or total war occur. Essentially, it comes down to the "Greater good of the many outweighs the needs of the few", which is scientifically sound.

The Sharina government is comprised of technicians, scientists, engineers, and people of skilled labor. There is a Hall of Logic, similiar to a Senate, where each state sends two representatives for each of the 15 major fields. The Male and Female Citizen delegates get two votes each whereas the other delegates only get one. The major fields are as follows:

Agriculture, Aerospace, Industry, Energy, Transportation, Computers, Commerce, Infrastructure, Healthcare, Education, Resources, Communications, Research + Development, Male Citizens, and Female Citizens.

Agriculture = All food industries, including farms, slaughterhouses, ranches, food factories (where foodstuffs are produced such as cereals, candy, junk food, etc.)

Aerospace = All matters pertaining to aerospace sectors such as airports and airplane manufacturing, outer space endeavours such as telescopes, space shuttle factories, space station parts factories, and so forth.

Industry = All factories and production centers. This includes automobile factories, toy assembly plants, furniture factories, luxury goods factories, packaging plants, and so forth.

Energy = All energy based sectors. This includes power utility companies, power plants, power line repairmen, and so forth.

Transportation = Covers all public transportation such as highways, interstates, railroads, canals, subways, and so forth.

Computers = Includes all Information Technology sectors, computer companies, computer operators, mainframe systems, and so forth.

Commerce = Focuses on all economic matters of Sharina, including internal and external trade, stock exchange, retail stores, mega-malls, and so forth.

Infrastructure = Encompasses all urban and rural infrastructure which means telephone poles, buildings, street sweepers, street lights, sewage systems, and so forth.

Healthcare = Focuses upon all hospitals, doctors, medicine, and health sectors.

Education = Includes all schools, universities, prep schools, vocational schools, teacher unions, and so on.

Resources = Includes mining sectors, forestry sectors, fishing sectors, and all types of raw resource extraction and transport.

Communications = All telecommunications, internet, cell phone networks, television networks, and so forth.

Research + Development = All research labs, experimental projects, research grants, and so forth. This is important enough to warrant seat-ship in the Hall of Logic, considering Sharina is constantly seeking to improve its technology and efficiency.

Male Citizens = Gives male citizens of every state a voice.

Female Citizens = Gives female citizens of every state a voice.

The Hall of Logic tends to meet twice every week to discuss issues. During emergency situations, the Hall of Logic can meet immediately, regardless of whether they met two times already or not. In addition, the Hall can also meet a third, fourth or fifth time a week if there is a high number of issues that needs to be resolved.

Political decisions are usually decided upon after employing technical and scientific methods. The solution is then analyzed and voted upon by various delegates. An example of a typical science-driven political decision is as follows:

Example 1:

Sharina faces rising oil prices and a looming possibility of oil shortages. Sharinan politicans assemble and debate on the oil crisis, then form scientific solutions to the oil issue. The solutions are arrived at through expertise and scientific method. Several scientists work up a solution to invest more in alternative energy sources such as nuclear power, as Sharina has an ample supply of uranium. Another group of scientists figure out a solution to attempt to invest more research into improving solar power technology. Several other solutions would include ethanol, garbage-into-oil, wind turbines, and so forth. Once all the options have been put forth, a vote is held by all scientists involved to figure out the most optimal solution, with the other solutions as secondary priorities.

The scientists agree via majority upon building more garbage-into-oil plants, as it would solve two problems at once. The first problem being overflowing landfills, and all that garbage will become useful instead of taking up more and more space year by year. The second problem being the oil shortage itself. With trash being transformed into oil, the oil shortage is resolved while reducing the amount of trash filling up in the landfills. A green light is given to the project.

The scientists also decide on implementing construction of several solar power plants in the Mojave desert and several wind farms in the most windy regions of Sharina. These projects will serve as auxiliary power generation sources, and will be built as secondary priority, the garbage-to-oil power plants being top priority.

In a capitalistic society, the corporations and corporate-funded politicans would interfere with any solution to reduce the oil shortage as the corporations will only want to make additional profits and force the customers to pay through their noses. The alternative energy / oil solutions would most likely not occur for decades as a result as the plentiful oil from such a process would threaten the monopoly of the oil corporations such as Citgo, Shell, Texaco, and so forth in addition to oil-funded politicans like the Bush family in real life. In Sharina's system, the solutions would be implemented as quickly and efficiently as possible as opposed to decades of waiting, and without being manipulated by corporations and corporate-funded politicans.

Example 2:

Another example would be medicine. Sharinan scientists discover a cure for cancer within the field of embyronic stem cell research. Sharinan leaders assemble and discuss the ramifications of the situation, and decide upon establishing "fetus farms" to greatly increase the availability of fetuses for cure "harvesting" and other research applications such as organ regeneration and the like.

In a capitalistic society (take the real life USA for example), there would be a lot of debate, shouting matches, and general dissension about the embryonic stem cell research. Some people would lobby to have it banned and there would be a lot of religious-backed protests and disruption of the process. The whole ethical and moral dilemma would tie up the propsal for many years, thereby dooming millions of lives that would have been saved or enriched (regenerated organs) if not for the multi-year-long tie-up's of the proposal.

Sharina would choose to pursure embryonic stem cell research wholeheartedly after discovering the vast benefits of such an effort. Moral questions such as "Is the fetus alive?" are discarded as new questions establishes itself- "How many lives will be saved and enriched by this effort? How many people will enjoy better living standards as a result?". Thus, stem cell research or other moral / ethnical / religiously controversial projects would be undertaken without any delay, and protests aganist such efforts are generally dismissed for the "greater good of the many".

Example 3:

A third example. Sharina is experiencing a completely new plague or a genetically engineered biological attack that could concievably wipe out 3/4 of its population. A Sharinan is found who is immune to the plague, and doctors discover that an cure / vaccine for the plague could be synthesized from the Sharinan. However, for this to occur, the Sharinan may have to sacrifice his own life. The government decrees that the Sharinan is to be "harvested" for the cure to the plague, thereby saving the entire Sharinan population.

Within a capitalistic society, the plague would continue and the nation would vanish as hundreds of millions of people die. This is because the person who is immune would not sacrifice his own life to save the civilization, and there would be no force or voluntary action taken to ensure the survival of the nation. The rest of the nation dies off while the immune person argues for his / her right to not sacrifice his / her own life in the courts, wasting valuable time (and the judge and jury probably would die of the plague in the meantime).

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Economy:

Sharina employs a revolutionary mode of accounting, called Energy Accounting. The unit used in Energy Accounting is coined an energy-credit, which is labelled as "Diamond" within Sharina. Currently, one "Diamond" is equalivent to $1.7 USD (United States Dollars).

An energy-credit, sometimes called an energy certificate, is an unit which would account for the Energy used by Citizens in a Technocracy. Unlike traditional money or currencies, energy-credits cannot be saved or earned, only distributed evenly among a populace. The amount of credits given to each citizen would be calculated by determining the total productive capacity of the technocracy and dividing it equally. The reason for the use of energy-credits serves to ensure equality among the Technocracy’s citizenry as well as prohibit a spending that is beyond the productive capacity of the technocracy.

However, the theory was somewhat flawed, therefore Sharina added several concepts to the system. The most significant is the "Ranking" system, which is used to encourage people to actively seek employment and serve as incentive for the citizens to excel at their fields. The "Ranking" system is described in more detail below.

Rank S (1+) = +10% energy credit per S level on top of Rank 1. S-1 means +10% energy credits, while S-10 means +100% energy credits on top of Rank 1.

Rank 1 = +100% energy credit distribution.
Rank 2 = +75% energy credit distribution.
Rank 3 = +50% energy credit distribution.
Rank 4 = +25% energy credit distribution.
Rank 5 = Average energy credit distribution.
Rank 6 = -25% energy credit distribution.
Rank 7 = -50% energy credit distribution.
Rank 8 = -75% energy credit distribution.

Rank S = Citizens such as Einsteins, Stephen Hawkins, Leonardo Da Vinci, and so forth. S-10 is extraordinarily difficult to obtain. The only people to ever attain S-10 is Rand Veristek, Edward Witten, and John C. Mather. Rank S-1 can be reached by those who work in their fields for 25 years or more.

Rank 1 = Generally scientists and technicians that have served in their fields with exemplary conduct for at least 20 years.

Rank 2 = People who have served their fields for at least 15 years.

Rank 3 = People who have served their fields for at least 10 years, or made an impressive discovery. Additional impressive discoveries by the same person will bump the person up to Rank 1 or even into the S category.

Rank 4 = People who have worked within their professions for at least 5 years.

Rank 5 = People who just graduate college or university, and begin employment in their fields.

Rank 6 = People who graduated high school and are employed.

Rank 7 = Children in general. Their income is added to their parents income.

Rank 8 = Unemployed and homeless people in general.

A citizen with a 1000 Diamond income would have the credit income adjusted by rank as follows.

Rank S-10 = 3000 credits.
Rank S-5 = 2500 credits.
Rank 1 = 2000 credits.
Rank 2 = 1750 credits.
Rank 3 = 1500 credits.
Rank 4 = 1250 credits.
Rank 5 = 1000 credits.
Rank 6 = 750 credits.
Rank 7 = 500 credits.
Rank 8 = 250 credits.

So a household with two parents who are Rank 3, and has three children would get a total of 3000 credits for the parents (1500 per parent), and 1500 credits for the children (500 per child) for a total of 4500 credits.

The huge benefit of this system is that even the homeless and unemployed will be able to feed themselves and afford at least rudimentary housing. The huge wealth disparity such as Hollywood is eliminated, while the harder people work, the more "money" everyone ends up having. This comes from two methods- raising the person's rank through tenure or extraordinary accomplishment, or raise the national energy reserves through hard and efficient work (either doing work or spending work money on things).

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Military Declaration of the Sharina Technocracy

Population of the Technocracy of Sharina: 418,249,534
Military Budget: $3.1 trillion ($3,100,000,000,000)
Available manpower in Active Duty: 2,000,000 frontline combat personnel
Available manpower in Reserves: 20,000,000 (reserve troops and logistics)

Sharina's Military Branches:

The Sharina Ground Defenders (40% personnel in SGD)
The Sharina Air Navy (30% personnel in SAN)
The Sharina Sea Navy (20% personnel in SSN)
The Sharina Space Guardians (10% personnel in SSG)

Note: SSG evolved from the former NASA.

Sharina Ground Defenders:

Armor:

5,000 A3* "Paragon" tanks (third generation Abrams- M1A3)
8,000 A2 tanks (second generation Abrams- M1A2)
4,000 U1 Urban tanks (second generation M60A3 tank, optimized for urban combat)
10,000 tanks of older varieties (M1A1 and Patton), mostly in Reserve Duty.

Infantry:

20,000 Bradley's of varying types.
500,000+ various vehicles in support roles (Jeeps, supply trucks, Hummers, etc.)

Body Armor: Nanocomposite + Spidersilk blend.**

Primary infantry weapon: OICW assault rifles.

Miscellanous infantry information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Army#Infantry_equipment

Sharina Air Navy:

Stealth Aircraft:

200 B-2B stealth bombers (2nd generation of B-2 with 10% enhanced range and payload)
600 B-2 stealth bombers
300 B-70 Valkyrie supersonic bombers***
50 SR-71 Blackbird Reconissance Aircraft

Conventional Aircraft:

1,000 B-52 Stratofortess bombers
2,000 A-10 Thunderbird ground-attack aircraft
2,000 F-22 Raptor fighters
5,000 F-16 Falcon fighters
3,000 F-18 Hornet fighter-bomber
3,000 AH-64 Apache heliocopter gunships
10,000 other aircraft of varying types (refuelers like KC-135, cargo like C-5 Galaxy, older fighters like F-4 Phantom or F-14 Tomcats, AWACS like Hawkeye, transport heliocopters like Hueys, etc.)

Sharina Sea Navy:

10 Iowa class Battleships
20 Montana class Battleships ****
30 Nimitz Supercarriers
100 AEGIS cruisers
200 Arleigh Burke destroyers
100 Virginia attack submarines
50 Ohio class ballistic submarines
500 ships of varying classes (resupply, troop transports, refuelers, salvage, etc.)

Sharina Space Guardians:

2 space stations (Veristek in north hemisphere and Mina in south hemisphere)
20 attack space shuttles (Space shuttles essentially armed with guns on wings)
Classified amount of spy satellites
Classified amount of ABM satellites
Classified amount of anti-satellite weapons
10 resupply shuttles

Various classified space projects are underway as well. One project is the construction of a space-yard and another is the construction of a third space station simply entitled "Deep Space Station". It is speculated that this space station may not be placed in Earth's orbit.

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Sources:

* = http://www.g2mil.com/m1a3.htm (M1A3 tank)

** = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_armor#The_future_of_bulletproof_vests (Combat vests)

*** = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XB-70_Valkyrie (B-70 bomber)

**** = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montana_class_battleship (Montana Battleship)

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Important OOC note:

The US defense budget is roughly 500 billion per year, and I have a defense budget of 3.1 trillion, slightly over 6 times as much as the real life US defense budget. I am therefore able to afford these inflated numbers of military equipment, vehicles, and personnel. I have a population substantially higher than the real life United States so I have sufficient manpower to support these enlarged forces.

Several concepts such as M3 Abrams is based off cutting edge technology and the demand for better weapons of war owing to the Sharina-UFSR conflict in the old Earth V. Unlike in real life, the cold war didn't end in 1991- it continued with the UFSR for several more years. For those who don't know, the UFSR was a super-sized Soviet Union alliance bloc that Sharina squared off aganist in the early days of Earth V.

In addition, Sharina spends nearly 1/5 of its budget on education and another 1/5 on commerce (both NS and Earth V). This generates a strong economy with hi-tech industries and encourages development of advanced weapons which should make the M3 (the proposed M1A3 sucessor to M1A2 Abrams), new B-2B's, attack versions of the Space Shuttles (mounting guns similiar to WW-2 type of fighters), and so on. In addition, several concepts weren't abandoned by Sharina like the Iowa and Montana battleships.

Sharina is also experimenting and developing new weapons of war in the near future that will be posted once the projects are underway. Keep in mind, these projects are as top-secret IC as the stuff inside Area 51 in real life. Even now, foreign nations in real life don't know the specs of the B-2 stealth material or other US secret projects.

Essentially, Sharina is able to fund such a large military owing to a strong education and economy system (high spending in education + commerce + defense).

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Sharina Foreign Policy:


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Other Stuff:

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Please post any and all diplomatic, trade, contact, offers, and generally inter-nation stuff here that pertains to Earth V.

South Africa would like to strengthren her diplomatic ties with the technoracy.

we hope you can forget about our nations seemingly condradictory policies to your own and find logic in having more good relaions in Africa.

we anticipate a response from your most esteemed government.

-South African foreign ministry-

South Africa would like to strengthren her diplomatic ties with the technoracy.

we hope you can forget about our nations seemingly condradictory policies to your own and find logic in having more good relaions in Africa.

we anticipate a response from your most esteemed government.

-South African foreign ministry-

The Sharina Technocracy reaffirms to South Africa that the door is always open for the improvement of relations. We invite the South Africans to send diplomats to their embassy just outside of New York City in Sharina to re-establish diplomatic ties and begin improving ties from there.

we cordially accept this proposal. we will send the Rt honourable steve shabetsi to your esteemed nation with a small contingent of 4 delegates if this is acceptable.

we cordially accept this proposal. we will send the Rt honourable steve shabetsi to your esteemed nation with a small contingent of 4 delegates if this is acceptable.

This is entirely acceptable. Preparations and renovations on the embassy will commence immediately, to better serve your diplomats for their stay.

Military Budget: $3,100,000,000

[ooc: sorry for the intrusion, but unless I happen to pay more for my own military than you do, you're missing three 0's there...]

[ooc: sorry for the intrusion, but unless I happen to pay more for my own military than you do, you're missing three 0's there...]

OOC:

Whoops! Thanks for catching that. I'm not used to dealing with numbers in the trillion range.

We have allocated you an embassy in Cape Town. We are quite overzealous in seeing the complete destruction of RUN assets in Africa and we empathise with your governments policies as RUNs influence in Africa will Invariably draw Africans to unessary conflict abroad.

may our relationship be a long and fruiful one.

(ooc good to see FOAM stretching her muscles again.)

OCC: I guess you missed my message. So here it is again and hopefully this time you won't miss it. The post is from the Division of America thread.

IC: Message to the nation of Sharina:

Why do you hold such hostility towards the Republic? You state it's because you wish to "limit European Influence within the Western Hemisphere". Yet, it was that very Influence that lead to the rise of a America. So, besides the fact that there are more members from other parts of the world then Europe, we know that the "so called European Influence" you speak of is not your problem with the Republic. In all sincerity, we have no idea why the nation of Sharina has such hatred towards nations that were once it's allies and friends. Indeed, the European Influence you despised so much need not be a detrimental thing. As there are many types of influence and not all of them harmful. Surely, the various members of the Republic and the Sharina Technocracy can find common ground that will allow them to work together for building a better world in the Americas. There is no reason for us to be cold war adversaries hell bent on a war that will benefit no one. Is there no place where we can meet on common ground?

We eagerly await your reply

To the Government of the Sharina Technocracy


Transmission Point of Origin:

The Democratic Dominion of Koramerica
Turu Islet Government Building
7985 T’aeme Blvd.
Pyongyang, North Korea

Honored Statesperson, we would like to exchange embassies with your country as well as open trade relations in the hopes that our relationship will enable us to make the sweeping changes in North Korea that we would like to accomplish. The current export commodities we have to offer are various minerals, metallurgical products, manufactures (including armaments), textiles, & fishery products. Currently we would like to buy arms from you in order to update our aging equipment.

Signed

President Juno Gwon

Transmission Completed

To the Government of the Sharina Technocracy


Transmission Point of Origin:

The Democratic Dominion of Koramerica
Turu Islet Government Building
7985 T’aeme Blvd.
Pyongyang, North Korea

Honored Statesperson, we would like to exchange embassies with your country as well as open trade relations in the hopes that our relationship will enable us to make the sweeping changes in North Korea that we would like to accomplish. The current export commodities we have to offer are various minerals, metallurgical products, manufactures (including armaments), textiles, & fishery products. Currently we would like to buy arms from you in order to update our aging equipment.

Signed

President Juno Gwon

Transmission Completed

Communique to Koramerica
From: The Sharina Technocracy

Greetings, friend.

We are honored that you seek to establish diplomatic and economic relations with the Technocracy. We have established an embassy area in the Denver area in Colorado and also within the former United Nations building in New York City. You may send your diplomats there to begin establishing an embassy.

However, with war already been declared aganist the Republic of United Nations (RUN) for their atrocious actions within the Cayman Islands, economic and technological aid will have to be put on hold until after the war concludes. We have concerns that either Sharinan or Koramerican cargo vessels may be attacked on their travels through the Pacific, and we cannot spare any military vessel to escort the cargo vessels. We need all our naval assets to protect aganist any further dastardly acts by the RUN, and to protect our coastlines. Once the war is concluded, we will be able to send considerable quantities of economic aid, along with some technological support as well as the threat to civilian shipping will be greatly reduced by then.

We look forward to establishing and improving relations between our two peoples. It will be Sharina's pleasure to provide aid to the Koramerican people, as we only wish the best for the common everyday man, woman, and child. We desire the world to enjoy a first class living standard.

Thank you and go in prosperity.

Grand Technocrat Mina Veristek

SIC to the Sharinan government.

This pertains to the war of the Americas, whilst we are busy consolidating our hold on our own territories at the moment. we still have a vested interest in reclaiming surinam and would also inquire when the technocracy is victorious over the vermenous RUN we could have a conferance on dividing the spoils so to speak......

The new CSA needs all the resources we can get, and the largely untapped resources of Guyana are appealing...

We anticipate a favourable response....

John Sanderson...

Chairman of the Unity party

and First president of the reformed confederacy.

Sharina quietly returns a secret message to the reformed Confederacy.

"We are honored that you seek venues of communication with Sharina. We would be more than happy to hold a conference regarding the post-war American landscape. We do wish to seek the reestablishment of relations with the new Confederacy, due to the fact that we consider their people as our American brothers and sisters."

Initial random points: the B-70 isn't a stealth aircraft [quite the opposite, in fact], A-10 is called 'Thunderbolt II' not 'Thunderbird,' and the OICW isn't intended as a general issue rifle, quite apart from the whole OICW project being axed because the weapon was far too heavy. You should probably check out its little brother the XM-8 for a general issue infantry weapon.

Sharina faces rising oil prices and a looming possibility of oil shortages. Sharinan politicans assemble and debate on the oil crisis, then form scientific solutions to the oil issue. The solutions are arrived at through expertise and scientific method. Several scientists work up a solution to invest more in alternative energy sources such as nuclear power, as the supply of uranium is secure. Another group of scientists figure out a solution to attempt to invest more research into improving solar power technology. Several other solutions would include ethanol, garbage-into-oil, wind turbines, and so forth.

Why have all these committees when you can just have a single one analyse all the possibilities and then make recommendations to the planning groups? Aside from the fact that you'd need more than just scientists in these groups , what purpose does all this duplication of effort serve?

Then a vote is held by all scientists involved to figure out the most optimal solution, with the other solutions as secondary priorities.

So there's nobody present from the people who will be responsible for building the plants, maintaining them, shipping fuel to them and so on? Nobody from the areas which may be affected by their output, like local clean air associations or fishermen?

You may see all this as wasteful, but people have this thing about not liking being ignored, and if you put a bunch of people who's job is basically brainstorming for ideas about how to solve a specific problem in a room, chances are they [i]won't also think of every concievable objection to that idea.

The scientists agree via majority upon building more garbage-into-oil plants, as it would solve two problems at once- enviromental issue of overflowing landfills and the oil shortage. The other solutions will be implemented but at a slower rate than the garbage-into-oil solution.

What do you do if there's no consensus, build nothing? Have another series of committees and evaluations?

In a capitalistic society, the corporations and corporate-funded politicans would interfere with any solution to reduce the oil shortage as the corporations will only want to make additional profits and force the customers to pay through their noses.

Nonsense. They'd be just as likely to diversify into other power supply markets as dig in their heels; the only ones with a vested interest in the continued use of oil would be those whose wealth directly depended on it; in other words, the oil suppliers. And if there's a critical shortage of oil, their power will already be falling apart since power companies couldn't possibly remain competitive by buying their product.

The alternative energy / oil solutions would most likely not occur for decades as a result. In Sharina's system, the solutions would be implemented as quickly and efficiently as possible as opposed to decades of waiting.

Let me point out something about committees: they are incredibly slow entities. In Sharina, it would take years of canvassing interest groups, surveying and conducting studies, compiling data and preparing models and creating analyses of the results before you could deliver the final reports on projected efficiency of each proposal up for analysis by the voting board.

Under the capitalist system, as soon as it was financially beneficial to expand into a new method of power supply, it would likely be done by someone; indeed, it may actually occur sooner under a capitalist economy than under a technocracy.

Another example would be medicine. Sharinan scientists discover a cure for cancer within a shark species. Sharinan leaders assemble and discuss the ramifications of the situation, and decide upon establishing shark farms to greatly increase the shark population for cure "harvesting", even though several dozen sharks may die a year from being in captivity.

In a capitalistic society, enviromentalist and animal rights groups would block the necessary legislation for the shark farms, thereby dooming millions of lives that could potentially be saved.

Why? Animal-to-human transplants already happen in capitalist societies in real life, including the use of transgenic heart valves from pigs. It's ridiculous to assume that because there's discussion and pressure from groups you don't think should have a say, they will necessarily block all development.

Your example is a rather obvious strawman; animal rights groups have failed to even get the use of animals in experiments testing cosmetics banned, never mind their use in testing of life-saving medical techniques.

A third example. Sharina is experiencing a plague that could concievably wipe out 3/4 of its population. A Sharinan is found who is immune to the plague, and doctors discover that an cure / vaccine for the plague could be synthesized from the Sharinan. However, for this to occur, the Sharinan may have to sacrifice his own life. The government decrees that the Sharinan is to be "harvested" for the cure to the plague, thereby saving the entire Sharinan population.

Oh, charming. What if it were 100 citizens who needed to be murdered, or 1,000? What if it were, say, 25% of the population who had to die to save 75%, or 49% to save 51%?

Apart from the obviously contrived nature of the example, the fact that your government has a mandate to decide if citizens are to be forced to undergo harmful and involuntary medical experimentation isn't the kind of thing you'd go touting as an example of the glory of technocracy. Here in nasty old capitalism it's regarded as an offence so severe it's called a crime against humanity.

Within a capitalistic society, the plague would continue and the nation would vanish as hundreds of millions of people die.

No disease has ever achieved such casualties. Basic sanitation and isolation standards would likely prevent any modern disease from doing so. Further, if this citizen is so special, why not simply clone him?

This is because the person who is immune would not sacrifice his own life to save the civilization, and there would be no force or voluntary action taken to ensure the survival of the nation.

Yes, if he's not willing to sacrifice his life, murder him. Capitalist nations are so inefficient for not slaughtering people who refuse to act in the nation's percieved best interests.

Initial random points: the B-70 isn't a stealth aircraft [quite the opposite, in fact], A-10 is called 'Thunderbolt II' not 'Thunderbird,' and the OICW isn't intended as a general issue rifle, quite apart from the whole OICW project being axed because the weapon was far too heavy. You should probably check out its little brother the XM-8 for a general issue infantry weapon.

Thank you for your suggestions and nitpicks.

I'm aware the B-70 doesn't have stealth absorbent material like the B-2, but my nation considers them quasi-stealthy (more to do with evasion of enemy fighters than hiding RADAR signatures).

1. There are no fighters that I know of (not counting NS tech) capable of flying interception missions at roughly 75,000+ feet up. The highest flying fighters I know of have a maximum of 60,000 feet service ceiling.

2. The B-70 is capable of Mach 3 to 3.2, a substantially higher speed than most real life fighters maximum speeds. The top maximum speeds of RL fighters I know of is somewhere between Mach 2 - 2.4. Thus, my bombers can actually outrun any pursuring dogfighters.

3. Combine #1 and #2 into a bomber that would be quite difficult for conventional RL fighters to intercept and engage in dogfights, assuming my B-70's fly at the upper limit of their service ceiling at Mach 2+ speeds.

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Thanks for the tidbit about the OICW / XMB-8 and the A-10 aircraft. I'll rectify that shortly.

Why have all these committees when you can just have a single one analyse all the possibilities and then make recommendations to the planning groups? Aside from the fact that you'd need more than just scientists in these groups , what purpose does all this duplication of effort serve?

I find it is generally more efficient to have specialized groups dealing with their particular fields of work instead of one commitee handling everything. For example, if the government seeks a public infrastructure improvement project such as construction of a large hydroelectric dam, the committees would work like this:

1. A site is selected through analysis of the most optimal terrain (accessibility and hydroelectric potential).

2. The industry representatives discuss where and how to manufacture the goods for the site.

3. The transportation representatives discuss where and how to establish a transit system to service the project from existing transportation infrastructure.

4. The resource representatives discuss how and what types of resources will be needed for the project, and what mines or "resource centers" will supply the project at minimal impact on other resource demands (such as consumer goods, supplying other power plants, supply other construction projects, etc.)

5. The scientists and engineers discuss what types of technologies will be used, as well as the archiecture of the dam itself (how it is built).

6. Once all these commitees complete their analysis and come up with recommendations, a final commitee is created to streamline all these recommendations as optimally as possible.

I believe that specialization will get things done much more efficiently and quicker than "jack of all trades". The adage "Jack of all trades has many skills, but master of none." applies here.

So there's nobody present from the people who will be responsible for building the plants, maintaining them, shipping fuel to them and so on? Nobody from the areas which may be affected by their output, like local clean air associations or fishermen?

These people are indeed represented in the Hall (and the Hall does have similiar layouts at the local level as they do at the national level like at the city or province level)- clean air associations would be a part of the Healthcare branch, and the fishermen would be a part of the Agriculture branch (includes all food industries).


What do you do if there's no consensus, build nothing? Have another series of committees and evaluations?

The Grand Technocrat will be responible for pushing through important projects or issues should an indecision be reached. Works somewhat like the real life US Presidency in two ways.

1. In cases of dead-lock or ties in the process, the Techncract will decide whether the project proceeds or not.

2. The Technocrat does have a veto power, but the veto is generally only used to kill a project or idea should it enter endless debate (somewhat like overriding any filibusters and such), which allows the government to move onto the next thing in the agenda. There are the occasional times where projects are vetoed based on their merit (if the project or course of action seems too dubious). For the veto to be overriden, a 70% majority of the "Senate / Hall" has to vote "yea" on the project / course of action.

However, if there is a good case made for the project to warrant further modification and tweaks, the veto may be with-held and with a 60% vote "yea", the project will undergo another round of tweaking. However, the second time around, the project will need a 75% "yea" vote for a third round of tweaks. In Sharina's history, only fourteen projects and proposals out of several thousand went for a third round, and only one of the fourteen made it to a fourth round.

The majority of the fourteen proposals had the third round because of expansion of terrain (due to annexation or conquest) where more practical and optimal locations exists in the new territory.

Thus, the "seemingly endless debates" is extremely rare.

Nonsense. They'd be just as likely to diversify into other power supply markets as dig in their heels; the only ones with a vested interest in the continued use of oil would be those whose wealth directly depended on it; in other words, the oil [i]suppliers. And if there's a critical shortage of oil, their power will already be falling apart since power companies couldn't possibly remain competitive by buying their product.

The issue I'm trying to "fix" is this. In your example, the oil companies have a vested interest in keeping the economy reliant on oil to line the companies pockets. Alas, when the companies do this, the companies finance politics and have influence in the government (like the RL Bush-Cheney ticket) to try to guanatree their "stay in power". A RL example of this is the US- the US invaded Iraq and props up Israel and other Middle Eastern activities to try to corner the oil market (see below).

Note: I've seen a lot of debate on this very issue- people argue that the US used the Al-Quaeda excuse to screw around in the Middle East, and after 5 years, Osama Bin Laden has yet to be found. How a group of terrorists can elude such organizations as the CIA and NSA for years is beyond me, especially with the supposed high tech, spy networks, and generous funding these shady organizations get. But lets not get into that debate as this thread is about Sharina, not RL politics and allegations.

Anyways, I'm attempting to establish a government that does not fall prey to such possibility as in the above example. Instead of invading Iraq for oil, Sharina would seek alternative energy sources like more nuclear power, wind power, hydrogen fuel cells, and so forth. Instead of spending $100+ billion on the Iraq War, Sharina would invest that money into the energy sector, and by now, Sharina could have used that $100+ billion to set up a large hydrogen fuel cell industry (think the California fuel cell car experiments but on a national scale) or electric car industry. Therefore, Sharina wisely reduces its dependence on oil instead of going to war for it.

Not only that, but Sharina will not be moved or manipulated by oil big-wigs, or any corporations. This is a pitfall of capitalism- capitalistic governments eventually will become a corporate lapdog as corporations become larger (like Microsoft or Walmart), and gives rise to the whole Corporate Government thing Max Barry writes about. I prefer to have a government focused more on science, progress, and betterment of its people instead of money, money, and more money.

Under the capitalist system, as soon as it was financially beneficial to expand into a new method of power supply, it would likely be done by someone; indeed, it may actually occur sooner under a capitalist economy than under a technocracy.

With my nation, when it sees a venue become too scarce or unwieldly, it immediately addresses the issue, without manipulation (as explained above). If Sharinan scientists project that Sharina will run out of oil in 15 years, Sharina will address the issue now instead of 10 years from now.

Take global warming for example. The Sharina nation would actively and aggressively seek reduction of pollutants, try to develop more enviromental friendly technology, and so on. Sharina will disregard the "Enviroment-friendly tech is OK as long as its cheap to use" unlike capitalist nations. Sharina would spare no expense in addressing serious catastrophes like global warming, running out of resources, plagues, Hurricane Katarina type disasters, and so on. Sharina won't reject possible courses of action just because it may double the cost of luxury goods from using more enviromentally friendly manufacturing processes, double the fuel cost for cars (let it be gas, electric, hydro fuel, ethanol, or whatever) due to less polluting fuel refining processes, double the cost of building new factories with cleaner smokestacks, and so on.

Sharina believes in planning for long term (decades ahead of time), instead of short-term that most capitalist nations are like (address the problem as soon as it happens- which is bad).

Why? Animal-to-human transplants already happen in capitalist societies in real life, including the use of transgenic heart valves from pigs. It's ridiculous to assume that because there's discussion and pressure from groups you don't think should have a say, they will necessarily block all development.

Your example is a rather obvious strawman; animal rights groups have failed to even get the use of animals in experiments testing cosmetics banned, never mind their use in testing of life-saving medical techniques.

One example I had in mind was the whole stem cell / embyro cell development issue. Sharina would pursure such an endeavour without a second thought, unlike in RL where people are at odds over the stem cell thing because of religious and "But that kills the fetus!" issues. President Bush in RL threatens to block embryonic stem cell development, which is the type of impediment to progress I want to avoid within my nation.

Perhaps I should change my "animal rights" example to the "embryonic stem cell development" example.

What if it were 100 citizens who needed to be murdered, or 1,000? What if it were, say, 25% of the population who had to die to save 75%, or 49% to save 51%? Apart from the obviously contrived nature of the example, the fact that your government has a mandate to decide if citizens are to be forced to undergo harmful and involuntary medical experimentation isn't the kind of thing you'd go touting as an example of the glory of technocracy. Here in nasty old capitalism it's regarded as an offence so severe it's called a crime against humanity.

When the survival of an entire civilization or society is at stake, the gloves come off.

A more down-to-earth example would be a family living in a house. A burglar breaks in and the family is threatened with death during the burglary. The father of the family has no choice but to kill the burglar to save the lives of his entire family (himself, his wife, and his children). Consquently, the father's crime of killing the burglar should be forgiven and actually praised because if the father did not do what he did, his whole family would be cold lifeless bodies in the morgue. Besides, the father would have to live with the knowledge he took another person's life and that should be enough.

Another example- if a mother finds out her three kids have some kind of terminal disease or cancer. The mother also finds out that the three kids can be cured, but the mother would have to give up her life (as her life-sustaining organs like heart and lungs will be needed). Would the mother say "no way!" and watch her three kids die, or sacrifice her own life to ensure that her three children would lead a normal and productive life, free of the disease or cancer, and the kids consquently start up their own families and have full lives?

No disease has ever achieved such casualties. Basic sanitation and isolation standards would likely prevent any modern disease from doing so. Further, if this citizen is so special, why not simply clone him?

Two issues with that.

1. We are beginning the 21st century. There may be unspeakable horrors that may occur in the 21st century, like genetically engineered viruses, new types of mutated epidemics (worse than AIDS), higher population densities meaning easier for diseases to spread, and so on.

In 1900 - 1907, we had no idea of AIDS, Ebola, SARS, sarin gas, VX nerve gas, virus weapons, etc. By the same token, in 2000 - 2007, we have no idea what 2050 - 2100 brings in terms of epidemics, weapons, chemicals, or such. Thus, there may be certain things that may defy even the best medical care or best conventional vaccination processes by then, forcing Sharina to resort to unconventional methods of which includes this sacrifice scenario.

There's always a few people who are immune to such diseases and biological destruction. If there is a person who is naturally immune to AIDS, he / she would be able to save the 50+ million people with AIDS in today's RL world. Those 50+ million people would demand to be cured, and that's 50+ million votes as opposed to 1 vote (of that naturally immune person), meaning 50+ million "yea" votes to 1 "nay" vote should this ever be brought before a voting process. And when such a thing happens, 50+ million people won't think "But it's a crime aganist humanity when I was cured and had my life saved!".

2. We do not have the technology to clone someone and make the person grow up to adult size in a couple of hours. That's likely late Post-Modern tech or Future / Sci-fi tech. And with a severe epidemic raging on, people don't exactly have a luxury of waiting years for the clone to mature to full size (with our current technology).

ooc
the B70 isn't stealthy not only because of its materials, but because of its design, as it has a lot of vertical planes, very large engine intakes, and going beyond its radar signature, its infra red signature is huge because of its huge exhausts.

The B1 on the other hand, is quasi stealthy, as it has more rounded edged, its engine exhausts are shielded, and probably most critically of all, it doesn't fly around at Mach 3 at 70,000 feet, but a Mach 1 (for short periods) at a few dozen feet. Trying that with a B70 would have been suicide as the aircraft wasn't designed for such a hammering (the buffeting at low altitude at Mach 1 is very harsh to say the least.. density of the air pressure and all that)

ooc
incidently, the most catastrophic plagues in history resulted usually in 50-75% death rates, but only because of exceptional circumstances.

1. Smallpox and the Native Americans- death rates aggravated by the fact that the natives had no immunity whatsoever, and no experience with pandemics or even serious epidemics. Death rates were as high as 80%, but a secondary cause of that death rate was the inability of a hunter gather or subsistance agricultural society to feed itself when most of the population is too weak to get out of bed. Even the larger urban tribes of Mexico and Peru had problems with that as food storage was on a limited scale.

2. The Black Death in the 1340s, and similar pandemics in the 400s, and a couple of other times in the Ancient era (dates escape me, but several) these pandemics hit populations with no immunity, and killed about one third of the overall population. However, the mitigating circumstance in all of these occasions were that those societies were under stress from overpopulation (compared to resources), and stress caused by endemic warfare. Reoccurences of those diseases were far less lethal.

3. No 20th Century plague or pandemic reached anywhere near those numbers, even the Spanish Flu killed only 20 Million of 2 Billion.

[OOC- Errr.... you guys do know this is an Earth V thread? And since you're not in Earth V, I'm confused as to why you're posting in it. Just a bit curious is all.]

IC: The UARCA approacheds the Sharnian Technocracy about a possible military package to be purchased by the Republican forces. Included in the request are RADAR systems, air-to-air missiles, and even the possibility of purchasing or leasing B-1B or B-52 bombers. The UARCA also hints at perhaps wishing to open up larger trading avenues between the two nations, especially once the current war in the Americas ends.

(:cool: Interesting Hypotheticals and theories though. whilst i due agree that both sides have their merits, they are still both open to speculation oocly so i believe they remain just that)

To the Sharinan technocracy..

Dear madam president.

The confederacy humbley beseechs your government to not intervene in our re consolidation of Michigan. In return we will offer no resistance and will strongly advocate the assimilation of either Ohio or Indiana to the technocracy and will offer you the prized island of bermuda.

Although the demographic in Michigan in General largely opposes the Confederate regime we require the Industrial heartland of greater detroit. as the factroies their produce a substantial amount of our military hardware we so desperatley need to re estblish ourseleves on the world scene.

Perhaps a partition of Michigan would be more to your liking? your nation to the northern peninsular and us the Southern?

We appreciate a favourbale response....

John Sanderson.

President of the C,S,A

I'm aware the B-70 doesn't have stealth absorbent material like the B-2, but my nation considers them quasi-stealthy (more to do with evasion of enemy fighters than hiding RADAR signatures).

1. There are no fighters that I know of (not counting NS tech) capable of flying interception missions at roughly 75,000+ feet up. The highest flying fighters I know of have a maximum of 60,000 feet service ceiling.

Ceiling of a MiG-25 Foxbat [which was designed to deal with the B-70 and SR-71] is 80,000 feet. If a huge bomber can get up there, chances are a fighter can and a missile certainly can. IRL, the B-70 program was written off in part because of the loss of a prototype and on cost grounds, but the fact that it was being overtaken by missile development was also a factor.

2. The B-70 is capable of Mach 3 to 3.2, a substantially higher speed than most real life fighters maximum speeds. The top maximum speeds of RL fighters I know of is somewhere between Mach 2 - 2.4. Thus, my bombers can actually outrun any pursuring dogfighters.

The thing is, your bombers are going to be flying towards the enemy fighters, which will be trying to engage them head-on and taking off from bases ahead of them. Therefore, the speed will only affect the fighters' ability to make a second attack if their first fails, not their ability to make a first engagement.

3. Combine #1 and #2 into a bomber that would be quite difficult for conventional RL fighters to intercept and engage in dogfights, assuming my B-70's fly at the upper limit of their service ceiling at Mach 2+ speeds.

But that isn't stealth. Stealth is making yourself hard to find; it's a form of camouflage, in essence. What you're talking about is making yourself difficult to hit, which is something else entirely.

I find it is generally more efficient to have specialized groups dealing with their particular fields of work instead of one commitee handling everything. For example, if the government seeks a public infrastructure improvement project such as construction of a large hydroelectric dam, the committees would work like this:

[Snip]

I believe that specialization will get things done much more efficiently and quicker than "jack of all trades". The adage "Jack of all trades has many skills, but master of none." applies here.

But it won't, because this is exactly how decisions tend to be made in real life. The final committee is one that approves planning and funding. The only people you left out are the ones assessing the environmental impact of building the dam in a given location. Also, it's the engineers you want to plan the dam itself, not the scientists.

The majority of the fourteen proposals had the third round because of expansion of terrain (due to annexation or conquest) where more practical and optimal locations exists in the new territory.

So Sharina prefers war for resources to using what it has? Doesn't that rather contradict your next point? After all, if annexing another nation to build a refinery in is more advantageous, this implies you'd do it, and so Sharina would indeed have 'war for oil.'

The issue I'm trying to "fix" is this. In your example, the oil companies have a vested interest in keeping the economy reliant on oil to line the companies pockets.

Until it becomes unprofitable to do so, sure. After that, they'll have to either diversify or die. If what you said were true, why would the US' massive industries building coal-burning locomotives have died out?

I've seen a lot of debate on this very issue- people argue that the US used the Al-Quaeda excuse to screw around in the Middle East, and after 5 years, Osama Bin Laden has yet to be found. How a group of terrorists can elude such organizations as the CIA and NSA for years is beyond me, especially with the supposed high tech, spy networks, and generous funding these shady organizations get.

Finding one man who doesn't want to be found in mountainous terrain isn't going to be easy no matter what technology you have, especially since the US is only just beginning to establish intelligence networks in those areas. Intel isn't a matter of waving a magic wand and suddenly having a spy network; setting up contacts and spies takes a long time. The fact that this is 'beyond you' is due to your tendency to oversimplify.

It's certainly legitimate to say the US wants a stable Middle East to guarantee their supply of oil, but I fail to see why a Technocracy wouldn't also consider military action against belligerant governments a valid way of guaranteeing resource availability, other than 'because you said so.'

Anyways, I'm attempting to establish a government that does not fall prey to such possibility as in the above example. Instead of invading Iraq for oil, Sharina would seek alternative energy sources like more nuclear power, wind power, hydrogen fuel cells, and so forth.

Why? Given the invasion wasn't simply to acquire oil itself [what do you think the ships and vehicles involved are burning?] the Sharinian government would at least consider it. And even if petrochemicals aren't burned for power, there's still the need for them in producing plastics and other hydrocarbon-based products.

Not only that, but Sharina will not be moved or manipulated by oil big-wigs, or any corporations. This is a pitfall of capitalism- capitalistic governments eventually will become a corporate lapdog as corporations become larger (like Microsoft or Walmart), and gives rise to the whole Corporate Government thing Max Barry writes about. I prefer to have a government focused more on science, progress, and betterment of its people instead of money, money, and more money.

Nonsense. All Technocracy does is put those with vested interests in their departments closer to power; the people responsible for overseeing oil power would still be just as likely to want to hold onto their jobs and just as likely to be politically influential; indeed, more so, without levels of oversight above them. Your departments are just nationalised corporate interests with even more power. According to your site, it's rebranded Marxism, nothing more.

With my nation, when it sees a venue become too scarce or unwieldly, it immediately addresses the issue, without manipulation (as explained above). If Sharinan scientists project that Sharina will run out of oil in 15 years, Sharina will address the issue now instead of 10 years from now.

Why? All the oil lobby would have to do is produce contradictory figures or attempt to discredit the figures that were produced against it. And who would fund such research? Wouldn't research into remaining fossil fuel resources fall under the same aegis as the departments who were tasked with extracting those resources?

Take global warming for example. The Sharina nation would actively and aggressively seek reduction of pollutants, try to develop more enviromental friendly technology, and so on. Sharina will disregard the "Enviroment-friendly tech is OK as long as its cheap to use" unlike capitalist nations.

As always, the contradictory thinking behind Technocracy comes out in force. You're supposed to be being efficient, remember? How is choosing a necessarily wasteful method over a more efficient one with potential consequences down the line efficient? Who would be responsible for selling the idea that global warming was necessarily due to human action to the executive? What if they couldn't sell that idea?

Nationalisation solves some problems and creates some others. Total nationalisation as you are advocating creates problems of corruption as massive power is given to the heads of departments, much more than heads of corporations wield in real life. It's still possible to make it work, but pretending it's better across the board because you refuse to think of any disadvantages and just wax lyrical about supposed advantages is silly.

Sharina would spare no expense in addressing serious catastrophes like global warming, running out of resources, plagues, Hurricane Katarina type disasters, and so on.

Your site claims that all resources will be abundant under a technocracy [which is stupid, but hey], so how can running out of resources be an issue?

Sharina won't reject possible courses of action just because it may double the cost of luxury goods from using more enviromentally friendly manufacturing processes, double the fuel cost for cars (let it be gas, electric, hydro fuel, ethanol, or whatever) due to less polluting fuel refining processes, double the cost of building new factories with cleaner smokestacks, and so on.

In other words, cost would never be regarded as an issue by your efficient government, even if it was wasteful of non-renewable resources? Since Technocracy is supposed to be based on 'energy accounting' wouldn't a wasteful production process naturally be discarded in favour of a less wasteful one as consumers voted with their feet, since if they could acquire a car for 50,000 creds versus an identical one for 100,000, they'd have no reason to choose the latter?

Sharina believes in planning for long term (decades ahead of time), instead of short-term that most capitalist nations are like (address the problem as soon as it happens- which is bad).

Planning for the long term killed millions in Soviet Russia every time those plans went wrong. Capitalism's ability to adapt to short-term challenges is one of its strengths, and the overproduction often criticised by advocates of state ownership means that there will always be choice for the consumer.

One example I had in mind was the whole stem cell / embyro cell development issue. Sharina would pursure such an endeavour without a second thought, unlike in RL where people are at odds over the stem cell thing because of religious and "But that kills the fetus!" issues. President Bush in RL threatens to block embryonic stem cell development, which is the type of impediment to progress I want to avoid within my nation.

The problem is Bush can do this because there are very real objections to the idea in his nation. Giving himself the arbitrary and limitless ability to ignore public opinion regarding his decisions is incredibly dangerous. If public opinion doesn't support a course of action, the government which supposedly represents and embodies that self-same opinion should be hesitant about allowing it. It doesn't mean it shouldn't allow it, but neither should it just do whatever the hell it likes and damn what the people think.

Perhaps I should change my "animal rights" example to the "embryonic stem cell development" example.

You probably shouldn't, since it implies your government never bothers considering ethical or religious objections. They are still valid as objections.

A more down-to-earth example would be a family living in a house. A burglar breaks in and the family is threatened with death during the burglary. The father of the family has no choice but to kill the burglar to save the lives of his entire family (himself, his wife, and his children). Consquently, the father's crime of killing the burglar should be forgiven and actually praised because if the father did not do what he did, his whole family would be cold lifeless bodies in the morgue. Besides, the father would have to live with the knowledge he took another person's life and that should be enough.

Another example- if a mother finds out her three kids have some kind of terminal disease or cancer. The mother also finds out that the three kids can be cured, but the mother would have to give up her life (as her life-sustaining organs like heart and lungs will be needed). Would the mother say "no way!" and watch her three kids die, or sacrifice her own life to ensure that her three children would lead a normal and productive life, free of the disease or cancer, and the kids consquently start up their own families and have full lives?

Both poor examples. If someone were to force the mother or father in these examples to lay down their lives even though it might not save their children, would it still be ok? For example, if a father struggles into his burning house and saves two of his children but is too exhausted to go back in, would you think it ok for firefighters to force him to try to get the third, too? And since the state has the role of 'father' here, would you consider it ok for a father to kill his child to save himself?

And as ever, you're simplifying the example to the extent it's a black-and-white choice. Those don't tend to happen out here in reality. More to the point, think about what power you require the government to have to order this: you’re bragging that your government has a mandate to order citizens be executed without charge, trial or legal recourse as long as it's determined to be within the state's best interest!

This is an incredibly abusive power for a state to have by default; what if it decides that political dissidents represent an equal threat to the state and begins rounding them up and executing them? It's fully within its constitutional powers to do so, after all.

1. We are beginning the 21st century. There may be unspeakable horrors that may occur in the 21st century, like genetically engineered viruses, new types of mutated epidemics (worse than AIDS), higher population densities meaning easier for diseases to spread, and so on.

Great advances in medical technology and isolation techniques make the idea of a pandemic threatening the survival of an entire first-world nation utter nonsense. The idea that a medical technique would be developed that would somehow identify just one citizen who needed to be killed to save everyone is even more nonsensical.

In 1900 - 1907, we had no idea of AIDS, Ebola, SARS, sarin gas, VX nerve gas, virus weapons, etc.

So? Were any of these wreaking havoc on entire nations in 1900-1907? Hell, has SARS wreaked havoc at all?

There's always a few people who are immune to such diseases and biological destruction. If there is a person who is naturally immune to AIDS, he / she would be able to save the 50+ million people with AIDS in today's RL world.

Don't be stupid, there are people who are immune to AIDS. Individuals have been identified on many occasions who carry HIV but do not develop AIDS, but as yet science has had no success in isolating why they have such immunity, let alone developing a means by which this immunity could be transferred to another. The idea that if person X is immune everyone can easily be made like person X is another horrible oversimplification.

Those 50+ million people would demand to be cured, and that's 50+ million votes as opposed to 1 vote (of that naturally immune person), meaning 50+ million "yea" votes to 1 "nay" vote should this ever be brought before a voting process. And when such a thing happens, 50+ million people won't think "But it's a crime aganist humanity when I was cured and had my life saved!".

The court system exists to prevent such a 'tyranny by majority' from occurring. And, again, you're oversimplifying the example. What if ten people can save them, only one has to die, but none of them want to? What if 24 million have to die to save 26 million? What if there are objections on the grounds that the proof is insufficient? What if the one man who has to die is a high-ranking official who can use his connections to bury the whole thing in bureaucracy? What if the one man is a tourist, dual citizen or other person who would legitimately be able to appeal to another nation's judicial system as well as yours? What if the one man fled to a foreign embassy and demanded asylum on the grounds he was to be executed without trial? What if he was president of a nearby nation? Would you consider the loss of life in a war a necessary evil to save the whole?

2. We do not have the technology to clone someone and make the person grow up to adult size in a couple of hours. That's likely late Post-Modern tech or Future / Sci-fi tech. And with a severe epidemic raging on, people don't exactly have a luxury of waiting years for the clone to mature to full size (with our current technology).

Since the legal issues would take years to resolve, I assume this means someone sentenced to death by the Sharinian government's whim has no right of appeal, either. That's a nice fascist state you have there, I can see why our one man wouldn't want to die to keep it going.

[OOC- Errr.... you guys do know this is an Earth V thread? And since you're not in Earth V, I'm confused as to why you're posting in it. Just a bit curious is all.]

IC: The UARCA approacheds the Sharnian Technocracy about a possible military package to be purchased by the Republican forces. Included in the request are RADAR systems, air-to-air missiles, and even the possibility of purchasing or leasing B-1B or B-52 bombers. The UARCA also hints at perhaps wishing to open up larger trading avenues between the two nations, especially once the current war in the Americas ends.


OOC: Doesn't matter if you're on earth 2 or earth 450384509846. Everyone's allowed to make OOC comments for Sharina to respond to. I find it ridiculous that one would think "You aren't on earth 5, therefore, you cannot comment on anything." Earths are the very reason why II is so clusterfucked (many different small RP groups instead of one giant group), ...but that's a whole different story.

Ceiling of a MiG-25 Foxbat [which was designed to deal with the B-70 and SR-71] is 80,000 feet. If a huge bomber can get up there, chances are a fighter can and a missile certainly can. IRL, the B-70 program was written off in part because of the loss of a prototype and on cost grounds, but the fact that it was being overtaken by missile development was also a factor.

The thing is, your bombers are going to be flying towards the enemy fighters, which will be trying to engage them head-on and taking off from bases ahead of them. Therefore, the speed will only affect the fighters' ability to make a second attack if their first fails, not their ability to make a first engagement.

But that isn't stealth. Stealth is making yourself hard to find; it's a form of camouflage, in essence. What you're talking about is making yourself difficult to hit, which is something else entirely.

This issue has been resolved- I moved my B-70 forces into the "Conventional" category. Besides, this isn't NS-tech I'm using with uber planes, uber missiles, and such. I am using RL tech with stuff that has already been built, tried, or considered in RL.

But it won't, because this is exactly how decisions tend to be made in real life. The final committee is one that approves planning and funding. The only people you left out are the ones assessing the environmental impact of building the dam in a given location. Also, it's the engineers you want to plan the dam itself, not the scientists.

That is why I have economists and industrialist committees to discuss how much money will be needed, how much resources will be used and their cost per ton, and all these kinds of financial stuff. That done, the final comittee is comprised by a delegate from each of the specialized committes with their figures, impact, costs, engineering, projected output, and all the figures and numbers.

I overlooked the enviromentalists- a simple mistake on my part.

So Sharina prefers war for resources to using what it has? Doesn't that rather contradict your next point? After all, if annexing another nation to build a refinery in is more advantageous, this implies you'd do it, and so Sharina would indeed have 'war for oil.'

Not necessarily.

War isn't the only option. Other options include subverting the governments into favorable relations with Sharina, monopolizing the trade from these nations in question (buy up all their resource trade, essentially making Sharina their exclusive customer), have the nation join Sharina (like Puerto Rico attempts to join the US as a state in RL), and so forth.

However, if nations attack Sharina or invade it or such, then Sharina will indeed return the favor and annex their lands. Sharina usually doesn't go around looking to start wars with anybody, but will fight if pushed.

Until it becomes unprofitable to do so, sure. After that, they'll have to either diversify or die. If what you said were true, why would the US' massive industries building coal-burning locomotives have died out?

How many years or decades will pass before this occurs? In other words, suppose the world oil supply runs out by 2030. In 2020, the oil companies would be making only 1 cent profit per barrel of oil as opposed to 10 bucks profit per barrel of oil back in 2000 or so. 1 cent profit still turns a profit.

At that time, it may be too late to effectively shift everything over to alternate energy sources, because to do so would need significant time to prepare, build infrastructure to support alternate energy (like hydrogen fuel cell factories, hydrogen fuel cell refueling stations, thousands more wind turbines, electric battery recharging devices or stations for electric cars, and so on).

However, with my system, instead of waiting until 2020 (with 10 years of oil supply left) to spring into action, Sharina prepares in 2000 (with 30 years of oil supply left). Consquently, by 2020, Sharina would have substantial alternate energy facilities and infrastructure already in place to transition into non-oil power for automobiles, transportation, and energy production while other nations like the US would be like kids with ADHD, running around screaming their heads off "OMG! I wish I had the foresight to prepare. Now I am paying the price!".

It's certainly legitimate to say the US wants a stable Middle East to guarantee their supply of oil, but I fail to see why a Technocracy wouldn't also consider military action against belligerant governments a valid way of guaranteeing resource availability, other than 'because you said so.'

Trying to stabilize Middle East that is eating up manpower, money, and resources just like Vietnam? Plus having to worry about rebels, terrorists, and hostile neighbors like Syria and Iran?

Sharina would view such an endeavour as too expensive and inefficient. Spending hundreds of billions of dollars, deploying tens of thousands of troops, having to deal with terrorism + car bombs and such, etc. all because of the erroneous belief of "Iraq has WMD!" when it really doesn't (no nukes).

Instead of jumping into the situation that rashly, Sharina would analyze the situation and determine the most efficient way to do so. For example, if propganda, subversion, or assasinations would do the job without needing tens of thousands of troops, hundreds of billions of dollars, etc. then Sharina will do it. If it takes effective trade blockade and embargo of the nation (food blockade for instance) to force a regime surrender, Sharina would do it. Basically, do what's the most efficient instead of jumping in almost implusive-like.

Why? Given the invasion wasn't simply to acquire oil itself [what do you think the ships and vehicles involved are burning?] the Sharinian government would at least consider it. And even if petrochemicals aren't burned for power, there's still the need for them in producing plastics and other hydrocarbon-based products.

Ah, but imagine. Not burning up millions or billions of barrels of oil every year in automobiles would mean all that oil could be diverted towards other hydrocarbon products and medicines. Enough to last Sharina until it finds a way to create synthetic oil (ending its dependence on naturally occuring oil).

Nonsense. All Technocracy does is put those with vested interests in their departments closer to power; the people responsible for overseeing oil power would still be just as likely to want to hold onto their jobs and just as likely to be politically influential; indeed, more so, without levels of oversight above them. Your departments are just nationalised corporate interests with even more power. According to your site, it's rebranded Marxism, nothing more.

Would you hire a janitor onto a team of scientists trying to crack the secret of sustained fusion reactions? Would you hire a teacher to work a coal mine tunnel 1/2 mile under the surface of the Earth? Or a police officer to do a janitor's job at a local corporate headquarters?

My departments are there for a reason, in an attempt to give the technical-saavy people a say in their own affairs. A department comprised of miners, refiners, diggers, tunnel machinery operators, foremen, etc. would be far better able to address their problems than a committee of crusty old senators who may not even know what the hell a pickaxe is.

I believe that it is far better for the people who actually experience the job and do the hands on stuff at that particular job are much better suited to govern their issues and resolve them.

A similiar analogy could be made to the military. The common everyday soldier knows what to do on the battlefield, such as digging foxholes, lying flat when artillery comes in, experience logistics first-hand (good food? bad food? etc.), good weapons to use, bad weapons to use, and so forth. Compare this to generals at a stuffy desk 2,000+ miles away who only view war as numbers and statistics, and don't even have the slightest idea of what their soldiers are going through.

In that example, the soldier would say "Hey, this weapon as it is- it's worthless. Not good to use. I have an idea for a more useful weapon." However, the General Office would go "Pfft. The weapon is cheap to manufacture. Use it or your bare hands."

In this case, the war will be lost as the soldiers won't be able to fight as effectively with these cheap weapons as they would have with an improved weapon designed with input from combat experienced soldiers. In my system, these combat experience soldiers opinions and suggestions for equipment would be valued as it will make the soldiers a more effective force. This reasoning stands for all my other departments. It boils down to this.

"Let the hands-on people address their own issues, as it is much more effective that way."

Why? All the oil lobby would have to do is produce contradictory figures or attempt to discredit the figures that were produced against it. And who would fund such research? Wouldn't research into remaining fossil fuel resources fall under the same aegis as the departments who were tasked with extracting those resources?

Actually, there's a difference in my system. The resource extracting departments extract ores, liquid resources (oil, natural gas, water, etc.), gases (helium, hydrogen, etc.), and so on.

New developments and research into new energy sources and such fall under the department of Research + Development.

As always, the contradictory thinking behind Technocracy comes out in force. You're supposed to be being efficient, remember? How is choosing a necessarily wasteful method over a more efficient one with potential consequences down the line efficient? Who would be responsible for selling the idea that global warming was necessarily due to human action to the executive? What if they couldn't sell that idea?

Lets take a look at your "How is choosing a necessarily wasteful method over a more efficient one with potential consequences down the line efficient?" question.

Lets take the global warming issue a step further.

Scenario 1:

Sharina blithely ignores the global warming warning signs. Continues to do things as normally for the next 10, 20, 50 years. Consquently, glaciers melt, water levels rise, and lots of coastal areas get flooded (2030 - 2040). Many cities have to be evacuated, no small task, given the complexity and insanity that New Orleans was after getting flooded post-Katrina. Millions or even billions of Sharinans would have to be moved inland, into the hills, high onto the mountains, or any highland.

It would probably cost trillions to undertake such an endeavour, on top of an economy being wrecked by the flooding and such. Sharina is ruined economically and will need many years to recover.

Scenario 2:

Sharina pays attention to the global warming signs. Technologies are developed and installed at double the expense onto factories, smokestacks, change oil based cars into hydrogen fuel cell, electric, ethanol, or renewable energy cars, and so on.

This buys Sharina a few more decades before the floods hit (2070 or so). Sharina uses this much needed time to build massive levees along the entire Sharinan coastline, and attempt to research technologies to reverse the effects of global warming (like re-freezing the glaciers for instance). By 2050 or so, all major Sharinan cities are protected by levees, and Sharina has begun re-freezing some glaciers. Consquently, the floods aren't devastating.

The Sharinan cities remain intact, the economy remains strong, people not forced to relocate a-la New Orleans.

Cheaper --> Catastrophe, thus not efficient.
Expensive --> Safety, thus being efficient as Sharina remains intact.

Nationalisation solves some problems and creates some others. Total nationalisation as you are advocating creates problems of corruption as massive power is given to the heads of departments, much more than heads of corporations wield in real life. It's still possible to make it work, but pretending it's better across the board because you refuse to think of any disadvantages and just wax lyrical about supposed advantages is silly.

I never stated it was a 100% perfect system. I know it does have some flaws- not even capitalist nations are 100% perfect either. My system is still a work in progress.

Your site claims that all resources will be abundant under a technocracy [which is stupid, but hey], so how can running out of resources be an issue?

I think that refers to self-sufficiency, which is theoretically possible if sufficient research and development is put into it.

Take the oil problem for instance. If hydrogen fuel, renewable energy sources, and more efficient electric transportation (electric cars, trucks, buses, etc.) are researched and developed more, then it will end Sharina's reliance on oil as an energy source for transportation and electrical power production. With renewable energy sources, Sharina will never have to rely on importing oil or energy-producing material from the Middle East or elsewhere ever again.

If synthetic oil (man-made oil, bypassing the millions of years of natural development) is developed, Sharina won't need to rely on the Middle East or oil producing nations for oil to develop petro-chemical and medicinal products anymore.

Same goes with food, water, manufactured goods, etc. If sufficient technology is developed- hydroponic farms set up in the Mojave Desert and underground, water byproducts from hydrogen fuel cell energy reaction process, building more diverse factories- then Sharina will be able to feed, quench thirst, and provide goods for its people without relying on foreign powers or trade.

In other words, cost would never be regarded as an issue by your efficient government, even if it was wasteful of non-renewable resources? Since Technocracy is supposed to be based on 'energy accounting' wouldn't a wasteful production process naturally be discarded in favour of a less wasteful one as consumers voted with their feet, since if they could acquire a car for 50,000 creds versus an identical one for 100,000, they'd have no reason to choose the latter?

Ah, but here's the issue.

Cars that use gas costs 50,000 credits.

Cars that use hydrogen fuel cell costs 100,000 credits.

Now, gas is 3 bucks a gallon, triple the prices of just 7 years ago (RL). By 2010, it might go up to 5 bucks a gallon, then 2015, 10 bucks a gallon, and so on. Hydrogen fuel cell cars might cost a stable 2 bucks per gallon of hydro (as hydro is very plentiful) and won't go up in price as hydro will take millions of years to run out on Earth alone. By 2020, when gas car owners are struggling to pay 20 or 30 bucks a gallon, the hydro car owners will still be paying 2 bucks or maybe cheaper (as tech improves, better refining, more hydro for the bang of the buck, etc.).

By 2010 or 2015, people who own gas cars would end up paying more than 100,000 bucks (the cost of the car PLUS the constant paying for gallons of gas when they drive around). Hydrogen fuel cars, although a bit more pricey at first will end up being much cheaper than gas cars in the long run.

The problem is Bush can do this because there are very real objections to the idea in his nation. Giving himself the arbitrary and limitless ability to ignore public opinion regarding his decisions is incredibly dangerous. If public opinion doesn't support a course of action, the government which supposedly represents and embodies that self-same opinion should be hesitant about allowing it. It doesn't mean it shouldn't allow it, but neither should it just do whatever the hell it likes and damn what the people think.

You probably shouldn't, since it implies your government never bothers considering ethical or religious objections. They are still valid as objections.

My nation is officially atheist, with religion as more of a curiosity.

That aside, how many millions or even billions of people would be cured of their diseases with embryonic stem cell research? How many people with paralysis, blindness, deafness, Alhzeimer's, Parkison's, MS, autism, and many other ailments would be allowed to have a perfectly normal life with their diseases or disabilities wiped clean? That's a lot of "votes" and voices that would be going "Hey, I need this to be normal!" (or someone to speak for those who can't like autistic, mentally disabled, paralyzed people who can't speak, etc.)

But because of one man's religious zeal (Bush) all these people may end up not being cured of their disabilities or diseases. That's going to be a lot of angry people. I personally believe that religion has held back progress quite a few times throughout history- Dark Ages, anyone?

Both poor examples. If someone were to force the mother or father in these examples to lay down their lives even though it might not save their children, would it still be ok? For example, if a father struggles into his burning house and saves two of his children but is too exhausted to go back in, would you think it ok for firefighters to force him to try to get the third, too? And since the state has the role of 'father' here, would you consider it ok for a father to kill his child to save himself?

Not exactly.

In your example, if the father was too exhausted to rescue his third child, the firefighters would go in and rescue his child. They would even help the father rescue his other two kids.

My nation does not force the father to kill the burglar to save his children. If the father does kill the burglar, he (the father) would not be prosecuted for murder, unlike in today's capitalist world whereas he probably would be tried for murder despite his heroic effort to save his children.

As for the mother situation, the question is this. Would she be willing to sacrifice herself so that her three terminally ill children would be cured of their terminal illnesses and be able to go to high school, college, have girlfriends, start a family, have a job, and so on? Or would she refuse to sacrifice herself and watch her three children waste away in front of her eyes and then have to live with the guilt of not saving her kids when she knew she could have?

And as ever, you're simplifying the example to the extent it's a black-and-white choice. Those don't tend to happen out here in reality. More to the point, think about what power you require the government to have to order this: you’re bragging that your government has a mandate to order citizens be executed without charge, trial or legal recourse as long as it's determined to be within the state's best interest!

This is an incredibly abusive power for a state to have by default; what if it decides that political dissidents represent an equal threat to the state and begins rounding them up and executing them? It's fully within its constitutional powers to do so, after all.

There's a couple of issues with this.

For one thing, my nation is not repressive. It doesn't shoot people for saying things contrary to popular opinion (If someone claims he / she saw aliens, Sharina won't shoot the person and cover it up. If someone claims that a chemical is hazardous, Sharina wouldn't kill the person and fudge over his claims.). It does not make people "disappear" for voicing dissident views in politics.

The only situation that may warrant such an "sacrifice of the individual" is if a threat is of such a magnitude that has a real possibility of leading to an extinction of the nation or civilization. Examples of such threats include a virulent man-made plague- like in Stephen King's "The Stand", or new kinds of mutated bacteria / viruses (it's not a stretch, given that some viruses have already mutated to be resistant or somewhat immune to vaccinations in RL). Otherwise, the government will not undertake such a drastic action.

Great advances in medical technology and isolation techniques make the idea of a pandemic threatening the survival of an entire first-world nation utter nonsense. The idea that a medical technique would be developed that would somehow identify just one citizen who needed to be killed to save everyone is even more nonsensical.

You are forgetting two things.

First thing:

One person gets sick with a new virus, bacteria, or plague in today's globalized world and doesn't show symptoms for several days. He arrives in LAX airport and stays the night. He comes into contact with at least several dozen people (attendants, fellow passengers, hotel personnel, taxi driver, etc.). Then the passenger gets back to the airport (infecting another dozen people or so), then flies to Chicago to visit his family. Same thing happens in Chicago with infections, plus the people on the LAX - Chicago plane itself, plus his family.

Now, all these dozens of people get infected. They interact with their own friends, families, and strangers over the next couple of days. Before the 2 days is over, the infections have spread to hundreds of thousands of people across multiple major cities and even different countries. This is assuming one person infects several more people at the rate of every couple of hours a day, then those newly infected people spread their infections onto even more people.

1 person infects 3 people (times like 30 on the initial day, plus infects several times a day).
The 3 people infect 9 people in total. (times 30 infected people from the airport + hotel)
9 people infect 27 people in total. (times 30 again)
27 people infect 81 people in total. (times 30 again)

At this rate, not long before 100,000 or even 1,000,000+ people are infected.

Then on the third or fourth day, the guy shows the initial symptoms of the illness. Then a full day or two before the government gets reports of all these airport personnel, hotel personnel, taxi drivers, etc. getting symptoms and calling in sick and such. Then the government starts taking action.

By then, millions of people have been infected. The government would be forced to close off huge cities like NYC, Chicago, LA, Houston, Tokyo, London, etc. plus hundreds of suburb towns.

This brings us to the second point.

The government observes all these infected people and may notice a few people who seem to be normally healthy. There's no need for "Magic Wand Technology to Find Naturally Immune People" when simple observation of the victims will reveal this fact.

The government rounds up these "healthy" people and runs tests on them, and determines stuff, and tries to figure out a cure from them. If the people don't have to die (extreme case, I admit) then all the better. If the people have to give up their lungs or bone marrows or hearts or kidneys or what have you for efficient synthesizing of the cure, then that is the time where the government intervenes and forces it to occur.

Otherwise, the government doesn't do such a drastic action.

The court system exists to prevent such a 'tyranny by majority' from occurring. And, again, you're oversimplifying the example. What if ten people can save them, only one has to die, but none of them want to? What if 24 million have to die to save 26 million? What if there are objections on the grounds that the proof is insufficient? What if the one man who has to die is a high-ranking official who can use his connections to bury the whole thing in bureaucracy? What if the one man is a tourist, dual citizen or other person who would legitimately be able to appeal to another nation's judicial system as well as yours? What if the one man fled to a foreign embassy and demanded asylum on the grounds he was to be executed without trial? What if he was president of a nearby nation? Would you consider the loss of life in a war a necessary evil to save the whole?

Since the legal issues would take years to resolve, I assume this means someone sentenced to death by the Sharinian government's whim has no right of appeal, either. That's a nice fascist state you have there, I can see why our one man wouldn't want to die to keep it going.

Again, the "sacrifice" thing is not a common everyday event as explained in my example above this quoted paragraph.

The court systems in my nation is much simplified than the RL US court system to cut down on a lot of things, especially stupid cases and some serious cases taking years to resolve.

Some stupid cases I've heard about is people crying, threatening to sue, and actually winning the suing case for the most trivial of things. A beauty parlor paints a woman's nail the wrong color for a wedding and the woman won a $10,000 sue settlement (a friend of mine told me this- true RL story), a driver involved in an accident (his fault) and he changes the story like 3 times and manages to win $50,000 in damages (happened to my dad last month- he was the other person who this driver crashed into- true RL story), squabbles about alimony (Wife: "Waaah! I want $800 alimony a month!" then husband goes "Sorry, I can only afford $500 a month alimony") and so on.

Basically, my nation throws out ALL the trivial cases such as these (excellent examples of those kinds of trivial cases can be found on Judge Judy and all these Court TV shows). The only cases tried within my nation's courts are serious ones, particularly capital crimes, class action cases like Erin Brovonich, kidnap / abduction cases, murder cases, rape cases, corporate cases (like embezzlement, Enron, Microsoft, etc.) and so forth.

This frees up quite a lot of court time and proceedings to focus on the more important cases, allows the more important cases to be resolved much quicker (weeks or months instead of years or decades), and reduces the bureaucracy by a substantial amount as the caseload is a lot lighter and much less paperwork and filing and everything.

The court systems in my nation is much simplified than the RL US court system to cut down on a lot of things, especially stupid cases and some serious cases taking years to resolve.

Some stupid cases I've heard about is people crying, threatening to sue, and actually winning the suing case for the most trivial of things. A beauty parlor paints a woman's nail the wrong color for a wedding and the woman won a $10,000 sue settlement (a friend of mine told me this- true RL story), a driver involved in an accident (his fault) and he changes the story like 3 times and manages to win $50,000 in damages (happened to my dad last month- he was the other person who this driver crashed into- true RL story), squabbles about alimony (Wife: "Waaah! I want $800 alimony a month!" then husband goes "Sorry, I can only afford $500 a month alimony") and so on.

Basically, my nation throws out ALL the trivial cases such as these (excellent examples of those kinds of trivial cases can be found on Judge Judy and all these Court TV shows). The only cases tried within my nation's courts are serious ones, particularly capital crimes, class action cases like Erin Brovonich, kidnap / abduction cases, murder cases, rape cases, corporate cases (like embezzlement, Enron, Microsoft, etc.) and so forth.

This frees up quite a lot of court time and proceedings to focus on the more important cases, allows the more important cases to be resolved much quicker (weeks or months instead of years or decades), and reduces the bureaucracy by a substantial amount as the caseload is a lot lighter and much less paperwork and filing and everything.

Examples in point:

1. Two Michigan men set a small fire in their store to collect insurance money on the goods. The fire spread to the next building, which they also owned. After confessing to the crime, the men sued for a claim on the building they accidentally torched.

2. Frivolous lawsuits aren't just an American epidemic. A woman in Israel sued a local weatherman and TV station after his predicted sunny forecast turned to unexpected rain, which she claims gave her the flu because she was ill-prepared for it.

3. In Michigan state Case No. 9650302, a prisoner blamed his flatuence on the food he was served in the state penitentiary. The Michigan State Attorney's office reports that lawsuits by inmates are on the rise -- and paid for by taxpayers.

4. A bank robber knocked off a California Savings and Loan. He shoved the stolen money roll, which contained a hidden Security Pac, in his front pocket. The device leaked red dye and tear gas giving the robber 2nd and 3rd degree burns, for which he sued the bank and the device manufacturer.

5. One surfer sued another for stealing his wave. The court was able to establish guilt but dismissed the case because it could not agree on a monetary award for the pain and suffering endured having to watch another ride your wave.

6. A Canadian man who's served time for stalking a woman has enlisted in several lawsuits to sue her for breach of promise to marry him.

7. A New York woman sued the company that makes 'The Clapper,' saying she had to clap so hard to turn her appliances on and off that she hurt her hands and was unable to peel potatoes.

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Those kinds of lawsuits waste the court's time, taxpayer money, and labor hours that could be used by judges and lawyers on far more important cases.

Cases such as capital crimes, major corporate action (like Enron), class action lawsuits about severe issues such as cancer or extreme health hazards, and so forth deserve the time of the day and are the cases where money and time should be invested in.

Therefore, my nation's court system has to be draconic in terms of dismissing silly, ridiclious, and wasteful cases as cited above, whereas focuses its legal employment and funds upon the more important cases (capital crimes, et. al.)